Growing up so fast

Tonight I realized we had a bunch of pictures from the past month that we hadn't really looked at, so I decided to go through and load them. Two things happened: 1. I got completely carried away, and 2. I began to realize how quickly kids grow up. AJ has changed so much this past month. Her awareness of things (her hands, her toys, her Praise Baby DVD (thanks Lynds), her parents) is crazy and she is becoming a ton of fun as she interacts with us now. She definitely has a personality, both fun and a little dramatic, but Kara and I are enjoying her more everyday. I sometimes think she wants to talk with us, and I think she is pretty funny.
This is one of my favorite pics of her, we all love her bath time,


especially when Kara tells her stories that she just can't believe. "No way! He started his own paper company? Michael Scott Paper? Kind of a weak name, but whatever. Then what happened!?"



"What am I drinking? What does it look like I'm drinking? Yeah, mom's gone, have to resort to the bottle. Pull up a chair, what movie? What movie? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You haven't heard of Praise Baby, yeah, awesome. I mean, a bunch of random footage of kids, cartoons, animals, worship songs, it definitely beats that Grey's Anatomy show my mom watches, at least this makes sense. I mean, Izzy's ex coming back to her from the dead, what's that all about? What, oh, that's just my dad, he likes this DVD too, even though he is a little too old for it. No, I am not upset he isn't holding me when I am eating, it's cool."

Polka dots. (That's all I got)

"Whoa, how long have you been there?"

"Really, a whole month, seriously, a month, are you sure? No, no, can't say I have seen it before. In this car seat, right here? Really, above me the whole time? Wow, don't know what to say, well, yes, I like the colors, yes I know they are bright, well, I am working on it. Wait, it rattles when you pull on it, hmmm, that kind of makes sense, actually. At least it explains the twitch I have had. Well yes, now that I see it, I like it. I didn't mean to be ungrateful... my bad. Is there anything else you have given me I haven't noticed?"

"You know dad, you aren't as comfortable as mom, but for now, you'll do."

"Weirdest thing, I found these two things I can shove in my mouth without anyone's help. Don't know how they got there, but I love to taste them, more fun then the thing mom and dad always shove in my mouth, I never know what these will taste like. Yeah, pink dress, I know, pretty cute, what can I say?"

"I think my auntie got me this outfit, supposedly it says I love my auntie. I mean, a little presumptuous if you ask me, but yeah, I do love her, she kind of reminds me of mom... I wonder why that is?"


"Dudes, NOT cool."


"What was that? Oh, Gilligan called, he wants his hat back? Really, tell him he can come and get it... ha!"

"You know, I am not sure why you guys keep putting me next to this pink rabbit every week. I guess it is cute and fluffy, but for the life of me I can't figure out how come it keeps shrinking. Every time I see it it seems smaller. Strange..."

The "School is finally done" Trip home...

All of our visits to Northern California over the past year have been either a)short or b)somewhat stressful knowing that I will be welcomed back to San Diego by loads of homework. That's why this last trip home was so much fun. As soon as my final clinical shift was finished on March 27th Eric, Annika and I headed up north for about 2 and a half weeks of fun with family and friends.

Our first airplane experience with Annika was great. Those of you who know her understand why we were a little nervous about taking her on the plane...BUT, she did awesome and actually slept through the entire flight AND the entire car ride from Sac to Ripon. Its amazing how much more difficult it is to fly with all of the baby gear though...we were glad to have my mom's help on the first leg of our trip. By the way, you know you're a mom when over half of your suitcase is full of your daughter's clothes and you find yourself wearing the same three things all vacation long...

We were able to spend time with both Eric's and my family in Ripon, Dublin, and Pebble Beach and we even made a quick trip up to Tahoe to see the Tanks for a few days. Northern California is just so beautiful this time of year and we felt so refreshed after a couple of weeks up there. What can I say, once a norcal girl, always a norcal girl...



Annika loved the exersaucer...she's still so little so we had to pack blankets around her to keep her steady, but she spent a good 30 minutes in there each time we tried it. Guess we'll have to get her one to play with at home...the girl's going to have more "furniture" than we do soon.

Here's is a picture of uncle Kevin holding Annika for the first time. Kevin is my sister's husband. He's a great daddy and I know he will be a great uncle to Annika too. In the other picture Annika is having quite the conversation with my Dad. She has started cooing and smiling so much (when she wants to:)) We don't have a picture of it, but she spent hours, literally hours, talking to Eric's dad while we were at their house too. She also loved her cuddle time with Nana(my mom) and Grandmama(eric's mom).


Seeing Ethan with Annika was absolutely precious. He has a lot of practice being gentle and sweet with babies because of his sister Morgan. He would talk to Annika in his sweet little baby voice and give her lots of kisses. He kept saying to me, "Auntie, she's so 'yittle'...look at her 'yittle' toes!" When Morgan and Annika get fussy we put Ethan on "Binkie patrol." He makes sure their binkies are always in place. Morgan also LOVED her cousin. She would start kicking and smiling and reaching for Annika every time she saw her...so cute!

We went to visit my Grandma a few times while we were home. Grandma just loves seeing all of her great grandchildren. She was so happy to finally meet Annika, though she did keep telling me just how good my sister's kids are while we were there...:) Its ok Lynds, I think they're pretty great too! Annika did cooperate and took her morning nap with grandma one morning. It was pretty special. It was fun getting a "four generations" picture with my mom and grandma too.

Ethan definitely prefers his uncle to me now. I knew the day would come, and I'm ok with it now that I have my own little one to take care of:) Eric is such a good uncle. He plays soccer, basketball, baseball, and of course golf with Ethan and spends lots of time "rough housing" with him too.

I love that picture of Annika in her "bath" at the Pebble house. Look at those roles!

Not a "Y" among them!

Dakota, Ellie, Rayah, Ashlyn, Annika, and Kate

6-0. That's the dominance of the X chromosome in the Miller, Sammons, and now Jung family!
Since I was little, the Sammons family has always been great friends of mine. Troy has been my closest friend since Junior High, and his two sisters (Heather and Amber) and parents have been like family to me. Heather's husband was my high school youth pastor. Needless to say, coming home to the Bay always is more complete when we get to see the crew, which is now a girl fest.

Troy and his youngest, Kate. Dakota (our fire fighter) is his oldest. When Kara took AJ up to bathe and go to bed, Dakota, Ashlyn and Rayah all came with her to watch. Dakota would have taken a bath with her had we let her, but all the girls were so interested in AJ, it was really cute to watch.

Ellie is Heather and Jeff's youngest, Ashlyn (in the princess costume) is the middle child and Rayah is the oldest. (Once again, AJ is a champion and never fuses when she is near younger kids). I began to teach Rayah how to play chess, we started with just the pawns. By the second game she was already figuring out how to play defense and plan for counter moves two plays ahead. She is a quick learner, so I stopped playing with her in fear of seriously losing a game!


Too cute not to show.

And finally, our little bear. We spent three days up in Tahoe with the Tanks, which meant 3 kids to 4 parents (pics to come later). Kara's sister let us borrow (thank you Lynds!) Morgan's bear nightime outfit, which she loved in the cold weather. It was fun to see the snow and take AJ to Lake Tahoe. It was a great relaxing trip, even though it was a round robin of baby feedings, diapers, naps, schedules... it took us over 2 hours to get everyone ready to leave the house for one excersion... welcome to our new life.
This trip home has been great for us. Kara is finished with school and that has been a huge relief for her and she has really relaxed while being home. With many grandparents around to hold Annika, we have been able to unwind and enjoy ourselves. Thanks for tuning in, more to come soon.
EJ, KJ, and AJ

Catching up on AJ

The past few weeks we have been shooting pics, but neglecting our blog. Brace yourself, we are making up for the past few weeks.
AJ is growing quickly, beginning to smile more and recognize us (her mom more than me, but we are working on it). She loves her car seat, anytime we put her in it she knows she is going somewhere and calms down. We will get home from anywhere and she will be fully asleep until we get to the front door and she will wake up and not be happy to be back. Needless to say, we have taken our fair share of walks around our neighborhood.

We have been a little behind on our weekly pics, but this one is officially week 6, she is going to dwarf the bunny pretty quickly. She loves sleeping on her side, especially if she is snuggled in against either one of us.

Last Friday both Kara and I were gone for the day and so Eric and Tatum babysat (you guys are serious rockstars, thanks again). For Tatum, this became the perfect opportunity for a photo shoot. I didn't know what we would with the tutoo we got when she was born, but Tate found the perfect solution!

I don't know what these two are looking at, but they are both fully occupied. AJ is out for the count.

Kara's friend Jill came down from Fresno to meet AJ. She has a lot of women who love her!

The other morning I had AJ all to myself, again it was time for a photo shoot. She does really well with picking up her head moving around on her stomach.

This weekend Lyndsay and Morgan, AJ's aunt and cousin, came down to see us. It was great having them together and for the cousins to hang out. Morgan is now 7 months old (the two are 5 months apart). We had a great time with them.

So this morning Kara and Lyndsay were getting dressed and I had AJ on my chest and Morgan next to me. One of my favorite songs to sing to AJ is Jack Johnson's "I can tell that we are going to be friends." It is about two little kids walking to school together and doing everything throughout the day together. I like it because it is a cute kids song, but as I sang it today with the two of the girls together it got me a little choked up thinking and hoping the two of them will be friends as they grow up. It looks like they are off to a good start.

Annika in our favorite sweater of hers.

Everytime we put Morgan and AJ next to each other they are happy to be together.

Aunt Lyndsay and the girls.

Three binkies, three happy kids.

I'm a month old already!

Its mommy's turn to post an update! (of course Eric still had to upload all the pictures and show me exactly how to do this...its amazing that I've gotten through an "online" nursing program...technology...) We missed last weeks update, so we're throwing weeks 4 and 5 together. The picture above is Annika's 4 week pic. On Saturday she was one month old. The other day I tried to put her in the bjorn after I hadn't used it for a couple of weeks and I couldn't get the clasps closed. I asked Eric what was wrong and he just said, "babe, she's grown!" Though I say I don't want her to get any bigger it is really fun to see her interact with us a bit more. She smiles now...but its still a little too sporadic to capture with the camera. The best thing in the world is in the morning when we get her up and lay her in bed with us and she just coos and smiles at us for a while. It is so fun having a little girl! It makes me think about when I was little and my mom would take me and Lyndsay everywhere with her running errands or visiting people...just hanging out...I'm excited to have a little buddy like that!

Our little girl is pretty alert. When she is awake she just looks around at everything and takes it all in. Annika is either really happy or really not. We've recently discovered that she has quite the set of lungs... We were hoping she'd have Eric's temperment, but I'm not so sure that happened...My sister assured me that the fussy evening phase fades out by about week 6, so we've got one more week to go. Hope she's right!

Week 5! The picutre in the card is supposed to be our nephew Ethan. We were talking to my sister and Ethan last night on Skype and he told us we needed to draw a picture of him with his new helmet and kneepads on Annika's week 5 card. Ethan and Morgan are Annika's only cousins and we are so excited for them to meet! When I was pregnant Ethan would always ask me, "where my cousin?...i wanna meet my cousin."


We swaddle Annika every night so that she'll sleep better, but she always manages to get that right arm out...it cracks me up.

Eric took this picture of us before I took Annika to school with me. Everybody wanted to see her so I finally took her down. For those of you who don't know I am finishing up a 14 month accelerated BSN program. I had Annika about 6 weeks before I was finished with the program...yep, that means I only have about a week left! Eric has been a saint around the house keeping everything in order and taking care of Annika when I'm gone. I am finishing up my clinical hours by doing night 7 am to 7 pm shifts at the hospital...only 3 more to go!!! I am so thankful to everyone that has helped us through this crazy month and a half.
It seems like every time we put this "happy" hat on Annika she is anything but...there's that little stubborn streak she gets from me again..."what you want me to be happy? I'll show you happy..."
My friend Katie told me that she'd watch Annika anytime (even though she has 3 kids under 5) because she just loves holding babies when they still scrunch up their legs when you're holding them. I have to agree, it is the cutest thing to see her sleep like this with her legs all scrunched up under her.
Baby tiny feet!
Our friends Joel and Nicole and their kids Drake and Alexis came over one evening to see Annika and bring us dinner (thanks to EVERYONE who has done that by the way!). Alexis liked talking to her and getting her to smile. She is quite the little writer and wrote a couple of poems for us while she was here too. Thanks alexis!