Day in the Life

Tuesday's and Thursday's are our busy days. On Tuesday's both girls have ballet straight after I pick them up.... Which makes for a looonng day leaving at 7:30am and getting home at 6:30pm. 

On Thursday's we have library class in the evening. Thankfully we get to come home and dinner and play before leaving. Our library has a fun little play area that we get to enjoy for a few minutes before class. Puzzles and building blocks were the highlights of our night tonight.

After class tonight I surprised the girls with an ice cream treat... Thanks to Nana and Papa for the McDonald's gift cards for Valentine's Day! 

Norah decided to eat with her fingers.... And rub it in her hair!

After quick baths we hit the hay for the night. The girls are enjoying sleeping together lately! It's sweet when they fall asleep holding hands.... But Mckenna is usually asleep in 5 seconds!

A little peak into one of our days!

Lovies

So neither of my girls has ever taken to any type of pacifier, lovie, blanket or stuffed animal for sleep. A blessing and a curse!

Over the last week or two, though, Norah has wanted to bring something to bed with her and has refused to give it up when I tried to take it away.... 

First up, this little Lego puppy dog

 

Next up was her pink Little Mermaid nightgown... she didn't want to wear it. Just hold it.

And finally was an empty sippy cup. Yep, empty. It looks like it is in her mouth, but its not.

Just laying there next to her.

Hump Day

We are having a rough week around our house, so I am really trying to see the positive in every little moment. It's a struggle, I am not going to lie! The honeymoon phase of this new back to work routine has worn off and my girls (ahem, Mckenna) are struggling a bit. 

My sweet girl floating in the
tub telling me, "Ahhh this is the life!"

Sweet girls sound asleep in my bed at 7:30pm!

Walking to the babysitters house hand in hand!

I am trying to dig out some fall clothes for Norah that will fit her! 

Digging out bins (and bins) of clothing! Size 18 month and 24 months!

Enjoying the fall like weather on Monday afternoon...

Pouring another glass of wine to cope!

Sleeping Babies

Mama headed back to work this week. It has been a rough week for sleep in our house... which really means nobody is sleeping! I think this was Tuesday or Wednesday. 

After 4:30am wake-ups. They were both asleep at 6:00 in my bed.

Phone Pictures

It has been awhile since I downloaded pictures from my phone, so I had a few random ones to post...

Last week when I took Mckenna to the doctor they did another blood test on her. She does so well with the finger pricks, but doesn't like band-aids on her fingers!


2 weeks ago we had some REALLY bad weather. Jim was down at the Sox game tailgating while the tornado sirens were going off. I was home in the basement with Mckenna! She was making some silly faces!!

Our first nite staying here with Pops was a bit rough for Mckenna... she was up a could of times and up waaay to early for the day! Jim got her to sleep while I was making a coffee run! Too sweet!

Red, White & Blue

We really enjoyed our 4th of July celebration yesterday!

We spent some time in the afternoon at Nana's pool soaking the rays! Mckenna loves the water and was once again a little fish in the pool. She kept sticking her face and mouth in the water.

After swim time we headed back to Pop's house for our 4th of July party. Mckenna provided everyone with much entertainment!

She went to bed at her normal time of 7:30ish... and slept through EVERYTHING!!! I had mentally prepared myself for her waking up and being up for awhile and then having a rough night sleep. Not the case at all. She woke up for a bottle at 12am.. and then again at 4am... and woke up for the day around 7:30am.

So, while Mckenna slept, we all enjoyed the great fireworks display the Jim, Bill and Tim put on. I can't wait to post those pictures!!

Thursday Randomness

I have spent the last two days going through my day, saying to myself, "Oh I need to add that to my blog." Nothing important, but random little things that I want to document. As I have stated, this blog has taken on the shape of an online baby book for Mckenna. It is so easy to hop on the computer and document things, rather than write them down in her baby book... especially since I can hop on the computer while at work during my lunch. That being said, this is more of a laundry list of things I have been meaning to add...

Can Mckenna come out and play?? Yes, we have a gate outside of her bedroom door now. No, she hasn't mastered climbing out of her crib, yet. Hopefully we are a LONG way off from that. The gate is to keep her big brothers (aka Sox & Milo) out of her room... as evidenced by the toy on the floor in front of the gate. They haven't tried getting in her crib or anything, but will wander around her room sometimes during the night. Milo has been known to knock over a picture or two on her bookshelf, or try to steal her toys. They also like to hide under her crib, so that makes trying to get them out of her room even more fun!

Still obsessing over feet and socks... the saga continues! The swing may be packed up soon... she is trying to lift herself up and reach the mobile animals.

Obsessed with the tongue! If you look close she has some nice little raspberry bubbles hanging from it, too! This is now what I get when I try to get a cute smiling little baby! All tongue!

We have found our hands! She loves her hands and is constantly twisting and moving them around in front of her face. This is especially cute when trying to feed her a bottle! The little hands are moving constantly in front of her face... that or she is trying to shove them in her mouth with the bottle! She is starting to notice people waving... she will move her little finger or try to wave back, however she doesn't have that much coordination just yet. We are getting there!

What a look! This was after Daddy's basketball game last night! She loved the game again! Though she kept reaching out and staring at the cheerleaders, too!

Just lounging! Before Jim made it up to take the picture she had both arms slug over each side of the tub. It was too cute! I just love the look on her face, too...

yeah, I'm cute and cool... and know it!

The picture I wish I had, but obviously in a million years would not take... I went to check on Mckenna last night before I went to bed. Upon a quick glance, she was NOT in her crib. What?! She was cuddle up/wedged into the corner (on her back) sound asleep. It was really funny that she had somehow gotten herself into that position.

Upon first thought, I should move her out of the corner and away from the bumper... upon second thought, my daughter is asleep and I am exhausted. I am going to bed. She knows how to move very well around the crib.

In other news, I am reporting just the facts on Night 3 of sleep training. At 6pm she got really cranky while eating oatmeal and sweet potatoes. We went up to get pjs on and she started getting more and more fussy. I gave her her bottle... she was in bed by 6:30pm. After 20 minutes of fussing, she was out. She was fussing a bit at 12:55am... gave her her paci. She woke up at 5am. I will not comment anymore on this... more as a report on Night 4.

Night 2

Well, for us night 2 became the harder of the 2 nights. I thought we may be golden when she was ready for bed at 6pm. She was asleep half way through her bottle and in bed by 6:20pm last night. Of course she started fussing a bit the minute LOST came on... but she was out on her own within a couple of minutes. The fun began right when we went to bed! She did lots of crying last night, but after being fed (finally) at 5am she was out until 7:30am when I had to wake the poor little thing up to get her dressed to leave.



Hopefully night 3 is better since the stress of no sleep and the stress of a crazy job does not make for a happy mommy :( I am tired.



On another note, she did eat prunes for the first time yesterday. She loved them. I on the other hand was a little grossed out in feeding them too her! But... whatever it takes to keep things moving!!

Sleep training...and baby food inventory

So officially night 1 of sleep training... yes, we did have her do some crying on Sunday, but after a little more research and preparing, last night was officially the night. And she did really good! As well as she slept swaddled up and in her boppy, once she realized she could move and roll over to her tummy, we were golden!

She slept most of last night on her tummy. Although that freaks me out a little bit, I have known for a while that as soon as she could roll around well she would be a tummy sleeper. She loves sleeping on top of me on my chest!

She did wake up a few times last night, however I was able to replace her paci and rub her head and she was back out, for the most part. No night feeding. No picking her up and rocking her. She stayed in her bed from 6:53pm until 6:10am. Yes, almost 12 hours! Some of the information I have read says that night 2 is worse, but some says it is better each night. We will see!


Last night after little peanut went to bed, I was in the kitchen tallying up what my 1st round of baby food making had produced. Here are the results....

• 3 medium pears - 16 cubes/oz.
• 3 medium bananas - 12 cubes/oz.
• 1 medium avocado - 10 cubes/oz.

I don't have my receipt from the store with me, but I believe we spent about $2 on the pears, $1.25 on the bananas and $1 on the avocado... so $4.25 on the food. So that is about 11 cents per ounce of food. Not too bad. I believe the Gerber pears that I bought for her try were 4oz for $1.00. So less than half the price! And that is with the avocado that obviously costs more per ounce.

Monday, Monday

Back to the grind of the week. Nothing like getting back to work after having missed a day. It is so hard to play catch up. Not only do I have the paperwork aspect of missing a day and and IEP meeting, I also have 10 kids saying, "I thought I was going to see you Friday" along with teachers saying, "Since I missed you Friday... ". Not too fun!

The happier note is that my little peanut had another great day! She has transitioned to sleeping fully flat and in her crib without the Boppy. Today the sitter tried it as well and had great success! She came home with a little Valentine craft from the sitter's house, as well. It is always fun to get little things like that when I get there to pick her up! The big girls love "helping" her make her crafts!

Product Rave - Arnold Sandwich Thins! They are a cross between bread and a sandwich roll.... 100% whole wheat and 100 calories! They also have 5 grams of fiber in them!! Yummy! I tried uploading a picture, but it won't work. They look like flat hamburger buns and are in
the bread aisle! Try them out!!

And of course a day would not be complete without some pictures of the baby girl herself... these first two were today after enjoying some avocado and oatmeal. I think the bow just makes her look so much better with the green mush on her face!

These 3 are still from yesterday in her high chair...

So serious!!

We introduced a sippy cup of water during her dinner meal. It is one of the cups that they don't have to suck and the water/liquid just flows. She didn't want to hold it, but seemed to like having the water drip in her mouth!