Fall Photos

We went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens this past Sunday. I was really wanting to go to the Dallas Arboretum, but on Saturday there was the Texas vs OU game (go Texas!) and on Sunday it was the last day of the state fair ( :( we didn't get to go this year - because every time that would have been convenient it was raining). So that means that traffic was horrible both days and unless we went far out-of-the-way to get to the arboretum we would have had to deal with the traffic. Instead we decided to avoid traffic all together and head to Ft. Worth. The botanical gardens were beautiful as expected. I was hoping for a little more hay bale and pumpkin action, but they only had one spot set up with a few hay bales and pumpkins. We decided to take advantage of what we could and get a few pictures. Brooke was mainly interested in eating the hay, but some turned out really cute. She did really well that day and it was a full day for her, so she slept well that night.

I was also informed today that Brooke will be moving up to the next classroom at daycare. We will really miss Ms. Myrtle! She has been taking care of Brooke since June! It does make me a little sad to see her leaving, but at the same time I know it will be better for Brooke because it is a much bigger classroom with more age appropriate toys. She will definitely miss the one on one snuggle time with Ms. Myrtle. I hope that she makes an easy transition. We will see as the week goes on, her first day in the new room will be Thursday.

Oh, we got our leak fixed! Hopefully, (knock on wood) this will be the last one ever! (at least in this house). It is always a huge unexpected event that no one is happy to go through, but I am glad it is over and fixed.


I like to stand.

I am having lots of fun playing with the hay!


Yummy!


In the Japanese garden

8 Months

I am sorry for the long pause between blogs. We have been so busy. Brooke is now crawling everywhere and getting more confident with pulling up. Last night we saw her turn while standing from the coffee table to Ryan's leg. She also tries to climb everywhere she pulls up to standing. Her little leg just keeps bending while she is standing there hoping to catch a ledge to climb on. I think once she gets a little bigger she will be unstoppable. She has also started babbling more this past week. I have heard her say "dada" and "mama".

Last weekend, Ryan's parents came up and we went to the zoo on Saturday. It was supposed to be a beautiful sunny day in the lower 70s. It turned out to be in the lower 60s and cloudy, which is actually the lowest recorded high for that day since the 1920s. At least, it kept the crowds away and we just had to bundle up. I was a bit disappointed the monkeys weren't acting frisky in the cooler weather because they are my favorite to watch. Brooke loved the parakeets and kangaroos, but most of all she enjoyed watching the other kids.

We also discovered last Thursday that we had our 3rd slab leak since moving into this house! Insurance doesn't even pay for it. I thought at least if they had to break the tile that insurance would cover the cost to retile, but to my surprise they don't. As Ryan says, "They are in the business of making money not passing it out." So, we are going with this new technology that has come on to the market since our last leak. We are getting the pipe lined with epoxy and hopefully they won't have to dig to repair the leak. They are working on it as I am typing, so I will let you know how it turns out later.

Brooke has her next doctor's well check up at nine months. She is growing so fast. Over the past couple of weeks I have made an overhaul with her clothes. I first bought several fall/winter outfits and now I need to get more sleep coveralls because she is outgrowing them. I bought her some soft shoes with a rubbery sole. We are working on more table foods. She loves the gerber puffs and yogurt melt aways, but isn't too sure of mashed up carrots and avocado. I am trying to get her used to more textured food.

Enjoy our pics from the zoo and her new shoes!

Amazing...

Brooke can now pull herself to standing.

It is truly amazing to watch Brooke grow and learn new things. She is crawling everywhere and getting into everything. She loves to pull up on everything.

I love to make her laugh. She is very ticklish and will give a good belly laugh each time. It is adorable and makes me laugh.

We have started a few new foods. She has had peaches and meat (turkey) for the first time. I just bought the jarred meat and it smelled gross, but she ate it. I tried it and didn't like it. I think after we finish the jarred meat I bought, I will just let her have mushy pieces of the real food! She is feeding herself the Gerber puffs and using her jaw to mash them up. She loves the puffs.

She is now the oldest baby in her daycare room. All the other babies are 4mo and under. When she started daycare there was an older boy named Wyatt (9mo) and he was crawling and screaming and doing all sorts of stuff. Brooke loved to watch him and now she imitates him to a T at daycare. At first, Brooke would cry when Wyatt screamed out of joy, but now she is the one screaming. Now Wyatt is in the room next door and frequently visits. I think that Brooke likes being the oldest. She loves to crawl to the other babies and poke at them.

Enjoy some pics!

She's crawling!

Before I had any children, I thought having a baby would be easy especially if I was working only part-time. I imagined her being on a predictable schedule for feedings and naps (2hrs in the morning and 2-3hrs in the afternoon) and by 3-4 months she would be sleeping through the night (at least 8hrs). After all, this is what all the parenting books say this is true for a majority of babies. Brooke has her own schedule. I do have to say since about 6 months old she has been sleeping consistently 8-10 hrs straight at night. As far as feeding and naps go there is no real schedule. I can give an estimate of when she will be hungry and need a nap, but I can't stick to a schedule like she eats at 8, 10, 12, etc and naps at 10, 1, etc. I just feed her on demand and they do the same at daycare and I lay her down when she is acting tired. Some days she takes good naps (3 hrs total) and others not so good (maybe an hr). I keep track of my nursing using an application on my iphone. Some days I wonder if she eats enough and others I think I am not going to have enough milk to satisfy her. She definitely keeps me on my toes. One week I will think that she is starting to get into a nap routine, just to have the next week completely different. I have tried to stay pretty strict with her bedtime ritual (at least within a 30min window). We take a bath around 6:45pm and then nurse and then to bed. If I stick to this schedule she goes to sleep pretty fast. This past week she was waking up at 5am every morning to feed and usually if she woke at that hour she would go back to sleep for another hour until it was time to go to daycare, but not this week she was AWAKE and ready to play. Then she would fall asleep during the 15min ride to daycare and wake up just as I was taking her out of the car. Then she would only nap for 30-45min once during the time she was at daycare. Today has been a completely different day. She woke at 5am as the previous days and was ready to play, instead I just tried to hold and rock her to see if she would go back to sleep. 20min later she was still trying to get out of my arms to play on the floor. So, I let her and after 45 min of play she finally was sleepy again and I layed her down for another hour of sleep. Then at 7:30am she was awake for the day. We nursed and ate breakfast, then said good-bye to daddy as he is on call today. After clean-up we went for a jog around the neighborhood then played some in the nursery. Around 10 she went down for another nap for an hr. Then we got up and played and ate carrots. Her high chair arrived and I assembled it. Then around 1pm she was acting sleepy again. So she slept for another hour and woke up hungry, but fell asleep in my arms after feeding and during this feeding the lawn people showed up, so I just held her the entire next hour while she slept. This is unusual. She doesn't normally nap for 2 consecutive hours, but if you are keeping track this is a total of 4hrs for naps today (counting the early riser nap). Just now I finished feeding her and once again she fell asleep in my arms and has been asleep for an hour so far. At first, I thought I just wasn't cluing into her signals that she was tired, but now I know she is just on her own schedule and cannot be forced to a set schedule. Today is definitely a sleepy day. I guess maybe she is going through a growth spurt or just trying to catch up on her zzz's from the previous week.

She has had a couple of first's for this week. Yesterday, Ryan and I saw her sitting up in her crib after she woke up from a nap for the first time. She is also pulling up on her knees.

It is also a mystery to figure out the noises that bother her. Sam could bark while she is sleeping and she won't move a muscle. Then I will be reading her a story and making all the noises that go along with the book and when I "ROAR", it makes her upset. Today, while the lawn people were here, she slept through the lawn mowers and weed eating, but when they started the blowers, she woke up upset. I don't get it. She used to also be frightened by the crunching of wrapping paper, I have since broke her of that. She also doesn't like it when I vacuum unless I am holding her. It is hard to judge what she will be sensitive to because some things that I would think would bother her she doesn't bat an eye, but other things that I think shouldn't bother her do make her upset. It is funny but I guess it is all learning about our big new world.

I finally found a high chair that I liked and received it in the mail. I got it set up today. I like it because she is so active I needed something that would strap her in and keep her safe. We have been using the bumbo seat with a tray up until now and there is no securing her or the seat to the table. It worked for what I needed up until now when Brooke is getting bigger and more active. When I was registering for baby showers, I was so undecided about high chairs and just figured I would decide when the time came.

Enjoy our pics and video. :)

7 months

Wow, I can't believe 7 months has already passed since I had Brooke. I remember this time last year, I was just getting settled with the fact that I was pregnant and wondering what it would be like to have a child. I could not have imagined what a wonderful blessing it is to have a beautiful healthy daughter. She has such an enjoyable positive disposition. It is such a delight to watch her grow and learn new things. I can't help but smile when I think of all that Brooke has been able to do and learn. I am excited to teach her new stuff and show her this beautiful world where we live. I want to teach her about God's love and show her the beautiful Earth He has given us. It is truly amazing to look at Brooke's inquisitive face when I show her something new. It can be as simple as letting her feel the grass or swirling her fingers in her oatmeal. She is so curious about everything and I try to let her explore most things, even if it means I have to clean up a mess. I can only hope that we am doing a good job raising her and I try to enjoy each moment to its fullest potential. I know that she will not remember any of this part of her life, but I hope that we are instilling a strong foundation of trust and love.

She is not crawling yet, but everyday it seems that she gets a little closer. Part of me wants, so bad, for her to crawl because I hate seeing her get frustrated. The other part of me wants her to stay put just where I sit her. She tries so hard, but she hasn't figured out that she has to move her legs and arms at the same time. In the mean time, she is going from sitting to all fours almost immediately when I set her down and will eventually end up on her stomach and just spinning circles.

Last weekend, we went home to Longview. She was playing in the jumper at my parent's house while they were watching her and I was talking to Ryan on the phone in the bedroom. When I came out, my mom said, " You didn't tell us she was talking." I said, "That's because she isn't." Well, her and my dad both witnessed her first words, Baby and dada. I still haven't heard her repeat either one, but they both say it was plain as day when she said it. I believe them, I just wish she would repeat it to us.

Other new stuff...
I introduced carrots and that is now her new favorite food.
She is sleeping most nights 8-10hrs.
She still doesn't take naps regularly. I was informed that her great-granny is not a napper either, so I guess that is where she gets it from. I told Ryan I hope that our next child is a sleeper like me, I could sleep all that Brooke does and then some.
She loves raggedy Andy. Ryan's mom brought down from the attic all of his old toys and several raggedy Andy dolls. The past two weekends she has gotten a kick out of those dolls. She looks for them every time we enter that room where they are kept. Her granny is making her a raggedy Ann, but in the mean time Ryan' s mom let her take his old doll home.

I have started baby proofing. So far, I have taken down all the glass Coca-Cola bottles and beer bottles we have collected. I have removed all chemicals from underneath the sink in her bathroom. I have located all the extra shampoo/lotion/stain remover to one cabinet in her room, so I only have to put a lock on that door. We are going to buy a baby gate to protect all the wi-fi and other electrical things that have to be located in the nursery so she will not have access to it.
For now, her room (except for the baby gate) is completely baby proof. I need to buy a gate for the top of the stairs and then practice closing the other bedroom doors and then the upstairs will be baby proof. We are also going to buy a high chair this weekend. I have been using the bumbo seat with a tray. She is getting more active and bending over the sides and trying to get anything that is out-of-reach. I think an actual high chair would be safer. We also are going to buy a couple of gates that can connect together so that she could have a bigger area to play when we are downstairs that is dog/cat safe. So, now we are off to make a couple more major purchases for our precious baby.

Updates...

It has been a while since I have posted anything. Brooke is doing so much now. I have really enjoyed this month because she is developing so fast and it seems like she is learning something new everyday. She is still trying really hard to crawl. She rocks back and forth, but doesn't really have it figured out yet. She can go from sitting to all fours, but not all fours to sitting.




We have started solids. So far, she has had oatmeal cereal, avocado, squash, sweet potatoes, pears, prunes, peas, and today I put a small slice of ripe cantaloupe in a mesh feeder, but she didn't eat much. She mainly played with it.

She has known for a while how to blow raspberries, but she is doing it all the time now. She thinks it is funny. She is babbling a lot more. It is funny because she starts moving her mouth before any sound comes out.

She has started to protest when she doesn't want to do something. First witnessed to the extreme last weekend, when Ryan and I were driving back from Longview. She slept for about 30 min. in the car and then she had enough of the car seat. She was fussy for the rest of the way back and nothing would sooth her except to get her out of the car seat.

She is very curious about everything. She wants to touch and put everything in her mouth. She loves to flip the pages of a book and dump things out of containers. She has figured out how to clap and this is usually accompanied by babbling. I need to get this on video.

She loves bath time and splashing in the water. I have her in a bath seat now and I bought some more water toys. She likes sitting up in the bath.

She likes to play games like peek-a-boo and sing interactive songs with mommy, like itsy-bitsy spider and patty-cake patty-cake.


Here is a typical weekday in Brooke's life:

Wake up around 5-6am for a feeding. Mom gets me up and dressed around 6:15am to go to daycare. I eat cereal around 7am and have a 4oz bottle. Then I take a nap, usually 45min. I have another 4oz bottle at 9am. Then I eat a veggie around 10-11am (depending on how hungry I am). Then I usually take another short nap 30-45min. Then I play and have another 4oz bottle around 12pm. Mom picks me up between 1-2pm. I come home and either eat or play depending on the last time I was fed. I take another nap (on good days) for about 45min. Then I nurse around 4pm. Then it is all out play time for a couple of hours and usually by then dad is home and I am always excited to see him. After that, I eat another fruit or veggie and cereal. Then it is bath time and I nurse again before going to bed around 7-7:30.