7 months old!

Elaina is 7 months old now. She is crawling...and fast!! Let the baby proofing begin, maybe should have started that earlier! oh well... She is also pulling up and cruising the furniture, she is still very wobbly though. She is babbling and her favorite sounds is "guh". This sound works for any emotion, happy, sad, angry or questioning. I think she likes that sound because she can make it without opening her mouth. She also says ba, blah, and da. She giggles on purpose to get out attention but still mostly laughs silently, occasionally giggling out loud. The day she started crawling she also started playing peekaboo, we now play that over and over and over! She has also learned to clap her hands and sometimes waves bye-bye. She is just so much fun right now, personality developing very quickly!! She seems to be very into mimicking us, and it seems everyday she is doing something new! She is defiantly sleeping through the night, which is great, although I'm sure she is about to get teeth and mess that all up!



Our typical day at 7 months-



She wakes up around 630 most days, I nurse her and we both go back to sleep in my bed until 8 or 830, we get up and she and I both eat breakfast. She usually eats 2 jars of fruit or one jar of fruit and some cereal. Most days we then go on a jog. She loves to go jogging and most of the time falls asleep. If shes asleep when we get back I put her in bed for her first nap. If she is not asleep we may stay outside for a bit or play on the floor and then she will go down soon after that. Her first nap can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours. Most days its right at an hour. I try to take a shower and straighten the house. After she gets up she nurses eats some lunch (2 jars of fruit) and we run errands or go out of the house to do something, a lot of times it lunch with Mimi. We come home and play/clean. She only takes 2 naps usually and the other one is around 4pm. This nap is also usually around an hour. I nurse her and then put her down for about an hour and I do whatever I need to do and start dinner before she gets up. After he nap she eats dinner, which 2 jars, a meat and veggie combo of some sort. Daddy gets home to play and she hangs out with him for the rest of the evening, he gives her a bath, she nurses one more time and then goes down to bed around 830. Then we start all over again... She is so easy, I'm so blessed!!

*pictures to come, but the computer is currently getting backed up so I don't want to load my new ones yet, and this may take several weeks but I though it would be silly to wait and post her 7 month update when she is 8 months!*

Beach Day

This was not your first time at the beach, but this is the first time you knew you were there! You loved every second of it and are now taking a LONG nap :)

6 months

Elaina you are 6 months! Time is flying by...At your Dr apt you weighed 16 pounds and 11 ounces (just under the 75%) and you were 26 1/2 inches long (in the 75%). You cannot sit up by yourself yet but if we sit up you can sit and play forever! You have just started to get up on your knees and rock back and forth, it is the cutest! You can scoot around on your belly, but you only go backwards, that does not stop you from getting whatever it is that you wanted though. You are a very determined little girl. I think you may have some of your daddy's personality haha. At 5 months we would sit you in your bumbo seat and you could get out of it no problem. We would find you on the floor playing next to it! As far as sleeping goes, you are still fussing it out to an extent. We put you down for naps and bedtime and you don't cry anymore but you aren't happy about it. You usually fuss for 5-10 minutes and then cuddle up with your blanket and pacey and fall asleep. The last few nights you have sleep ALL night, but I'm not expecting that to last forever, but as long as we aren't going back the every 3 hour thing I'm good. I will admit though, IF you let me or dad rock you, we always take advantage of it! :) We are suckers for some cuddle time with you! On the weekends your daddy and I like to sleep in...and so far you still let us. You get up early and I feed you and put you in bed with us and you fall back asleep for a little while and then you wake up and play between us. You pull our hair and touch our faces and we push you over to the other one and you do the same to them and they push you back. It keeps you happy and we get a few extra minutes of sleep!! You are eating 2 meals a day. Fruit and cereal in the morning and rice and veggie or meat and veggie for dinner. You LOVE to eat and there is nothing that you will turn away. Your least favorite is chicken if it is in a jar by itself, even though we mix it with something sweet like apples or carrots, you still eat it but we can tell you don't like it! Other than that you like everything!! I think you like to eat food better than nurse!

Battle for Sleep!!

So my sweet little girl who I LOVE to rock to sleep is too big for her britches. Well, maybe not, but we are battling it out with the sleep issues. The first issue is regressing back to newborn stage and waking up every three hours to eat. She has had her bad nights but for the most part is a good sleeper, and now all of a sudden she is hungry. Dad has been unsuccessful in getting her back to sleep without my having to get up as well. This makes for one tired momma and some nights a tired daddy too. I am hoping that this whole waking up to eat thing is because she is going though a growth spurt, but we will see. The last 2 nights she has slept for 6 hours so maybe I am right and we can get back to full nights of sleep quickly haha.

The second issue is how to get her to go to sleep in the first place! Now, it has been our habit to rock Elaina to sleep since she has been born. I know this is controversial as to whether you should rock a baby to sleep or not but, we have loved it. My theory was and is so far that she is only a little baby for so long and I wanted to eat up every second with her. I may live to regret that theory but so far I have not. She had never taken long to rock to sleep, before 2 weeks ago I could sit for 5 min or less and she was out. I loved it, perfect little snuggle time for us, but all of a sudden she is not wanting to go to sleep at all. When we sit down to rock her she fights it. She cries and arches back and one of us ends up holding her tightly and she eventually gives up and goes to sleep. So, rocking has ended up being an unpleasant experience for all of us and we were in search of a change. While I was at work Silas decided he had enough and if she was going to cry it out in his arms, she could just as easily cry it out in her bed. I agree with this fact, but we are both a bit wimpy when it comes to her crying alone in her room. We decided one other time to try this and we only made it 10 minutes before we scooped her up and continued with our rocking routine. At that time neither one of us knows why we even tried it because we both still loved to rock her, but fast forward to now and we are trying to be strong. As I am blogging this it is day 3 and we have remained strong. She still takes 10 to 20 minutes of fussing but at least today she hasn't even really cried. Hoping and praying that this works and she happily goes to bed for us. Otherwise, I don't know what we will do. She doesn't know this but I am sure this hurts her dad and I as much or more than it hurts her. I secretly am amused that it hurts her dad because he is full of tough guy talk, but that little girl lets out one whimper and he folds, almost every time :) For example only night # 2 of trying this and since she had done so good he thought maybe we should just rock her....um...no! then we have to start all over, right??? Oh well, it is getting better and I hope we are doing the right thing. Her 6 month well check up is coming up in July and I hope to have a great update on her sleeping status...until then we will continue to battle and see who has the stronger will :) Love my baby girl, even when she doesn't sleep!!

4 months old

Elaina is four months old! She is getting so big, time is flying by! She weighs 14.11 pounds and is 25.5 inches long. She is rolling over from her back to her belly, but she can only roll to the right so we are working on rolling the other way :) She had been sleeping through the night, giving us 6 to 8 hours, but now she rolls over in her sleep, gets stuck and wakes up!! So we are also working on rolling back over.





I have returned to work. I work two 12 hour shifts a week. Silas most often is the one who keeps her while I am there; her grandparents help us out a couple times a month. It hasn't been as bad as I thought. I think it must be easier since I am not dropping her off at daycare, I just leave her in her bed, at home, with her daddy. I really don't miss her when I am at work, but when I get home all I want to do is cuddle with her all night!





Here is a picture that Silas took of us this morning and then woke me up to show me haha!

Easter 2010

Bee Stings and Tiny Turtle

Today poor Silas got stung by a bee. We decided the bee was satan. He was talking on the phone to a friend in need, one that he had just had been praying over the night before and then thought of something this morning he wanted to share with him. While on the phone a big bee flew down in between the phone and his ear and got him. How is that even possible? His ear is now swollen 2-3 times the size of the one that was not stung. It looks so funny. Good thing it wasn't me because I would have been in my bed crying for the rest of the day. Not Silas though, he is out right now mowing the grass. I told him to come let me know if he has any trouble breathing, I think he might be slightly allergic to bees.

The inflammation continued down his neck and onto his chest.

Prior to the bee incident, he was cleaning out the pool and found a tiny turtle. It is so cute, just thought I'd share the pictures of it.

Just for fun...


Silas thinks the hair lines are very similar!! haha my poor little girl, this is right after bath time and it looks like she stuck her finger in an electrical outlet! crazy hair :)