8 Months

So excited to bother Chili-dog! (as a side note-she's wearing one of the bows I just made!)

• I’m assuming Lilli-butt weighs close to 20ish pounds, but I have no idea. All I know is she is getting pretty dang heavy in her car seat carrier and I think she’s suppose to be out of it at 22lbs!
• Wears size 3 Luvs diapers and 9 month clothes. She has a couple 12 months things but they’re pretty big for the most part.
• SLEEP! It’s been amazing! Almost all month she has slept all night! It’s a miracle! Letting her “cry it out” was the best thing that’s ever happened to us! Her middle of the night feedings are gone and she usually goes to bed around 8-9:00ish and wakes up around 5-6am-ish for a feeding. LOVE IT!
• She likes laying on her right side to sleep and she sleeps with a little taggy blanket (made by Grandma) and her glow worm baby
• Starting this month, Daddy and Lilli read books every night before bed. It absolutely melts my heart when I peek in and see her staring intently at the story. One of these days I’ll sneak a picture.
• She spent her 2nd ever night away from us with Gma and Gpa and did great as usual I wish we could make it a monthly night away…..
• She has also been consistently taking 2 naps a day in her crib, plus a bonus driving nap on our way home from work
• She never gets in her swing anymore
• Her absolute favorite toy is this thing. She has gotten to where she runs around it and it’s precious! Best. Entertainer. Ever. Go buy one now all of you new mothers!

  

• She still thinks the jumperoo is “okay” nothing special
• She also doesn’t mind sitting on the floor playing with toys
• Is extremely verbal. She babbles nonstop! I love it! You can’t help, but just hang on every babble!
• Still hasn’t crawled. In fact, she’s not even close and shows no interest whatsoever.  I really don’t think she will until she learns to walk first.
• Lilli has 3 teeth! She’s kind of a freak baby. She has her bottom two and then one of her canine’s! I guess it’s pretty uncommon. Her second canine is about to pop through, but hasn’t yet.
• Still eating baby food+cereal twice a day. She LOVES eating. I haven’t given her any finger foods yet and quite honestly I’m just scared she’ll choke or something. I also haven’t pureed any table food because, again, I’m too scared for some reason.  I think I might be an overprotective mother……..
• Still getting two -6oz bottles at the babysitters. On average about 2-3oz of mine and 3-4 of formula. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m only getting about 2oz each time I pump and I can only pump twice a day at work. I am getting so sick of it, so I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last, but every time I think about quitting I feel terribly guilty. Guilt. Mother’s Guilt.
• I could really tell she was mastering object permanence this month. It’s so funny, when she drops something now she turn her hold body around to stare at it on the floor.
• She is starting to really show her true colors. Especially when she’s tired, if you take something away from her she’ll yell at you!
• Has a very very very high pitched happy/excited squeal that can pierce your ear drums!
• My little love is more and more happy every day and it is completely amazing.  We’ve come so far since the first 3 months of her life. When she was crying nonstop and I do mean NONSTOP, I thought we’d never make it to this point, but we have! And it’s truly the best feeling when you’re baby’s face lights up when they see you.

I love this love!

Modeling her hat from Aunt Kelly. It finally fits!

If you haven’t already seen, I posted below also )

Oh no he didn’t!

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I had a shocking moment last week at school. Let me refresh your memory of my location. I live in the midwest, the bible belt, southern part of the state, and I’ll leave it at that. At times I really don’t feel like our family belongs here. In fact, I know our family does not belong here.

On Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we had school. It was suppose to be our day off, but because of the snow days it was used as a makeup day.  My husband made some snide remark about us having the day off so we could sit around and think about what Martin Luther King, Jr. did for our country. When I first arrived to school I wasn’t super excited about being there. Buno had the day off along with a million people and I doubt either of them did much “Martin Luther King Jr.” reminiscing.

When I did my lesson plans I made all MLK activities for the day. As I was teaching throughout the day I thought about what an amazing man MLK was. He did so many wonderful things and was so admirable.  I really wanted my students to understand the magnitude of what he did, but I know they most likely won’t until later in life.

So anyway, this brings me to Tuesday. I had recess duty outside. It just so happens that first graders and third graders are out on the playground at the same time for about 5 minutes.  As we were lining up to leave a third grade girl (that is African American in fact one of the only African Americans in the district) comes up to me and says, “Mrs. S, Bobby smacked me and said he didn’t like me because I’m brown.” Ummmm……..Say what?! She had to tell me twice before I actually realized this was real life. I went and got the first grade boy and he admitted everything, so I took him to the first grade teacher and he went to the office. It just makes me furious. I was so pleased about how my MLK lessons went on Monday and I know this first grade boy had the same sort of MLK lessons in first grade. What exactly did he get out of his lessons? Um, not much I’d say! The sad thing is, I bet he went home from school, told his parents about MLK Day, and his parents probably gave their own little version of MLK Day. I really wouldn’t be surprised. It just makes me sick that there are still people out there that have a problem with different races. It really is unbelievable to me. And depressing.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I finally did it!

I joined the Robeez club! It was really hard for me. I can’t even believe I spent $30 on a pair of BABY SHOES! That’s so ridiculous. Here’s the thing. Lilli has all of these adorably precious shoes…..

And even though they each cost about 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of Robeez, do any of them stay on??? NO. So basically they are pointless. I can’t have her out and about in the middle of winter without shoes! What kind of parent would I be?!  I’ve heard they’re great. They rarely fall off, form to their feet, comfy, warm, last 6 months, can be hand washed, etc. So, I hope they’re worth it!

We have a PROBLEM

UPDATE:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: UPDATE:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here’s the new big bow I made tonight! SOOOO EXCITED!

Back in my pregnant days, one of my coworkers made me this for all of Lilli’s hair bows. I LOVE this thing! My coworker even picked ribbon to match Lilli’s room and that made it even more special.

One of my good friends is having a little girl and her shower is next weekend (hopefully you’re not reading this Carmen!). I decided I’d try to make one for her. I picked pink and brown ribbon to match her room. I think it turned out pretty good!

I guess I was feeling crafty yesterday because I had the desire to learn how to make boutique hair bows. I went to buy a few for Carmen’s holder and I realized how stupid it is to pay so much for a hair bow when you can make one for so much cheaper! I quickly found out that they are somewhat difficult to make. Here are some of my first tries at making bows and flower clips.

These cost approx. 40 cents to make!

Now, here’s where we have a major problem! I put them on Lilli last night and this morning, so she could model them. My little genius has finally figured out how to get them off! NOT COOL! Does this mean I’m going to give up on them? NO! I am determined to make her wear hair bows! Here’s how our model photo shoot went…..

love these flowers!

Lillian’s First Christmas

For Christmas this year we drove to my parent’s lakehouse to celebrate. We had a great time (as usual!). It was so nice to just hang out. Also that weekend we were planning on having an adult getaway. We were suppose to attend out good friend’s ugly sweater party. Unfortunately, we were snowed in so we just wore our ugly sweaters around the house for no good reason!

Buno shaved some super creepy facial hair to match the sweater Our outfits were complete with matching white tennies!

On Christmas morning Lilli had a little photo shoot in front of the Christmas tree.  Here are a few cute ones!

"Why open it when you can eat it?"

My Sweet Angel

Wearing her Christmas present from Great Grandpa

7 months WAY late

I have been MIA for a while. We have been so busy. Even though I’ve had two weeks off from school (+snow day today), we have been running nonstop! More pics and updates to come!

7 months!

Compared to…….

2 months!

Lillian has been growing and changing like crazy these days. Not a day goes by that I am not truly amazed by her.

• About 16-17ish pounds, probably about 18ish inches
• wears size 3 diapers-Luvs, and 6-9 month clothes
• Has her two bottom teeth, not in all the way though
• She has eaten so many different foods and loves them all. Her face completely lights up when she’s about to eat. She likes peas, green beans, butternut squash, carrots, applesauce, prunes, bananas, apricots, etc.
• She eats rice cereal with every meal-two meals a day
• Still drinks 6oz bottles
• Sits up really well on her own now
• Still no crawling and doesn’t seem to have any interest in crawling
• Really likes to sit and stand
• She used to love her jumperoo, but now I think she likes this thing more (I was so excited when I got this and a really cute pink walker for $40 from a teacher-they look brand new it was a steal!)
• when she gets really excited she kicks her legs-it’s so precious
• Getting more and more verbal everyday
• Her favorite word this month was “dada” (started on Nov. 29)
• We let her “cry it out” for the first time on Dec. 20, with no swaddle -it was way overdue
• Usually takes about two naps a day, unless we drive somewhere that’s sometimes a bonus nap
• Goes to bed on average around 8:30
• Has one early, early morning feeding
• We worked on taking naps in the crib this month and had some major progress! (taking a nap in it right now
• As of Dec. 19 she decided she hates her swing, which was kind of a relief because she’s getting too big anyway
• Took her first airplane ride this month to Colorado for my cousin’s wedding, she did great!

Passed out in the airport

• Still sleeps in the car
• Still loves her babysitter (a bonus Grandma)
• Still flippin LOVES baby einstein’s First Signs DVD, it’s definitely a part of our evening routine
• And, acts indifferent when we put strange objects on her head…..

Free Dog

I woke up this morning and immediately wanted to kill our dog. When we first got Chili she was the sweetest, most precious puppy ever. Now, I kinda want to kill her.

It all started on Wednesday. I was home with a sick Lilli. She has a nasty cold and ear infection (update:still sick, but much better). I decided that would be the perfect day to cook our smoked chicken that my parents had given us. They put it in their smoker, so all I had to do was put the smoked, frozen chicken in the oven for a few hours. Talk about an easy meal!  When it was finished warming in the oven, Buno cut apart all the meat and left the bones/remains in the foil on the kitchen counter. Now, don’t judge me, I never did clean up the kitchen that night. Once Lilli was in bed, I went to bed because she has been sleeping terribly! In the middle of the night Chili dog was acting crazy/annoying like she needed to go out and chase squirrels. I was wrong about the chasing squirrels thing, it was really because her stomach was upset from eating the remains of an entire chicken + some foil! When I came home from work that day, the smell of the house when I walked through the door almost killed me. She had vomited and…….. you know……. in ever single room of the house EXCEPT our bedroom. The kitchen, the hearth, the entry way, the spare bedroom, and Lilli’s bedroom all had been infected. It took me nearly TWO HOURS to clean it all up. Not to mention I had to light a candle in every room just to deal with the smell. Some of you that have never been to my house before, now probably never want to but I assure you I cleaned it very well.

THEN, this morning I woke up to find some more food eaten! Last night I baked two bread loaf pans of cake. Buno and I ate about half of one and then there was a whole one left that I was going to give to our babysitter. I wrapped the whole one and the half one in foil and left them on the kitchen counter. AND, of course the foil remains of the whole one were found on the kitchen floor. Our kitchen floor is hard wood and we have a large area rug. I had just gotten Buno to shake the rug for me and I cleaned all of the floors really good yesterday.  Hardwood floors are a lot of work. Now our rug/floor is covered in cinnamon/sugar bits.

SOOOO, once again, in the middle of the night our dear dog ate food OFF THE KITCHEN COUNTER!  Now, does she ever do this when we are awake/home….NO.  She is smart enough to know that I would KILL her if I caught her getting on the kitchen counter!

AH!

6 months-a little late

My sweet love was 6 months old on the 25th (6 days ago!). I’m running a little behind on this post due to our Thanksgiving holiday travels.

• weighs 17lbs. 3 oz.
• wears size 3 diapers, right now we’ve been using the t@rget brand and when I can’t drive an hour to get to a t@rget we’ve been using Luvs and I really seem to like them ok. They’re a little cheaper and aren’t poofy and smell nice
• wears 6-9 month clothes and size 1 shoes
• She was going all night without a feeding, until she started teething about half way through the month
• We let her cry in bed for the first time without going in for about 10 minutes on Nov. 3-that sucked!
• but then later….She slept from 9pm-4am for a handful of nights which was a miracle
• still sleeps in a swaddle, that’s probably bad, but we’re kind of dependent on it now….we’ll be working on that soon
• has to have a fan on for noise still when sleeping
• usually goes to bed between 8:15-8:45pm
• has been teething, finally felt a hint of a tooth on Thanksgiving day (1 day after her 6 month bday)
• has eaten carrots(on Nov.7)-thought they we strange at first, sweet peas-not her fave, and totally digs sweet potatoes
• still eating rice cereal also
• starting eating rice cereal once during the day at babysitter’s
• still drinking 2-6 oz. bottles at babysitter’s, 4 ounces of my milk and 2 ounces of formula
• Learned how to spit
• has gotten very good at sitting up, but will fall over when distracted
• does not like tummy time and refuses to stay on her tummy, still won’t roll over from back to belly only belly to back
• still loves standing, I think she’s just going to get up one day and start walking
• reaches out for the cats and dog when they come near
• giggles more, but it still takes a lot of work
• finally learned how to jump in her jumperoo!
• has been babbling “mama” still, I can’t wait for her to mean it when she says it!
• kicks her legs when she gets really excited/happy
• she puts her arms around me a hugs me
• she found her feet this month and tried to stick one in her mouth once
• smiles really big when I pick her up from the babysitter’s now
• Loves the Baby Einstein DVD “First Signs” Oh. My. Goodness. If you have a baby you NEED these DVD’s. This is the only one we have and I really want the others. It’s so amazing how she watches it and stays focused!

6 months and happy about it!

Notes

Recently, something at school had me reminiscing about my good ‘ol school days. Note writing. I should probably start by explaining that I have never in my life been a good student. I made it through my education with mostly A’s and B’s, but there were a few C’s in there. I was not one of those students that could go to class and hear something once and have it permanently stored in a specific brain file for easy future access (like my darling husband). When things don’t come easy to me, I tend to get easily sidetracked. I didn’t really go to school to learn, I went for the social atmosphere.  I loved talking, gossiping, joking, and everything that goes along with the socializing aspect of school. While I was in class I could sometimes be found writing notes. If you never wrote a note at some point in your education I think you’re crazy. My friends and I were constantly writing each other notes and passing them off between classes. For as often as I wrote them it’s really amazing that I didn’t get caught. Well, there was that one time in 3rd grade when my friend Emily asked me to pass a note (walk across the room!) to this boy Matt that she liked and it was right when our teacher was in the middle of teaching! How rude was I?! And, of course, I did it and the teacher stopped me dead in my tracks and I was all like “Emily asked me to do it!”
Anyway, in high school some of my deep, thoughtful notes went something like this:

Yo Flakes (my BF’s nickname)-
Waz UP?(except I used an arrow pointing up for the word “up” cool I know) Oh my god Mrs. Grigsby got so p*ssed today in English! She kicked Bobby  out of class just because he was tardy and I was like oh my god I can’t believe she did that and Bobby looked so cute I was so sad. Anyway, did you see Johnny today? oh my god I heard that he totally told Mary that he was just not in to her and I heard she was crying in math first hour with Sally. Sally said she doesn’t really feel sorry for Mary tho because she wasn’t that nice to him anyway and she wants him to ask her to homecoming! I’m not going to tell her that Johnny already asked me so she should just shut up she’s so snotty. Ok gotta go….Mrs. Grigsby is about to ask me for my homework!
Write back ASAP ASAP ASAP ASAP ASAP

Luv ya!
Your Bestest BFF

In those school days I really had no idea how rude writing a note during class was……Now that I’m a teacher (and an adult) I really can’t believe how disrespectful I was during class! I was never one that would be in trouble in front of the class or ever, but I consider my sneakiness just as bad!  Now let me get back on track. That little something that had me reminiscing about my note writing days is my sweet little 3rd graders. They have a problem with writing notes. To each other? No. To me! I’ve been finding them all over their worksheets lately. Here are a few I’ve received:
(Keep in mind, I teach 3rd grade-8ish yrs old)

hello to you

Well that makes it hard to discipline you, doesn't it?

Ok I guess you don't need discipline

this made me laugh out loud