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 :)

2 month statistics

Here is an update from her two month well visit. She is 12 pounds 5 ounces and 23 and 1/4 long, so she is in the 75th percentile for her height and weight. She got 3 shots and one oral vaccination :( It was sad for both of us, but we got through it! I have discovered that I can be a nurse for sick kids, but being a parent (even though she was not sick this time) is much, much harder! We are having some night time issues. Although, I don't count last night since she did get shots. She has been going to bed really late some nights, I think I'm going to have to try to figure out this whole bedtime thing. I was just going with the flow because that is easy and right now I don't mind being up late since I am home with just her and me. But now I see the date I have to go back to work quickly approaching and even though its only two days a week, I am starting to think I should try to get her into a better routine. I am reading a book that uses a method that is somewhere in between co-sleeping and crying it out. I'm not ready to let her cry it out yet, so if I try anything I think I will try this method, we will see.

Today we had lunch at Angie's and some nice firemen gave Gavin and Elaina hats and coloring books :)

2 months

March 10, 2010, Elaina is two months old. Time does fly! She is becoming much more social. Right now she is a mama's girl, but Silas says it doesn't bother him because he knows he will win her over soon :) And I think he's right. She is such a smiler now. Every time she sees me she gets a big grin that just makes my heart melt every time. She is getting more and more talkative everyday. Lots of coo's. Her bedtime still remains about midnight. She won't stay asleep if we put her down before that time, so at night Elaina and I rock and she sleeps in my arms. Then at midnight I put her down and she is pretty consistent at sleeping 5 to 6 hours, which is great. Every now and then she does seven. She is not a morning baby, which I appreciate since I'm up until one almost every night. When she wakes up at 6 I usually feed her in bed with me and then we cuddle and sleep until 9 or later. I'm trying to make myself get up earlier to get things done, but it is too tempting to cuddle with my baby girl. She's making me lazy haha. She is really an easy baby and we are able to take her anywhere. She takes her longest naps while I run errands. We can take her out to eat and she will sit in her seat on the table and be pretty happy. At home though, I eat most of my meals with one hand. She takes a really long morning nap in her swing most days (if we don't sleep until 11) and after that she cat naps. I haven't figured her out schedule wise during the day. She has a pattern of eat, play, sleep, but the times aren't consistent from day to day, that's probably because our days don't start at the same time each day, but at least I know what she is going to do next, so that makes it easier to plan the day out. We go back to the doctor on March 17, but I'm pretty sure she weighs 12 pounds now! She is in size 0-3 months and three months clothing. She is growing and changing so fast, it is so fun to watch. Can't wait to see who she is! She is the best baby and we are sooo lucky to have her!

How you know you're a new mom...

I made it through the day today and thought, man, I did pretty well today. Got up earlyish, actually did a little exercising, ate 3 meals and snacks, house is decent, dinner was served, baby fed, baby bathed. I was feeling pretty good about it. Until now. It's 1030 pm and I realize not only have I not showered until now (or dressed), which is ok, we didn't need to go anywhere, but I did not brushe my teeth ALL day...GROSS. Guess you can't do everything!! She's so worth it though and she doesn't even care about my breath :)

The sphinx

This is what her dad has dubbed her because of her preferred sleeping position. It does not look comfortable. Since she was a few weeks old she has been able to work herself onto her side from her back and she curls up her legs into her chest and then tilts her head waaaay back. It looks like her head is almost touching her back.

Cord drama

Her cord has remained firmly attached and she is six weeks old! Its driving me crazy especially not to be able to really bathe her. We are still doing sponge baths. I called her doctor, who's nurse said it was OK for it to be attached and Cora asked one of the doctors at work who said its OK to take up to 7 weeks! Well, we almost made it up to that point, last night (six weeks and five days) her dad did the last cleaning before bedtime and it came off! I didn't ask any questions (hopefully he didn't pull it off) but I was just so excited and this morning we are going to have a REAL bath! whoo hoo!!!

Here she is at six weeks with a big belly...and her cord...

Valentine's Day

First Valentine's Day, and a photo shoot by mom :) She's five weeks old, its going so fast!

be mine :)

a smile...sort of.

another smile

Three and Four Weeks

Elaina is four weeks old today and continues to do great. She has been having a few nights of not wanting to fall asleep after she has eaten, which makes for a long night for mommy; but then last night she ate at 1030pm, went down around 1130 and did not get up until 5am, so that was exciting! We went on our first family outing last week. Nothing big but just the three of us went to eat at Bono's haha, it was nice and she does so good being out. I am feeling more and more back to normal, getting some energy back and am in no pain. Elaina has just been the best baby so far, we are so blessed! She also took her first bottle last week, Daddy got to feed her and she took it no problem. We are trying to do one bottle at night so Silas can feed her and so when we want to go out and when I go back to work she will take it no problem. So far so good, she doesn't seem to mind as long as she gets some milk. Just this week I think she is starting to smile at us. Its not really smile, but she looks at us and when we talk to her she gets a big open mouth sort of grin, and her dimple comes out...so cute! She is also getting more and more vocal. She does not do much cooing she does A LOT of grunting, it sounds like she is going potty all the time :)


Three weeks



Four weeks 2/7/10



four weeks

2 weeks old

Elaina is two weeks old today! She is still doing great. She is sleeping well at night, she sleeps 3 hours at a time and is starting to do a four hour stretch every now and then..hopefully those increase!! She went to her two week well check this week and is 8 pounds and 2 ounces! I think I am getting more use to her being with me all the time. I still get stressed out when I think about taking her out by myself, especially having to feed her so often, but I am trying to remember it has only been two weeks and I'm sure it will get easier the more I take her places. She is more alert now starting to really look at her toys and focusing on our faces. Here are some pictures of her at one and two weeks old.


one week






bath time




8 lbs 2 oz




napping with daddy




two weeks old 1/24/10

Elaina's Birthday

Elaina Kate Dudley was born on Sunday January 10, 2010 at 345 pm. She is a healthy baby girl!!! The first week home has gone amazingly well, thanks to all my help. Silas has fallen very hard for her and is loving being a dad. He is even taking entire night shifts so I can sleep! Can't believe how much we both already love her. Here are some picture from her first week.

A little beat up after birth...


First family photo


First time seeing mommy



First day home from the hospital