Proud to Introduce . . .

My beautiful new niece Piper Lynn born on Monday August 27th at 2:16 pm. 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. Congratulation Tami, Derick, and Allie. She is beautiful and we can't wait to meet her!!

Elsie Marie 8 Months

Another month has gone by and boy was it a busy one in the milestone development.  She is getting so big, is getting such a personality, and is no longer just a little baby that will lay there and cuddle. John said to me, "Can you believe how big she is getting?"  My response was,"No I can't but I am sure we will say that so many times in her life like when she starts walking, goes off to kindergarten, gets her driver's license, goes on her first date, goes off to college, gets married and on and on and on.  And one day she will have a little baby of her own."  It is so crazy to think about that so lets just focus on today right?  As you can see from the pictures they are a little different from our "normal" monthly pictures.  I had such a hard time because the whole time she was go go go!  Crawling, pulling up, trying to find something else to get into.  It was a yucky day outside so I tried to take the pictures inside and the lighting was horrible and with her moving so much there was so much blur. You will also notice I had to put her sticker on her back since I hardly got any front shots since she was crawling all over the place.   I have a feeling these next few months will be a lot like this :).

Elsie weighs a whopping 18 lbs,3 oz.  She is about 28.5" in length. These are not 100% accurate.  I used the Wii this time for weight and of course she is so wiggly so it is hard to get her length by herself.  She has grown so much!!! I went shopping over the weekend and am having such a hard time figuring out what size to buy her.  She used to be true to size but now with her length I am having to go up a size so that her pants will fit her!  She can still wear some 3-6 month tops (not onesies), she is in 12 month onesies and 9 month pants.  Her sleepers are getting a little tight on length for her.  They are 6-9 months.  I did put on a Gap 6-12 month pajama the other day but they were a little long for her.  The other day I watched her playing with something in her crib on the video monitor but had no idea what it could be since she was supposed to be the only thing in the crib.  When I went in to get her the feet of her sleeper were all wet.  Well she pulled her feet up out of the feet of the sleeper so she could suck on the sleeper. Crazy Girl!

Elsie has been eating like a champ.  She drinks 5 bottles a day with about 4-6 oz in each bottle.  She is eating solids twice a day once in the mid morning and once around 5:00 PM.  Breakfast is normally cereal and fruit and dinner is normally two kinds of veggies.  Just this past week we started the transition to three meals a day.  So far so good. I am mainly just worried how we are going to have time to feed her a bottle when she wakes up and then breakfast before leaving for daycare.  We shall see I guess.  In addition to what she was eating last month she is now eating apricots, peaches, mangoes, green beans, winter squash, and puffs.  She LOVES to eat puffs and has gotten pretty good at picking up those little things.  Well, it is official.  I am done pumping so Elsie is not longer getting any breastmilk.  My last day was on Wednesday August 1st.  I am pretty proud of myself for lasting that long.  My goal was 6 Months and I made it 7.5 months.  I do have to say it is nice to be done and not have to worry about finding time to do it.

Well sleeping has been once again a little bit of a challenge for all of us this past month. Elsie was such a good sleeper right up until she turned 6 months.  Now she wakes us a couple of times a night crying out and she winds up sitting up in her crib.  Most of the time when we go in there we will put the pacifier in her mouth and she immediately topples over and falls right back asleep.  It is kind of humorous to watch.  It was like it was taking everything she had to sit up and then she immediately relaxes as soon as that pacifier is in her mouth.  There are a few times that she will wake up more and it takes a little bit more coaxing (or time with her little lovey blanket ) to fall back asleep.  I am still not keen on things in her bed with her so once she does fall asleep I go back in there and take it out of the crib.  The worst time of the night is during the 4:00am hour.  She will wake up and sometimes will not go back to sleep and she eventually ends up in our bed between John and I and sleeps until we wake up around 6:00am.  I am not sure what we are going to do with her.  I do have to say she goes to bed really well and we are set into our bedtime routine.  Bath (if it is bath night), pjs on, read, sing, bottle, bed.  I am sure I will eventually need to change this so that the bottle isn't the last thing but I don't think I will cross that bridge until we have to ;).  As for naps, at home she is pretty good about a 45 minute morning nap and then anywhere between 1-2 hours in the afternoon.  Some days it is a challenge to get her to nap and other days she goes right down.  She likes to keep things interesting.  

As I mentioned earlier, Elsie is EVERYWHERE.  She loves to just go, go, go.  Developmentally, it has been a huge month for her.  She started "officially" crawling, pulling herself up, walking along the couch, she got two teeth, she is getting pretty good at picking up her puffs with her thumb and index finger (pincher grasp), has a good understanding of object permanence (she looks for objects that I hide), loves to give kisses, is starting to wave bye-bye, and is jabbering like crazy.  I also think she is starting to understand the word "no".  She stops what she is doing, thinks for a minutes, grins and then goes back to what she wanted to do in the first place.  I guess we have to work on that.   

Beside all the milestones she has reached this month she has been pretty busy.  We went to three different cabins (Lake Rathbun, Ia, Puckaway Lake, WI, and Lake Okoboji, IA).  We have been continuing to go to storytime at the library but they are all done for the summer and will start back up after Labor Day, we went to the local splash park with some friends, and we went swimming at a friends pool on Tuesdays. She loves to play with her peek-a-boo bunny, she discovered her tote of bath toys and LOVES chewing on them, crawling all around with them, and pulling up with them in her hands.  She still enjoys her Johnny Jump Up, her exersaucer, and her jumperoo.  One of my favorites times of the day is when John comes home and Elsie gets so excited to see him.  If she is on the floor she will take off crawling right to him.  It is so cute.  She will also squeal when she sees Cinder.  Changing her diaper has become much more difficult because she wiggles and wiggles. 

We are loving every moment with her (although I go get frustrated at times when she fights at naptime).  It is so much fun to see the daily changes in her as she grows and grows.  

You will see that there are no pictures this month with the bunny...that is because I could not get her to lay down with it at all.  Guess we will try again next month.  

Caged Animal (Take Two)

Thank Goodness for baby gates!  In the mornings I let Elsie have free range of the upstairs area of our house (it is a pretty small area).  Her room is safe for her and I shut the door to the office and the unfinished bathroom.  She mostly stays in our bedroom on the floor while I get ready but today she ventured out into the hallway.  This morning Cinder was laying at the bottome of the stairs and we found Elsie up against the gate shaking it and making her little rarr noise that sounds like a monster.  Our little animal trying to escape her cage.  haha It was pretty fun to watch.  We got out the camera towards the end but we still captured a little of it.  This time the video should work--I changed the setting from private to unlisted.  

Truly Blessed

That is what I am...so blessed to have such wonderful friends.  I have a wonderful group of friends here where I live.  We all get together quite regularly with book club, pool dates, and walks, etc.  But I am also blessed with the best group of girlfriends a girl could ask for, they are my friends from high school.  We have all been through a lot, went to different colleges in different states, got married and moved to different states (now we are all back to IA and MN) and have remained friends through everything.  I say they are my friends from high school but we go back even further than that, elementary school, junior high, and high school.

Each one of us is unique, we each have different personalities and our own quirks and we accept each other for all of those differences.  I know at any time, I could call them and they would be there for me...and I would be there for them if they needed me.  We all have just wonderful families and the cutest little kiddos too!  Well this past weekend we had our annual summer get together.  This year, we traveled to NW Iowa to Lake Okoboji.  We stayed at the Pioneer Beach Resort (not a place I would recommend) and had a great time! I always look forward to our weekends together since they are so far and few between.  We have two weekends where we get together:  Girls Weekend which takes place in the fall and then a weekend with our families in the summer.  Everyone was able to make it except Erin "Weegy" who was gone for a wedding.

Just the Girls:  July 2012

Hubbies too at the Barefoot Bar

This was from our weekend last summer-2011

I am so thankful for these ladies!  I love you girls and am counting down the days to our Girls Weekend!!!

Life Organization Week 4

Home

Last Week:  My goal was to paint the picture squares and to fill frames with some pictures I ordered.  Well I actually got that done.  This goal was completed.

This Week:  Make more progress on the blocks.  Like actually finish them.

Health/Wellness

Last Week: Eat breakfast everyday.  Well I did but it was toast and peanut butter on the go.  Not really sure if that is what I was aiming for.  

This Week:  Since I don't feel that great about my progress with the whole breakfast thing I would like to continue this as my goal.  I would like it to be more intentional than to grab some toast since that is all I have time for.  I would like to make more healthy breakfast choices such as eggs, fruit, whole grains that kind of thing.  

Finances

Last Week: My goal last week was to start figuring out our budget.  I did figure out what our set expenses cost such as utilites, mortgage, car payment, etc.  So that left me with what we have for savings and day to day expenses.  So I have  a pretty good idea of where we are at.  Which leads me to this weeks goal

This Week:  I want to start a binder that I keep at home that has all of our financial information handy.  This would include any outstanding loan information, bill payment information, and then a way to track our monthly expenses and see where our money is really getting spent.  Once I know how much to allocate to each category then we can go back to the cash system.  It will also give us an idea of where we can really be saving.  

On the Move

Last Week:  Go for a run--this was an big fail.  No run for me.

This Week:  So I will make that the goal for this week.  I will actually be home all week so I have no excuses :)

Just For Me

Last Week:  Go to bed by 10:00.  Ha yeah right...that did not happen at all except for the last two nights.  Last night I was up in bed by 9:45 and asleep by 10:00 which was great progress but this is something I need to focus on more.  I need my sleep to be happy and have the energy for Elsie.  

This Week:  Keep working on going to bed early. I also get some more reading done when I got up to bed earlier than 10:30.  

Family

Last Week: Complete months 4 and 5 in the photo book.  I did not go to shutterfly once in the last 7 days so this was a fail.  

This Week:  Keep chugging along on the photo book for Elsie. 

Life Organization Week 3

Wow this week flew by.  It was a busy one as I spent three of the last 7 days out of town at a family members cabin.  It was a WONDERFUL time but I wasn't able to accomplish all that I had hoped for.  At least not the things on my list.  Spending time with family overrules all projects/tasks in my opinion.  Not only were we gone for a few days but I spent quite a bit of time packing and getting ready to go.

Home:  
Last Week:  Complete Photo Blocks-Nope, no progress
This Week:  Let's just shoot for painting the blocks :) Also, I printed off a bunch of pictures to put in frames and stuff around the house.  I would like to fill the frames, I don't think I will get them hung but just get the pictures in and ready to go.


Health/Wellness:
Last Week:  Drink More Water-I think I actually did pretty good with this one this past week.  I got my system down now :)
This Week:  I need to work on eating breakfast everyday. I need to take a few minutes in the morning and eat.

Finances:
Last Week:  Sort through papers that need to be filed.  I did do this.  I have them separated into their different categories like medical/utilities/car/mortgage/banking.  Now I just need to separate them into thier more specific files.
This Week:  I really need to re-evaluate our budget.  Things are still changing with us and I really haven't say down and looked at it since I came back to work part time.  So I am going to make this a two week goal.  I know I won't get it done completely this week but I would like to get a start at it.  Maybe my goal this week is to list out our fixed expenses.

Just For Me:  
Last Week:  Drink some wine a night or two.  Well I didn't drink wine but I did have some delicious Bud Light Lime over the weekend.  However, that wasn't the intent of the goal.  It was more for at home so I would just spend some time relaxing in the evenings after Elsie goes to bed.  So that didn't happen.
This Week:  I know I will be once again having some drinks over the weekend so this week I want to focus on crawling into bed around 10:00 pm.  I have been going to be later and later each night...last night it was after midnight and when Elsie gets up by 5:30 it just isn't enough sleep for me.

On the Move:
Last Week:  Do my yoga DVD.  Well I finally did it last night.
This Week:  Jog, even if it is just once I have to start somewhere.  Earlier this summer I started jogging.  I kept setting little goals each time I would go out.  Then we went to Idaho, then it got so hot and now it has been almost two months since the last time I went out.  This week I am starting over :)


Family: 
Last Week:  Complete first three months of Elsie's First Year Photo Book.  As I started to work on this I realized how disorganized my photos were and how they were just grouped based on import date and I found it next to impossible to find what I wanted so I spent A LOT of time organizing those files.  Now I just have to keep up with it when I import them.
This Week:  I would like to keep working on the photo book.  Maybe get months 4 and 5 done.

Random:  
Last Week:  I didn't set a goal since we were so busy.
This Week:  I would like to get our bedroom back to being "ours".  Really get it clean, take down Elsie's pack and play and move the bed back to where it was.  This I might need to recruit John to help.

Overall I think we had a pretty busy week last week.  We had a birthday party, went swimming, and was gone Friday morning until Sunday evening.  It also takes me a lot longer to pack with Elsie and making sure I have everything we need for her.  This next week will be just as busy but should slow down for a couple weeks after that.

Reaching Milestones

Well Elsie has reached a couple new milestones these past two weeks.

Army Crawling (6/14/12)
Here she is a week and a half ago army crawling. She has been doing this for quite some time now but finally got a video of it on here.  I believe this was on 7/14 (She just turned 7 Months)

Crawling (7/15/12)

No joke the next day she was crawling for real.  It is so cute!  Now when I leave the family room and go into the kitchen she follows me.  She is a speedy little bugger too :)  

Pulling Up (7/15/12)

Not only is she crawling but the same day she started pulling herself up.  At first, she just climbed up on me then she did the couch (we have a pretty low couch).  She is also doing it on her little sit and walk toy.  I feel like she is really starting to fly through these milestones.  Everyday is something new with her!

First Tooth (7/19/12)

If that wasn't a big enough week for her I found that she got her first tooth on that Thursday (7/19).  We were up in our bedroom and she was crawling around on the floor and she acted like she put something in her mouth so I quickly ran my finger through her mouth to make sure nothing was in there and that is when I found it!  Let me say I was shocked!!!  I had been anticipating a tooth since she was 3 months but tossed the idea aside when nothing ever came.  I knew it would come at some point and that her behavior would warn me that it was on its way but nope, nothing just the tooth.  I hope the rest of her teeth come in this easy.  

Second Tooth (7/28/12)

Elsie got her second tooth in over this past weekend.  I went to show my mom her first tooth and what do you know, another tooth had popped through.