Fall love

In honor of today being the official day of autumn...my favorite season might I add... I wanted to share our...okay maybe more like my, fall to do list! Steven will enjoy these things, too, but I want to make sure they happen!

- walk one of the college campuses/greenbelt to see the leaves their beautiful fall colors
- collect different fall leaves
- visit a pumpkin patch dressed in plaid
- carve/decorate pumpkins
- build a fire pit and make s'mores in our backyard
- go to a Boise State football game, and finally see the smurf turf ; )
- bake an apple pie, all from scratch (never done one before-wish me luck)
- make caramel apples
- drink hot apple cider
- make chocolate chip pumpkin bread
- go to a corn maze
- watch Hocus Pocus
- and drink lots of pumpkin spice lattes of course!

As you may have noticed, several of those entail eating and drinking. But that's what crisp temperatures and warmer clothing calls for. Bundling up with cozy clothes and blankets with warm eats and drinks sounds fabulous to me. Happy fall ya'll!

7 months

(Ellie kept wanting to roll over to her tummy every time I put her on her back. Hence those two shots of her on her side, she was mid roll and super happy!)

Size: This one hasn't changed at all with what she's wearing; size 2 diapers, and clothes ranging from size 3-9 month. Weighs 13.81 lbs and is 25" long as of September 17th. 

Eyes: I would say they are a deep blue/grey/green. And in different lighting one color seems more bold than the other making it hard to figure out their true color! 

Hair: Still has the golden brown color! It is getting so long! And finally her bald spot is filling in a little. Yay! She's not even on her back a ton, but I guess when she is, she moves her head back and forth often, and that would wear the hair down each time. It just looks pretty funny because the rest of it is long. I put her in high pig tails the other day and we had a good laugh, because it sticks out so long and pretty straight. I want to try doing anything different/fun because it's long enough to do several things with, but she moves her head a lot - she's wondering what you're trying to do to her. 

Sleeping: Praise the Lord Ellie is continuing to sleep superb! Same schedule as the last few months. However, there are some days where her afternoon nap is difficult for her and results in some crying. But all together she still does really well. The 10+ hours of sleep at night is so wonderful. However, since she goes to bed so early (7pm), she wakes early and if we had a late night, the morning after is a bit rough and throws me off...but that's our fault, not hers! And at least her naps are on average 2 hours long, so if need be, I can nap as well!

Eating: We have started solids! So far we do oatmeal cereal in the morning and avocado in the afternoon. I have given her sweet potato once. Her doctor recommends just feeding her the oatmeal and avocado (both mixed with breast milk) right now due to her weight. Focus on the higher calorie food (avocado) to help and not have her fill up on several low calorie foods. She does still nurse 6 times during the day as well and she loves every opportunity to eat indeed. If she didn't spit up so much (reflux/GERD issue, not over eating issue) or move around so much, she would have rolls on rolls for sure. I'll just give the few rolls she has some love! ; )

Milestones:

• Solids
• Sitting up on own for longer periods of time
• Grabbing toys behind her or by her side without needing to look (she's been able to do this for awhile)
• Army crawl

Likes:

• Food! She will open her mouth great for every bite. She also makes this 'umm' sound with a lot of bites, like yum! Not saying she is trying to talk, but just saying she makes that noise by coincidence
• Sweater strings; she'll pull on them and try to yank them out (I feel she's thinking. 'what's up with this "never" ending string that won't come out??') and then of course she has to chew on them
• Having you wave at her while you say 'hi'
• Getting more interested in stuffed animals
• Squealing in all sorts of ways.  A lot of the time it sounds like a dinosaur; like a pterodactyl - it's funny and weird at the same time! She has squealed for several months, but now she's experimenting with all the sounds/ways she can make noise! She reaches some awesome low and high decibels/pitches!
• Holding onto your hands while you clap
• Will like pretty much anything new you give her to play with, she's a curious girl

Dislikes (and thank fully there's still not a lot):

• You being slow with her next bite of food. She's ready man and you need to be also!
• Touching grass with her hands 
• Loud/sudden noises; startles easy just like her mama

Anniversary No.7

This guy treats me so good. He is so selfless and wants to make this girl happy. I truly appreciate all he does for me, and now for Ellie as well. Thank you for loving us the way you do. You are a man after our heart and especially God's heart-makes me love you more! Happy 7th anniversary Steven! 

cousin comes to town

A couple weeks ago my cousin came to visit us! It was so great having him here and showing him Boise; he had never been here before. We wanted to show off the city and go to some staple places and do things that we all enjoy of course. Since there is so much to do around here we didn't even get to do all that we had talked about unfortunately...but that gives reason for another visit now doesn't it! ; )

We took him to our church Sunday morning, floated the river, hiked places that showed an awesome view of the city, the zoo, Roaring Springs (a waterpark), a baseball game-which had some cool fireworks at the end, walked around The Village, the guys played disc golf a couple times, we drove around downtown/the Capital-walked around a little to some places to eat down there too and ate at several other yummy local places. Time seemed to go fast, but we enjoyed ourselves. It was great watching him with Ellie as well. They had met each other before, but it was a couple months ago and a pretty short visit. So it was nice they got to have some more quality time with each other. She certainly enjoyed his fun personality. Thanks for coming Brandon!

Here are some pictures from our time together!

 

6 months

Happy half birthday baby girl! 

Size: This girl is staying tiny; still in size 2 diapers...3, 3-6, 6, and some 6-9 clothes. She is 13.25 lbs and 24.8 inches long.

Eyes: Her eyes have stayed mostly a deep blue, but now they also seem to have a gray/green/brown tint to them...not sure what color to call them yet, maybe hazel?

Hair: Golden brown still! I hope she keeps it because it looks like mine!

Sleeping: Her sleep schedule has stayed the same the last five weeks!!!!! That being: waking during the 6 o'clock hour, morning nap around 9am, afternoon around 2pm and bedtime around 7pm. And once she's down for the count at night she stays down 10+ hours straight which is heavenly! I am still so surprised she is doing so well at night and I know there are things that could arise and throw a wrench in that (i.e. teething, growth spurts, etc anything), but we are so grateful with how she's doing so far. Thank you Jesus!  I will add that there have been days where we've seen if she could be flexible with nap time, or nap place, and it has usually not gone in our favor. I don't mean to be a stickler about her nap times and place (crib), but we've tried and it is not the best for Ellie. We want a happy girl, so we try to stay as close to these times and place as possible.

Eating: Nothing has changed here; nursing and taking a bottle great! And still haven't introduced foods to her yet. Really there isn't thing stopping us, except the official go ahead by doctor (haven't talked to them yet), but we will be soon-very soon! I think Ellie is a little jealous of us eating, too so I think she will be glad to take part with us ; ) 


Milestones: 

• A kind of hop, scoot, crawl is going on! She will get up on her hands and sometimes get in a full on plank for a few seconds, or she will get up on her knees/hands at same time and other times she will do like a sideways lazy frog hop type thing-hard to explain and it happens fast, ha. All I know is she is trying and doesn't like trying for very long-she'll start whining. Every day we work on it and we praise her for all her effort! 
• Helps hold her bottle and sometimes she can do it all on her own for a moment 
• Sits on her own for a couple seconds at a time 

Likes: 

• Being sung Patty Cake, Jesus Loves Me and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I try to do the motions with her hands and she's a fan of that! 
• Playing Peek-A-Boo  
• Plastic containers and lids-hey whatever floats her boat 
• Her exersaucer  
• Talking to her toys while she's playing/sucking/chewing on them and she can get loud with her babbling-she has some good lungs on her!  
• Being read to (I've been meaning to put this on her last couple updates, because she has liked this for awhile now. Yes she likes grabbing at the pages mostly, but she gets really intrigued by the pictures and looks up at you and smiles. It also seems like she is trying to figure out what you're talking about. Reading doesn't always last that long either, but it's a start) 
• Looking at whoever is talking in the room, voices really grab her attention. And if you're the one holding her out facing the room and you start talking, she will turn/arch around to look at you 

Dislikes: 

• Holding still, she's a mover for sure 
• Not being able to get the toy she wants or getting to you while you're sitting/lying on the floor with her. She tries crawling but she gets tired/irritated kind of fast 

 I feel like there are some things I'm forgetting to add to these lists, but these are the big things for sure! 6 months has come and gone so fast. I know her first birthday will be here before we know it. Ahhhhhh! It's still surreal sometimes that we are parents. Pretty much every day I look at her and ask, how did we get so lucky?! She is beautiful.

5 months

She was talking to me during pictures and I was able to capture her starting to babble something : )

Size: Still in size 2 diapers. In very little 3 month clothes and then in 3-6 and 6 month. I can tell she is getting bigger, but I don't know what her weight or length is since she doesn't have a 5 month well check.

Eyes: Same; a deep blue, with some very faint brown trying to come through. I have a feeling they are going to stay this way...

Hair: Medium brown for the most part with a lighter brown at the roots. It kind of looks like she has highlights, too. In the past her doctor has said people pay for what Ellie has going on, ha ; ) And it's starting to get a little wavy as well! 

Sleeping: We finally have a schedule, Hallelujah!!!! She gets up between 6:15-6:40am, then goes down for her morning nap between 9/9:30am and an afternoon nap between 2/2:30pm! Her naps are 2/2.5 hours which is really nice. And bedtime is between 7/7:30pm. One day it all kind of clicked and it was wonderful; everyone is sooo much happier! She's thriving off of a schedule, imagine that ; ). This last week we started sleep training her too by following the Ferber method. It's been going amazing!! The first night was a bit rough (no surprise there), but by the second night she was soothing herself to sleep fast and sleeping 10+ hours straight. Wow were we shocked. And she's been doing this ever since, too...did we get lucky or what?! Soothing herself for her morning nap goes great as well, however her afternoon one is a little rocky. I have faith she'll take care of that one soon though. She had been swaddled every night since day one, so we weren't sure how she'd take without that along with getting sleep trained, but as I said, she's doing marvelous with it all! Before we started sleep training her, we were having her fall asleep in our arms, then putting her down and it was getting exhausting for us. We knew we wanted to start creating better sleep habits for her and were doing a lot of reading and asking around for advice on the subject. Praise God for helping us with all of this, as it was getting a tad bit stressful for me to say the least. I'm already missing her falling asleep in my arms...so I may go in and look at her more often to see her sleeping (enter heart eyes like no other on me and Steven's part).

Eating: Still nursing and taking a bottle like a champ! Haven't introduced any solid food yet, but she's showing a lot of signs for wanting our food-staring and grabbing whatever we have. I'll be talking to her doctor soon to see when we should start implementing things into her diet. She loves putting things into her mouth, so I won't be surprised if she's a fan of real food.

Milestones:

• Soothing herself to sleep. She does suck on her middle and ring finger at the same time to help soothe herself and I find it precious
• Grabbing our faces, which we of course love 
• Pulling her toes up to her mouth to suck on...oh her flexibility and inclination to put anything and everything in her mouth
• Kisses! She leans in sometimes with her mouth all wide. Slobber and sucking is what you get...a bit much, but oh so sweet 
• Holding on your hands to pull herself to sitting from laying down
• Pushing herself more to standing from a sitting position (all while we are holding her for support)

Likes:

• Being in water! We went swimming the other day and she enjoyed it. Plus it's been super hot, so I'm sure it feels refreshing
• Our phones...I'm trying to not be on it much in front of her anyways, but when we are, boy her eyes get locked in on it and she leans in to grab it
• Playing with her hair sometimes while she nurses and sometimes while she's in her car seat. It's so cute
• Being on her tummy. She rolls to it fast whenever we put her down and she sleeps on her tummy as well (now I have hope for her bald spot to fill in!!)
• Swinging her arms up and down
• Her new stuffed zebra, named Stacy by Steven. It...she...has several different sensory items attached to it and it goes on her car seat

Dislikes:

• Holding still for diaper and clothes changes. Thankfully she doesn't fuss for either of those anymore, but she just loves moving so much and it makes doing both of those a little tricky
• The iron/Vitamin D supplement we started giving her (liquid form). I don't blame her, it's funky smelling and tasting. (This is recommended for all exclusive breastfed infants-no special concern for her in particular just an FYI.)

Before Ellie was on a schedule life was a bit hard on me (and her...and Steven sometimes). I really like having plans and knowing how things are going to play out during the day and days to come. With Ellie's naps all over the place and it taking forever to get her down and to stay down it was taking a toll on me. Plus, all this was causing Ellie to be crabby a lot of the time, so no one was truly feeling their best. I was trying to give it all time and figure out her cues; it took a lot of trial and error figuring out what worked best for her and doing things before it was making her overly fussy, tired, clingy, etc. Thankfully God gave me the patience I needed, because it was running thin...very thin. Even though she doesn't know better and it's partially a learning experience for her, too, I was having too high of expectations I think. Parenthood is always teaching me things, and there is still oh so much to come. 

4 months

Doing her crunches!

This was after one of her first moments of rolling from back to tummy! As you can tell she's pretty happy with herself! We were on vacation, too, so I think she wanted to show off to all the family. And she's such a mover - always hard to get good quality pics with phone or camera (doesn't help those aren't superb either). 

Size: Ellie is 12.19 lbs and 24.5" long. Size 2 diapers. She's still in a couple 0-3 pieces of clothes, then 3 month, 3-6 month AND some 6 month clothes. Crazy how brands can vary in size so much! 

Eyes: They are still a deep blue, but there might be some faint brown trying to come through...she may get hazel eyes after all like her daddy. (Supposedly they can change up until 6 months, so I'll keep this in here for awhile.)

Hair: As you can see she still has a head FULL of hair and it's only getting longer! The doctor thought she might lose some these past couple months, but nope. However, her bald spot on the back is still there and seems a little emphasized since the rest of her hair is getting longer, poor girl. Wearing headbands gets looking a little crazy, so hair clips are the go to now.

Sleeping: Whatever day schedule/routine that was forming went out the window this past month. There have been a few days were she refused to go down for a nap (even though she was tired) and then other days (not many though) where she'll take three naps. One nap is the usual, maybe two. When she does go down, they last for around an hour, some days they will last a few hours. One thing that I'm very grateful for amongst all this is how she sleeps at night. She will still be down at the latest most nights by 9pm and won't officially get up till between 7-9am (she'll wake up once during the night to eat). It won't matter how she napped during the day, that's how the night will go. I'm very grateful for her night sleep since a lot of 4 month olds are waking up several times during the night. We'll see if she regresses though...I hear there's a 4 month sleep regression that tends to happen...

Eating: She is still exclusively on breast milk. And pretty much right after her 3 month birthday Ellie started wanting to eat every 2-2.5 hours (she'll go longer if she's taking a nap). The doctor said I could start feeding her every 1.5 hours if she seems like she could eat again. That's to do with her being so tiny. I already felt like I was on high demand, so here we go being more so. Oh well, I want to do what I need to do for my baby girl!

Milestones:

  New ones:

• Giggles! We were so thrilled to hear that again. She had given us a couple giggles one night a looonng time ago, and decided to hold out on more giggles till a week or so ago. 
• On her 4 month birthday (right after I took the photos above) Ellie rolled from back to tummy!!! I was shocked even though I knew she'd been trying to do it for weeks. Now she is constantly rolling from back to tummy and then tummy to back. Very proud of her!
• Grabbing her toes

  Old ones:

• Grabs and holds toys sometimes and brings them to her mouth to chomp on

• Coos, babbles and smiles often - all so cute! 
• Sits up pretty well against you when you're sitting and holding her for stability 
• Taking the bottle 
• Lasts more than 10 minutes for tummy time (she did not like it before and would barely last 5 minutes) and she has been holding her head up well and high for a couple months now. She even goes up on her hands sometimes and kind of turns herself trying to move/crawl
• Rolling over from tummy to back

Likes:

  New ones:

• Watching other little kids
• Stroller rides and just being outside in general
• Looking in the mirror. She gets pretty smiley and you can tell she's trying to figure out how I'm in the mirror and holding her at the same time
• Bath time! This was one thing she did not like before, but over the last couple months she has warmed up to it (pun intended) and is intrigued by the water 
• Grabbing hair...but of course who ever is getting their hair pulled doesn't like it! 
• Crunching up/trying to roll during diaper changes and that makes it hard for us! ha

  Old Ones:

• Her hands being clapped (mostly like a fist pound since she likes to clench her hands still). And she likes sucking on her hands as well
• Standing. She pushes up often when you're holding her in your lap
• Being held and also being held looking out; she takes everything in around her
• Seeing us dance (she probably thinks we're dork, but hey, seeing that smile spread across her face melts my heart and I will act like a fool any time to see it)
• Eating! 
• Toys that make noise
• Watching daddy use the electric shaver; she's enthralled with that
• The blow dryer - she likes watching me use it (likes watching me do my hair in general) and it can calm her down if she's fussy

Dislikes:

  New ones:

• Getting her nose wiped...she got a cold a couple weeks ago, poor girl
• Me leaving the room to grab something before I feed her
• Not being able to crawl yet. She moves her legs, feet, arms and body attempting to crawl, but gets frustrated since those limbs aren't working together and moving her completely (she kind of moves in a little circle sometimes though)

  Old ones: 

• Being put down to get her diaper and clothes changed when she's already a little fussy
• Staying in her bouncer chair for very long, especially if you stop paying attention to her
• Being tired, and she fights sleep sometimes, silly girl

I could be forgetting some things but I tried to think and keep track of her milestones and likes/dislikes! We love seeing her personality grow! Thank you Ellie for bringing us such joy!