we missed may. and most of june.

about 3 weeks ago my friend shannon called and informed me that i had missed may and i decided i needed to get on it. so here i am, in almost july taking care of business. janie is just finishing a breakfast of pureed apples and a sippy cup of formula. she has mastered (and by mastered, i mean she gets at least half of the formula in her mouth 70% of the time), the sippy cup, which means feedings are fairly hands free for us these days.

i have really enjoyed the past 5 1/2 months of being home with janie, but recently thought it would be nice to have somewhere to get out to a few times a week. i thought that if i found a part time job it would have to be something that i really loved, with people i really loved, and a schedule that worked for our family. i thought it would be a long stretch if i found anything to do that would meet all those requirements, but would keep my ears open for something. i shared this idea with a group of ladies one evening, and within days i was in the process of joining the Hunter Vision team. i am so super excited to have the opportunity to be a part of what's starting here and could not have asked for a more perfect job. in the past few weeks i have learned more about eyes than i ever imagined possible. i saw a lady in a restaurant the other day holding the menu 6 feet away from her face (she had really long arms) and practiced great self restraint in not approaching her to tell her that i was afraid she had presbyopia. i officially start on july 6th and i can't wait.

enough about me. janie is growing like a weed. she does all sorts of tricks including, but not limited to:

rolling over both ways

sitting up for very extended periods of time

eating just about everything

reaching the 95th percentile in weight, but holding strong at the 25th for height

passing objects from one hand to the other

growing enough hair to wear a bow sans headband

scooting on the ground, mostly in circles

every time i say, "she couldn't get any cuter!", she sure does. we think she is teething because she is drooling like crazy and chewing on everything. i tried giving her a little kiss yesterday and next thing i knew she was gnawing on my cheek.

our friends are becoming famous left and right. you can see joey, lauren and henry's lovely little house featured on design sponge. another one of our friends, who must remain anonymous has gained great praise for his blog you're a grown man. there is no doubt that he will play a large part in changing 30-year old boys into grown men with the wisdom he shares each morning. and finally, sarah got to wait on the entire cast of the harry potter movies when they were in town for the grand opening of the wizarding world at universal. we are quite honored to be friends with such a crowd. our friends are awesome, celebrities or not.

today begins our spring cleaning, just a little late since it's summer. if you're in the market for lampshades, a very large box shaped tv, or a 'now that's what i call music 6' cd, stay tuned. garage sale coming soon.

lobstah in new england

we traveled up to boston/new hampshire last weekend to see all of our extended family, and especially for janie's cousin gabriella's baptism. we just kept feeding janie to keep her quiet and so the plane ride went way better than we ever could have imagined. she's a good little traveler, and i was pretty impressed with our ability to make it all the way there without forgetting anything too important. upon arriving in manchester we did realize that the wardrobe we had packed was not quite appropriate for the climate, but luckily there is someone for each of us to borrow clothes from up there.

janie got to meet her great grandparents, great aunts & uncles, and few great-great aunts & uncles (if there's such thing), cousins, friends and her dog-cousin, riley. here are a few photos of the meetings.

on friday night, 8 of us packed into the healey's sequoia and headed up to petey's in rye beach for clam strips, haddock, clam chowder, steamers and more. i rate janie's liking for things based upon her crying, so judging by her unusual silence the entire meal i'd say that she is a huge fan of new england seafood. here she is with uncle chris and auntie andrea, proof of what happens to your chins when you eat too much tartar sauce:

we went to gabriella's baptism at the church that we grew up in in massachusetts. it was exactly the same as always. same 55 people, same watered down kool-aid in the fellowship hall, same service order, even the same bibles that we circled letters in as kids when our parents weren't watching. there are lots of memories in that place and i was glad andy finally got to check it out, though i left thanking god for summit.

we concluded our trip with a stop for andy's favorite meal of all those he's had in the boston area - clam chowder and a lobster roll at atkinson cc. my theory on janie's feelings towards seafood held true, as you can see here.

of course janie couldn't leave the state without something to prove her new england blood, so gigi sent her home with a sweet little red sox onesie and a green monstah tee-shirt. she's ready for fenway this fall.

it was a great time despite the cold and rain. we're looking forward to another trip up north sometime in the near future. thanks to all of our great family for the baby gear, rides to and from the airport, beds to sleep in and especially for the 10 extra pounds we gained!

not so magical magic game

what were we thinking? bringing a 3 month old to a basketball game is a terrible idea. and an even worse idea is getting a ride home from a basketball game in a rickshaw-bicycle contraption with a 3 month old. since we think janie still has a fine sense of hearing and we all got home alive, i'd say it wasn't a total failure. we will remember janie's first magic game and that babies should always travel in car seats forever.

monica and brackston were kind enough to give us the less terrifying seats, with our backs to the traffic. that way we could just judge how much time we had left by the looks on their faces.

dinosaurs, dunes and dwight

i'm getting worse at this as time goes on. the weather has been gorgeous, which has meant tons of time outside, and very little on the computer. here's a quick update of what's been happening with us.

as you can see, we finally have a halfway decent family picture which has jazzed up our blog quite a bit. you can tell that we watched zoolander a lot while i was pregnant based on janie's facial expression.

janie, caroline and i took a trip to atlanta to see my folks a few weeks ago, but not before stopping at disney world. who knew that the turnpike exit came far before the disney ones?! it was a ton of fun, and janie was surprisingly well behaved for most of the car ride. we listened to raffi's bananaphone album on shuffle for approximately 16 hours of our round trip drive.

janie and i took a trip to dinosaur world to meet up with becky, david, and grammy. yes, the place that has a giant dinosaur under the billboard at about exit 17 on i4. if you've driven by the sign, you have seen it all. becky and i had been joking about going ever since we learned of our mutual love of the movie clifford. it was not at all like the dinosaur world in the movie, but i am glad to be able to say i've been.

we went to the beach on monday and it was probably the nicest day we've had all year. it was wonderful until it came time to fold up the special UV blocking baby tent, which according to andy is like trying to squeeze a blown up balloon into a coffee mug without popping it. after 45 minutes of wrestling with the thing, we ended up carrying the tent to the car and shoving it in the backseat in a half open/half squished form. needless to say, onlookers (possibly including myself) had a great laugh.

i have been feeling crafty, which has resulted in our kitchen sink being temporarily dyed purple, a few articles of clothing being transformed into a lovely shade of florescent yellow, and a constant pile of ribbon, fabric and paper on the dining room table.

the first time i visited summit was easter of 2005 and there were maybe a few hundred people meeting at winter park high school. it was the best easter service i had ever been to (with the exception of saddleback's sunrise service at john wayne equestrian arena, when a baby was born in the stands. i think they planned that). this easter sunday at summit was even better than that. almost 4200 people worshipped across three different venues and it was awesome.

tomorrow will mark a very memorable day in the history of janie. she will be attending her first magic game. i'm hoping if i dress her like stuff (he's the magic dragon, celtics fans) she will get some air time on the jumbotron. we will surely update you on that soon!

here's what janie thought about dinosaur world...

janie's first trip to alpharetta.

relaxed look on andy's face = pre-tent folding experience

auntie jody arrived to the easter party just in time to receive two fussy babies.

happy st. patrick's day!

today's blog is mostly for my very irish grandmother. if she had had her "druthers" (her word, not mine) my name would have been erin riley rosentrater. on monday my dad was in st. pete for some golf disguised as work, so andy, janie and i spontaneously headed over for dinner. we ate at ted peter's famous smoked fish house and ordered exactly what our friend eddie (a 30 year st. pete beach local) told us to. it was probably one of the greatest cheeseburgers and root beer i have ever had. the highlight of the trip was for sure the fact that my dad was wearing green, and we conveniently had janie's shamrock pj's in the car. we are all very in touch with our irish roots, and for that i knew my grandmother would be proud. these pictures are for you, grammy. grampa, let me know when the next german holiday is and i'll be sure to get janie her very own pair of lederhosen.

as you can tell, janie really enjoyed ted peters.

since janie is too young to eat green pancakes, and follow gold coin trails to gifts left by leprechauns, i made myself a fancy breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar and then we ventured out for some st. patrick's day shopping with lauren. liberty of london just designed a whole line of things for target, and lauren and i had marked the date on our calendars months ago. janie told me that it would make her happy if i used a target gift card she received in the mail for being born on myself, which was very sweet of her. so, we got some super cute storage bins and a dress..or two. when we got home, this handsome man was waiting for us in the driveway.

laundry and other exciting things

i strategically just put a load of laundry in the washing machine on the heavy duty cycle, not because they were extra dirty, but because it will buy me a few extra minutes to waste time on the computer without feeling like there's something more important to be done. i think i forgot to mention anything about our wonderful new washer and dryer. we rang in the new year by getting rid of our 25 year old machines. we had talked about getting new ones for a while, and our decision was made when andy got to work with a giant hole in his shirt from the dryer drum made of nails.

in other news, janie is already 2 months old. her doctors appointment was a great success...she cried a lot when she got her shots, but i didn't, which came as a pleasant surprise to us all. she is growing like crazy...more horizontally than vertically. she weighed in at 11 lbs 2 oz and is 21 inches long, which puts her in the 55th percentile for weight, and 10th for height.

a few nights ago we realized that she seemed really mad at us for waking her up every night at midnight to feed her, so we decided to see what would happen if we just let her sleep. it was a miracle. she has slept 9 hours every night since. it's amazing what a full night of sleep can do.

our good friends goose and minta welcomed their second little boy, eli, into the world on thursday morning. he is a charming little fellow just like his big brother, matias. since goose is a good husband, he wouldn't even consider leaving minta home with the boys to attend a magic game. and since he is a good friend as well, he kindly gave andy and i the tickets for sunday nights game, so we went on our first real date since janie's arrival. all week i looked forward to (in this order) spending an evening with andy sans baby, enjoying a gourmet dinner of hot dogs and nachos, and watching the magic dominate the bobcats. we sat next to a nice young man celebrating his 21st birthday. from what i observed, all he really wanted was for "his man j will to know it was his birfday". despite the challenge of sharing a very limited amount of space with a highly intoxicated 7 foot tall guy, the magic's loss to the bobcats, and the shortage of nacho cheese at the concession stand, we had a really great time. we've decided that when joel and lizzy move back we should go in on a pair of season tickets. then lizzy and i can go to games and eat hot dogs while andy and joel supervise janie and luke back at home.

hello again

if you had asked me 7 weeks ago if i planned to continue updating this regularly, i would have said, "of course! do you really think a baby is going to stop me from sitting down and typing for 30 minutes every few days?". now, seven weeks into janie's life i have realized that when there are 30 spare minutes, there are far more important things to do than sit at the computer. our monitor gets really static when i'm in the office, so that is another deterrent. also, there's not nearly as much exciting stuff to write about as i imagined there would be. i mean, it's super exciting to andy and i, and janie's grandparents, but to most others the fact that she sneezed 4 times in a row is pretty boring.

that being said, here are some of the highlights of the past few weeks in no particular order, which is a great example of how my mind works these days...

janie loves to exercise her little lungs every evening from about 7:30 until midnight. if she ever takes voice lessons, we will be sure to remember that those are her optimal hours. the only cure for her screaming seems to be walking around while bouncing her up and down above your head, which is making me contemplate canceling our gym membership.

she has become a pretty good sleeper, giving us at least a 5 hour span on most nights.

she started smiling every now and then, but we have yet to really capture it on camera.

here is the best we could do at capturing a smile

we celebrated her first valentines day with our good friends the harmon's, helms' and l-t's, and lots of great food.

andy and janie on valentine's day

we have spent a significant amount of time watching the winter olympics over the past 2 weeks, though we usually change the channel when the biathlon comes on. the proctor and gamble commercials make even andy cry, and janie is fascinated by the blinking screen. i would guess her favorite event is ladies halfpipe, judging by how well behaved she has been each time it is on.

janie and brianne share a strong affinity for the olympic games, as you can see from their team usa spirit

last saturday we drove out to new smyrna because the weather was nice, but mostly because i really wanted frozen gold. it made me look forward to warm weather and beach days with much anticipation.

this week caroline was in town and so like the good ol' days we stayed up until 2am, spent a lot of time at starbucks and the mall, and watched youtube videos galore. i'm really looking forward to the day that she moves back to orlando.

my favorite thing is how alert she's getting. she has started to focus on things more and it's so fun to be able to play with her. she loves looking at lights, which never gets old to us. had we known she'd be so easily amused, we could have saved ourselves quite a bit of money by passing on swings and exersaucers.

here she is very focused on the chandelier above our dining room table