"these days"

That's right, people.  Less than 24 hours after my last post, another!  I am totally stealing my post title today from Kate.  She randomly updates on just regular life, and I am wishing I would have done this more throughout the last 9 months.  That's right, folks.  In just a few short days B will be officially 9 months old.

I laughed today as Stephen and I read her 8 month post...my how this girl changes everything as soon as I write it down.  Ha!  These days, she is all over the place.  I feel like we were in a pretty steady routine through July, and then August started the ups and downs.  Pretty much no predictability.  But not to worry- we spent most of 6 months here so we are familiar.  Sometimes she sleeps great, sometimes she wakes up several times.  Sometimes she sleeps til 7:15, sometimes she sleeps til 6 (though 6 is a lot more frequent lately...) Sometimes she eats like a champ (like tonight she ate 10.5 oz of baby food for DINNER- that's right, DINNER.- oh, and that was after a 6oz bottle!)  Then sometimes she eats hardly anything all day- like last week she had a day where she barely ate any baby food and only had 12oz total of formula that day.  Naps are back to being way to short.  I can't decide if she just doesn't need as much sleep anymore, or if there is something I can do differently.  She never sleeps more than an hour, and only takes two naps a day.  I know this is normal for her age, especially with her sleeping almost 12 hours at night, but boy do I miss those TWO 2hr naps... *sigh*

At least she wakes up happy.  :)

Although many things are unpredictable, some are still consistent with our day.  Stephen has morning time with Blakely.  He usually feeds her a bottle, plays with her, then feeds her breakfast each morning.  I sometimes sleep a little more (which I usually regret) or I get up and just lay on the couch and read and watch them.  I love watching them play.  He has so much more patience with her.  I love it. 

After breakfast, I usually take her so Stephen can get ready and start his work day.  We play, sometimes read, watch Sesame Street and the Today Show.  She usually goes down for a nap around 8:30.  She sleeps for about an hour.  Blakely is a SUPER light sleeper, so I don't get much done while she is sleeping.  Our house is extremely creaky, so I don't even use our bathroom upstairs...I go downstairs, or hold it.

Anyway, then she gets up and we play some more.  She has another bottle around 10:30 or 11, then lunch around 11:30.  I try to run my errands after this cause we are both usually pretty ready to get out of the house.  But we can't get too far cause she goes down for another nap around 12:30 or 1. 

She is obsessed with standing, getting into things that are "no's" (cell phones, computers, cords, paper, glasses of water, remotes, etc.)  She lives to get a hold of these precious items.  And basically whines all day unless she is standing or has one of said items in her mouth.  :)  (no, I don't let her put any of those in her mouth...except sometimes the remote.)

*please excuse the unmade bed, unfolded laundry, and well, what my house really looks like most of the time.  :)
After the second nap we play- duh.  Or we run more errands.  Today I think we will go to Hobby Lobby.  I'm feeling crafty.  Oh, and a bottle around 2:30. 

We try to keep ourselves pretty busy for the rest of the afternoon.  2pm to 5pm seems to go by the slowest.  We are BOTH ready for dad to get home.  He comes home, and takes over again and I try to make dinner.  Stephen usually feeds her dinner, until she has literally bathed in baby food, at which point I take over to get the rest of the food in her mouth instead of giving her a facial.  :)  I don't know if it is a man thing or what, but I swear, 75% of the food ends up not in her mouth.  I'm not complaining though- I love when he feeds her. 

Then we attempt to eat dinner.  We put her in the jumper but she usually goes so bonkers that we feel like she is burning too many calories so we take her out.  Seriously though.  She goes NUTS.  There is a lion on her jumper that for some reason she loathes him and she just screams at him too. 

Then we give her another bottle and she watches Baby Einstein during it so she will hopefully start winding down.  Then it's bathtime with dad, and I put her to bed around 7.  I love my days with this girl, but I also LOVE her bedtime!  :)

So that's our "typical" day! 

Rug saga...

Confession time.  We have been searching for an area rug for our living room for 2 years now.  Since we bought this house.  When we first started looking it was purely for aesthetic reasons, but we really didn't want to spend much money.  World Market was having a sale on rugs so I bought one that was red.  Didn't look good, so I took it back and got the yellow one.  Didn't look good, so I took it back and got the green one.  Didn't like it, but I thought maybe I made the wrong decision about the yellow one, so I got that one instead.  Sure enough, I did make the right decision, so I took it back, again.  We decided to take a break for a while on our rug hunt.  Until I got pregnant.  Then I decided that we needed a rug if we were having a baby because she needed somewhere to play since we had hard floors.  So we began the rug hunt again.  We bought a flowery one that was really big that we were just sure was going to be perfect.  Let me also say, rugs are NOT easy to just flipantly put in and out...  So we got this big rug down and died laughing because we hated it.  Part of our problem is we were trying to be too cheap.  We just weren't going to like a cheap rug, but we were unwilling to spend anymore money than we had already budgeted.  So after many hours of rug shopping, online and in stores we decided to swear off rugs.  We didn't need one, we weren't going to find one, end. of. story.  Until last week.  Blakely is now on the move.  I won't say she is crawling because I think that would be a bit of an exaggeration.  But she can get from one side of the room to the other, and her pace is picking up quickly.  We had a janky little makeshift play area in our living room with a big comforter.  Tacky, I know, but we are too cheap for a rug, remember!?  And we had toys spread throughout the house, because our bedrooms are carpeted.  We have been going from room to room for the past couple of months.  It is easier for her to play on the floor in our rooms cause of the carpet, but we don't like being banished to the bedroom.  So now that she is on the move, I decided we needed a rug in our living room again, despite the fact that I had promised never to whisper the word "rug" to Stephen again.  (He is a little put out with me and my rug indecision- but who can blame him?)  So he reluctantly agreed that it would be better for B if we had a rug.  So I convinced him to just go to this local carpet place to check out remnants.  Jackpot.  They had 8x10 bound remnants for cheap!  They had a big grey one that felt pretty soft and I thought that grey would be neutral enough so we got it.  (clearly I am not an interior decorator...)  So we got the huge thing home, moved the furniture, and rolled out our rug.  Fail.  It looked like old lady hair with the slight blue tint.  Know what I'm talking about?  Not cool.  But I refuse to allow my pride to cause me to have an ugly rug in my living room, so I declared my hatred for the rug and told Stephen we had to take it back.  I think he wanted to throw up at the thought of more rug shopping. 

We actually hadn't given much thought to our rug disease until we told our roommate about all our rugs.  (We have a guy living in our basement currently.  Don't worry, we know him, and we like him.)  He died laughing at our story and asked us if rug shopping was our "hobby."  This is what really opened our eyes to the ridiculousness of our rug problems.  But still, I hated this rug and it had to go.  So I promised Stephen that if the next rug didn't work, we really were done with rugs for forever.  (or until the next time I decide we HAD to have one.)  So we went back, found the most neutral color we could find that was relatively soft and got it.  Lucky number 7.  And we LOVE it.  We are kicking ourselves for not getting this a long time ago!  Blakely loves it, and the tidiness of our house loves it too.  We keep all B's toys in here, it is easy to pick up when she goes to bed, she has her own space that she can crawl around, plus I hate when hard floors are dirty and stuff sticks to your bare feet- don't have to worry about that with rugs.  Yes, I know that means I need to clean the floors, but I have a baby, who has time for that?  :)  So come on over to our house and sink your little toesies into our nice rug. 

best friends

me and blakely are BEST FRIENDS.  proof:

blakely loves me no matter what.  no matter how mad I make her, it's only a matter of seconds before she not only forgives me, but completely forgets.  see here?  I made her lay in her bed for a while and she cried about it, and a few minutes later, this is how she felt about me:

I always look out for her.  like here.  if I can help it, I make sure Blakely doesn't have excessive amounts of drool on her face.  (but there's only so much a friend can do...)

she looks out for me too.  she lends me a hand when I have food stuck in my teeth. 

and she's the prettiest girl around, so EVERYONE wants to be friends with her.  I am just lucky enough to be her best friend. 

Because...

Isn't she the cutest?

8 months on 8-8

I know I'm a few days late, but Blakely turned 8 months old on 8-8 (August 8th...)  We have been busy this month! 

This is one thing we've been up to.  That's right, bottles.  For about 3 weeks, Blakely has been boob free.  :)  and for about 2 weeks- breastmilk free.  Long story short- we had a hard time with nursing for pretty much Blakely's whole life.  We had lots of different issues, and I just decided I was going to be a better mom if I stopped.  My intention was to pump, but Blakely isn't exactly a low maintenance baby that will just chill while I pump...plus my supply went down pretty fast once I stopped nursing.  So we made the switch to formula about 2 weeks ago.  It took about a day of Stephen forcing her to take a bottle (or no milk) for her to take it willingly...then it took another day or two of fighting to get her to take premade formula...and for the past week we have been sneaking in the powdered formula in a little at a time, and she should be totally on powder tomorrow!  Whew!  Mealtime is so much less stress.  She doesn't cry when she eats, and she doesn't cry when she's done.  And if she chooses not to eat- I don't take it personally!  She is also on a much more predictable schedule with meals.

I have no idea if the two are related, but since she has been taking a bottle this is a new thing:

Neither of us are sleeping here.  I know I look awkward, but it is my only proof.  She has started snuggling.  She will just lay her head on my shoulder and squeeze me.  It's the sweetest thing! 

She will do this randomly throughout the day, but especially at naptime and bedtime.  I change her diaper, turn off the light, and she immediately lays her head on my shoulder and goes to sleep.  I promise you, she hasn't done this one time without me thinking about what life was like getting her to sleep just a few short months ago.  It's marvelous.  She will go to sleep if I just lay her in her crib too, but I like to snuggle with her.  It's pretty much the only time she is calm all day...

I literally couldn't get her to smile for one picture.  She just kept doing raspberries and this was the next best thing. 

She is eating 4-6 oz 4 times a day, plus breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Sometimes she eats two full containers of fruits/veggies, sometimes she takes 4 bites and is done.  One thing is clear, this girl is not interested in eating and only wants to do it if she has to.  She does, however, love table food.  And will pitch a fit if I give her some then stop.  We had to leave a restaurant not too long ago because she was screaming cause I wouldn't keep giving her my food. 

She goes to bed around 7 and sleeps til 6 or 6:30, and takes two naps a day for an hour and a half.  PTL. 

She is obsessed with fake animals.  Like puppets, stuffed animals, etc.  Especially ones that talk.  Sesame Street is her favorite show, and she goes bonkers when its on. 

One of her favorite things to do is this:

She loves to stand.  Sometimes she drives me crazy cause she just tries to grab my hands over and over so I will help her stand.  She has pulled up on things a few times but she has to be in the perfect position for it to work.  She gets really angry when she wants to pull up on something but can't.  For instance, she is always trying to pull herself up by the bumper in her crib.  She hasn't figured out that she could just grab the side of the crib...

I have no idea how much she weighs...maybe like 16lbs?  She still wears 3-6 month onesies and outfits, and 6-9 month ones are good in the length but big everywhere else. 

She wants so badly to crawl, but just can't figure it out.  She will dig her toes into the carpet and get her rear in the air, but usually only makes it forward about an inch, then she has a meltdown cause she is mad.  She has scooted herself up on her knees a couple of times.  She has only recently gotten really good at rolling.  She won't just roll all over the place, only if she sees something- she will roll to her stomach, pick it up and roll back.  If it is something really cool, like a cell phone or glasses, she will stay on her tummy to play with it.  She will also slowly lean forward until she is on her hands and knees if there is something cool just out of reach, but then she just plops down on her belly. 

She is still a little chatterbox, and has even started to "sing."  When there is singing on tv, and sometimes when I sing she will sing along with me.  It's pretty funny. 

I'm pretty sure she is going to be a diva.  I have figured this from the beginning, but her high-maintenance drama queen personality keeps coming out more and more.  She is almost never just calm and content.  She is either really ticked off, or she is squealing/screaming cause she is happy.  She is so funny.  I love her. 

7 months!

A week late. 

"I don't have teeth, but I DO have a neck!"

Well, she is now on her way to ONE YEAR!  I had a minor freak out when the doctor told us she'd see us "at her 9 month checkup then a year..."  What?  Only 1 more doc appointment then her YEAR checkup?  Shut it. 

This was a big month for little miss B, too.  I can barely remember what she was doing at 6 months, but she is a little PERSON now.  (I know, I know...she was always a person, but seriously, she is a person now.  Anyone who doesn't get this, doesn't know the transformation she has undergone.  She now has a personality, opinions, likes and dislikes, quirks.  Stephen and I often say that we "upgraded."  This is Blakely 2.0  :)

She is sitting up really well now.  She can play with her toys, reach for the ones she wants, occasionally dive for the ones a little too far out of her reach.  (In which case she then throws a fit because that means she ended up on her tummy...)  BTW she still HATES tummy time.  Stubborn little toot. 

She started sleeping ALL night about a month ago.  Not sure if she was doing that at 6 months... She goes to bed anywhere from 6 to 7, (occasionally crying for an hour...ugh...horrible....anyway) and sleeps until 6ish- eats, then usually goes back to sleep until 7, sometimes as late as 7:45!  Do you know what this does for me?!  I cannot even describe the joy of waking up and looking at the clock to see that it is 7:45. 

not sure what this face is about!

She is also NAPPING.  Yes, that's right, my little no- napper, stay awake, fuss all day, never give me a break- baby is taking 2, read it, T-W-O naps a day!  Woohoo!  Since she has been doing this for several weeks now, I feel that it is safe to announce.  She naps around 9sih, then again at 1ish for about an hour and a half.   Now that I feel I have read every possible book on baby's sleep needs/habits, I think I will write my own.  I'll call it "How to learn everything about getting your child to sleep, but not actually get her to sleep"  Think it'll sell?  I was so desperate I would have bought it. 

She is eating.  Not consistently, or well, or a lot, or much of a variety, but she is eating.  Sometimes she will eat a ton.  Then other days, like last week.  She didn't eat a thing from 1pm until she got up the next morning.  No lie.  She loves sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, and pears (on those days she feels like eating....)  She is ok with peas.  She will not eat any other fruit or veggie.  But we will keep trying. 

She is a chatterbox.  Especially when she doesn't know anyone is listening.  But if she isn't super comfortable with you, then she is quiet as a mouse.  She is saying "da, ba, ma, and na"  She likes to whisper, too. 

She is obsessed with dogs. Real ones and fake.  In fact, obsessed might be an understatement.  She hung out with my SIL's dog, Presley, and was such a basketcase for her that we had to keep B away from Presley because she would get so excited that she would eventually start crying.  She was equally excited about my parent's dog, Barbara.  She would laugh hysterically when Barb would play in front of her.  She also gets pretty excited at the lamb puppet on Baby Einstein.  (PTL for Julie Clark (creator of baby einstein), amen?) 

Oh, and another feat that Blakely has conquered is her BINKY!  That's right, folks, Blakely can put her binky in her mouth all by herself!  It took LOTS of practice...but she even does it now just to show off.  She picks it up, pops it in her mouth, then looks at you like "Yeah?  So what?"  One day we looked over at her playing on the floor and said to each other, "How'd that binky get in her mouth?" We then noticed that she had a binky in each hand.  She's been in charge of the binky ever since.  :)

She is suuuuper ticklish, and loves tickle games.  She also loves glasses (eye glasses, as well as drinking glasses.)  In fact, she can sortof become obsessed.  Her favorite toy is an empty gatorade bottle. 

Stats:  She weighs 15lbs 2oz (15th%)
She is 26.5 inches tall (52%)- she grew 3 inches this summer!  Wowza!
She was eating about every 4 hours for a little while, but she went back to every 3, sometimes less. 

best for last! 

Yay for seven month old babies! 

Beach photos

I had every intention of NOT going back to the beach with Blakely, but as our time in Gulf Shores drew to a close, I couldn't help but wonder if I would forever regret not having some cute pictures of B and her fam at the beach....SOOOOO we somehow tricked our friend Claire into getting up at 6am and heading to the beach with us for a little family photo shoot.  I hear evening light is better, but after 6pm is just a big fat no-no for Blakely, so we settled for the dawn lighting.  Claire isn't a pro, and our camera is just a dinky little thing, but we were so pleased. 
This is our photographer...thought you'd like to know. 



It's pretty hard to get a good picture of three people, when one doesn't know she is suppose to always be smiling at the camera, and the other two are constantly doing ridiculous things to get her to smile and look at the camera.... 

<--By far her best smile of the day...too bad my head is cut off!  But then again, who are we looking at in these pictures anyway?  Not me! 

Here is my favorite picture of the shoot.  This IS Blakely...hands in mouth, tongue out, looking like a stinker, but a CUTE stinker.  And then, of course, her second favorite person in the whole world.  Yes, I unashamedly take first.  I am her source of life, so it's pretty much no contest. 

 I wish this one (below) was a little clearer.  This one is funny cause it is totally out of Stephen's comfort zone.  He doesn't exactly walk around with her on his shoulders often.  I think it freaked him out a bit, but I figured it was a good foreshadowing of his days to come.  I am sure she will spend many hours riding up there. 

Blakely was not a fan of this one.  The beach was slanted, and just after this was taken she got a wave under her booty.  This is how she felt about it...

And last but not least....

I am SO glad we got up early and had our little beach shoot!  Blakely did so good, and I know I will always be glad we have these pictures!  Even if I paid for it all day for messing up her schedule.  :)