Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a great day. Adam made us waffles and coffee that we ate while holding Gwen and passing her back and forth in order to eat them while they were warm. Then we enjoyed time on the back porch with our coffee, and Adam gave me cards from him and Gwen. Gwen even signed her own card...with Adam's help of coarse. ha ha ha. Gwen loves being outside. If she's crying and we step outside, she will stop and listen to all of the sounds and look around.

Then Gwen napped for a while as Adam prepared for a picnic. We drove about 40 minutes west of Alamogordo to a camping area. While we were there we ate, fed Gwen, and took a little hike with her in the front carrier. The temperature was 88 F in Alamogordo and about 82 F where we hiked, so the hike didn't last much more than 30 minutes total. Both Adam and Gwen were getting overheated.

It was absolutely wonderful to be outdoors enjoying our family and nature. It was perfect. We've already decided to camp there for Father's day in June.

The picnic table was covered. What a great feature!

This was the view in one direction from the picnic site. It gave us the feeling of being in the mountains of Colorado. Ahhh....that's what we love!

This was the opposite direction from the picnic site.
Here's what Gwen was doing as we were getting unpacked from the car. She absolutely loves sucking and chewing on her hands right now. She's drooling quite a bit too. I thought that was an indication of teething. It's a bit early for that though.

Adam's being funny with his drink and pinky finger up. Oooo- la- la.


Later on in the day, we were cooking a salmon cheesecake. Yes, that's right. Salmon and cheesecake can go together. We wanted to make something special for JoAnn visiting today. She always creates such awesome meals that we wanted to impress her.

Gwen was hanging out in her rocker while Adam danced in front of her with dance music on. We keep her in this on the kitchen island so that she can see us, smell all of the fragrances of food and be involved while we talk to her about what we are doing. Don't worry, we are very careful about her safety while doing this.

We are working with her hands and upper body strength. That is why there are fabrics in her hands. We put different textures in her hands, and then she just keeps a hold of them. She puts them in her mouth too of course. And, in this picture she is looking up at the light fixtures that are above her. They are favorites of hers.

Her speech seems like it's developing very well, but she isn't as interested in the active side of things. That's why we are putting her on her tummy as much as possible. We want to help her develop upper body strength to roll over and eventually crawl. She would much rather be held or talked to while laying on her back at this point.