Solid Food

We started little miss on solid food around 6.5 months.  She had been acting interested for quite a long time and we finally decided it was time to get our act together and let her try it out.  We should have known that little miss particular would not love the baby food.  Typically the moment you sit her in the chair and she sees what you are doing, she gets excited!  You load up your spoon and before you can even get it close to her mouth she has grabbed it.  You realize that you are going to need a second spoon because there is not a chance that you are getting the one she took back.  The second attempt at a bite of food hits her tongue.  She swirls it around in her mouth for a moment or two and then spits it out.  After a few minutes, her bib, her hands, her face, her outfit and the high chair are covered in blobs of spit out food.  She does like to feed herself Gerber puffs and Cheerios.  We have tried tiny dices of other foods (apples, bananas, sweet potatoes to name a few) and she spits those out too.  One day she will eat, for now it is more fun to spit and watch Mommy or Daddy clean.  

hello sweet baby toes! 

i don't think so

I love how she looks at her daddy.  So sweet! 

Little Mover

Ever since little sis figured out how to move, she has been on a mission.  She is a very determined little girl and her favorite thing to do is stand up.  She loves to get the boys toys, especially their cars.  In seconds she zooms to the table, pulls up and acts like she is ready to start taking steps.  Yikes!! I am hoping walking is still quite a while from now! 

look at those leg rolls!

Her next move after this is usually a step away from the table.  I might need to start wearing my running shoes around the house to keep up with her!

Just a swingin'

lil sis loves the swing!!!

Seven!

Sweet little girl, you are seven months old!  This past month was a big month for you.  HUGE!  This month you got your first two teeth.  I was shocked when they popped up.  Your brothers got their teeth around 1 year and I wasn't expecting you to get any teeth for quite a while.  Then one morning you bit my thumb and I noticed a little tooth sprouting.  A few days later a second tooth started working its way in.

little lamb, I love you so..

Another big thing for you this past month was crawling.  Baby girl you love to move!!!  You started off with a worm move and that quickly progressed into army crawling.  You learned how to get around the room to just about anything in a flash.  I love watching the look of focus and determination on your face as you try to get to a different thing or person across the room.  Typically you are trying to crawl towards a ball.  You love, love to play with balls.  If you aren't focusing in on a ball then you are focusing on a stuffed animal or baby.  You love your babies!  






































We finally got around to starting you on solid food this past month, too.  I will say you are not a fan.  We started with rice cereal, you spit it out.  Then we tried bananas, you spit them out too.  Next up, sweet potatoes and yes, you spit them out too!  After a few more failed attempts I decided to put away the solids and try again in a couple weeks.  We will see if you decide you like them a little more next time.  While you may not be too interested in solid food yet, you love spoons and you love putting just about everything else in the world into your mouth!









Next up, sleep.  Your schedule became more predictable this month.  You took three naps a day (with the last one being just a tiny cat nap).  Night time became more challenging this month.  You started a not-so-fun habit of waking up every 2-3 hours and the only thing that will make you stop crying and go back to sleep is nursing.  You didn't even wake up that much at night as a newborn.  We are working on the sleep thing and will get it all figured out soon enough!!

your sweet little pouty face..

love baby toes!!!!!

Your little personality is such a wonderful addition to our family!  When you are awake, you are usually the happiest little girl around.  You love your brothers so much and you are always very interested in anything they are doing.  Sweet girl, you are so blessed with two brothers who love you so much!  Every single day they shower you with hugs and kisses.  They bring you toys, they run to your side if you let out the slightest little whimper.  They treat you like a little princess and it fills my heart with joy to watch the three of you together.  You are content to sit and play with an animal or ball for the longest time. You light up when your brothers talk to you and you get so very excited each day when Daddy walks in the front door.


Your smile is infectious sweet girl.  I love that your right eye squints more than your left when you get really excited.  I love that I see two tiny little baby teeth in your big, huge grin.  I love how you always manage to work your tongue into your smiles.  I love your sweet little chuckle and treasure every laugh you give us.  You are not really a laugher and we have to really work to get those big belly laughs out of you Little Miss.

Three Months

My sweet little girl is 3 months old!!!  Three months have flown by.  Wow.  This month was a big month for little Miss E.  She got her first ride on an airplane (she did fantastic), got to attend her first wedding, got to meet a whole bunch of family members in the great state of Texas and she started sleeping through the night!

We had major issues with the bottle during this month as well.  Little Miss E decided that she didn't care for the bottle at all in fact.  After a whole lot of trial and error she finally found one that she would tolerate.  If you are lucky and heat the milk to the exact right temperature and give it to her at the exact right moment, she may take it.  Maybe.  She thinks the pacifier is a torture device.  She tolerates tummy time remarkably well.  She tries to shove her fists in her mouth all the time.  She is happy as long as her Momma is near.  She is a drooler (needs a bib at all times).  She still doesn't enjoy getting into her car seat.  She loves to be tightly swaddled in her Woombie.  She has never fussed during a bath and she has discovered the fun of splashing!

she turns off those big grins as soon as the camera comes out.  ha!

<3 baby toes...and I spy a little chubby chub on those legs! 

she is still my little blue-eyed girl.  Only time will tell if they stay that way or not..her eyes are beautiful though!

my tiny and new girl is getting so big!!!

She is changing every single day.  Every single day she gains strength and every day she becomes a bit more social.  She is such a joy in our family!!!  Three months have gone by incredibly fast but at the same time it seems like she has always been a part of our family.


At 3 months, Little Miss E still wears 0-3 month clothing and size 1 diapers.  She has set the record by a long shot around here.  The boys were into 6 month clothes very early on.  I am enjoying getting a bit of mileage out of her outfits!

In other news, I signed up to do a 5K when E was only a few weeks old.  The 5K was scheduled for the day she turned 3 months old.  I did a little training, got to where I could run 4 miles or so and then somehow me, the hubs and the boys all got sick.  There was no way I could run the race that day.  :( It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there were major traffic issues with the race and the group that I was carpooling with never made it to the race.  A little history, I have always hated running.  I quit soccer as a kid because there was too much running involved.  I remember in high school we had to run the mile in a certain time to be in athletics/make our team.  I despised that mile run.  In the past couple of months I have discovered a new love for running.  I feel great when I finish and I feel like a better mom for clearing my head and having something to do for myself.  My goal eventually is to complete a half marathon!  We'll see!!  Oh and in other news, at 3 months post-partum, I dipped below my pre-pregnancy weight!  Woot!!!!

2 Months!!

Ok it is November 28th and my sweet little one turned 2 months old on the 3rd.  Let's suffice it to say that this has been on my to-do list for a while.  I hope that one day my kids don't look back at the blog, number of photos or anything else in life and think that they got the short end of the stick (talking about the younger ones of course).  While I may not have time to blog every single day right now or even get out the camera, I am busy making memories with my children.  I am playing with them and hopefully offering them gifts that are much more valuable than posting a few photos on the internet.

Two months FLEW.  I blinked my eyes and the entire month of October was gone.  We spent lots of time cuddling with our sweet little girl.  She loves to be held and snuggled.  She is a great sleeper and at two months only wakes up one time per night to eat (usually around 4am) and goes back to sleep.  That said, most nights she cluster feeds from about 7-10pm and doesn't actually go to sleep until 10:30.  She loves her woombie blanket, loves to be with her Momma the most and is the apple of Little Brother's eye.  She is comfortably wearing 0-3 month clothing now and upgraded to size 1 diapers around 6 weeks of age.  She still hates the pacifier and the bottle.   I am determined to find a bottle that she will take though.

At her 2 month check-up, little Miss weighed in at 11lbs 4oz and 23.5in (50th percentile all around).  She has started to coo a bit and loves to give us big, huge grins all the time!

She is such a great joy in our lives!

all of my kids have the best lashes 

I spy a little baby chub starting!!

and that's a wrap!

One Month Old

I am really not sure how it happened so fast, but Baby Sister is a month old already.  A couple of nights ago as we were getting ready to go to bed, I looked up at Jeff and said, "Isn't it amazing how when I had 5 weeks left to go in the pregnancy that it seemed like a long time, but now Baby Girl is 5 weeks old and it has flown by in the blink of an eye."  These moments with our newborn are fleeting.  She is growing up faster and faster every day.  There might be 24 hours in a day and some of my days as a stay at home mom try every ounce of patience in my body but somehow the long hours quickly turn into days which quickly turn into weeks, months and years.  

Baby Sister is such a sweet girl.  She is a great sleeper (for a newborn) and usually is just up one time at night.  She has been that way since we came home from the hospital!  When I say she is only up once at night, that is once after I go to bed.  Jeff and I usually stay up until about 11.  She takes her last feeding between 10 and 10:30 and usually doesn't start to stir until around 3 or 4AM.  Then she goes back to sleep until around 7 or 8.  She really only cries when she is overly tired or when she gets into the car seat.  She refuses to take a pacifier and really loves to be held all day long.  

The boys adore their baby sister.  They check on her all the time, let me know when she is crying, cover her with blankets, show her her toys and offer help whenever they can.  Little Brother loves to kiss her, hold her and try to play with her.  Big Brother asks me almost daily if she has gotten bigger so they can play!  I am excited to watch their relationship with her grow through the years.  

Adjusting to life with three little ones has been easier than I anticipated.  That is not saying that it has been easy, but rather just not quite as difficult as I thought it could be.  I am letting a lot of things slide (like laundry and cooking) and the kids have probably watched more tv than normal but I figure in a month or two we will find our new normal routine and those little things will no longer be issues.  

Sweet baby girl we are so in love with you!  We are so incredibly blessed to have you in our lives and cannot wait to see what this world has in store for you!  

I bought these great monthly stickers from Etsy.  I plan to do monthly pictures of baby girl in this same chair.  

some pictures from our first few weeks with baby girl...

just a couple minutes old, getting warm with Mommy

there has been a lot of this 

and a lot of this too

First Day of School

This past Wednesday was Big Brother's first day of school!  He is returning to the same school he went to last spring and has many of the same classmates as well.  He is so excited about school this year!  I haven't gotten to do the drop off yet since I stayed at home with Little Brother and Baby Sister this past week, but from what I am told it has gone very, very well.

We really talked up school the past couple of weeks and told big bro he was SO big and got to go to school and have fun this year.  He was trying to run out the door the morning of his first day.  I hope he has this kind of enthusiasm for school for a very long time!