Spring has Sprung (or at least is on its way...)

The snow has all melted and we've had a few days in the last week or two that have been warm enough to wear shorts and short sleeves and for Rylee to run around in the back yard barefoot! (Although I'm wondering if my perception of the weather is relative to where I'm living...I think that the high this week was maybe in the mid 60's. I'm pretty sure that when I lived in Las Cruces and San Diego I would have been bundled up until it was at least in the 70's!) At any rate, I'm VERY ready to leave winter behind. I got Rylee a few toys to play with in the back yard, and her favorite one is a cow print tunnel.

One of the hi-lights of this week was the afternoon that Rylee ate an ENTIRE cucumber while running around our back yard! (I guess, to be fair, I do need to give credit to Elmo and Ernie for helping Rylee out with a few bites!) I think it was even funnier to me because the previous night I gave Rylee some chicken nuggets for dinner and I basically had to bribe her to eat a couple of those - what kid doesn't like chicken nuggets, but will eat a whole cucumber? I sure wish that I preferred veggies to junk! Speaking of which, I'm really proud of myself - when I went to the doctor for my checkup a few weeks ago I was shocked when I stepped on the scale and saw that I was still 25 lbs. over my pre-pregnancy weight! So that gave me some movivation, and I haven't eaten treats for 2 weeks now (with the exception of a little one on yesterday...I decided that I will allow myself a treat on the weekends) and have eaten salads every day for lunch. I have also been working out 5-6 days a week, so hopefully I'll start fitting into some of my clothes soon!

Rylee seems to be learning new things every day. She is very into letters these days and is starting to associate some of them with words. The first one she learned was R (she learned that a few months ago) and knows that an R says "ruh, ruh, Rylee." More recently, whenever she sees an "M" she says "mommy!" and she knows that "T" is for Telly and "B" is for Baby Bear (two of her favorite Sesame Street characters.) She can pick these letters out from others and exclaims "Telly T!" or "Baby Bear B!" The "T" and "B" in this picture are part of a foam letter and number set for the bathtub that she got from her cousins Katie and McKenna for her birthday. She likes to carry them around and has even taken them to bed with her!

Cailyn just keeps growing and getting more fun. She'll be 3 months old on Friday! She smiles a lot these days and coos in response when you talk to her. I also think she has nightmares sometimes...she whimpers in her sleep occasionally. I wonder what kind of nightmares babies have? The milk was all gone? Oh, and she slept all the way through the night until 7:30 two nights ago! She's always been a good sleeper and for the last month or so she only wakes up once, maybe twice, and goes right back to sleep when I feed her, so it's not like I've had really hard nights with her, but still, it was nice to have her sleep the whole way through.

This is Cailyn's quilt that her Grandma Mac made for her.