5 months old and growing

Here's a little update on our little ray of sunshine. Gigi just turned 5 months old on Sunday. She has gone from eating rice cereal, to not pooping for 5 days, back to breastfeeding alone. She seems to be getting longer and skinnier. At her 4 month check-up she weighed 11.8 lbs. and was 24 inches long. She has learned to roll every which way, army crawl, sit up unassisted (for a record of about 30 seconds), remove and replace her own pacifier, and grab everything she can get her hands on! She has had two colds. One of them was only a minor case of the sniffles but it still interfered with her ability to sleep well. :( She went to a movie theater for the first time to see Julie & Julia and slept through most of it but was, luckily, a perfect little angel through all of it! All in all, its just fun to watch her grow and learn. Now here's the pictures.

Wait, what is that under her crib?
Frankie! He has found a new favorite place to sleep.

I just tried to put these shoes on her 2 days ago and they are too small now! This pic was taken two weeks ago!

Her first pedicure! This took a lot of work though!

I just loved how she was hanging on to this while she slept. She doesn't usually do that.

Dad's way of taking care of baby!

Little girl learning how to use the remote.

Of course this was posed but she had to get some use out of the sunglasses, they're just too cute!

Another picture of her sleeping but look at her hands! She just has to have a hold on something.

I walked into her room in the morning to get her out of bed and this is what I found- Gigi, happily talking and playing but look closely at her nose. Yucky snot!

Information travels faster in our modern age

There’s probably some really great quote out there about how when a person is informed they are empowered. Well, that is my quote for the day. Today I realized how very uninformed I have been for the past 2 years on our family’s cell phone billing. First of all, for the past 2 years my husband and I have been paying $107 a month for our 2 cell phones. A seemingly “normal” cost these days but still unbelievable for what we are actually using.

So, about a month ago my dear hubby says to me, he says, “you’re probably going to be mad at me.”

“Why?” says I, knowing that I am usually mad at him in his ignorance so this must be really bad if he is aware of the problem.

“Because today I signed up for the employee discount with Verizon that I have been eligible for since I’ve worked with the state” says Eric.

“Wow! (incredulous) You have got to be kidding me? What is the discount?” says I.

“It cuts our bill by about $20” says Eric.

(pause to gather yourself, Jenny)

“Well, that’s good that you did that. I just can’t believe that you knew about it and you didn’t do it sooner” says I, trying to be supportive.

So let’s tally up $20 a month for about 24 months = $480. But wait there’s more…

TODAY I go online because my mom brought to my attention that my cell phone emits too much radiation and so, since I will be eligible for a new free/discounted phone in a couple of weeks, I must research which phones have the lowest SAR values. (Feel free to laugh at this, I won’t mind, just wait until you get cancer and your ear falls off because of over-radiation and then we’ll see who’s laughing.) So I start looking at some other things on the Verizon Wireless website and discover, quite unexpectedly, that Eric and I aren’t even on a family plan that would save us an additional $20 per month!!
Let’s see, 2 years, $40 a month we could have been saving with the exact same service we have now comes to a total of $960 that has gone into some Verizon corporate big wig’s pocket to help pay for his or her daily golf and spa package. Meanwhile, I have been slaving away to improve the oral health of people that don’t even care enough to floss! So the point is, BE INFORMED. That should be added to President Hinckley’s “Be’s”. Oh, and by the way, if you are INFORMED about your oral health you will definitely floss or at least use some kind of interdental cleaning device daily.