Family time

Miriam, Mario and I have had a lot of family time together these past couple of weekends.  She is 12 weeks old (almost 3 months) and the time has flown by!  We are definitely in a schedule with her now, and we are able to squeeze in many of the activities we did pre-baby.  Mario has time for bike rides and studying, I get to bake and have lunch/pedicures with friends, and Miriam gets lots of playtime and interaction whenever she is awake.

We feel so lucky to have such a fun, smiling, happy, loving baby in our lives.  She is so easygoing, we can take her just about anywhere.  We've been doing a lot of walking lately.  We got a new jogging stroller, which reclines far enough that Miriam can lay down/take a nap whenever we use it.  However, Miriam is such an observant baby, she often fights sleep so she can soak in the sights wherever we are!  (She is always very tired after our outings though, so she usually takes a pretty solid nap after we've returned home.)  Last weekend, she slept through the entire 5 mile drive that we walked at Point Defiance, and yesterday she slept for about 1.5 miles at the waterfront, before waking up and wanting to see the sights.  Interestingly enough, at the waterfront, she was more interested in watching the cars and people go by than she was looking out at the water or the boats.  (We think it is because she can't see that far yet, so she was interested in things much closer.) 

Miriam is doing new and interesting things all the time these days.  She has great head control and likes us to hold her facing out, so she can look around the room and observe things.  She grabs things with her hands and bats at toys on her playmat.  She has almost started giggling - we've heard the first parts of the giggle, but then it usually stops or turns into talking.  We are waiting on a good laugh from her!  She tracks things very well with her eyes, and will follow us as we walk around the room.  She has started really studying herself in the mirror, and loves to touch and move the rattles we attach to her carseat.  She talks and smiles all the time, and gives us huge, gorgeous grins every day.  She paid attention to an entire book that Mario read her just the other day.  We talk every day about how happy we are to have her in our lives, and how much fun she is! 

Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.  We did capture a big smile on camera, so you can see the grins we get every day!  (And yes, she is wearing legwarmers in one of the pictures.  They are so cute on her!)