Happy Halloween!

My little teddy bear!

We're on the move!

For the past two days Abi has been rolling EVERYWHERE! She has been able to roll both ways for a while now but up until yesterday she has hated being on her tummy. So she would roll right over when placed there and that would be the end of it. Well, now she's voluntarily rolling over, and over and over to get to things. It's amazing to watch! We cheer and clap our hands every time for positive encouragement. I'm thinking she'll be crawling by Thanksgiving. She's also trying so hard to get and keep her knees under her. No more putting the baby down and walking away!! LOL

Carrots!

So yesterday we decided to try carrots. Hubby got a nice big bag of regular sized carrots and I went to work scrubbing, peeling, slicing and baking them (yes, apparently if you bake them instead of steam they 1. steam in their own juices in the foil and 2. become even sweeter and delicious!) Once they were steamed and cooled I got out my trusty Bullet blender. Which I haven't used in two years, lol. Pureeing was a little difficult but I finally got the hang of it right around the time Abi got used to hearing the scary loud noise the Bullet makes. So we got all pureed and I set aside a portion for her lunch and froze the rest. I should have washed everything right away but was too excited to see Abi try her first carrots, so now my Bullet cup is stained orange. Yes, bright halloween orange. lol. Oh well. We set Abi up and I was so sure she would take to the carrots just like she's taken to everything else.. not so much. She ate it, but I really don't think she like it much. As it cooled (because I always try warming things up first, even tho I know she likes her food cooler) she took to it a little better. But I think I need to get more avocado for her second daily meals. That way she'll have something she really likes at least once a day.
Is it just me or does everyone not realize that carrots stain so badly? Her spoon is stained, her bib and the wash cloth are stained even tho I rinsed and washed them very shortly after lunch. I'm surprised her skin isn't stained! Oh... and the poopy. Orange. Of course.

Love

I love this little girl! She amazes me every day!

Drool.. and she's not even teething! LOL And that smile melts my heart!

Simply silly and always amazing.

And it occured to me that I never posted Abi's 7 month photos with her update. Finally a monthly shot with SMILES! :)

"Who, me?"

7 month update

Abi turned 7 months old yesterday! How time flies! She'll be one before I know it and that makes me both happy and sad. Sad because I don't want my baby to grow up so fast, but happy because she'll be doing more and playing more and I'm sure she will be oh so much more fun! Every day is a challenge that I gratefully accept. I am painfully aware lately (especially since it is pregnancy loss awareness/remembrance month) of those less fortunate than we are.. who have lost babies, some before ever meeting them and what I would consider worse.. losing a baby after getting to hold them. Anyway, before I start to cry... This is what Abi has been up to!

Sleep: Sleeping is mostly through the night, unless she is sick and coughs herself awake. She sleeps mostly form 7p to 7a, however, the past few days she's been getting up at 5 or 5:30a and it drives me insane! lol. The two days prior to that she got up at 1a and the next day at 2:30a to eat, but was good about going back to sleep. Thankfully she's been self soothing at night so I really don't have to go in too often. Nap time is another story altogether. She is terribly inconsistent with naps, especially at daycare.

Eats: we're back to six 4oz bottles a day, for about the past 3 weeks she's been eating every hour to hour and a half, 4oz the first bottle then 2oz then back to 4oz.. she was up to 30 or so oz a day, which is unusual for her. I'm thinking major growth spurt! I have tried giving her 6oz bottles and she'll only take 4oz so I just follow her lead to avoid wasting anything. She is also on solids once a day (which we will be increasing soon!) Here are the things she's tried so far; avocado, sweet potato and acorn squash! She loves the avocado and sweet potato plain, but only likes the squash so-so... but with cinnamon? She'll tear it up! LOL We are two weeks behind in introducing new foods because at 6 months she was sick so we waited an extra week, then I made a ton of avocado and froze it, only to find out that our freezer zip-lock type bags are not the greatest for long term. So we spent another week on avocado to use it all up. We're not sure what's next, I'm thinking carrots or another type of squash. We got the squash at a local farm for 75 cents! Can't beat the freshness or the price!

Play: Abi loves to jump in her jumper, but is in between sizes. So her feet are flat on the floor at the 1st level, but when we raise it to the 2nd level she's barely tip-toe touching. Ah well... she'll grow into it fast enough! She also loves to chew on everything she can get her hands on! We have a small canvas box in her pack and play to hold all her toys/diapers/creams etc and she loves to roll over to it and dump it out (then chew on a corner, lol) I'm so proud of her because sometimes it's pretty heavy (like when I forget to remove the cream so she doesn't try to play with that.) Abi still hates tummy time, but is getting a little better if we distract her. She's starting to sit up unassisted, but only for a little while and I have to be behind her to catch her. But she's getting there! She also loves to hold the books we read to her, and tries to gum them as well!

Other: Abi has been going through some serious separation anxiety. She won't let me get two feet from her at daycare before she starts crying. It makes me feel like the scum of the earth to leave her there.. but I'm going to school for her, to make a better living for our family so that we can give her the best we can afford. We are looking for a nanny though. Abi just isn't jiving with the daycare scene.

We went to Abi's first pumpkin patch a few weekends ago!

Abi picked out her own pumpkin! 

I can't wait to have a house so we can get one of the BIG pumpkins for Abi to carve. I had one once and I loved it!

Here's one of my favorite shots from Abi's 6 month photo shoot. She's so inquisitive!

And my little girl on her tummy and actually smiling!

That's all I can think of for now, I will probably write again later once I think of more! Also, Pinspiration Sunday will be back again probably at the middle of December. I just haven't had the time to find anything to make or the time to make it!

How do you have time?

I am so confused as to how mothers have time to do anything. On the rare occasion that Abi sleeps longer than 20 minutes during a nap it feels like a holiday. This past week I've been off from school and amazingly she's taken at least an hour nap in the late morning every day. But what do I do during those precious naps? Wash bottles or just veg. I don't want to do any studying even tho I've got a mid term today, a test Monday and a quiz Tuesday. I'm totally spent because in addition to Abi being sick, she's also been increasingly clingy and I believe the seperation anxiety has finally struck big time. I can't leave the room for more than a minute without her spazing. Even when we are in the same room, she'll only entertain herself for a little while before freaking out. Its crazy. I wonder if she's like this all day at daycare... that scares me. I don't want my poor baby crying like that all day. I actually haven't heard her cry like that at home in sooooo long.. and now she's doing it daily. Often. It makes me feel so bad for her and myself, and after a week of it I'm so ready for a break from her... and that makes me feel like the worst mother ever.
This weekend Abi would wake herself up coughing. I mean really coughing hard core. But she was just at the dr and had been fine. A little reddness in her ears, phlemy lungs but no cough. Well it came back with a vengence and she got very little sleep because of it. Hubby and I took turns trying to comfort her, and I got very little homework done due to crying along with my sick baby. (Pms is a biotch add that to feeling realllly bad for my poor baby and its a recipe for nothing but tears) and this is to be continued because little miss is up early from her nap......

Picking up from earlier... I feel awful for leaving my baby at daycare and actually feeling a little relieved. I needed to finish a paper (that was due a week ago!) and print it out and I still need to finish studying for my midterm (procrastinating? who me?) But it's kind of nice to just relax for a minute and not be anticipating the next scream. I hate hate hate that I feel that way. I love my baby. I know and keep reminding myself that she's only this little for such a short time. But even hubby mentioned yesterday that he kind of can't wait till this phase is over. This from the man who had just worked two 12 hour shifts, who didn't even see Abi awake yesterday. Needless to say I gave him a dirty look. He drives me batty sometimes with the things he says. I love my husband. I really really do. He's the most wonderful man I have ever met. That being said, he's also the sole provider for our family right now while I finish school and take care of Abi. And he works hard. I know this. But for him to say anything about how difficult Abi is being lately, when he's not even home with her 90% of the day? That irks me. He is home for her most difficult period, the few hours before bedtime when she's just tired and done with the day. But he gets to see her happy morning self on the weekends. So he know's she's not always crabby (except for lately.) I don't know....

I just don't understand how any new(ish) mom has time to do anything for themselves. Especially stay at home moms. I did it for 5 months and it was great, for the most part. But now that Abi is older and going through whatever phase it is she's going through, I find myself just wanting to go back to sleep. How awful is that!?! Of course when she naps, it's for such a short time that I cannot unwind enough to sleep with her. Then there's the screaming. Oh yes, the screaming is back. And it's not just when she's upset, she screams in delight too. Which is funny, and ear piercing. Ouch. She's also back to doing the back bending when she's upset or hungry or tired or gassy or anything not happy. Which drives hubby nuts. Which prompts me to remind him that she's just a baby and doesn't know any better yet. But it drives me nuts too. I used to have very little patience.. I still don't think I have much patience to be honest. But I'm wondering if I have more than hubby when it comes to Abi. I found this quote on Pinterest, it goes something like "having a child is knowing what it's like to have your heart go walking around outside your body" And I do truly feel that way. She is my whole world right now. She is my heart. But I guess that a little distance from her isn't a bad thing... Every mom needs a break, right? I mean... I'm not superwoman. Although I'd love to be supermom someday....

Sweet potato!

So today Abi tried sweet potato. At first it went just about the same way avocado did.. many faces, but no real pushing the food out. She ate more than I expected her to and by the end at least she didn't seem to hate it! I hope she ends up loving it as much as she loves avocado. She practically lunges at the spoon now! LOL I love my little punkin. :)

My own menu board

So I got this idea from pinterest, to make a menu board so that we don't have the runaround conversation every night.. "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't know, what do you want?" "I asked you first.." etc. The link to the original is menu board. Of course, I wouldn't be me without making some changes to the things I find on Pinterest. So I tweaked it a little to suit our needs. It's not quite done yet, I still need to print out the recipe cards with ingredients so that we don't have to go back and forth to find what we need. Here are a few pics of my creation. (P.S. this took about 5 weeks to actually finish. I got the frame ages ago with the intent to do this project, but then school started and Abi stopped napping well.. and well.. yeah. lol)

We will write the days dinner selection with dry erase marker over the glass. 

All in all, I'm really happy with how it turned out. :)