13.1

Well, Paul and I ran the Bearathon this past weekend and we both finished!!! It's the half marathon put on by Baylor's Student Foundation. It runs out to/through Cameron Park and back. Cameron Park is intense - really hilly. It was a great run.

His time: 1:53:40
Her time: 2:27:40

Weather forecast for the beginning of the run:
cloudy and windy, 40 degrees (felt like 30!!); winds from WNW at 21 mph

IT WAS COLD!! By the time we were done, the temps had only gone up by 6 or 7 degrees and the winds had picked up by 7 more mph. It was crazy weather for Waco. The very next day it was back in the 70s - we're so spoiled.

Sorry for the crazy hair in the picture. I obviously was not too concerned about how I looked.

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. I guess we're runners now.
-H

A Seamstress in the Making

The other night Paul was measuring his back for a new pack and Ilana decided she found a new toy...


I think we have a seamstress in the making!
(So that's why she had a measuring tape around her ankles the first night she pulled herself up to her feet on her own.)
-H

SUPERHERO ILANA!!

Well, Ilana is officially a superhero. It's obvious: she can crawl, she has a tooth, she screams, "conquers" Moses, and loves to destroy all the bad DVD and book collections she comes across (phew, what would we do without all this protection?). So, it only makes sense that she needed a cape...although we didn't realize it until we got it how much she fits the superhero "type"...
Yes, it has an "I" on the back and it still drags on the floor when she's standing or crawling - how adorable is that??!!
Here she is checking out the cape. It's perfect.
Then we added the sunglasses. WOAH!! That might be a bit much for now, but I'm sure she'll "need" them someday...
Carolyn, the cape is perfect. Thank you so much!! Ilana loves to wear it around. She really feels like an official superhero now.-H

Baby jail

I actually used the baby gate the other day for its intended purpose (instead of for the dog). I was doing laundry, going in and out of the apartment a lot and I didn't want to take her with me, but I knew she'd scream if she couldn't at least hear me. So the baby gate was the best option. She wasn't crazy about it, but it worked. She kind of looked like she was in jail...so I took a picture. :)
-H

it happened...

Last week Paul and I were eating dinner, we looked down and saw this...
Ilana was actually standing on both feet! She had pulled herself up all by herself. Aunt Valerie, you were right, pets are great motivation. :)
-H

looking out the window

Ilana's new thing is she loves to stand on the window sill (I hold her there, don't worry) and look out the window at the people playing basketball. She bangs and bangs on the window. We've even had a few players look up at our window wondering what's going on.
She still loves the camera the most, though...
-H

BUBBLES!

Robin and her friend came up recently and brought their bubbles! At first Ilana wasn't sure what to think...
Then she started to get the hang of it...
Finally by the end I think she was really starting to love it...
Here's a video so you can get the full effect...

-H

Right on cue

Last week Paul was on an Outdoor Adventure spring break trip to the Rio Grande. Although he said it was the worst weather he'd ever had on a trip, it sounds like he had a good time. While he was away, Ilana learned how to do a few things on cue, like wave...

You might not be able to tell, but this is a Baby Einstein video. She loves the little bee that comes out in the beginning (hence all the arm waving and screaming in the beginning), then they go through saying "hello" in all sorts of languages and waving (hence all the waving back).

She was also learning how to smile for the camera on cue...
What a ham! Now I get out the camera and she's all smiles.

She spent the week pulling up on the dog, poor Moses...

He must be the perfect height for her or something. She's already trying to pull up onto her feet. She'll be there before I know it, I'm sure.

We have the greatest dog

Don't worry Great Grandmom (and others who might),
Ilana was in no way harmed in the making of this video. :)
I'd say their relationship is off to a great start! ...we have the greatest dog.
-H

Make a silly face!! ...and more

I can't figure out what it is, but this has been Ilana's face recently...
Maybe she likes the way it feels on her incoming tooth...?

We've come a long way with her "playing" set-up. Now we just dump the whole basket of toys onto the floor...
so by the end of the day, this is what our living room floor looks like (sleeping dog included!)...
Even with all the toys, she still loves her books the most, and knocks them off the shelf (along with our DVD collection) almost every day...

The other "new thing?" I've put some stuffed animals in her crib. She plays and talks to them when she wakes up - it's adorable. I did have some criteria for these: above all, they had to be soft and they could not make any noise. So, these are the "friends" she sleeps with... :)
-H

FIRST TOOTH!!

I just put Ilana down for her afternoon nap and, as I've been doing recently, I felt her gums (she was really fussy). TA-DAH!!! There were bumps on her bottom gums. Her first tooth is finally making an appearance. Her toothless grin will be no more.
I know, I know, she's not really grinning in this picture. It wasn't even taken today. It's just one of my recent favorites.
-H

CRAWLING!...finally I got a video to load :)

Look at that smile around 37 or 38 seconds. She is so satisfied with herself, and happy to be independently mobile. :)
-H

A baby day

Yesterday I went in to pick her up from her afternoon nap and this is what I saw...
Time to move the mattress down! After I took this picture she proceeded to pull herself up onto her knees using the side of the crib. YIKES!! She's getting so big these days. One thing that hasn't changed a bit: the wildness of her hair...
Poor thing. I don't have the heart to cut it so on our trip to the grocery store yesterday I bought some clips to try to control it. They work well! I'll get some pictures and post them. She looks so cute with her hair all done.
Later on last night I was cleaning the kitchen and she was crawling and babbling all over the living room floor. I turned around and this is what I saw...
Apparently her and Moses are getting along well. Or maybe it's safer to say that Moses has conceded to her "whims." It was an all-around baby day!
-H

A weekend of firsts

Erika and Tim came to visit us this past weekend and we had SO much fun (and ate way too much food)!! It was most certainly a weekend of firsts.
It was the first time...

• Ilana crawled (and got into our DVDs!!) (still working on video, it's very frustrating!)
  

• Paul and I went to Waco Hall (to see Sing! - very very fun)
• Paul and I went to a Baylor basketball game (in the Ferrell Center - also very very fun!)
• we ate Tony's barbeque - AMAZING!!! The side of the building is charred from the barbeque-ing process, you know it's good when... :)
• we saw one of Baylor's live bears, Joy, outside of her habitat (we were sitting on this bench less than 10 minutes before this picture was taken!)
  

• we had outside visitors besides our parents

It was a blast!! Tim and Erika - thanks for making the trek down. Y'all come back now, ya hear. :)
-H

Making friends

These past few weeks, Ilana has been making a real effort to become friends with Moses. She reads to him...

but he never seems all that amused by a book. So, she "pets" him...
Sometimes he likes this, but even if he's not feeling it at the moment, he's still completely gentle and puts up with it. It's so cute!
-H