our little lady continues to amaze and entertain. she rolls, she’s starting to scoot, she grabs EVERYTHING, she babbles like crazy, and loves her new sounds.

the latter is the new party trick, and lately she’s started to put the whole package together, as evidenced in the below video.

it’s a pretty strange experience to watch her develop and change at this stage, sort of the first stepping stone to gathering all the skills of a normal human. a little baby human. :)

for now, i’m considering getting some ice for my ear since ellie has discovered it and loves nothing better than to grab and pull hard.

as ellie’s father, anything positive or new that she does becomes my greatest moment. yesterday i was lucky enough to be home when the smartest, cutest baby on the planet decided she didn’t want to be on her stomach anymore and rolled over onto her back. that’s right, she finally figured out that her arm + momentum could move her body.

something tells me the next few milestones are going to come rather quickly! check back frequently because if they come quick, so will the updates.

go ellie!

this past weekend the lewis family, that’s my mom’s side of the family for those unfamiliar, held its annual garage sale at my grandpa’s house in san leandro. we’ve been doing this for as long as i can remember. literally. years and years and years. i mean, we have stuff still in storage boxes in his garage that have to be 30 years old, so they’ve definitely been there for a good long while.

anyway, so we’ve been planning for this thing for quite some time. it had been about two years since the last one … yeah, i know it’s supposed to be annual … shut up … bryn and i already had quite a bit of stuff at grandpa’s already, but boy, we had to have doubled or tripled that after searching for things to get rid of leading up to it. so we showed with a ton to get rid of and were reasonably successful at doing so.

ok, we were really successful. i guess $600 between us is successful for a garage sale, but, i mean, the family cleared $3,000 for the weekend. after all these years, i’m still floored by the kind of business we do. i think we could open our own store and do this full-time!

this year was especially … uh, special … because we had some new participants! first, of course, was ellie, who had no problem making herself comfortable and, surprisingly, sleeping! although, we have nan to thank for that because she bought us a nice pack n’ play prior to the weekend. it was a lifesaver.

another guest of honor, whom i hope continues to join us, was my father-in-law, bill. we had been bothering him about coming because we knew he had plenty of good stuff to sell, especially electronics, and he finally gave in. the good news for him is that he made out like a bandit for someone who initially hadn’t planned to come!

and last, but certainly not least, jumprope extraordinaire, aunt margie, our second-newest addition to the family, experienced her first sale. i think she had more fun trying to convincing her husband to give away useless crap than she did making money off the things they did sell, but hey, it was fun to watch … especially the rope jumping. lol!

overall, it was a nice weekend and a good experiment with ellie since we’d never had to deal with the nap schedule anywhere other than home. with all of that said, i’m still firmly convinced that the best part of the weekend was my discovery of this awesome hat. i wanted to buy it, but bryn said no. i don’t know why.

mmmm, linguica.

this year’s july fourth was ellie’s first … sort of. as we settled in yesterday for some barbecue and a whole host of other goodies, we realized what happened on that day last year: we told the extended family we were pregnant. well, at least we told them bryn was. :)

this year was great. ellie is now big enough and, dare I say, socially mature enough to be passed around like a hot potato and not freak out. and that she was. it took all of two minutes in the house for the first person to take her from my arms and it stayed like that for most of the day. every time i’d look up someone else was holding her. i wish we could have brought all of those hands and arms home with us, especially grandpa’s!

after everyone had their turn holding ellie she started to get a little cranky, so we sat her down in the swing we keep at grandma’s and started eating. of course that didn’t last long. after twenty minutes of sleeping ellie woke up and wasn’t happy about it, so she was fed while we ate.

mmm, food.

while this year’s fourth was just as eventful, sadly ellie’s memory of it will be nil. but that’s ok, because we’ll just have to make the memories to keep next year. maybe she’ll even be awake for the fireworks!

wow, so … a lot happens when we let so much time go between updates. i’d say we’ll try to get better, but when you combine two notoriously lazy bloggers with the responsibilities of being the parents of a high maintenance three-month-old, well, you get a post every week and a half or so.

but, sometimes we do actually find the time. like right now, when ellie is fast asleep in her swing and swaddle for her afternoon nap. yes, that’s right, she’s been in such a routine lately that she even has her own “afternoon nap”. i know, right? crazy.

the last few weeks have been a lot of fun. lots of smiles, inaudible giggles, residual hatred for tummy time, and even more food consumption. if there’s one thing our daughter does well, it’s eat. : )

the things we’re still waiting/working on include independently holding her head up (she’s close), doing her little push-ups during tummy time (hard to do that if you bury your face in the ground), and grabbing things (she’s really close on this, too).

for a one-month preemie, it’s hard to believe that she’s as big and developing as well as she is.

in other news, we had my dad and buddy matt over to watch the nfl draft yesterday, which is still going on. bryn made a fabulous seven-layer dip that we didn’t take any pictures and wished we had. at least it tasted really good.

later decided to put the kiddo in her 49ers cheerleader outfit (don’t say it kori!) since the team’s draft was going so well … after the raiders decided to be, well, the Raiders and made a stupid decision.

annnnyway … time to head to uncle danny’s new place in tha o for a belated birthday celebration.

with so much changing everyday with ellie, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up. i’ve been more worried about making sure i’m around to see the changes than posting stuff here, but wanted to make a quick post with some pictures and video that show all of the fun we’ve been having with her lately.

enjoy!

amazing, isn’t it? she really isn’t angry all the time … just most of it. ;)

1. this thing called parenthood is hard! no matter how many parents you talk to, i don’t think it’s possible to fully understand the size and scope of the job until you go through it.

2. front to back. enough said.

3. i don’t trust anyone but mommy. as hard as this may be and as much as we could probably use some help, i find myself favoring doing everything myself instead. it’s hard to not feel like the best care for your kid will come directly from you.

4. my child hates everything. if it’s not food, don’t even try it. changing her diaper? hates it. changing her clothes? hates it. bath time? hates it. sleeping anywhere but in our arms? hates it.

5. babies poo a lot! my god. within the first week, not only was I peed on twice, i was poo’d *on* twice, including once in the face (don’t ask). outside of that, i’ve put my hand in every form of the substance and it’s not pleasant.

6. always leave the diaper under the butt while cleaning the area! whether on purpose or not, that’s up for debate, the kid seems to know (!) when I’ve removed the diaper. she then chooses those times to release the muscles controlling her bladder. this results in an additional diaper change (remember, hates it) and a clothes change (again, hates it).

7. when you have an infant, you never leave the building unless you’re heading to the doctor or forcing an extremely planned out walk. everything is a production.

8. sleep. let’s not even go there. i’ve had it reasonably well thanks to mommy, but i still feel it.

9. it’s hard to eat. with so much attention going to the kiddo, you sometimes forget to eat. bryn does sometimes, unless i make food for her, particularly lunch because she’s always alone during the day (poor heen).

10. this is the best one. love. much like hearing from others what parenthood is like, and how hard, i don’t think either of us were fully prepared for how much we could love something that we made, that came from us. we’ve been together for nearly 10 years and don’t have much but memories and pictures to prove it, but now we’re joined forever by this beautiful, perfect little person that has no idea what kind of impact she’s had our lives so far, and it’s only been a month and a little bit. we’re head over heels and, while stressed and tired, very, very happy and proud.