Rolling Over is Hard Work

Just see how tired some of the first attempts at rolling over made Baby A.

3 Months

Baby A is not a newborn anymore. And nothing showed me how much she's grown like visiting Baby E in the hospital last Thursday night (Congrats K & S... Baby E came on their 3 year anniversary!). It was amazing to see the difference that 3 months make!

My little girl is alert so much now... there are lots of smiles to go around. We even got a little laugh on night walking around the lake. Just see how she loves (one of) her bison. E just called from work to say how much he loves this picture!



She's also babbling like crazy! One of our favorite times of day with her is right before bed. E gives her a bottle, then wraps her up and puts her in the pack-n-play (we decided we're not quite ready to move her to her room yet) and she talks to the elephant heads that hang above it. Sometimes she has to yell at them, but mostly it's happy chatter. It's such a sweet sound to hear before bed.





Then, on her 3 month birthday, she rolled herself over from her back to her tummy. She has only gotten over once, and it took about 10 minutes to get the arm out, but she did it! I was so glad that E and I were both there to see it. I am thinking I need to be much more careful about where I leave her now though.

Baby A is in pretty much all 6 month clothes now (and I hope she stays there for awhile). She sleeps for at least 6 hours a night, but most of the time it's 7 or 8 hours (oh, how much mommy loves that!). We still haven't figured out what our nickname for Annabelle will be, but we call her lots of other names... princess, honey bunny or honey bun, bunny and many others mixed in.

Giddy Up!

Last year, our friends E & N invited us to a cowboy themed birthday party for N. It was really fun to find cowboy gear and dress up for the party. This year we were invited again, and I was pretty excited to break out the Osh'Kosh B'Gosh overalls that my mom and sister K1 found for Baby A at a garage sale. I thought she made a pretty cute cowgirl... Annabelle Oakley as one of the other guests nicknamed her.

Busy Bees

I know I have been bad at blogging for the past few weeks, but we have been busy bees around here.

The end of the school year snuck up on us, and while I haven't been teaching since Baby A was born, my position was cut at school so I had to pack up my stuff and move. I found out about the position cut back in February, but being preggo and having other priorities, I chose to leave my things at school until the end of the year. So, when the last days of the year were upon us, I had to pack up Baby A and head out to the school to gather my things. It was a little hard for me to pack things up this year. I currently don't have a job, and don't know if I will be returning in the fall. It is weird to think fall may come and I may not be in school. I can't remember the last time that happened.

On a more fun note, the end of the school year means many of my friends, also teachers, have much more free time to play with Baby A and me. That makes me very happy. And my good friend K is finally back from almost a year in India. She gets to meet Baby A for the first time tomorrow and we are all very excited!

We are also preparing the house for Baby A's baptism next weekend. We have 22 family members plus a few friends who will be celebraing with us, and we want our house to look its best, because many of our family members don't get up to MSP very often. So, we are finally tackling many projects that have been put off for days, months years...

Last weekend it was really rainy, so we cleaned, painted and started organizing the basement (even the "scary room"). There's still a lot to do, but it looks so much better already! I've also been trying to get some decorations up around the house, especially our bedroom. We painted back in November, but as soon as that was done, we turned our attention to Baby A's nursery.

Here's what I had on our shelves:

And here's what they look like now. Still not completely done, but I think it is looking much better. And, the only new things are the plants. Everything else, even the containers for the plants was found around our house. Our room definitley feels more cozy now.

And finally, as if the previous items weren't keeping me busy enough, I have a wonderful baby girl to hang out with! She babbles like crazy now, which is so adorable for me and E. We love listening to her chat with the elephants that hang over her pack-n-play before she falls asleep at night. And look at her little fishy face wearing her fishy shirt... too cute!

Sleep?

See my sweet baby girl, all happy and ready for bed? She made Mommy's day by sleeping 8 hours on Monday night, and after I nursed her, fell right back to sleep for a couple more. Sleeping in is what rainy days are made for, right?

When we eventually got up, I had a very productive day with a very happy baby.

Then came bedtime Tuesday night. Baby A had a big bottle, and we decided to try having Baby A sleep in her own room. So we swaddled her up, turned on the monitor and headed to our own room. Baby A was making the sweetest little noises, singing along to her Rockabye Baby Journey CD perhaps? By the time I fell asleep, she was quiet, and I felt good about her sleeping in her bed. I figured that her room staying darker than ours would help her sleep longer every night.

As you may have guessed by now, that is not what happened. A little before 2am I woke up to baby noise on the monitor. I went downstairs to check on her, and found that she had managed to get her legs out of the swaddler we had her wrapped up in. So I tucked her legs back in and decided to bring her upstairs for the rest of the night. 2:30am she was making noise again, so I found her pacifier. 2:45am, she was still making noise so I went to give her the pacifier back, and found that she had gotten her arms out of the swaddler. So I took her downstairs, nursed her a little, and tied her up tight in the swaddler to try for bed again. She slept until about 6:30am. I am one tired lady today (even after napping with her later in the morning).

Tonight, we try again to make the move, hopefully with better results.

Note: I can't really complain about this too much, because Baby A is normally sleeping about 6 hours a night. I know some babies at her age still wake up several times each night. I feel pretty lucky to have such an easy baby.

A Few Firsts...

The past couple of weeks have been very busy here. Lots of firsts for Baby A...

A trip away. We went to St. Louis via Lodi. This trip included Baby A's first brewery tour (I know, good parenting, right?) and first trip to the zoo. St. Louis has a fabulous free zoo. Zoos are a big hit with me generally, but the St. Louis Zoo is especially fun!

A first birthday party for our friend's daughter. I'm amazed that a year has gone by since little E was born. So much has changed in 12 short months! It was fun to celebrate this big event.


A wedding. E and I went to celebrate his friend's wedding. A Jewish ceremony which was a first for both E and I. Everything was beautiful, and the reception was in an old library... such a nice venue. It was also the first time E and I went somewhere without Baby A. Admittedly, it was hard on me to leave her, but nice to spend time with my husband too. We stayed in touch with E's friends who were babysitting with the Blackberry, and they were sweet enough to even send us a few pictures. Very reassuring to a nervous mama.


A visit home. The morning after the wedding, Baby A and I got up early to head back to Wisconsin so I could introduce Baby A to my best friend, Heather (more on that soon).