First Time on an Airplane

This post is a little out of order, but we took these photos on Daddy's camera, and there always seems to be a slight delay before I get them posted.  Here are some pics from the first flight.  Interesting note: we almost didn't get on the flight because Mommy was so busy getting everything packed that she didn't bother to read the airline guidelines.  We were supposed to have a birth certificate and forgot it at home.  Luckily, the supervisor took mercy on us and issues the pass, since Little Miss was obviously under 2 years.  Gotta love the South.

Before: (we had some issues with blinking and the flash, so there isn't a great shot of the two of us)

 

After: Our flight left at 5:30.  This was a perfect time to mess with our afternoon nap and bedtime.  I thought that disturbing the nap might work in our favor, making her really tired for the flight and, hopefully, helping her sleep.  However, she was so overstimulated that she spent all of the time at the airport and a large portion of the flight looking around and exploring the seat.  Luckily, it wasn't a super crowded flight and we were able to get the entire row to ourselves.  Also luckily, she was in a nursing mood for takeoff which I think helped with equalizing her ears.  By the end of the flight she just couldn't fight it anymore and this is what she looked like.

 

I certainly love me a cuddly baby:)  Overall, I'm not going to say that she was perfect on the flight, because she did cry.  However, she didn't really scream and the crying wasn't nearly as bad as her potential.  I'm going to call it a success.

Baby in a Box

Because we don't have all our toys down here, we're having to be creative with ways to entertain Little Miss.  We came across a large box in a closet and put Sugar Pop in there to see what she would do...

First, she peered out and was proud of her accomplishment.

 

 

 

Then, she watched something in the distance.

 

Apparently, it must've been good, because it warranted her sticking her tongue out at it.

Bird's eye view.  Look at her hair coming in!!

 

I'm not so happy anymore.  Please take me out so I can move around.

 

And thus concluded our session in a box.

Who Needs Pants?

We've traveled with Little Miss before, but only for weekends, or only to places where there was baby stuff on the other end. This was our first trip on an airplane, meaning we couldn't bring every baby creature comfort under the sun like we normally do. I have no idea what this has to do with anything, so I'm just going to get to the point. We didn't have a changing table for Little Miss, so we've just been putting a pad down on the floor and changing her there. Except now that our little pumpkin is crawling and in a new space, she no longer wants to sit still for diaper changes. We may be able to get the new diaper on her, but she keeps flipping over and wiggling around when attempting to redress her. On this afternoon I realized that we were currently in a warm climate which didn't necessitate pants. So, I did what any lazy parent would do and followed the path of least resistance. Little Miss spent the afternoon exploring the condo without pants on, and we were all happier for it.

Florida, Baby!

Tio Daniel is getting married, so our family ventured down to Florida.  The family has a condo down here, so to make the most of our trip down South, we decided to add on a few days and enjoy the warm weather.  What great timing, as 'polar vortex: the sequel' is rearing its ugly head back home.  Yes, we traded in winter coats and shivery strolls for nice sunny walks in the stroller.  I've been coming to the condo since I was a child and there's a pond where we used to feed the ducks.  We took Little MIss, but we forgot to buy bread.  Didn't matter, the ducks came over to check us out anyway.  I decided that my cutie pies were cuter than silly old ducks, so I just focused on them in the photo.

 

Then I had to get a closeup of my baby.  Look at those gorgeous baby blues.

 

The thing I love about coming down to Florida in the winter time is that it's always so green here.  I miss seeing green grass.  It's a nice reminder of what's to come if I can just hold on for a few more months up North.  

Outside My Window

As Little Miss continues to crawl and explore, she's begun to look behind things. She's discovered that there are two windows she can get to behind the recliner. She likes to pull up on the windowsill and look outside. Unfortunately, there's not a lot for her to see out there. There's a patio area, some hoses and a tree with no leaves. This side yard is definitely no/low maintenance, but it's also no/low appeal. Hopefully when Spring rolls around I'll be able to see what's really out there and start making some changes. I want baby to have a view....mama, too.

Daddy Daughter Nap

Hubs and I love the weekend. Even though Little Miss didn't get the memo that it means sleeping in, we usually are able to trade off so that one of us can get some extra sleep. I will admit that when our precious baby awoke at 6:25 am, it was my turn to get up with her. But I was warm and cozy and didn't want to. Neither did hubs. As Little Miss fretted in the next room, he and I began a rousing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who would get up with her and who would sleep. I won! Back to bedtime snuggles under the warm, warm blanket.
About an hour later I was ready to get up for good. I noticed it was quiet downstairs, but I thought they went to play in her play room to keep things nice and quiet for me. Nope, I came downstairs and these two were passed out on the couch. At this point I was actually a little jealous of hubs getting to sleep with her. She doesn't usually/ever cuddle up like that and fall asleep with me. I'm trying to collect as many pictures like these as I can because they're just so sweet and time like this is limited. We have to enjoy this while we can- even if it means having to wake up early on the weekend.

Rawhide!

We knew that once Little Miss became mobile she'd get into all sorts of stuff.  However, I don't think we were prepared for what exactly she'd get into.  Sure, she plays with her own toys, but she seems keenly aware of Huckleberry's as well.  One of her favorites of his- a rawhide.  She loves to play with it, and eat it if she can get to it before we do.

 

Gross, right?  It feels as if hubs and I are always monitoring where she is vs. the rawhide.  Unless she comes over while Huck is directly chewing on it (which has happened), he doesn't seem to mind sharing.  I'm ready for this phase to pass.  On a related note, I'm thinking of starting a 'blackmail' file in my photos to pull out at an inopportune moment one day. 

TGIF- The Tongue Edition

Little Miss is very expressive with her tongue and never shies away from using it.

Her Own Meal

Hubs and I decided to go out for dinner last night and Qdoba is one of our favorite places. When we got there we began the discussion of what to get for Little Miss. If she sees us eating, she wants some and it's not fair to make her eat puffs while we get an entire meal. I reasoned that mine had meat and didn't want to share mine. Hubs usually gets a 3 taco meal and I asked for one of his to be vegetarian for her, but he said he was hungry and didn't want to share. Finally, we realized that the only solution for us was to get her her own meal. We decided that a quesadilla would be fine and then hubs got veggies on one of his tacos so we could share them with her. There was a lot of her meal left over that she'll be able to have for lunch today, but it struck me that this was the first time that we ordered a meal just for her. Looks like our restaurant bills are about to go up.

Bottle's Up!

Usually around 6 months babies begin to hold their own bottles at feedings. Little Miss loves to be in control of eating food at the table, but for some reason she hasn't been interested in holding her bottle. Hubs works with her when he feeds her at night and tonight he was finally able to get her to hold the bottle for an extended period of time. If she dropped it down, she wasn't able to put it back up, but with some help she was able to hold it in position. I have to admit that it's been nice to not have to worry about her taking the bottle everywhere and making a mess, but I know that this is a normal stage in her development. At 8 1/2 months, I'll say better late than never.

Running Makes me a Better Mother

In an effort to reclaim my shape and get some alone time, I signed up for the Indy Mini at the beginning of May. I've run this half marathon several times before. It's great- it's well orgainzed, flat, and a lot of fun. But that means that I have to start running. Since the new house has a greenway right at the entrance to our neighborhood and it's completely safe and relatively well-lit, I have no excuse not to run. I've been out twice alone, once with a running group, and once with hubs and Chickadee. I'm so far from where I once was, but each time I get out I'm so happy. I feel like an adult again able to have adult conversations. Or if I'm alone, it's nice to just look up at the moon, look at all the neighborhoods I pass by and get lost in the music.
Last night I planned to run, but when hubs got home not feeling well and it was already dark, I thought I'd skip it. He encouraged me to go out. I was already wearing the clothes, I have a race to train for and I had no excuse, so off I went. It was one of my best runs in a long time. I came back beaming and must've thanked hubs for encouraging me out the door about 20 times. Doing something for me, just for me, makes me feel really good. And once I got home, I was more enthusiastic about playing with our little lamb than I was all day. Even though I'm out of shape, I had so much energy afterwards. Plus, my running shoes made great entertainment for Little Miss. I think she's still baffled as to why the laces wouldn't untie for her. I'll teach her about double knotting someday.

Counter Surfing

Anyone who I've talked to about the house has heard me mention how big the kitchen is. It's pretty big and has a MASSIVE island. The other night we were hanging out in the kitchen when daddy got tired of holding our little muffin. He put her on the counter to chill. I'm not sure if this gives you some perspective as to how big it is or not, but I think she enjoyed the higher view and we could have her up there sitting without worrying about her falling off an edge. It only lasted a minute, but it was a novelty for her. I can't wait until she's big enough for a learning tower against the island so we can work in the kitchen together.

A Double Date

This weekend we got Uncle Jon to trek out to the suburbs to visit us and see the new place.  We found one local restaurant and decided to try it out for dinner.  It was really busy and there was only a tall table available so I'm really glad we had the high chair that clips onto table tops with us.  Here's Little Miss sitting next to daddy:

Eating out is a different experience because now we have to order things that we can share with Butterbean.  That night's entree was noodles.  She liked them.

 

Right next door was a marble slab creamery so, naturally, we stopped there for dessert.  Uncle Jon held her and tried to share some of his milkshake with her before we stopped him.  

 

We want her first sugar rush to be from her birthday cake.  After that we went back to the house and it was bedtime for little Miss while Uncle Jon and I chatted downstairs.  It was a good night and we're grateful for friends who make the effort to come visit us.  

 

Baby's First Ride

Sunday's temps were just as nice as Saturday's so to continue on our outdoors weekend, we decided that I would run on our neighborhood greenway and hubs would accompany me on his bike with baby in the trailer behind.  Like the hiking backpack, we scored this trailer at our local bargain store for a cool $16.  (I still walk around the house smiling about the deal we got.)  Hubs got the trailer assembled and put on his bike and we loaded baby in.  Here are some before shots.

 

It worked really well and Little Miss enjoyed the ride.  So much so that it put her right to sleep.  She fell asleep sometime on our trip back to the neighborhood.  To maximize the nap, I walked and hubs rode around the neighborhood when we got back.  Finally, we decided to park the bike in the grass near the driveway and work in the garage while she snoozed peacefully.  That didn't last too long before she woke up.  

The only problem we foresee is that the trailer isn't really compatible with her bike helmet.  When we put it on, the excess helmet in the back stuck out so much that Little Miss couldn't really sit upright.  She began to cry and so we decided that for this ride on a greenway separated from cars we would risk riding without a helmet.  It's not a long term solution, but we'll have to keep thinking about the best way to address that so she can be as safe and comfortable as possible.  

Hiking with the Kids

This weekend the temps got up to the high 50's.  After last week's polar vortex below freezing temps, we decided to make the most of it and get out as a family.  Hubs and I scored a hiking backpack for a deal at a local bargain store; this was the perfect opportunity for its inauguration.  We grabbed puppy, put Little Miss in the car seat and drove to our local state park.  Due to rain at the end of the week the trails were incredibly muddy, but we managed to have a good time.  We didn't really get any full family shots, but I did get this one of my two cuties.

 

She doesn't look too happy here, but she does enjoy riding through the woods, I promise.  At one point we deviated from the trail a bit to check out the lake.  We got this picture of myself with Huck.

Because of all the mud we didn't do the entire loop- we'll save that for a nicer day, but it was nice to get out as a family and explore our natural park.  It makes me think that life in the suburbs won't be too bad. Oh, and the backpack is hubs approved.  He thought it was pretty comfortable and it has plenty of room for baby to grow.  Hopefully we'll get to take it on lots more outings in the future.

The Play Room

In the new house the master bedroom is downstairs.  Someday this will be great, but currently hubs and I are sleeping in an upstairs bedroom so that we can be closer to baby for all those middle of the night wakings.  The master bedroom is HUGE and it seemed a waste to simply make it a guest room.  In an effort to try to maintain some cleanliness in the family room, we thought it'd be a good idea to make the master bedroom a play room.  We have most of her toys in there and just a few in the family room.  It does keep things neater, but with a baby things are never really clean.  The other day I was cleaning up the kitchen and realized I couldn't see Sweet Pea.  I went to the master doorway and this is what I saw:

Little Miss made her way into the play room and found things to play with on her own.  Yay- freedom!  Here she is choosing another activity: 

 

I'd like to organize the room more with shelves and have a rotating toy structure, but that's a bit beyond me at the moment.  We will get there, we will be organized, and we will teach her to put things away after herself.  2 out of 3 isn't bad, right?

 

These are a few of my Favorite Things

These days our Pumpkin loves lots of things. However, Huckleberry and standing top the list. Huck can often be found on the recliner, especially if the pillow has fallen down to give him extra cushioning. Several times now our little munchkin has crawled over there, pulled up and tried to pet him. It's really sweet. Except when she's' a bit rough and he growls at her. Not so sweet. We currently have lots of opportunities to learn about being 'gentle' where Huck is concerned. Anyway, here's a cute pic of a recent visit she paid to him.

The Scales Have Tipped

Last week we took both kiddos to their Dr's. Huck was due for his annual shots and Little Miss had a cold that just wouldn't go away. Both were weighed. Huck came in at 22.6 lbs and Little Miss weighs a cool 23.0 lbs. It's official- Little Miss is now bigger than Huck! He best start respecting if he knows what's good for him.

It Was Only a Matter of Time...

We knew that Little Miss would crawl and pull up on things, because that's what all babies do.  Fortunately, this house has a built in media center.  It's nice to have a dedicated spot with lots of plugs to put your AV stuff.  All of a sudden we have components out at this house that I never saw at the old one.  Hubs says that it's going to alter the way I watch tv.  I think it's just a bunch of black boxes that are taking up valuable space where I could be putting baby's toys.  Baby may have found the solution to this, because, unfortunately, she's turning the components into her toys.  

 

Hmmm...what to do?  Hubs is talking about putting cabinet fronts on to keep her out, but I wonder how that will work with the sound and access for the remote control.  In the short term, I think it's just going to mean we have to watch Little Miss Curious very closely to make sure she's not playing too rough.

What do we have here?

The other day I was working in the kitchen when I heard an odd clanking sound coming from the family room.  When I went to investigate, I found Little Miss Curious playing with one of Daddy's soda bottles that she fished out of the recycling bin.  She even tried to drink from it, so she must've been watching Daddy closely.  If only she would hold up her own bottle to drink her milk...

There's a Hummus Among Us!

We're trying to be very thorough in the food options that we give Little Miss Hungry, while following appropriate age restrictions on some foods. We're not going to give her meat for a while and this greatly restricts what we can get for her when we go out to restaurants. Luckily, we went out to a restaurant that had a hummus appetizer. Score! We snapped that up and had a new food for Butternut to try. She loved it. She was already familiar with cucumbers and ate those with hummus on them, but after a while we just skipped to the main course and let her eat the hummus by itself. It was messier, but she was a happy baby. And we all know that if baby's not happy, no one's happy.

New Year, New Start

You may notice that the blog looks a little different.  I decided that I wanted to change the theme each year to mark a fresh start.  That's not the only fresh start of the year.  New house, new neighborhood, new goals, and plenty of new adventures to be had.  Since I thought my last house was my 30 year house and was horribly wrong, I'm not going to assume that this will be our 30 year house either, although there's certainly room to grow.  I wanted to find a way to mark where we were as a family when we moved and I came upon this idea:  put Anna in a moving box on our front porch.  Voila:

 

She doesn't look the happiest, but it wasn't exactly warm outside when we took the photo.  Can you believe my baby fits inside a copy box!!  I then realized that you can't really get the whole idea of the scale of the house, so I took this:

 

I like that the reindeer is also on the front porch so it can remind us what season we moved in on.  Don't you also love the huge wardrobe boxes in the upstairs windows?  Hubs and I used them for privacy for about a week before we figured out a curtain situation.  True story.  This year has already been full of adventures, so let's get started and I'll share what we've been up to.  

Happy 8 Month Birthday, Butternut!

It's so hard to believe that I've already been a mother for 8 months. There are days that I just watch her in amazement at what she can do now. She crawls all around the house and explores everything. She definitely knows who her parents are and loves to cuddle with us. She also loves giving kisses, which involve placing her wet, open mouth somewhere on your face and licking. They're very sloppy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
This month brought a lot of change. We started the month up north and then came home to pack up the house and move across town. During this time she learned to sleep in her crib in her own room, crawl, clap, and pull up. It's amazing how fast she's growing up. Here's the month, by the numbers:

Diaper Size- 3
Bum Genius- Still 3 snaps on the middle, buttoned on the middle rise
Clothes Size- more 9-12 months than 6-9 months :(
#oz drunk/day- 5 6 oz bottles a day and we give her a 4 oz bottle during the night
Road Trips- 0, but Grandma came for several weeks and Papaw came to help one night
Favorite things- books, eating, Huckleberry
Things that make her laugh- dancing, kissing her tummy, tickling the side of her neck, petting Huck
Foods Tried- cucumber, biscuit, cornbread, raisin bread, boca chicken patty, water chestnut, green beans, red peppers
New Discovery: crawling, clapping, pulling up
# teeth- still 2
Biggest Challenge- getting her to take 2 decent naps on a regular basis
Biggest Success- Sleeping in her crib in her own bedroom!
Sweetest Thing- after finishing a bottle, Little Miss always turns around for a cuddle. She likes to fall asleep cuddled into us, then be transferred to her crib
Animal Impersonations-
1. turtle- if she somehow falls on her back, she just cries until someone picks her up or helps her roll over. She's forgotten how to roll over on her own.
2. chipmunk- she likes to store food in her cheeks. It can be quite a while later before you can get her to open up her mouth enough to see that there's still food.

Let's Bang in the New Year!!

The new house is providing many new opportunities to explore.  Underneath our cooktop are some shelves.  I'm storing our pots and pans there because I think that it's a handy place to access them.  It's also handy for Little Miss Curious.  I mentioned earlier that Little Miss now likes to be where we are and that often includes the kitchen.  The pots and pans make for great entertainment.  At first she played with the metal on the handles that can be used to hang them.  However, that quickly progressed to moving them off the shelves, sticking her hands in them and banging.

 

 

(Side note: You can see my baby pulled up below.  What?!)

 

(Side note: Sugar Pop is becoming very expressive with her tongue.  You can get a glimpse of that below.)

 

It's all fun and games until someone puts her hand in the soup pot and then doesn't know how to get it out.  This elicited quite the panic until Mommy came to the rescue.  We hope that you had a happy new year.  We did absolutely nothing to celebrate.  After putting Little Miss down we planned to pull out a bottle of Vueve and light up the new fireplace.  Instead, I had a headache and was in bed just after Little Miss.  It's amazing how quickly the choice between sleep and staying up until midnight can be made these days:)

Long Hunter Hike

The good thing about living in our current location is that we're very close to a state park with lots of walking trails.  One of my mama friends brought her baby and we went for a hike early this week.  At one point her baby was being a bit fussy so we had to pull to the side for a little feeding.  I used the time as an opportunity to do a little photo op with Little Miss.

 

Not a fantastic pic, but I think it did a good job of commemorating the moment.  Turns out that Little Miss wants to be in motion.  She only tolerated my attempts at pictures for a little bit before she demanded I start walking again.  Fortunately, my friend had a similar idea in mind and snapped this pic of the two of us.

 

I love it!  The only evidence you see of Sugar Pop are her pink legs sticking out.  Trust me, she was there.  All 20+ lbs of her.  It was cold, but we kept a brisk pace and had a really nice hike.  I hope to get out there at least once a week.  I have no excuse living only 10 mins from that beauty.

Puppy Love

The love affair between Huck and Little Miss continues.  When we let Huck outside to do his business, Little Miss sometimes goes to the door to watch.  They stare lovingly at each other until I let him in.  Here she is crawling away because I couldn't get to my camera fast enough.

 

Like all love affairs, this one is evolving and is becoming a bit contentious.  Little Miss has discovered his food bowls, you see.  

 

She loves going over to them and playing.  Puppy does not approve of this. at. all.  When he notices her crawling in that direction he runs over there and tries to eat his food quickly.  He's also started growling.  We're trying to break him of the habit, but aren't having any luck thus far.  I tried taking the food bowls up whenever she crawled over there, but that resulted in them both hunting the floor for any kibble that fell out.

 

Mostly, she enjoyed playing in the water bowl.  My mom and I were mopping water off the floor several times a day.

 

Finally, I conceded defeat.  I couldn't see an end to the stalemate in sight and I didn't want to keep correcting Huck or cleaning up the water bowls.  I moved the bowls to another room which seems to have fixed the issue.  I know that in the whole scheme of things this won't be an issue for long, but it sure is amusing.