11 Months!

Disclaimer: Most of this post was typed up a week ago so it's not "real time".

Technically, 11.5 months but hey, I'm getting the post in so that's all that matters :)

A few biggies this month! First off, I'm sad to say Ella is no longer breastfeeding. The day after she turned 11 months old she woke up crying and crying and wouldn't nurse which is not like her. She kept acting very fussy and I had a feeling it was an ear infection since she started slapping at her head. Sure enough, the doctor visit that day confirmed it for us. She told me it was likely the reason she wasn't nursing since it may have been painful for her ears.

She would not nurse all day long (usually nursed 3 times a day) and then finally that night she nursed before bed. I thought everything might be okay but the next day she refused again and again. She was just done. Not interested. Get it out of my face.

And I cried.

And cried some more.

I think the reason I was so emotional was because it was such an abrupt weaning and per my internet research, can cause a big drop in hormones therefore making me a blubbery mess. But, the good news is while I am still sad over the way it happened, my hormones returned to normal after a few days and Mommy feels much better :)

The doctor said it was fine to go ahead and start whole milk with Ella and she loves it. I'm so thankful. In a way I am thankful she is already weaned since Blake and I are heading to California in a little over a week for a business incentive trip for four days. I was worried about how she would handle it without being able to nurse. Problem solved....although I am still PARANOID about leaving my children. I hope my anxiety doesn't get the best of me.

Anyway, back to Ella.

She started taking a few steps! It's the most precious little thing. She began standing up on her own without support from furniture or us and now she will take a few steps before plopping down. She's gotten up to about 6 steps but it's usually 3 or 4. I tell her she's too tiny to be walking around. It's so funny to see her little petite self just standing in the middle of the living room. Too much cuteness.

Naps and food are about the same. She's done with baby food. Basically the same as the nursing. Not interested :)

Her two top teeth popped through so we are at a grand total of four!

Not many more words but she says "Mama" all the time now which is my favorite :)

She is so interested in things. She likes to open and peek in all the cabinets and she wants to do everything Preston does. She has learned to climb down the stairs...and she does it the safe way! She turns around with her belly to the stairs and down she goes. 

She has figured out that certain things go in certain containers. For example, she will dump out her barrel of monkeys and then place them one at a time back in the barrel. A funny one is the night before Easter she took all of Preston's plastic eggs out of his basket and placed them in her basket one at a time. 

She is just the sweetest, happiest and cuddliest baby. I love her so much and I'm so thankful to have her as my daughter. I can't believe her birthday is almost here. We are having a candy shoppe party!

I'm so behind in my posting that her 12 month post should be following up soon!

We are headed to California early early Sunday morning so please be in prayer for safe travels and for my wonderful parents taking care of our babies. I'm very nervous!!

10 Things I Love about Ella

I can't believe our sweet girl is 10 months old. Oh, what an absolute joy she is to us. For Preston's 10 month post, I listed ten things I love about him so I'm doing the same for Ella.

In no particular order...

1. I love that she dances when she hears music, either from a show or even when I sing to her.

2. I love the soft "pat" sound of her sweet hands clapping together.

3. I love her little voice saying "bye-bye", "da-da", and ever so often..."ma-ma" :)

4. I love that she is a copycat. If I cough she coughs back at me. If I laugh, she gives me a fake laugh.

5. I love that she uses me as a jungle gym and will walk completely around me, holding on tightly and smiling at me every time we make eye contact.

6. I love that she wants to play with whatever her big brother is playing with...she already wants to be like him.

7. I love her tiny hands. They are so busy all the time, exploring, picking up food, you name it. I know baby hands are tiny anyway but hers are so petite. One of my very favorite things about her.

8. I love that she loves us. She's my little monkey on my hip. She is very clingy to me. She squeals when her Daddy walks in the door and she lights up when she sees her brother first thing in the morning.

9. I love her chubby legs.

10. I love that she plays with socks. She drags hers and Preston's socks everywhere. 

There are many more but those are just a few of my favorites. She is certainly a busy bee these days. She is all over the house. She can climb all the way up the stairs without taking much of a rest (with one of us behind her of course). She has figured out how to open my cabinets. She will pull one open and peek inside...nosy girl.

She walks along furniture and will stand on her own for for about 10 seconds before she plops down. She just started doing it more and more this last week. She usually crawls to my lap, stands her legs up while being bent over on me and then straightens herself up to a standing position. I wouldn't be surprised if she is walking on her own soon!

I'm not sure on weight, probably about 20 pounds. She still fits in most of her 9 month clothes but she can also wear some 12 month things. I tried on a few of her 12 month summer outfits and a few were a little big so she should be a perfect fit by the time the weather warms up.

She is fighting me on a lot of her baby food, vegetables in particular. She would much prefer to eat fruits and yogurts all day. She has had a taste of a big variety of table foods this month though so I think she is just tired of the bland baby food, but who can blame her? She loves bits of grilled cheese, french fries, green beans, peas, potatoes, chicken noodle soup, mozzarella cheese, Vanilla wafers, goldfish crackers and Ritz crackers. She also loves diced bananas and grapes. She will eat apples sometimes and peaches and pears sometimes depending on her mood. I also give her a quarter of a frozen waffle to gnaw and eat on to help her teeth. I did the same with Preston and she loves it. She's also had a few bites of pancake sans the syrup and she loved it too. She's doing really well with her sippy cup too. She seems to like water well so I haven't tried any juice. I'm sure she will love it though.

But speaking of teeth, she has two coming in! She cut the first bottom left tooth and now the right one has cut through. You can see them more and more each day. So cute.

She is taking 1-2 naps a day, usually two. Some days she will take an early morning nap and then she's ready for another when Preston goes down around 2:00. I thank the Lord for these days (like today) that I'm able to get a few things done and have a few minutes of Mommy time!) But on other days she goes down around 11:00 and then wants to party while Brother sleeps. But that's fun too. Ella and I get to have a little girl time together :) She is still sleeping through the night really well. Every now and then she will wake up crying in the wee hours but it's a rare occurrence. She is an early bird like her brother though and both are usually awake by 6:30 or 7:00. It's tough for this sleep-loving mama.

I just gave her a bath for the first time without her bath seat a few nights ago. She is loving it. She can finally get to the toys she wants and crawls all over that tub. She's just growing too fast for me!

I feel like her memory is really starting to kick in. The kids like to get behind Ella's curtains and me pop them open with peek-a-boo! Well, just today she was standing by the curtains in our bedroom and started popping it back and forth in front of her face and then whipping it beside her and smiling at me. It was so precious. She loves peek-a-boo and it made my heart happy that she wanted to play.

Here's another month behind us. I've already got birthday party plans in the works. I just can't believe it. Slow down time.

Here's a few pics from this month. Enjoy!

Playing in her new chair. Absolutely loves this chair

Playing with socks, her favorite.

Modeling the first dress Mommy made for her

Preston barricaded them under the table and said it was their house

Silly babies in their chairs

Ella getting the full Publix treatment, race car buggy and a free cookie

Playing at the train table. They both were not feeling well

Playing with Brother's trains while he naps!

We've been caught!

First time in the tub without her bath seat

Photo fun in Ella's room

Ella's 1st Valentine's Day

Goodies on Valentine's Day morning

Clapping!

LOVE these legs

1st trip to the zoo!

Taking pics on her 10 month birthday. One of my favs!!

9 Months

Well, a whole pregnancy time frame has flown by since our sweet girl joined our family. She is growing way to fast for me and she insists on acting older than she is so that doesn't help ;)

Her check-up was this morning and she weighed in at 19 lbs 4 oz and she is 27 inches long. She is in the 60th percentile for weight and 20th for height. It appears our little lady will be petite :) I'm already having problems with her clothes fitting...her little chunky thighs need a bigger waist size but her legs aren't long enough to fill them, lol. I love it though. Her legs are so cute and squeezable. 

She learned some new tricks this past month. She said her first word, DaDa...of course. It was Preston's first word too. Blake is two for two. It's so precious to hear her little voice jabbering away. She immediately repeats "dada" if we say it. It's crazy she can already mimic us. She can also mimic the fish  face sucking noise. 

One of my most favorite things to see babies learn is how to clap their hands. She started doing it about two weeks ago and it's just so darn precious I can hardly stand it. Something about babies hands, they are so tiny but so busy. I just love seeing those little hands explore and learn new things. Anyway, she started banging them together at first but now she can actually make the clapping sound...at least a very tiny baby clapping sound. Have I mentioned how sweet and precious that little pat-pat sound is? We'll say "yay!" and clap our hands and she breaks into a big smile and bounces and claps along with us. She will be playing and I guess gets very proud of herself because she will stop mid play and clap a little bit :) I've even caught her on the monitor sitting in her bed fussing after a nap but clapping anyway. Oh I love it. And I love how happy she gets doing it. Cuteness. Nothing like it.

Her eating is about the same but we have added more table foods to her diet. She has eaten bananas, strawberries, grapes (in a mesh feeder), rolls, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, corn on the cob. I think that may be it. She also snacks on Ritz crackers, baby cookies and yogurt melts and puffs. She likes Cheerios too but she gets tired of them after a while, same with the puffs. She loves the bigger veggie puffs though. She's doing better with a sippy cup too but still needs help from me. 

She nurses 3-4 times a day so that hasn't really changed.

She started riding in the top part of the buggy and sitting in high chairs at restaurants. She loves it. She loves to see all the hustle and bustle going on. 

She's gotten very attached to Mommy lately. She clings back to me if I try to hand her off to someone else. And she screams if I do successfully pry her away. I sometimes have to be sneaky if I need to step away from her because she yells at me if she sees me leaving or if I walk by her and don't pick her up. Stinker.

We dedicated our sweet Ella to the Lord last week. It was a fun and special day for our girl and for us. We are just so thankful God gave us this baby to raise and we commit ourselves to bringing her up in a loving home, eyes fixed on Jesus. My prayer for her is to become a virtuous woman of God, a Proverbs 31 woman. A few of my favorite verses of Proverbs, 31:25 "Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come" and 31:30 "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

Another fun fact is that she seems to be a touchy feel-y baby which is exactly like her Daddy. Anyone who may not know Blake, ever since he was a baby (per his Mom), constantly wants to be touched. It sounds weird, let me explain. He loves for his arms, legs, head or back to be rubbed and will ask me to do so 99% of the time I am sitting by him. This includes while we are driving too. I'll never forget we had only been dating a few weeks and he asked me to rub his leg. I thought he was psycho. Touch your hairy leg? I don't think so. I laugh because its normal to me now but sounds so odd to other people. Don't even get me started on the ears thing. He always rubs my ears or Preston's ears or even the cat's ears. Ha! I promise Blake is not some crazily weird guy. Once again, it was something he did as a baby and he's just always done it. Gosh I love him. He's one of a kind.

So anyway, back to Ella. Twice now when she is tired and doesn't want to sleep, I have gotten her asleep by rubbing her tummy. The other day Blake picked her up from her crib and she rubbed his chest. It's something we have just slowly noticed so we will see if she continues. Makes me laugh. 

I guess that's all I can think of for her 9 month stats. Our sweet girl is just growing so fast it makes me sad. Preston too. Time flies so quickly once you have children and I just pray I never take a moment of it for granted. 

Here's a few pictures from the last month, including some from Ella's first Christmas. I hope I can make some time to do a full post on Christmas. Lots of cute pictures to share.

These pulled out of order so hopefully I can explain them well.

Eating strawberries and bananas for the first time

Christmas Eve

Ella's Dedication

Opening her stocking at Grandmama & Granddaddy's house Christmas Eve

Christmas morning!

Christmas Day

Playing with one of Ella's new toys :)

Playing cars at the train table with Brother

Eating Cheerios!

Leftover cheerios :)

One of her stocking stuffers

Saying her first word...Dada

Her first snow!

Attacking some corn on the cob

Dedication

Our little family at Ella's Dedication

She rode on this at a birthday party and loved ever minute of it

7 & 8 Months

I slacked off too long this time so Ella Girl gets a combined 7 & 8 month post :)

Well, let me just say I feel like this teensy baby of mine does not want to stay that way. She is learning new things so quickly I feel like she is speeding past her babyhood!

I mentioned in her 6 month post that she started army crawling but by 7 months she was up on her knees moving around and now she speeds all over the place on her hands and knees. She is very curious and investigates anything new in her path. 

She also started pulling up on everything. The first time she did it was in her crib which I saw through the monitor and it scared me to death since the mattress was still on the highest level. Needless to say Daddy lowered the mattress that night. She was very proud of herself though and was grinning ear to ear when I came in to get her. 

At first it would take her a little bit of effort to pull up but she quickly figured out how it worked so she can immediately pull up on things now. She loves the little musical baby table that we had of Preston's. It's the perfect height for her and she will stand up and bang on it for a long time. 

She also found the stairs (yipee!) but thankfully she doesn't head straight for them yet. She knows where they are but she doesn't always head for them. It took her just a few days from finding them and pulling up on the first step to now climbing them. These particular stairs are two wooden stairs that open to a landing with carpet and then carpet up the remaining stairs. She loves them so I just sit behind her and let her go. She climbed up 6 of the carpeted steps the other night and then pooped out, lol. 

She is such a squirmy little thing - always bouncing in our arms and she also bangs her head backwards a lot, like against her high chair or against our chest when we hold her outwards. Not a clue on that one. She also likes to tap her foot. When she is laying in the floor on her tummy, one foot is almost always tapping. She will tap her hand on stuff too. It's very sweet. I just love her tiny hands and feet. And they are definitely tiny. She can still wear size 3 month shoes. 

She is always squealing and smiling at us. She really is a happy girl. She is starting to get clingy though and she likes to look for Mommy. 

She loves for her Daddy to snort at her and tickle her tummy. She gets all squeal-y laughing at him.

She also has this funny breathe-through-her-nose thing she does when gets excited. Its kind of like the "hee-hee" sound from lamaze breathing. She does it when she sees one of us or herself in the mirror. She loves to see herself.

As far as eating goes, she nurses about 4 times a day and eats baby food 3 times a day. It's usually a fruit mixed with baby oatmeal for breakfast, a veggie for lunch and a combo food with fruit for dinner. She seem to have a sweet tooth as she much prefers the fruits and sweet baby foods. She also started eating the puffs and yogurt melts. It took her a little while to get the hang of putting them in her mouth but she does well with it now. I usually end up cleaning a bunch of puffs out of the highchair seat but 5 out of 10 isn't too bad :)

She is still learning to use her sippy cup. She would rather just chew on it since she seems to be teething (no teeth yet though). 

She loves her baths. She has a pink bath seat and she and Preston have the best time taking a bath together. She squeals and splashes and laughs at her brother while he hogs the toys. Santa is bringing Ella some of her own bath toys...

She is sleeping pretty good now. Over the last few weeks she has had more nights of sleeping all night (around 9:00 p.m. to 6 or 7:00 a.m.). But honestly I never know what to expect from her. She can sleep all night and then the next night be up a few times. A few nights ago she was asleep two hours and then I saw her on the monitor standing up and talking, ready to get out of the bed and play at 11:00 p.m. No ma'am, I don't think so. 

She takes at least one good nap a day if we are at home and sometimes two, depending on how long she sleeps with her first nap. If we are on the go she will snooze in and out of the carseat. She doesn't like to fall asleep just anywhere. She definitely wants her bed or carseat. Preston has always been that way too. They like routine. 

I'm not sure on weight or length since we don't go back to the doctor until 9 months but she is pretty much the same as she has been, petite and chunky :) She has the cutest chubby wubby legs. I heart them. She is wearing 6-9 month clothes and a few 12 months. 

Her hair is really starting to grow and thicken up and she can even wear a few bows without a headband. I can't wait for her hair to grow long. I'm thinking her hair will be about the same color as Preston's but we'll see once she gets more of it. It's very light right now but Preston's was too. Her eyes are still bright blue and I think they might stay that way. Preston's eyes were blue until close to a year old but they were a darker blue. Now his are a grayish brownish color (very unique). Hers are so light that I would be surprised if they darkened up. 

Well I guess that's all for now. I'm doing pretty good. She turned 8 months yesterday so hopefully I can keep on track and update timely!

Here's a few pics from the last two months although they are definitely not in order. 

Wearing one of my dresses as a baby

My dress again with the bonnet :)