Cruising and Christmas

Lucille is learning new skills and I've been very busy trying to keep her safe in our unsafe house! Whenever I've gotten any downtime, dishes have won over fishing out the decorations, especially when we only would be able to enjoy them for such a short period of time. So, our wreath on the door is as cheery as it is going to get this year.

Lucille is mobile folks. It all happened very quickly. She can crawl, sit up, and pull herself to a stand. Just yesterday she started walking along the sofa, aka cruising. She stands on her knees unassisted, which means she can reach things that are higher up with those unoccupied hands of hers. Once she gets herself in a standing position, she only needs one hand and my brave little baby has started to let go with both on occasion. Which is scary.

We mainly need to gate the stairs off. And put outlet covers on the outlets, she has already tried to put her fingers in them. No, no, no, no, sweetheart, we can't do that! Other than that, I'm considering a playard, I think that might be a good investment with all the travelling we do.

Lucille went to her first tree farm a couple weeks ago, to help pick out grandma and grandpa's Christmas tree. It is now decorated and awaiting our arrival! I'm sure Lucille will love it.

Here is the afternoon summarized in pictures, enjoy!

 

Riding around in the Ergo!

Teamwork!



Eating my camera case. Yummy.

Grandma gave her a candy cane. With the wrapper still on... because mommy said so. 

Thankful

Here is my slightly late Thanksgiving post! Our Thanksgiving week was wonderful! I'm so thankful for the extra family time I got this week because the number one thing I'm thankful for this year is the people in my life. Especially these two:

I'm thankful for my husband. I can't even describe how much I love him. He is more amazing with Lucille than I ever could imagine. He knows just when to surprise me with flowers. He is easygoing when I don't know how to be. His desire to learn is inspiring.

I'm thankful for my baby girl. She's teaching me about life and love and patience. She is the best baby. She is sleeping so good in her big girl crib at grandma and grandpa's house this week. She is learning and growing so fast; it is exciting to watch her explore the world. Michael and I have so much love for her, it almost hurts.

Here is the family on Thanksgiving day:

Baby girl got to share some new "firsts" with her grandparent. She started reaching with both hands towards us when she wanted to be picked up. So cute! She rode in a shopping cart for the first time and loved it. On Thanksgiving day she went from laying down on the ground to sitting up all on her own, and now a couple days later, she's already a pro at it. This kid is amazing. They also got to watch her experience solid foods for the first time. Her favorite food so far has been butternut squash and her least favorite was definitely banana.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The Sixth Month

The little lady is half a year old now. It is hard to believe that it has been six whole months since she has joined our family. We had some family pictures/ Lucille's six month pictures done over the weekend. We have a few sneak peeks and they're turning out pretty cute!

See baby girl's new teeth? She got them nine days apart earlier this month. :)

We're staying at grandma and grandpa's house for Thanksgiving break this week. So they're catching up on their Lucille time.

In other exciting news, since Lucille is six months old now we're introducing her to solids. She has been exclusively breastfed her whole little life and she isn't so sure about real food yet. She hasn't actually eaten anything that we've given her, but she is tasting it and playing with it. We're doing baby led feeding (also know as baby led weaning - but I'm not weaning her - you can read more about the method here.)

She has tried avocado, apple, and banana so far.

Her first taste! The experience became pretty messy shortly after this.

She is getting pretty spoiled at grandma and grandpa's house. I think she is averaging one new toy a day here. Ha.

She also got to meet Miss Katy yesterday, who made her this beautiful new quilt:

I can't get over how lovely it is!

What does six month old Lucille enjoy?

Smashing food

Feeding the dogs things they shouldn't have (avocado)

Throwing toys

Sitting up like a big girl

Teething (Just kidding - teething is not fun.)

Sleeping most of the night in her crib

Cuddling with mommy and daddy

Playing with Grrrma and Grrrpa

Riding in the car

Crawling backwards (forward it too much work)

Teething

Lucille has a tooth! It popped up out of nowhere.

 

We didn't even know she was actively teething! I guess we just figured that teething would be a  miserable/ fussy time for the little lady... but she has been acting pretty normal. Maybe we won't be so lucky later, only time will tell.

 

We brushed her tooth tonight.

 

 

I think she liked it. She mostly just wanted to lick the toothbrush. :)

Happy Halloween!

It is starting to get dark outside here, so I better hurry up and get this posted before trick-or-treaters start showing up. We're handing out snack-sized bags of Teddy Grahams instead of candy this year. Hopefully that isn't too disappointing for the little kids! Ha.

We carved out pumpkins over the weekend. Well, we drilled holes in them. :)

I think they turned out to be pretty cute!

Talking about cute -- we have a little Yoda at the house today.

I tried to be thrifty and made her costume myself. Her hat and feet were an old sweater of mine that I had thrown in the Goodwill box!

Jedi robe used to be a pillowcase.

The belt is cut from an old T-shirt.

Happy Halloween everyone! Be safe and have fun!

The Fifth Month

Our sweet pea is five months old now! We had so much fun at the park for her four month birthday that we went back. This time we hit up the swings...

We had to bundle up because it was a chilly 49 degrees outside. That's pretty cold after getting used to NC temps. It was her first time in a swing! She decided it was fun!

We also spent a little bit of time at the big-kid swing set. I haven't been on a swing in forever. I forgot how much fun they were. :)

In the past month, Lucille has learned some new things. She figured out how to blow raspberries about three weeks ago and hasn't stopped since. It is pretty cute. She constantly plays with her feet if she is laying on her back and pulls her socks off, then proceeds to chew on her feet. Yum! She's been drooling like crazy, but still no teeth. :)

We've been placing toys out of her reach during floor time to watch her wiggle her way over to them. She hasn't quite figure out the perfect-form for crawling yet. She gets into a crawl like position and then plants her face on the ground for support while she brings her knees forward. Sounds entertaining, right?

She laughs for me everyday now, but refuses to laugh for daddy. No matter how silly he acts. I love it. :) She has spent one full night unswaddled and last night she spent half the night unswaddled. I think she is finally outgrowing her love of the swaddle. Ha. She is also getting really good at sitting, but you have to keep a close eye on her. She'll correct herself if she starts to fall over, but sometimes it comes too late. She is getting so strong! She do a sit-up if you hold her legs down. Ha.

What does five month old Lucille enjoy?

Playing peek-a-boo

Listening to daddy trying to get her to say da-da

Singing songs

Chewing on her toys, fingers, paci, and toes

Hanging out in the Ergo

Floor time and exersaucer time

Baths, she had her first bath in the big tub last week!

 

Loving the Season!

I was pretty convinced that winter was my favorite season, but now I'm not so sure. Fall is really setting a high standard for season awesome-ness right now. It never rains. The temperature is perfect. The leaves have changed color, which makes for beautiful scenery. I'm enjoying it.

Baby girl and I just got back from a walk. She's still sleeping in the Ergo. Such a sweetie pie! We walked with Michael to aeronautical engineering club. I think. :)

Michael is really enjoying school by the way. Midterm grades just came out and I'm super proud of him. He's working really hard and it is paying off.

And can you believe how big baby girl is getting?! She's just over four and half months now. Love her.

Feverish.

It was a long week in the house of Wiggles. Two thirds of the family felt a little feverish this week (Me and Lucille. Michael took good care of us).
It started out with Lucille's four month appointment... with a new doctor.

Michael and I agreed to never take our baby to the doctor she went to again. She was sweet to Lucille and all, but we didn't see eye-to-eye with most the  "knowledge" that came out of her mouth.  I honestly cannot believe that we found the one pediatrician that that wasn't pro-breastfeeding (?!) and told us that vitamin D could not be prescribed for Lucille. Say what? So, that prescription bottle of vitamin D drops at home are imaginary? Just the tip of the angry mom iceberg folks.

Anyways, the doctor made me feel bad for expressing my disappointment about Lucille having to get the Pediarix vaccine instead of the Pentacel vaccine. I mean, I'm not concerned about the safety of the two vaccines. Lucille will be getting vaccinated on schedule. It just meant that she would have to get poked three times instead of two, and that she would be getting an extra hep b vaccine. Extra vaccines aren't really my thing.  Understandable, no?

We got out of there real fast and didn't look back.

Side note: I wish we could go to the pediatric practice that I used to work at, but they do not accept our insurance. I'd be willing to work her check-ups around when we are home! They accept the insurance we used to have... but not the one we have now.  If I can't find a pediatrician I like here, I might be calling the insurance company to see if there is a way that we could still go there.

Our poor baby felt sick after her two month vaccine and felt worse after her four month vaccines. She got her first fever. She was miserable. She couldn't sleep, we couldn't sleep. It was a long couple days.

Once Lucille started feeling better, I started to feel sick. (No!!!!!!!) I woke up on Friday morning and felt like I probably shouldn't get out of bed... hahaha, stay in bed all day with a baby? I think not. I'm already getting better though. Thank goodness!

Lucille is getting a little to mobile for my liking:

Sitting up in her Rock n' Play and escaping her bouncer. Don't worry, we keep a close eye on her and usually buckle her in if she's going to be sitting for longer than a minute. :)

Fall. Fair. Fun.

We brought in the season of fall this weekend with a trip home. It was the last weekend the Puyallup Fair was going to be open and Michael and I really wanted to go!

We almost didn't go, but Michael scored some free fair tickets at the woodworking shop in Sumner. We got a giant family button made and ate some yummy fair food. Baby girl slept in the Ergo for a good portion of it. Which was perfect for scoring lots of pictures like this:

:)

We also put the baby in a pumpkin, upon G-ma's request.

She had fun and it was super cute!

We also got to see some friends! We never get to see everyone we hope to see, but we saw a couple!

The Fourth Month

Today was baby girl's four month birthday! Michael attended an early chemistry lecture so we could celebrate with lunch and some fun at the park.

(I changed up some of the widths on my layout so it can accommodate extra large images. What do you think? Good? Bad?)

What is new in Lucille's life? She's is starting to imitate sounds, which you already know if you saw my last post! I taught her to say 'mama' and Michael is working really hard to get her to say 'dada'. Which she doesn't yet, hehe. She tries though. :)

She is lifting herself pretty high off the ground when she is on her tummy and can wiggle around the floor to get to toys that are out of reach. I see that crawling is in the near future! She sits well with some assistance and is very easily distracted by the world around her.

She finally perfected how to use a pacifier, yipee, and also likes to suck on two of her fingers.

She sleeps the best after a warm bath and is still sleeping in her bassinet next to our bed. We have an Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper and love it! Eventually we're going to have to put her in her crib and I think I'm going to have a more difficult time with that than she is.

What does four month old Lucille enjoy?

Drooling and chewing on her toys and everything else!

Floor time

Wiggling around in her exersaucer

Nursing, she's a hungry little thing!

Being a Fashionista -- she just started wearing her 3-6 month clothing!

Mama!

I finally got Lucille on video mimicking me saying mama! I'll try to get a better video of it later! My baby is so smart!

She's tired, can you tell? I was trying to keep her up so Michael could see her before she went to bed. :)

Life Update!

We're STILL not quite settled in here at our new home. It will happen... eventually, but at the moment the baby sleeping, dinner is still cooking in the crock pot, and the dishes are done, so I'll give you a little life update in list format.

I do love lists. :)

1. We said that we were going to finish unpacking all the boxes this weekend. The weekend is halfway over and it is not looking good folks. Although, we have made leaps and bounds in Lucille's room. And I've gathered a huge box of stuff we need to donate. Mostly my clothes. I think I'm a clothes hoarder. I'm working on it. One free high school T-shirt at a time.

2. I made Lucille's 4 month appointment with a new pediatrician. I hope I like the practice, there aren't a lot of options for pediatricians around here.

3. Michael is loving school. We're loving this little town. Washington is wonderful. We're seeing our families more and love it!

4. I'll be happier when the house is more in order and I can be more organized.



Ready to go meet Michael for lunch!

5. I walk around campus quite a bit with the baby in the stroller. I'm trying to enjoy this nice weather while it is still around! Sometimes I walk with Michael to his classes and on his long day, Lucille and I meet him for lunch. It is our favorite outing of the week.

6. Baby girl discovered that certain parts of her exersaucer make noise (maybe because we finally put batteries in it). It is so cute I can hardly stand it.

The Third Month

Lucille is three months old now! Excuse the break in blogging, we've been very busy road tripping, moving, and introducing our little one to her family that was on the other side of the states! There are still so many boxes to unpack... but I didn't want to get too behind on here. :)

This month we learned that Lucille is a wonderful traveler! She spent the majority of her third month on the road with us. Thankfully she is an easy going baby and traveling has been fun for all of us! She also had a growth spurt recently, can you tell? She's even grown out of a couple of her newborn sleepers, and her bumGenius diapers fit perfect at the smallest setting now (we are still loving the prefolds with covers though).

She used to enjoy her play gym so much, but ever since she learned how to roll from back-to-stomach too, she just rolls constantly when we put her on the floor, so it kind of just gets in her way. It is entertaining though. She likes her new exersaucer that grandma and grandpa got her, but she is a little too small for it yet. So, for now playtime pretty much consists of a quilt on the floor with some toys scattered about.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" This is Lucille's babbling face.

What does three month old Lucille Enjoy?

Mirrors! She loves looking at the pretty baby in the mirror.  :)

Going on walks in the stroller

Taking naps

Chewing on toys and fingers and anything else she can get her hands on

Drooling

Bath time

Rolling around