Ella's 9month Update

Took Ella to her 9 month check-up. Not sure about our new Doc down here. But that's another story, perhaps I'll post on that to get some feedback from you all later. She's 17 1/2 lbs and 27inches long. Right on target for everything...height, weight, head circumference, fine and gross motor skills, language etc. etc. Along the way are some recent pics of her first hiking trip and Hunter tolerating her :)

What She's Eating:
Well, everything. It's easier to say what she's not eating...cows milk, meat, berries and anything containing nut products....doc advises waiting 'till 12mos for all those.

What She's Saying:
Lots of babbling, yayaya, gagag, mamam, dadada, nanana, hihihi. On a few ocasions I have gotten her to obviously repeat sounds. The first one she did was "hi-ya!" yes, like the karate sound. It was adorable. The second one was "dada", melts my heart!Her Choice form of Mobility:
She wants to be on the floor where she can roll. Yup. She gets on her belly, pushes her self up with her hands and spinse herself 360 degrees until she is aimed at what she wants and then she rolls to it. It's pretty great. She also enjoys standing while being supported and is getting quite good at it.

What She Plays With:
She in increasingly becoming bored with the toys she has. We have one Baby Einstein cube that has different shapes on each side. it has doors to open, zippers to zip, things to pull, push and turn and it sings songs. She loves this. She really likes anything where she has to "discover things." She often rolls over to the baskets in our living room, tips them over and rifles through the contents, discovering treasures!
What She Likes:
She still loves water of any kind. She used to like to try to catch pouring water in her hands. Now she likes close her eyes, open her mouth and try to drink it. It's funny! She still likes to read but it doesn't keep her attention for quite as long these days. She loves to be outside and loves going for stroller rides. She likes music and often "dances" a.k.a. wiggles about in my arms when we're singing worship at church or listening to music at home. She loves her animals and loves to grab their fur and nuzzle in. We are constantly teaching her "gentle". But she hasn't gotten the hang of it yet and so the animals don't love her quite so much! She loves to eat! And she still likes sleeping. Two solid naps a day. Always asleep by 6:30 or 7pm and wakes anywhere between 7am and 8am.

Oh man, I forgot to mention two of her funniest likes. Ella likes to try to eat the floor...any floor...muckles right onto it. And she LOVES watching me flush the poop from her cloth diapers down the toilet. Get's a huge smile, giggle and flailing limb reaction every time!

What She Dislikes:
She doesn't love going in her car seat and fusses when you first put her in. But with a pacifier rides just find still. She's not content being contained for long in her jumper or exersaucer b/c she'd rather be rolling free! She doesn't like being changed and fusses until you give her a tube of lotion to play with and then she's happy as a clam. She's still not a big fan of being held by others...especially when mom or dad are in sight. But she's usually fine withing mintues if we disapear. She's getting better with it all the time.So that's our little girl these days. Such a joy!

Eat Your Heart Out Fisher Price

Of all the many colorful, crinkly, textured, imaginative toys that we have, Ella prefers three things:

#3) The Post that the colorful rings go on. Yes, forget the colorful plastic rings with rattlers in side. When you give it to her she promptly takes all of those off and giggles in delight at the post.








#2) Partially filled water bottles. Dasani is her favorite but really any will do. She tips them upside down and watches the water and then chews on the bottom.






#1) Any tube of cream/ointment. She particularly favors her large tube of Aveeno baby lotion. If you do not give it to her while on the changing table, she's quite a bear. But once she has it in her possession, her eyes grow wide and she turns it over and over in her hands just marveling at it in sheer wonder! The trick is distracting her enough to take it away!



Yes that's right. A new development in her life is little baby anger! She used to immediately forget about whatever you took away from her. Now, you take something away and those angry red eyebrows pop out, fist start a clenchin' and crying comences. I believe this is due to a little something called object permanancy. Fabulous!

There is NOTHING like it...

...the sweet, sweet sound of baby laughter that is! Ella has been giving us a giggle or two here and there for a long time now. But today I started doing random things in front of her while we waited for her food to thaw and she was just laughing up a storm! Oh, melt my heart. I could listen to it all day long. I don't know how great the sound is...you may have to crank the volume! There was a big ol' thunderstorm going on in the background as well!

There were three, but our computer is on it's way out and would only upload this one so enjoy. She's laughing at me dancing like a drunken maniac out of view of the camera.

Night #4

She went to sleep at 6:30pm....woke BRIEFLY at 3am. Did her whole fuss, fall asleep, fuss, fall asleep thing for ONLY 15 minutes and didn't wake again until 6am!!! I'm sold! This really works!

I'm convinced that soon she won't even wake at all and I'll be a fully rested momma...I'll be a new woman!!!

I'm just wondering how it's going to go this weekend. Jason is going away on an extended fishing trip with a buddy of his, so I'm going "back home" and staying with my mom and visiting friends. I wonder if the trend will continue or not. When she's sleeping in our room she usually wakes up when we go in to go to bed....and when I'm at someone else's house and she wakes up I always feel like I need to just quick nurse her and put her back to bed so she doesn't wake anyone else....so we'll see!

7 Months Old & Night #3

She went to sleep at 6:30pm. Woke up at 2am. Did the whole fuss a little, fall asleep, fuss a little, fall asleep thing for about 40 minutes. Then slept until 5am. I thought it was amazing that she had gone for 10 1/2 hours so I nursed her at 5am and then she went back to sleep until 8am. I think that's fabulous!

Also, She is 7 months old today! As of this week she has added carrots to diet and loves them. She still LOVES reading! She is practicing her "standing" on the couch these days. She doesn't pull herself up, we put her there and this only lasts a few seconds but she loves it!She has mastered rolling over from back to belly now too. Actually, she has mastered the roll in general and now does continuous rolls to get where she wants to go. Haven't gotten that one on tape yet. And apparently she loves playing peekaboo with ANY prop available! :)

Too Good to be True! (?)

Night #2 with "cry it out" method...SHE SLEPT THROUGH BOTH NIGHT TIME FEEDINGS! This has to be too good to be true. Oh wait...yup it was....because our cat woke her up at 4am! The little babushca drifted off at 7pm and didn't wake up until we heard our stupid cat pry her door open and go in there and start meowing like bloody murder because he thinks he's starving...even though he was fed before we went to bed! The cat shall now die. JUST KIDDING! But the cat SHALL spend the night in the basement from now on.

In other news. Yesterday was glorious and sunny. The babe, Hunter and I went and explored an old railroad that's been converted into a nice trail. Then we strolled it right over to the park where Ella had her first push in a real swing (you know, the baby kind). I wish I had the camera. Her mouth was wide open with huge smiles and face all scrunched up with excitement. Then I took her down the slide with me. She loved that too.

And today I'm making good use of a rainy day. Women's Bible study in the morning, which Ella thankfully napped through most of. And now making a few loaves of bread, and chopping up fixins for a salad to go with the homemade pot pie.

I'll let you know how the night time sleep goes without kitty disruptions!

Cry it out.

Well, we finally did it. Ella turns 7 months old in a few days. She goes to bed at 6:30 or 7pm and wakes up about 6:30am. But she does nurse twice in the night. Once around 11pm or so and once around 2am or so.

The 2am feeding was starting to make me wonder. She was feeding again after only three hours. She goes longer than that during the day when she's all active and such...and she goes for a good 5 hour stretch from when she goes to bed until when she wakes up to feed again. So we were thinking this 2am wake up was just out of habbit.

So we decided to finally employ the "cry it out" method. Many of my friends have employed this method and I'd heard it could be pretty bad. Actually, it wasn't for us....at least not last night. Sure enough she woke around 2am and we waited to see what she would do instead of just going in to feed her. She would fuss, fall back asleep, fuss...cry a little, fall back a sleep etc. etc. This went on for one hour and Jason went in and rubbed her tummy and gave her her pacifier back two times. And that was it. No screaming. No wailing. Not even any extended crying. Back to sleep soundly and woke at her regular time. So we expect to do this for another few nights and then our hope is that she'll sleep that long stretch on her own without waking up.

And last but not least. I know all the theories about parenting and you can theorize all you want that this method will cause trauma to a child. But I chose to look at the facts that I know and have seen with my own two eyes:

1. 1.) I know that five of my friends have used this method with their children. Btween those five friends there are 7 children between the ages of 2 years and 8 years old. All of their children are not only happy, secure, well adjusted children...but they are also children with really great sleep habits....which the benefits of are undeniable (sleep plays a critical role in immune function, metabolism, memory, learning, and other vital functions.)!
2. 2.) We've done small bits of "cry it out" method ever since Ella was little, letting her cry a bit before she falls asleep. We now have a child with predictable, healthy sleep habits that goes right into her crib and goes down for 3 naps a day (1 hour or more long) and bedtime by 7pm in the blink of an eye. 6-9 months old need about 15 hours of sleep between naps and night time and she gets a little more than that. She can sooth herself when need be and is blissfully happy.
   
3. 3.) And last but not least, evidence enough for me, is that Ella woke up even HAPPIER this morning than she normally does (and she always wakes up happy!).

We didn't do this method until WE were ready. I'm sure Ella was ready far before we were. But I feel so good about giving her the benefits of healthy sleep! I'll let ya know how it goes!

Kissing Fed Ex men, a Confessioin, Peas and a fun video too!

I could have KISSED the FedEx man when he arrived during Ella's morning nap to deliver the modem! Either he sensed the impending inappropriate display of affection or I took too long to answer the door. Either way he left the modem hanging on the knob and ran to his truck before I could plant one on him! Internet at my house! It's a little scary how much I love internet. Also, now I will be able to post as I think of things and you won't be subjected to large onslaughts of multiple posts at once when ever I get a chance to post all I've stored up!

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Confession: I fell off the cloth diapering wagon. When we moved I packed up the cloth knowing that disposables would be much easier during the move. And then it was just a slippery slope from there. Excuse after excuse kept coming as to why I hadn’t busted the cloth back out yet.

The primary excuse is a really good one. Right now Ella has outgrown the smaller ones - but the bigger pre-folds I got are ginormous and they don’t sell and in-between size L. But it’s time to buck up and get back to business. So I’ve come up with a solution.

I took the bigger pre-folds, cut them down to size, sewed up the edge and sewed up the edge on the scrap piece which now make great insert/doublers! Fabulous. Once again feeling good about saving money and the environment!

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Here's Ella eating peas. She really likes to hold the spoon and feed herself. Aside from shoving the spoon too far into her mouth and gagging, she does a fabulous job! She's a good little eater and I couldn't resist these pics!
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Ella plays this adorable peekaboo game....either that or she just really likes being under blankets! Have a peek:

Yardsales, visitors and rolling over!

Had our yardsale yesterday. It was HOT and sunny. Most of the traffic was in the AM so I called it quits at 1pm and took the rest to Good Will. Finally! My dinning room is clutter free! Made just enough money to go buy the under the bed storage containers on wheels that now house our shoes and extra linens. YAY! Boxes in corner of bedroom are gone!

After that I decided to spruce up all the little flower gardens that border our side of the house. Felt so good to get my hands in the dirt! Lots of weeding, some transplanting, some hedge trimming. Looks great and can’t wait till we can buy a few bags of mulch to top it off! Slowing starting to feel like home inside and outside now.

First house guests came in the evening! Tara and Jess. Yay! Missin’ the girls! They apparantly are magic because this morning as we were all sitting around watching her play I wanted to demonstrate to them how she does NOT roll over although I've been trying to teach her to all week long. Well. She made a liar out me! Every time I put her on her tummy she rolled over on her own. 6 times in the span of 20 minutes! Yay Ella!

Other updates on the babe:

We recently discovered that she LOVES drinking from my camel back water bottle!

She also loves eating. She really likes to hold the spoon and eat off of it herself. So far she eats rice cereal, avocado, sweet potato and peas. She seems to like the sweet potato and peas the best out of that bunch. Fruit will come soon and I’m sure she’ll go nuts over that!

She LOVES being outside. She still adores the jumparoo. She now plays well in an exersaucer. She still loves to lay on the floor and play with toys. She tolerates tummy time for a little longer these days and does do some mini push ups…but only when she gets aggravated!

And here's the rolling over in action!

A Few Last Tidbits....

Well, we said goodbye to Gabby with quite a bang today. I was nursing Ella when I heard gut wrenching, awful, evil meowing sounds. (Jason tried to put Gabs in a cat carrier by himself...not a good idea) Then I saw one lightning streak of black and white make a bee line for under our bed. Next, Hunter came running in beside me, head low and tale tucked between his legs. That's because he was being chased by a giant, puffed up, ANGRY Mr. Quinn (our other cat...who this morning bore an uncanny likeness to the cat pictured at left.) who was coming to Gabby's defense by chasing, hissing, growling and and beating our 65lb. golden retriever with his front paws.... Whether Mr. Quinn thought Hunter was trying to hurt Gabby or merely decided to take out his frustration on the dog because he can... is still unknown. But all of this got an immediate bottom lip reaction from Ella and she started bawling.

"Lord Help Us if this is any indication of the move to come!" Is all I could think.

After helping Jason put Gabby in her carrier he was off to deliver her. I'm at home (a.k.a. the chaos zone) finishing up some last minute things, enjoying the babe and reflecting.

She had one shot today. Didn't even cry! She's so lovey and happy all the time...except if anyone but Jason and I hold her! Oh, how I hope she outgrows that quickly! I so want others to be able to enjoy the love that she is! She is talking up a storm. She likes to make this funny sound with her throat...sometimes blows bubbles, attempts zurburts, sticks out her tongue, and is now saying "gagagaga" all the time!

Jason and I feel so loved. Scott and Esther had a bonfire at their house for us last Friday night. Four other couples that are good friends of ours came and it was the perfect last little gathering for us! Cute kids running around...good food...men being manly tending the fire...good girl talk...good discussion...much laughter...and s'mores to end the night!

On Saturday we got together with Kevin and Wendy for breakfast. We've known them for a while but not really gotten to KNOW them until we moved out here. And even though we've only been here a short time, we feel so connected to them. We have so much in common. After filling our tummies the boys went to move things and the girls stayed back. We, AS ALWAYS, had great, real, edifying, thought provoking conversation. Love it!

Sunday we were one of the announcements....they let everyone know it would be our last Sunday and expressed that they'd all miss us. Then my mom, sister and I went out to lunch to celebrate my mom's birthday, then drove around to look at camps for my mom. It is far too rare an occasion that all three of us women are together. So it was great! And then that evening our small group held a kind of going away BBQ and gave us a lovely card with well wishes.

These are the things in life that matter. These are the things that are priceless. Wonderful Family. Great friends that care about us. Great relationships. Great connections. Great conversations. Time spent together. Kind words. Help given. Love shared. Oh how blessed we are! Our hearts are full!

These are the things that are hard move further away from! O Lord I know that you go before us, making a way for us, preparing our path. Thank-you for that!

I suppose I shall be signing off for a bit. The movers come early tomorrow morning. After they are done, I will clean, and we will head down to our new place...spend the night there and greet the movers in the morning! Don't know when we'll have internet so, so long for now!

HALF A YEAR AGO!

I cannot believe I had a baby HALF A YEAR AGO! I'm feeling like I can officially no longer lie to myself by saying, "It's okay if you're not in great shape...you just had a baby". I did not just have a baby. I had a baby HALF A YEAR AGO! (Hence, I have instated some work out goals and some reasonable alterations to my eating habits that will not affect nursing!)
Just had her check-up today, where she wailed an angry little wail the whole time Dr. Jack was holding her. SO funny! She's 26 1/2 inches and 15 1/2 pounds. 75th percentile for height and 50th for weight. I'm thinking she's gonna be a tall string bean like her daddy!She is getting better at sitting up with each day. Still LOVES to bounce and she likes to practice standing while we hold her. Still not so thrilled with being on the tummy and taking her own sweet time with rolling over, pushing up and other things (however we were assured she's perfectly healthy and fine developmentally). She has great hand eye coordination and wants everything in sight! She's particularly enjoying banging and rattling things now. She gets quite excited about rattles these days. She absolutely loves to read still. She sits through multiple books, turning the pages and kicking in delight and grabbing for the pictures! She is just as adorable, and fun and lovely as ever!

A Boating We Shall Go

We decided to take Ella for her first boat ride! Earlier this week we scooted over to a pond that's 5 minutes from our house and tried out a friends motor on the back of our square stern canoe.

We slipped Ella into her hot pink super safe life vest, courtesy of my momma (thanks mom!), and puttered around. The verdict? Either she loved it or was just too tired to care.When we first put her in the life vest it was HILARIOUS. One of those had to be there things. But it was essentially like putting her in one of those sumo wrestling suits. She was all cinched in there with arms and legs just dangling out uselessly. She looks a ridiculous amount like my baby pictures in this shot of her!She just went with the flow and chilled...this is what she did the whole time:

Practicing Sitting Up and other Random Adorableness (Yes...that's a word...kind of)

Alright I get it. Nobody wants my cat. If you change your mind, let me know. Until I shall oblige you with some adorable Ella photos from the past month-ish.

Here she is practicing sitting up (5 1/2 months). She's still quite wobbly and leans forward an extreme amount but that's why we practice in the squishy chair!

Loves to grab her feet! (5 1/2 months)
Loves her jumper! (5 months) Looks like her daddy 9,000% in this picture!
Learning piano chords from Tara! (5 months)

Ella's First Food!

I wanted to wait until I was finished with work to start Ella on food. But all the signs were showing that she was ready now (almost 6 months old, learning to sit up, nursing more often, has TWO teeth, showing extreme interest in everything we eat etc. etc.) so we took the plunge!

We're just doing organic brown rice cereal mixed with breast milk for the first week, but I've whipped up some homemade batches of baby food avocado, peas, sweet potato and banana to add slowly as we go. Now she actually eats most of the cereal whereas at first it was more of a taste, spit introduction. Here's a look at our first go at it...through her eyes:


What the heck is mama doing? I've never seen that box before. Why am I in this funny looking purple thing?Oooo, whats that? Gimme that. I want that. It looks like something new I can stick in my mouth. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, gimme!
Ummm, maybe I spoke too fast. I changed my mind. I'm not so sure about this...

Daddy, what is mama doin' to me?
Wait a minute here. You might be on to something. This isn't so bad...
Oh, actually, I think I might like this...
Yup, yup, keep in comin' mama, lets have some more over here.
WHAT!? I get to hold the spoon too!?
Well, why didn't you say so in the first place...I'm sold!

Love a Good Bargain!

Sweet exersaucer: $20, Nice screw into the wall baby gate: $5, Snuggli carrier: $3, Fun crinkly rubber book: 25 cents, two bags FULL of clothes: Cheap, I can't remember the total.

Waiting in a line that wrapped around my former high school parking lot, fighting through crowds of many crazed moms, grandmothers and hormonal pregnant women, getting run into by countless strollers, and having my mom end up buying most of the stuff even in the face of my protests...PRICELESS!

Such Good Manners Already!

Aside from discovering her toes and trying to get a hold of them, drooling like a mad dog and practicing her high pitched squeals, this is our child's favorite thing to do right now:



Yup, sticking out her tongue. She does it ALL the time. Oh yes, when our pastor came over and said hi to her Sunday night she immediately stuck her tongue out at him. Sure she always does it with a smile, and sure it's super cute now, but if this is some not so subtle foreshadowing, we're in for a long haul when she's a sassy teenager!

A Real Page Turner

More videos. Yay! Here's one of Ella turning the pages in her book. We (my mom included) have been reading to her and saying, "Turn the page Ella," then taking her hand and showing her how to do it. Well, now she does it on her own! Super smart if you ask me! Okay, so she only turns them half way but I still find it quite impressive. (I know, my high pitched, super excited baby voice is in ALL of these videos. What can I say? It's instinctual. You'll just have to deal with it!)

Holy Cuteness!

Ummm, could she BE any cuter!?So Sunday after church, Ella rolled over for the first time! She got all ticked off because I put her on her tummy and she started writhing and contorting herself and getting about half way over the way she usually does. And then she got just a little extra fussy which lent itself to an unusually strong baby Uummph and boom...she flipped over. I don't think she even knew what hit her. All she knew was that she was on her back, cow toy dangling in her face and all was well with the world again! Of course we grabbed the video camera and tried to get her to do it again but no repeats thus far.

Today has been fantabulous! Ella slept great last night (She has fully transitioned to the crib in her room now). I went to mommy time, and during Ella's lovely long nap have managaed to make two casseroles to freeze, start a loaf of bread, talk to the traveling beef salesman, do the dishes, sweep the floors, clean both bathrooms, empty all the trashbaskets and write this post! Joy!

Snuggly Saturday

Life is good...
Need I say more?

Ella Updates and Life

Raspberries
Miss Ella started trying to blow raspberries at the end of last week. My mom saw it and so did Jason but then she hasn't done it since. So neat (that she's doing these things) and so hard (that I'm not there to see them) at the same time.

Long Car Ride
She recently had her first really long car ride. There were some moments of crying but overall she just chilled or slept. She did great. And there was only one poop blow out, but it made for an interesting paper towel bath in an Irving rest room :) (And yes, the poo blow out occurred wearing disposables...NOT cloth)

New Cries
The cries we did hear were new cries. They were distinctly different from any we'd heard before. It was no longer a newborn, "I need something" cry. It was an, "I'm ticked and am telling the world" cry. Interesting and quite humorous at points too!

Tummy Time & Rolling Over (attempts)
Ella doesn't really like tummy time. She tires of it in approximately 2 minutes and then gets real fussy and tries to roll over. She gets about half the way, but still can't figure out how to get that pesky arm out of the way!

Grabbing
She did tolerate tummy time a little today and even reached out and grabbed a toy that was in front of her, that was a first on her tummy!

T.V.
I'm afraid this little one takes after her mamma in that she likes to watch T.V. The little bugger hears it and cranes her head right around to try to see it no matter where she is. Consequently, her mamma doesn't watch T.V. anymore! It stays off when she's up!

Page Turner
Ella turns the pages of her board books when we read to her. At first I thought she was just grabbing them, and no she doesn't get them turned quite the whole way, but now I'm pretty convinced she's actually trying to turn them. I even got it on video. It makes sense that she's trying to copy what we've been doing with her since the day we brought her home!

Laughing
Also today, I think I heard her first laugh. She LOVES laying on her back and grabbing at dangling toys. She talks up a storm and smiles and squeals. Today amongst all of her chatter, I'm pretty sure I heard a few laughs. They were so funny! Low "hahahaha's" and a little evil sounding if I do say so myself!

Good Life!
And today is just a wonderful Tuesday. I'm relaxing, baking homemade bread, washing diapers, picking up around the house and just soaking in the moments with my babe. Every sigh, every cry, every smile, every coo, every movement and every snuggle is precious. Life is good.