Mmmm...strawberries

So in my previous post, I said that I didn't eat snacks. I take that back. One snack that I sometimes eat is strawberries that we grow in our own backyard! Only one or two are ready to eat at one time, but it's so fun to come home and see which ones are ready to be eaten! I race home everyday to see if it is I who has won the race to eat fresh, juicy strawberries or the ever-so-sly tree rats. The thing that makes me mad is that they only eat a nibble. If you're gonna eat my strawberries, EAT THE WHOLE THING! Whenever I find a nibble, I truly contemplate eating the rest of the strawberry and avoiding the nibbled area. I don't think that a squirrel-nibbled strawberry is as bad as finding 3 bone fragments in my Milo's cheeseburger on Monday! I'm serious. Gross.

FYI, Ben and I (well really Ben) grow lots of herbs and vegetables. Because I eat few vegetables, I don't partake much in the vegetable-growing shenanigans. But I love taking care of the strawberries. We recently ate some new potatoes that we grew, and they were really yummy. This summer we will have squash, peppers, zuchini, onions, tomatoes, rosemary, mint, sage, thyme, oregano, cilantro, and parsley. Ben makes the BEST salsa, and it's even better when he makes it all from fresh home-grown ingredients! I had never grown veggies before meeting Ben, but he grew up doing this and we have so much fun with it now. Let us know if you need something this summer. Beck Urban Farm will be glad to share our harvest (except for my strawberries ;))! Here are some recent pics of Sipsey, as I'm sure no one is really interested in my selfish strawberry stories!

Tummy time

Bath time. Sipsey still has lots of hair.

Haha. No we did not leave the house with the bow like this.

I found Sipsey in the bed with her legs hanging out of her FOOTED pjs. I don't know how that happened but she was totally out of them.

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Abby so here I go:

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was finishing up my sophomore year of high school, had just turned 16 and was driving around in my Jeep. I'm sure I was also studying for finals (which I STILL am doing to this very day...what's up with that?) and stewing over the fact that HA didn't let you exempt ANY exams.

2. 5 things on my to-do list today:
1. Take Ben to Chick-fil-A for his birthday breakfast. Check.
2. Study for finals.
3. Find a used jogging stroller and exersaucer on Craigslist or elsewhere. Anybody have one they want to part with for cheap?
4. Make Ben tell me what he wants for his birthday (I'm getting a jogging stroller and an exersaucer for mine!).
5. Study for finals. If I list this twice, I may get around to it.

3. 5 snacks I enjoy:
1. I eat 3 meals a day. I don't eat snacks.
2. I eat plain Lays potato chips with my sandwich almost everyday for lunch. Is that a snack?
3. Sometimes I eat an apple with my sandwich.
4. Sometimes I eat a banana with my sandwich.

5. If we don't have Lays, apples, or bananas, I'll eat Doritos. My lunch seems really elementary school now that I see it in writing.

4. 5 things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Donate to charity, especially St. Jude's and to church of course.
2. Buy/build our dream house.

3. Give to AU so they'd name a building after Ben and me. "Where's your biology class?" "In Beck." Isn't that weird to say? haha.

4. Pay off all debts for us and all our family.
5. Invest.

5. 5 bad habits:
1. Picking (fingernails, skin, etc.).
2. Procrastinating

3. Double or triple entertaining, as Ben calls it...when I sit in the living room watching TV while on the computer (double entertaining) and sometimes while also on the phone (triple entertaining). I don't have time to do this very often anymore and I don't think it's a bad habit anyway.

4. I was just made aware that I have a line running across my nose from rubbing it up and down a lot I guess. I need to stop that ASAP.
5. Blogging when Sipsey's asleep, when I could be checking off more important items on my to-do list.

6. 5 places I've lived:
1. Dothan, AL
2. The dorms in Auburn, AL
3. A house in Auburn, AL
4. A trailer (with Ben as newlyweds...woohoo) in Auburn, AL
5. Birmingham, AL

7. 5 jobs I've had:
1. Posh Panoply
2. Dermatologist office
3. Pier One
4. UAB
5. Babysitting

4 months old

Sipsey is 4 months old today. We had her 4 month checkup this morning at 9:15 and we actually made it there on time. I'm getting good at this! She weighs 13 lbs 4 oz (50%-tile) and is 25 1/2 in. long (90%-tile). She also got 4 shots and took them like a champ.

I haven't updated in awhile so here's what Sipsey likes to do these days: Roll over from tummy to back and back to tummy(!), eat her hands, eat her feet, put anything in her mouth that she can get her hands on, play with her rattle keys, suck her thumb, laugh at Ben and me, squeal with delight, stare at her "TV" (electronic aquarium thing) that hangs over her crib, and lots of other exciting things. The rolling over both ways and the fact that she likes to scoot all over the place when she's on her tummy means that we have to watch her constantly. I dread the day I have to babyproof everything. When we moved in our house, all the lower kitchen cabinets were childproofed and we got rid of that fast. It was so annoying. Now we're about to have to do it again!

The doctor told me I can start feeding her rice cereal. Then we can try oatmeal, and then fruits and vegetables. We've decided that we'd like to make some of our own baby food, so if anyone has any experience with this, please let me know. I'll be Googling it in the meantime...sidenote: I think it's funny that the spell checker just told me that "googling" is misspelled when Blogger is owned by Google.

Here are some pictures from Sipsey's days as a 3-month old:

I love my feet and my thumb.

I fell asleep holding just a little piece of my hair.

My rattle keys. Thanks Gwen!

My aquarium

First Day of Daycare!

Today was Sipsey's first day of daycare! We are sending her to this great Baptist church close to our house that has a daycare and kindergarten. And next year, they will have 1st grade (for the 5Ks moving up) and will continue to grow each year! She only had to stay from about 8:30 to 2:30. I raced to pick her up as soon as my class was over. Everyone has asked me if I'm sad about it and I'm really not at all. I think partly because she will only be there when I have class which is not all day everyday. It will only be a few days a week for a few hours each day. It's also because the ladies who keep the babies are grandmothers themselves, so I feel like I'm leaving them with my own Mom! There can only be 6 babies in her room at one time and there are 3 ladies to take care of them; today there were only 3 babies there. Here is a picture of Sipsey as we were leaving her. My dumb camera focused on the crib behind them (which is Sipsey's own personal crib/cage), but you can tell that she was begging us not to leave her. She looked way worse when we picked her up!

On another note, I must tell y'all about our nanny whose time with us has come to an end. Her name is Penney Hartzog (my mom!) and she has been wonderful! I started classes again 3 weeks after Sipsey was born, and we needed someone to keep her a few days during the week while I had class, until she was old enough for daycare. Mom has been driving to Birmingham from Dothan each week on Mondays and driving back to Dothan on Thursdays. This was only going to last a few weeks, but when Dad passed away only 4 weeks after Sipsey's birth, she decided to do it for 3 months! We have truly appreciated her time with us, and we are sad we won't get to see her every week anymore. But she has reassured us that she will still come visit all the time, and I don't doubt this at all!

Here are some bathtime pictures (my favorite time) of our Baby Einstein! Very inquisitive!