More tradition, Yeahh!!

Here comes more fun and wonderful traditions! *jumping up and down*

Before I got married I had never carved a pumpkin. At least not that I could remember. So the first Halloween that Trevor and I were married we carved pumpkins together. I was immediately in love! Using knives...squishy pumpkin guts...thinking of something creative and scary to carve....lighting them up and turning all the lights off to watch them glow....eating roasted pumpkin seeds....wonderful!!

We have done it every year since and taken pictures of our jack-o-lanterns like they were babies. I love it. 

Obviously baby girl is not old enough to handle a sharp knife and really actually not old enough to handle a marker....but we worked it out!

Two firsts in one! Pumpkin "carving" and marker on her skin!

Later on mom and dad helped out a bit with the carving.

The Plan..."Cry baby, cry make your mama sigh"!

#1. Ween her off of the "cuddle blankets".

#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle.
#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own.

#4. Despite my somber title things have actually gone fairly well! I am almost embarrassed that I put this off for so long because apparently all my worry that it was going to be horrible was for nothing. Just another huge number of hours of my life wasted on worry! uhhhg!

Soooo I wrote the above two days after we started with sleep training. Sophie tricked us and it is not doing quite as well as the above seems to imply. She is still doing MUCH better than I though but let me just say......this. is. hard.
So far she goes down at night the best with a minuscule 20 min of crying and for the most part no crying at all. She goes down for most of her naps with no crying and sometimes crying for 20 - 30 min. So you say what is the problem what are you complaining about?
Nap length. :-(
She only sleeps for 30 - 45 min tops and we were trying to help her extended those nap times. I have since given up on that!!!! I know she is not getting quite as much daytime sleep as she needs to but we will work on that later. Right now its just too much to do both go to sleep and stay asleep!

#2. To be attempted some other time. Bed time is now between 7:45 and 8:00 pm and wake up is usually around 8:30 am and thats all we got so far!

Check it out! Parrot baby!

Also ten points to whomever can correctly tell me what TV show the quote in the post title is from. I will give you a hint: It is from the episode that was supposed to be the show's pilot.
Trevor you can't play!

Pumkintastic!

I know thats not a word and not even a very good combination of words but thats how I felt when we took our first ever pumpkin patch pictures!!!!

I thrive on traditions and rituals, I love the familiarity and the consistency of it. I love the power that grows around them as the memories build. The joy of recalling and talking about what happened last time or the time before. I love how each time is so different and yet so the same how it reveals how things have changed or remained the same.
So starting a new family tradition that I am already anticipating sets my little heart a tingling!
Without further ado I present pumpkins + fantastic!

Beautiful!!!

Two things I Love

So I should have posted one of these quite some time ago!!! Here it is now anyway!
#1 Lemonade

What can I say I have been on a kick recently. And I am not talking about any of the fresh squeezed stuff with the nasty pulp floating around. I am talking about the I am a little kid making lemonade from concentrate kind. I just love the tangy, tart sweetness and it looks so good and in a glass. Refreshing and delicious.

#2 Impossibly long Eyelashes




Lets face it they are amazing. They fall so softly on little white cheeks and make you sigh. Ohhh so pretty.

The Plan.. Update

So despite some discouragement and sometimes feeling that "The plan" will never ever work or help and I am just fooling myself there is some positive results!


#1. Ween her off the "cuddle blankets": See number 3
#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule: So far all we have down is bed (sorta) and wake time. I bathe her at 8:30am every night then she nurses and she is completely down for the night by 10 or 10:30 between holding her asleep and her waking up after I have put her down. More on this in number 4.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle: Done!!! Check her out in pajamas! I have been so sad because as she tends to be a bit hot natured she would get extremely sweaty and hot with both the swaddle and jammies on so she has slept in just a diaper and the swaddle for quite some time. I was so excited that she finally sleeps in her cute pajamas! And with the swaddle gone somehow she didn't seem to need the "cuddle blankets" so those just went away!

#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own: *sigh* this starts tonight :( I have a sleep sheep that I am hoping she will learn to associate with falling asleep as well as help to sooth and calm her. I am planning on letting her cry for 30 min to 1 hour depending on how upset she gets. I am trying to schedule company for when Trevor is at work so that I don't go crazy! Poor baby she has to learn to go to sleep by herself but this not going to be fun!!! I am hoping that once putting her to sleep is not a 20 min to an hour or more process and once she can nap for longer than an hour at a time then we can keep to a schedule a little bit better. 


So thats the plan.........................................................*gulp*! 

3 Months!

Nicknames:
Dad - Chica monkey, chuncka monkey, scooter, scooter pooter, princess, baby bi
Mom - Pickle or little pickle or pickle baby, baby gerkin, pretty eyes, Sophiekins, fuss pot, potful of fuss.

She is..
Doing very well with controlling her arms and legs reaches for toys and sometimes can even grasp them and always try's to get them into her mouth.



Holding her head almost completely steady and is only sometimes a bobble head and holding her head the entire way when you pull her up by her arms from laying on her back.



So close to rolling over but since she hates tummy time hasn't quite got it yet!

Such a loud baby she makes funny sorta yelling noises while playing which sometimes sound mad or sad but usually its just play.



Now in her little tub in the big tub because she splashes like crazy!
In her car seat now without any of the little baby support stuff and she looks like such a big kid.

About to outgrow all the 0-3 months clothing as they are starting to stretch a bit at the bottom and around the middle.

Laughing some! She has done it a couple of times but of course she wont laugh for the same thing twice!

Still a great nurser and typically eats every 2.5 - 3.5 hours.

A beautiful little baby girl!

Dedicated..

It was wonderful.....
The weather was beautiful the park was pretty we were all dressed up and as usual I was overwhelmed by the awesome, amazing complete wonderfulness of my family. Our cup truly overflows and it makes my heart swell with joy!
We got there 45 min early because Trevor was afraid we were going to need to kick someone out of the pavilion that we had reserved. All was well and no one had trespassed on our reservation.
Little pickle was sleeping in her car seat....a rarity!

She managed to stay asleep for about 30 min and then...

She was up!
I only go a few pictures at the beginning before everyone started to arrive and then I was bustling about and so full of nervous (but good) energy that all thoughts of taking pictures and cameras and the like flew out of my head.

We have dedicated her back into the hands of God.
Thank you so much to all who were there I can not explain how overwhelmingly grateful I am for the role each of you play in my life in Trevor's life and most importantly in my little Sophie's life.
She has no idea yet but she is probably the most loved baby in all the world, she has more love and support than I every could have hoped for or wished for!
We love you all!!

Ohh October!

Signs that October is here!

I love October, its like the first taste of cake when you know more deliciousness is to come. Ohh yumm I want cake! Pumpkin cake! Its the beginning of the "decoration season" and the beginning of oh so much good food to eat and lots of fun with family! Ohhh and the weather outside is finally oh so nice!

The Plan

I like to make plans. I like the feeling of order and security that they give me. I like to feel that if I just have a plan then everything is fine and I can handle anything that happens.
All of the above is great however.....plans rarely work out quite like I...... well.... planned them to. I am aware of this reality and can deal with it. But sometimes I am still taken off guard, I still sometimes think "but I had a plan I am sticking to the plan...WHY IS THIS NOT WORKING!"

Here was the plan for Sophiekins to get her to start sleeping better:

#1. Ween her off of the "cuddle blankets".
#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle.
#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own.

Here is how the plan is going:

#1. This one I tried to do for about a week and then completely gave up and haven't tried again since.
#2. This past week was the first time I tried to keep her to any kind of a regular schedule. So far she is still mostly all over the place. Waking up anywhere from 7am - 10:30am and napping anywhere from three to four times a day. She usually will only sleep for an hour at a time during the day unless I can get her to go back to sleep and then she will sleep for another hour or so. Sometimes. I try to put her down to bed at 10pm every night and then she will either wake up between 2 and 4 and then again between 6 and 7 or she will wonderfully sleep till 5 or 7.
So how did trying to keep to a schedule go? Not - that - great - !
I gave us a break this weekend and then tomorrow we are back at it trying to give some predictability to our day!
#3. This is actually not going that bad! She has been sleeping with one arm out for almost a week now and I am going to start her sleeping with both arms out tomorrow...so we shall see how it goes!!
#4. This has not even been attempted yet. I am not looking forward to this as I see sad crying in our future. But I am getting desperate so I have great motivation!
And now some random cuteness!



Wearing dad's work boots



Sitting in mom and dad's bed