I, Layla Catherine Farnham, do resolve....

that in 2010 I will....

.... begin (again) sleeping until at least 6 am....and even later on weekends/holidays.

.... learn to get off of furniture feet first.

.... try foods (ie, put them in my mouth) before deciding I don't like them.

.... go at least 2 weeks between colds or other illnesses.

.... continue to learn and grow and, in general, to be the cutest thing my parents have ever seen (they aren't biased or anything!).

Mommy's Little Helper

After a few days in NH for some skiing (and some mountain daycare for the wee one), we came home today and it was time to clean!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve with cousins.

Christmas morning!
Gifts from Santa. The little sofa has turned out to be a big bust. Since it folds out to a "bed", that means that whenever Layla sits on it, it starts to fold apart and she falls off. Next year Santa will do a better job!


Unwrapping.
Loving her gift from Uncle Jim and Aunt Leigh.


A walk in the woods, around the reservoir, with a stop at the playground to swing!



We hope that all of our family and friends had an enjoyable Christmas day!

We're Famous!

Check it out!

On Vacation!

A singing snow globe and some treats help Layla get into the Christmas spirit!

Snowy Day (because Christie stole my other title!)

We had a full day of fun in the snow.

6:30 - Layla wakes up. Yes! 6:30! This is about an hour later than she's been sleeping for the past 2 months or so. A good sign that this is going to be a great day!

8:30 - Layla naps, Mommy bakes pumpkin bread for the neighbors, and Daddy shovels

10:15 - We brave the roads and head to church. The nursery attendants are actually there and Layla is the only child. Up in the sanctuary there are probably 25 people total, including the minister, the guys who video tape each week, and the choir members who are able to make it. Nice and intimate.

12:00 - Lunch. And Layla attempts to cook her dolly (see earlier post below).

1:00 - Nap time. And the Patriots.

2:45 - We start to get ready to go out. Layla is a bit confused and tries on Mommy's boots.


3:00 - Out the door. Layla enjoys her first journey in her sled. Her smile grows as Daddy pulls her faster and faster!


We stop by several neighbors' homes to deliver the bread (wrapped in foil, with a ribbon, just like Grandmommy used to do!...maybe still does?).

Layla enjoys the reindeer and the snowman. Our neighbors have an abundance of inflatable decorations. We actually like them, since they put such a smile on Layla's face!


We get back home and Layla gets to really experience snow for the first time. She is so perplexed and doesn't even attempt to move the entire time. No face plant in the snow like her cousin in CT! We're hoping that next time she gets a tad more brave or curious!

Poor Dolly

Ok....so she doesn't quite get it yet. Hope Dolly's microwave safe!

Bracing for Snow

Today I had some friends from grad school over with a few of their kids. The little girl, Charlotte, really enjoyed Layla's dolly and crib. After watching Charlotte play, Layla finally "got it" and had a lot of fun putting her dolly to bed with the blankets. Well, she mostly got it. This evening she decided to crawl in with her dolly. Despite the sad look on her face, she was having a blast.

We're all hunkering down and bracing for tomorrow's blizzard. Layla has big plans to help Daddy shovel and to help Mommy bake pumpkin bread. And hopefully she'll get to play in the snow for the first time. She (we) can't wait!

Another Busy Weekend

This weekend, among other things, we got our Christmas tree, attended a Hanukkah party, and got Layla hooked up with some more antibiotics for her current cold (she's currently getting albuterol, pulmicort, tylenol the other day, benadryl, eye drops, and zithromax...think that's enough?). Luckily, no fever today so she's good to go for day care.

Here are some pics from the weekend. The second one is a shot of one of Layla's favorite games. It's called "Make Daddy Take All My Toys Out of the Toybox."

Busy Times

A week without a post, yikes! We had a weekend full of visits with friends in Milton and Scituate, and a special appearance from Aunt Leigh. Daddy is working a ton this week, in advance of some business travel next week. Tonight he takes a break from work, though, to sell Christmas Trees at church. Layla has another yucky cold, but should get her 2nd H1N1 shot tonight. Mommy's very much looking forward to winter vacation in a few short weeks!

A Walking Machine

Layla walks almost everywhere now; I think she prefers it to crawling. Here she is, going in for a hug!

November

Here are a bunch of shots from the past two weeks. In other exciting news, Layla decided to be part of the 1-2% of children who actually GETS chicken pox as a result of the vaccine. She has a super mild case, but it's enough to keep her out of daycare. Ugh!

The Birthday Girl

I don't think she quite understood what was happening at the beginning :).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bathing Beauty

Grandpaparozzi Maltese took lots of wonderful pictures with his new camera. Look at those eyes!

Yummy!

Layla Turns One!

Happy Birthday, Layla! Mommy worked hard to make this cute cake. Hope it's yummy!

Party Time!

Layla isn't going to daycare tomorrow (Mommy and Daddy took the day off of work for some pre-bday preparations and visit with Grandmommy and Granddaddy) so they celebrated her birthday today. The kids all sang to her and she got to enjoy a scrumptious cupcake. They made her a crown and Denise told me that Layla was the first one year old to actually keep the crown on. She wore it for several hours at daycare and she kept it on while we went to the grocery store. Layla's cuteness usually gets us lots of comments and smiles, but today it was like she was a rockstar!

Layla's First Steps

Layla was so excited and proud of herself!

So You Think You Can Walk!

In the past, when you were holding Layla and she wanted to be put down, as you lowered her to the ground she would go right into a crawl position and take off crawling as soon as she hit the floor. Lately, it's clear that she thinks she can walk. As you put her down she just takes off, still completely upright. She's getting really close to walking on her own. Maybe she'll figure it out just in time to celebrate her bday next Saturday!

In other news, she now says "hi" when she puts a phone (or her hand, or her diaper cream, or whatever else she can find) up to her ear. She also says "uh oh" when things drop to the floor, and I'm pretty sure she now says "mom" in the proper context sometimes. Chris and I were both surprised today when she brought me the book Hug and as I read it she repeatedly went "Ah, ah, ah" in a way that I hadn't really heard before. I'm pretty sure she was making the sound for the monkey in the book. What's weird is that I haven't ever (maybe once a long time ago) read her that book before and Chris has only a handful of times. We're wondering if she's seen it at daycare.

Walk to Church

Today was so beautiful (and we were organized and ready early, for once...even after prepping a leg of lamb in the slow cooker!) that we decided to walk the 20 minutes to church. Along the way we stopped to play in the leaves. This hill will be a fun one for Layla to roll down in a few years, but for now the hill and gravity won.

Busy Saturday

Saturday morning: Visit with Great Uncle Al and Great Aunt Jean in New Hampshire with cousins Ally and Casey.

Saturday afternoon: Post-season soccer party at Nicole's.

Saturday late afternoon: Layla completely lost her cool after having no afternoon nap. Screamed her head off and had probably her biggest fit ever.

25 minutes later: Daddy distracted her by building a tower. Through her sobs she knocked it over. Everything was better after that.

7:00: Out cold.

Double Dose

Today we had Layla's appointment for her 2nd dose of the regular flu shot. We were supposed to go last week but couldn't because of the fever. Things worked out for us, though, because her doctor's office just got their first shipment of H1N1 vaccine today. They only got enough for 2% of their identified at-risk population and so for now they are only giving it out to people who already have appointments scheduled. With Layla's history I was able to score her a shot while we were there. Now we just have to go back in a month for one final shot. In the end she'll have had 4 shots just for the silly flu.....poor baby!

"Falling Back" and more

We succeeded at keeping Layla awake an extra hour tonight, in the hopes that she'll "fall back" with the rest of us! It helped that there were lots of trick or treaters to distract her during that difficult hour.

Today we discovered that Layla has her first top tooth. It appears that it's not one of the front two, but maybe one next to the front ones? We'll see...maybe it just feels like that....or she may be funny looking for a while :).

Also today, Layla had her first bottle of whole milk. We're still a few weeks from her 1st birthday, but I am trying to avoid buying another canister of formula. For the next few days we'll probably do some milk and some formula...but she's on her way to being a big girl!

Layla's fever was all gone by Thursday morning. Then we got our lesson on roseola. The rash is just about all cleared up now, but it was slightly alarming at first. Apparently it's super common and not anything to worry about, but when you've never seen it before, how would you know?!

Happy Halloween!

Layla dressed up for daycare today. The kids even went on a "parade" around the neighborhood and visited some neighbors. Layla was the cutest ladybug there (ok, she was the only one...but still!)

Layla Discovers her Bookcase

Another Day Home

Layla remained feverish yesterday, so we're home again today. The good news is that so far today, no fever! That happened yesterday, too, though, so I'm cautiously optimistic. Unlike yesterday, however, she's now been without Tylenol for over 12 hours, which is a good sign.

She's napping now. The carpenters are due here soon to keep working on the exterior trim of the windows. We'll see if she's able to sleep through the hammering!

Still Sick

Layla's fever kept up throughout the day today. Mommy will be home with her tomorrow. We're crossing our fingers that she wakes up in the morning fever-free....so we can send her back to daycare, and more importantly, so that we can stop worrying about H1N1 and all the rest.

Fever

I had to leave work early today because Layla's daycare provider called to say she had a fever. It was 102.5 at mid-day. She got some Tylenol and had a good nap, then was ready to play the rest of the night. Her temp was about 101.5 just before another dose of Tylenol and bed for the night. Chris will be home with her on Tuesday and we'll see how she is. She needs to be fever free for 24 hours before she can return to daycare.

Feeling Pumpkiny!

Today we hosted our annual pumpkin carving party. It was a smaller group this year, and we were much less elaborate and creative with the food. However, we did have a little mobile pumpkin in attendance!

Fun with Daddy

This went on for at least 15 minutes just before bed. She looks tired, doesn't she?!

Layla's New Game

Layla loves, loves, loves to put her favorite ball in her toy pot, put the lid on, take the lid off, take the ball out, and repeat. I was actually trying to get a shot of her cute tights, but caught her in the act of this fun game in the process.

Latest Tricks

Since mastering clapping, Layla has moved on to conquer other tricks. This week she has perfected the art of pulling off her socks while in her car seat. No matter how frigid the temps are outside, I routinely arrive at our destination to find her grinning and sockless in the back seat. She has also demonstrated that she understands the word 'No'. When you say no to her, she stops, gives you a cute look, and rapidly shakes her head back and forth. Today I even caught her playing with a cord to one of our many devices; before I even said anything, she looked at me and shook her head. She knew...

October Fun

We've had a great weekend so far, and the best part is that there's still another day to it! Layla is still coughing, but it seems improved and we're managing the neb treatments as best we can. This morning she came to our soccer game and cheered us on to our first non-loss of the season (we tied, 2-2). Later, while Daddy golfed, Layla and Mommy hung out at the park. Layla had a blast exploring the leaves and she didn't even try to put them in her mouth!

Sneak Peek

Today I did a dry-run of the cake I'd like to make for Layla's birthday next month. Here's a sneak peek!

More Coughing

Long story short, we headed back to the doctor today because Layla was still coughing quite a bit...less wheezing, but still intense coughing...to the point that yesterday she coughed up a bunch of her morning bottle in the car. Tonight the doc listened to her and said she still has asthma-like or reactive airway type symptoms. This totally, totally, totally stinks because her recommendation is that we give Layla Pulmicort 2x/day via the neb and Albuterol every 4-6 hours either via the neb or the inhaler. There is nothing fun about this. Oh, and while we can discontinue the Albuterol in a few days if she's doing better, we have to do the Pulmicort for two lousy weeks. Last time we did this we were on vacation. These days Layla and I aim to be out the door by 6:45 each morning. These will be 2 very long weeks!

Evening Serenade

(The problem is that when I'm taking video of people, my instinct is to hold the phone vertically. But that leads to sideways video. I guess that's why phones are phones and cameras are cameras!)

Rainy Day Fun

It poured rain all day today, but that didn't keep us from having fun. Before heading to our church's fundraiser, the East Village Fair, Layla decided to hang out under her exersaucer. It was fun until she realized she didn't know how to get out.

We headed over to the soggy Follen grounds around 9:30 to man the prize table in the children's games area. Layla was a big help hanging out in her backpack, though she eventually tired of it and demanded to be held.

Soccer Star

We're starting her young. However, she doesn't quite understand the concept of no hands. Maybe she's training to be a goalie.

Layla has Graduated.....

from bronchiolitis to croup!

We took her in today because she had all of the symptoms she'd had other times, with the addition of a slight fever and more high pitched wheezing. Predisolone, it is! At least we can give that by mouth and not by the nebulizer. We tried to give her Albuterol via the neb yesterday and let's just say the neb and being 10 months old don't mix too well!

We're hoping she's back to her healthy self by the end of the week.

Layla Learns to Clap

She's actually been working on this for weeks but in the last day or two she seems to really have gotten the hang of it.

Double Digits

Layla celebrated her 10 month bday by getting the sniffles AND her first flu shot. If all goes as planned, between the regular flu shot and the H1N1, Layla only has 3 more injections to go! If they each put her into the crabby mood that she was in this afternoon, I'm in trouble! Here's hoping she was just annoyed at the all the snot that was covering her face, hands, shirt, and me.

Groovin'

(Sorry, again, for the sideways video!)

Pretty in Purple

Layla was all decked out in purple today, down to her vest (a consignment shop find....$5!) and her corduroy shoes. She's ready for fall in her nice warmer clothes.