Books Don't Belong on Bookshelves

Seriously Elsie has been sitting in front of her bookshelf for the past 25 minutes. I think she could do this all day! I am not complaining because it gives me the opportunity to get some stuff done upstairs but this is how it goes. Pull book off the shelf, examine the cover, if it looks interesting attempt to open it up. Then, toss it off to the side. Repeat until all the books are off the shelf. I am glad she knows how to entertain herself!

A Day in the Life-11 Months Old

I have done this a couple other times one 3.5 months and one at 7 Months.  You can check those out here:  3.5 months and 7 Months.  I thought I better do one now at 11 Months since I think things will change quite a bit at 12 months when Elsie will stop using bottles (hopefully :).  I know there are a lot of people who do these "day in the life" writing about an actual day along with pictures and maybe I will write one of those but for now this is just a typical day.  We have two different types of days-days I work and days I stay home.

Days I Work
Somewhere between 5:00-6:00 Elsie will wake up wanting a bottle.  Thankfully this has gotten to be closer to 6:00.  If it closer to the 5:00 time we can generally lay her back down in her crib and she will sleep for another 45 min-1 hour.  This past week so far she has slept past 6:00-Yay!  Our morning routine has changed over the past month and I love it because John is home in the morning and we all leave at the same time.  It makes my mornings way less stressful.  So John gets showered and gets dressed first and then if Elsie is still sleeping he will make his lunch, eat breakfast, etc.  As soon as he gets out of the shower then I jump in and get ready-this typically is around 6:30.  In the meantime, John gives Elsie her bottle, gets her dressed and feeds her breakfast.  Then I come down to the kitchen, get my lunch, snacks, and breakfast ready and we gather up everything we need for daycare and head out the door.  Goal time out the door is 7:15 and we have been getting pretty close to this.  I never was able to get out the door by 7:30 when John would leave early so his help really makes a difference.

I drop Elsie off to JoJo's and I try to be to work between 7:30-7:45.  I eat lunch at my desk because I want to make the most use of my time while Elsie is at daycare.  I get off work at 4:15 and pick up Elsie by 4:30.  Daycare is only about 5 minutes away but by the time I talk to JoLene and get Elsie loaded up it is at least 4:30 by the time we are back in the car driving home.  We get home and if it is nice we will go out for a walk.  It has been more difficult since it gets dark so early but if we can go right away we can squeeze it in.  Then we come home, play, and we feed her dinner which generally consists of some sort of meat and veggies. If it isn't nice out we will play in the living room with her toys and then do dinner.  After dinner we play some more...sometimes I will let John and Elsie play while I try to get some laundry in the wash or tidy up a bit.

Our bedtime routine starts around 6:15.  It starts with a bath which we now do abotu every other day.  After bath we play in her room for awhile and let her "air out" from her diaper.  John and I both try to be up there with her playing.  Around 6:40 we get her in her pajamas (white onesie, footie sleep, and Halo Sleepsack, and one of us will snuggle up in the rocker and we read books. After books one of us will give her a bottle (6 oz) and if it is me I will sing her some songs (I am not sure what JOhn does :) and when she is finished I will sing the two songs I save til last..."Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" followed by my own verse I made up and then "You Are My Sunshine".  I give her one more kiss and lay her down and she generally falls asleep soon after we lay her down.

I shut the door and head downstairs and John has begun making dinner for the two of us.  I start washing bottles and then we eat, clean up dinner, John sprays out the diapers brought back from JoLene's and my goal is by 8:00 be done with the "daily chores".  I might put in a few hours of work (since I work about 6 hours a week at home), work on  blogs, photos, etc, or I might do laundry, or other weekly cleaning, or if I am really lucky I take a nice warm bath and read.  I have noticed that rarely do

Around 10:00 we get ready to go up to bed. John in the meantime has been snoozing on the couch for a while ;).  The very last thing I do before going to bed is go into Elsie's room, put my hand on her back to check for breathing (yes I still do this), and whisper a few sweet words that I hope bring her sweet dreams.  Then I climb into bed, watch the 10:00 news, browse through a magazine, or read a book on my phone.  My goal is to be in bed by 10:30 PM.  I close my eyes, fall asleep and hope that we make it until 6:00 AM.

Days I Stay Home
Things vary slightly on the days I stay home. This will reflect what our Wednesdays look like.   Right around 5:00 AM Elsie will wake up wanting a bottle. Then we lay her back down and we both go back to sleep for another 1-1-/2 hours.  Around 7:00 she will wake up and we will play for a little bit.  Then it is breakfast time-cereal and fruit.  While she is in her high chair I will run down and throw a load of laundry into the wash.    After breakfast we will either play in her room or in the family room and I will try to fold some laundry that was washed from the night before.    Mainly this is either her laundry or diaper laundry. This can be challenging because Elsie loves to play with her clean diapers.  At this time I will also shower.  I still put her in the exersaucer outside the bathroom door and she is pretty content.  I am not sure how much longer this will last.  Around 8:30 we move up to her room if we are playing downstairs and put her laundry away in her room, tidy some things up while she pulls all the books off of her bookshelf (one of her favorite things to do).  We read a few books, I sing her a few songs and I lay her down for her morning nap which usually lasts about 45 minutes.  During naps she has been getting a blanket or one of her little monkeys and her pacifier.

While she is nappy I will go and switch the laundry and then use this 45 minutes for computer stuff. . . such as update this blog, read other blogs, send out emails, or upload photos.  I am also working on a couple of photo projects right now so this is when I try to work on them.

Around 9:30 Elsie wakes up.  I will change her out of her pj's and then let her play in her room amongst all her books while I finish getting ready for the day.  We might play some hide and seek and then we get ready to leave.  Wednesdays mornings are when we run our errands.  In the fall we would go to story time but right now it isn't offered again until January.  So we go to Hobby Lobby, Walmart, SAm's Club, etc.  Whatever we need to get done.  We are back in town by lunch so we can have lunch with John.

When we get home we have some more play time in the family room and then get ready for her afternoon nap.  I try to get her down by 1:30.  WE read, sing some songs, and she gets a bottle-about 6 oz.  Lately her afternoon nap has been lasting 1.5 hours.  While she is napping I switch the laundry again, and then use this time for either work or house work.  Whichever needs my time the most.  When she wakes up if it is nice we will go outside and play or go for a  walk.  If it isn't then we spend more time playing inside.  I might try to fold some more clothes while she is playing in the room with me.  Around 4-4:30 Elsie gets another bottle and a snack in her highchair.

John gets home around 5:30 these days and Elsie can hear his truck come and she moves as fast as she can to the back door and waits for him to open it.  It is so cute!!  She is so excited to see her daddy!  Then John takes over while I turn on the computer and work.  I have been trying to get in 4 hours of work.  John will feed Elsie, play with her for awhile, then get her ready for bed.  Bath at 6:15 PM, then the rest of her nighttime routine of jammies, stories, songs, bottle, bed.  She is out by 7:00.  John then comes down, fixes dinner, washes bottles, does the dishes, sprays out the diapers from the day if I haven't gotten around to it yet and then he gets to relax.  I work until about 9:30 PM.  Then relax for a bit or check blogs, emails, etc.  I try really hard to be in bed by 10:00 but most of the time it is closer to 10:30.  We watch the news and then drift off to sleep until our little girl wakes us up again the next day.

Thanksgiving 2012

I feel truly blessed as there is so much to be thankful for this year.  We have a beautiful, healthy little girl who is full of spunk and spirit, I have wonderful, loving, husband who is my best friend, and we are blessed with wonderful, supportive parents, the best siblings we could ever ask for, and four beautiful nieces.  To top that off we have some pretty awesome friends both here in Iowa and up in MN.  We have a roof over our head, jobs that provide and enough food in our cupboards/fridge/freezer to feed us for months! We are so fortunate and so thankful for the things we have. We celebrated this year here in Iowa with John's family.  Not only did we celebrate Thanksgiving we also celebrated the Emma and Olivia's 6th birthday! 

We had some delicious food and everyone contributed.  We filled our bellies, relaxed for awhile, had some dessert, and then played a large game of pictionary where the men beat the women.  Elsie had her own little Thanksgiving meal too-She gobble up turkey like it was going out of style, enjoyed mashed potatoes with cream cheese and butter, a dinner roll, and some cheese.  

Uncle Denny was entertaining Elsie with her little Monkey. 

Whenever Elsie is at Grandma Bev's she goes straight for these little birds.

She just loves them!

My little turkey making a mad dash.

Reading a story with Grandma Ev...she did not want to leave her at all!

Chilling with Grandpa Dale...just about time for bed.

It was a great day with great family.  Of  course I missed my family up in MN but we will have to make up for it over Christmas :).  Now we are ready to start the Christmas Season!

Elsie Marie - 11 Months

Well surprise, surprise this is coming two whole weeks late.  It has been a fairly busy couple of weeks around our house with the Thanksgiving holiday thrown in there.  As I post this think in just two weeks our little girl is going to be one!! It is just nuts to me!  Once again the weather here in Iowa was beautiful for mid November.  I was able to take pics in a long sleeve shirt, no jacket.  It was so nice.  It will be difficult to think back where so was at in the categories two weeks ago because she has changed so much in the past two weeks.  I better start to write up her 12 months post now so I won't forget where she is at :).

GROWTH
To be honest, I didn't weigh her at home and I didn't measure her height.  Since doesn't go to the doctor again until her 12 month appointment I don't have the slightest clue where she was at.  6 weeks ago she was at 18.5 lbs so I would say she is probably right around that 20 lbs mark and she appears to have grown in height but we will find out in a couple weeks.  She is in all 12M clothing with some 9-12M shirts.  She is still in size 4 shoes.  She is finally growing into some of her 12M shirts that were a little too big last month.

EATING
This past month was very similar to the month before with the amount of food she has been eating.  She did go through a week long growth spurt where she would wake up in the middle of the night and want a bottle and down it.  Overall she was taking in about 40+ ounces of formula and then a bunch of food.  I felt like she was eating non stop.  After that week she went back to normal with her 4-6 oz bottles 5 times a day.  We have really begun to work on the sippy cup but we aren't making too much progress. She will drink water out of it just fine but not so much the formula.  She does great with a straw cup and I have tried a few others.  This month we are really going to focus on it.   I am nervous that in one month it is not more bottles for her.  For food we are continuing to add more foods and more finger foods to her diet.  Most of her fruit we give her is finger food although we are still trying to use up the baby food we have.  New foods this month:  beef, blueberries, cantaloupe, cinnamon, noodles, corn, oh I am sure there are others but I just can't remember right now.  I did not get enough courage to do the egg noodles this past month (we have done it in the last week now though and no reaction!  YAY!).  Elsie's favorite things to eat are yogurt, toast, and cheese...she loves cheese!!  She does't like puffs anymore...I think she must be tired of them.  Gerber level three meals-I don't think she likes the pureed with the little chucks.  She either likes finger food or purees.

Typical Feeding Schedule

6:00 AM:  6 oz bottle

6:45 AM:  oatmeal and fruit

10:00:  4-6 oz bottle/snack

12:30ish:  Lunch-yogurt, veggies or fruit

1:30:  6 oz bottlle

4:30:  4 oz bottle with a snack, mostly cheese when at home :)

5:30 PM:  Dinner-some sort of meat in pureed form, veggies, avocado, etc.  

6:45:  Bedtime bottle-6-8 oz.  

SLEEP

This was another great month of sleep.  There was a week or so where she was up eating in the middle of the night and then another week where she had a cold going on and would wake up when she would cough but other than that she has been sleeping pretty good.  She still is in bed asleep by 7:00 and still goes down wonderfully.  We are still following the same routine before bed.  Naps have been pretty consistent too.  She has been taking a little bit longer to lay down for her naps (especially her morning one and it never fails, right after I lay her down she gets a poopy diaper and gets up.  So I just change it and lay her back down.  She goes down for her morning nap around 8:30 and sleeps no longer than 45 minutes now.  Her afternoon nap begins between 1:30-2:00 and typically is at least and hour and half so this has been consistently longer.  I have been trying to to stress too much about sleeping.  To be honest, for these last 11 months she hasn't slept on the same schedule consistently for more than 4 weeks.  She likes to surprise us :).  I will say she rarely comes and sleeps in our bed anymore.  If she wakes up early for a bottle we will give it to her in her room and then lay her back down and she will sleep for at least and hour to an hour and a half longer.  Wake up times are getting closer to 6:30-7:00 when this happens.  

Look at that hair . . . it is finally growing in! 

DEVELOPMENT

Last month I said Elsie was so much fun but this month I would say she is even more fun!  She has officially started walking taking her first steps back on October 28th.  It was just two steps but now she is all over the place.  It is so much fun to see her becoming more and more daring with how far she goes and what she walks to.  Check out this Walking Post which includes a video of her going.   She is continuing to master many of the skills she has learned in the past month.  She has begun to sign milk but sometimes will use it when she wants more of something.  And she is a pointing machine.  She points at EVERYTHING!  The minute we get her out of her crib her first thing to do is find something to point at which then we can tell her what it is.  

TEETH

No new  teeth this month so she is still at the four on top and four on the bottom.  

SPEECH
I don't think I have had a specific section regarding speech for Elsie's montly updates but this month I feel like it is necessary since she is really developing with her speech.  Elsie has been saying "mama" and "dada" for the past few months but lately she has added more to her vocabulary.  Some words she says on her own, others she will repeat. Beside mama and dad she is now saying "hi" and will put whatever she is holding up to her ear, she says "uh-oh" when she drops her spoon, sippy cup, puffs when she is in her high chair, and the one I am the most excited about is "woof, woof".  Whenever I say dog or doggy I always add a "woof, woof" at the end.  She first started out repeating it after I would say it, then a week or so later I would say "dog or doggy" and she would add the "woof, woof" on the end well about two weeks ago Cinder walked by and without any prompts from us she said "woof, woof".  It was so exciting for us haha.  Besides those words of course there are sounds she makes that we think are words.  She is trying to say kitty (makes a ki sound).  And she repeats quite a bit of the sounds we make.  Also, she knows what we are talking about...I will ask her "Where's your Doggy?" and she will point right to her stuffed dog or go and get it.  The same is for her kitty animal, her monkey, and her bunnies.

PLAY

This is a new category but I thought it would be a great place to highlight her favorite toys, what she likes to do, etc.  Right now Elsie LOVES her stuffed animals.  It is so cute.  We will ask her where her animal is and she will find it, grab it and give it hugs and kisses, pat it and say "ohhhh".  She just loves to snuggle with them.  As you can see in the photo below.  She totes these little monkeys around everywhere.  She still loves to read, she loves to play hide and seek only now she likes to be the one who hides, and she still enjoys playing with her little octopus hide and seek toy.  She still loves being outside and climbing.  She keeps us busy to say the least :).  

It was another great busy month, especially with all the fall activities that we took part in.  We were able to spend a lot of time with our friends and family and enjoying the beautiful weather.  We went to the orchard a couple times, did the Race for the Cure and did a couple of halloween activities.  I am looking forward to the next month and starting some great Christmas Traditions as a family!  

Having fun playing with the neighbor boy Wyatt!

Celebrating Halloween

DOWNTOWN TRICK OR TREAT

Elsie had a great time celebrating her first Halloween.  The Friday before Halloween we had a downtown trick or treat where businesses on Main Street passed out candy.  It is normally SUPER busy but this year it was a little chilly and I thought it was pretty quiet.  We didn't really take any candy but we did get a cheese stick and a free photo from the local photography shop.  We walked around with our friends and had a great time participating in this tradition in the community.  

Ha Ha None of the kiddos look too thrilled in this pic! 

Beggar's Night Trick or Treating-Passing out Candy

We decided not to go trick or treating during the community wide trick or treat because Elsie really didn't need any candy so we hung out at home instead and passed out candy.  Elsie loved watching the kids out the door run around from house to house.  She was fascinated by them all.  It was really fun to watch her get so excited.  We also let her play with the candy a little bit and she would take each piece out one after one.  She ended up chewing on one and got her first little taste of chocolate. 

Elsie's 2012 Halloween Costume-Our Little Elsie Flower

Since we didn't go trick or treating I wanted to get some pictures of her in her costume.  I think she enjoyed wearing it :)

Walking Around

Two weeks ago Elsie took her first steps.  We were up in her bedroom and she took two steps away from her exersaucer to me.  I called John in and he didn't believe me since she wouldn't do it again.  And she didn't until two days later at JoLene's.  She took two more steps.  Slowly she has gotten more and more brave and now two weeks later she has really taken off and is walking all over the place.  It is so fun to see her take five, six, seven steps.  She gets so excited too!  I just LOVE it!  It has been so fun to see her changing every day!  

Fall Fun

Elsie LOVES being outside and she is fascinated with leaves she has been pretty good about not putting the in her mouth unless they make it in the house and then all bets are off.  I think she could spend the whole afternoon outside which I love.  

Looking for her daddy who was around the corner.  

I can't believe it is November already!  Happy November and enjoy the last month of fall.  I think I will be decorating for Christmas in a couple weeks though!  I don't think I can wait for after Thanksgiving!  

DSM Race for the Cure 2012

This past weekend we participated in the Des Moines Area Race for the Cure.  It was my first time participating in it since Fall of 2008, I was so busy working weekends it never seemed to work out.  I was exciting too because Elsie could walk in it.  Most of you know that my mom Bonnie is a two time survivor of breast cancer so this cause means a lot to me.  I have done the Minneapolis Race for the Cure as well as the Susan G. Komen 3-day walk with my cousin.  Each time I walk I get pretty emotional.  There are so many women who have been diagnosed by breast cancer; my mom, my great aunt, my friend Randi's mom, quite a few of my mom's friends/coworkers, my friend Kaci's mom, and women in our community.  I feel like I hear way too often of someone else being diagnosed.  It is so sad.  Some have won the fight and some have lost the battle.  Walking 3.1 miles is the least I can do to spread the awareness of this disease.  

It was a chilly morning...in the low 30's.  However, by the end it was such a beautiful morning and we were all bundled up and warm, if only Elsie would keep her hat on.  

Elsie did her first 5k and raced in celebration of her Grandma :)

All cozy taking her morning nap.  I did get upset during the walk though.  This one lady walked past us and complained about all the strollers.  How frustrating to hear because all these little kiddos are affected by breast cancer too.  

Me, Amber, and Hillary

I walk for my mom, and all the women that have battled this disease.  I walk for myself, Elsie, my sister and sister in law, my nieces, my aunts, my cousins, all my friends, and all our little girls and pray that one day, breast cancer will be a thing of the past.