7 months!

Happy 7 months to my little Eliza Jolie! What a gift you are! I am enjoying seeing you grow this month. Here is what our little girl is up to these days.

*Standing and pulling herself up onto EVERYTHING! She still struggles with the really tall stuff but loves all the small things to stand at; trampoline, activity block, bags, mommy's legs, baskets. She will do her army crawl really fast across the floor to get to something she can pull herself up onto. This girl wants to be vertical. And she is already slowly cruising around things too. She still has not figured out how to get down though...except by accidentally falling. She can move from sitting to crawling and is really trying to go from crawling to sitting.

*Two little bottom teeth! Ouch watch out. I am thinking there are more on the way too.

*She loves to eat! Yum. She is doing great with all her foods. She likes almost everything I give her. And she does really well with the different textures too. She has really been enjoying baby crack Organic Mum Mum's and just yesterday Barley Teething Biscuits. And Corbin has been reliving his love for them too...She is eating a definite lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast.

*Giggles and smiles! She is just a cutie when it comes to smiles. She loves to giggle at her favorite thing, Corbin. And while crawling across the floor. And while standing up at the trampoline. And while playing pee-ka-boo on the changing table. And at her uncle Neal, who is staying with us for a while.

*Sleep is not her best thing. She is challenging me in ways Corbin did not, although I know she could be a lot worse. I am a more inconsistent this time around too. I am nursing her to sleep at all times unless she wakes up in the night at the wrong time, if she wakes up before 2 am, I usually don't get her unless she is REALLY upset. And then I try to not nurse her again till morning. Some mornings she will fall back to sleep once I bring her into bed with me. These last couple of mornings she has been up at 6 or 6:30 and not gone back to sleep. She goes to sleep at night anywhere from 6:30-8pm depending on when her last nap was

Her naps are all over the place. It drives me batty. Her morning naps are anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half but I can't get her to sleep past one 40 minute sleep cycle in the afternoon. I have to go back up and nurse her in the middle of her nap to get her to sleep again. I am also afraid she will wake up Corbin who is a light sleeper for naps (in the middle of the night he never wakes up when she cries). Since we had company and now Neal is staying with us I have not used the pack and play downstairs to see if that helps them both... she is in there now sleeping but she woke up after 40 minutes still so I went and nursed her. She didn't fall asleep again but I knew that 2:45 was too early to be up and make it till bedtime so I let her cry. She is asleep now. I guess I will have to try to use the pack n play more so that she won't wake up Corbin . Some days she would still love to take 3 naps! I just wish she would take more consistent and longer afternoon naps... ugh. But I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

*Tonight she was making the most diverse amounts of sounds that she has made yet after dinner. I am starting to hear some ddaaas, nunnna, and other sounds!

*We are signing with her but she doesn't sign anything back yet. So far we are just working on nurse, all done, more, eat, cat, dog and waving. She thinks the sign for all done is hilarious.

I don't want to sit still for a picture mom!

My two little bottom teeth!

I love to blow raspberries and stick out my tongue. It probably feels good on my teeth and gums.

Trying to take pictures with the blocks this month was almost impossible. She just wouldn't sit still. She is on the go, almost more than Corbin was, if that is possible.

Gryffin has been slightly interested in her lately. He has let her touch him a couple of times.

Ha! Look at me, I am standing!

Love you little Ellie Belly!

***Some Corbin news

Corbin has a book with a magnet drawing pad (like the etcha-sketch) that he can draw and then erase. We were reading the story the other night and he said he wanted to draw Buzz (Buzz Light Year from Toy Story). He looked at the picture and then drew his first REAL picture. He drew a big circle and then legs and arms and dots for Buzz's buttons. I was so excited. He did it a couple more times before he started to say he did it wrong... I guess I was giving him a little too much praise. So the next morning we showed dad. Here is what he drew. Sorry it's kinda hard to see...

Buzz has really LONG arms in this one.

Here is the best one!

We are still here.

Yes, we are still here. A couple people have mentioned that I haven't been writing as much. It's called two kids and taking less pictures. I think about blogs in my head all the time but don't seem to get them written down. I am loving my two kids up and at the same time they are challenging me at every turn! I am either absolutely blown away by Corbin's imagination, brilliance, funniness, and love or want to kill him. We recently read "Positive Discipline" for my mom's group and Adam and I are going to take a class on it later in the month. I need all the help I can get.

Eliza is also a little love. My love for her grows each day, except maybe at 3 am when she won't sleep :-) She is such a little ham. Her latest trick is to giggle and blow raspberries while doing her army crawl across the floor and try to stand up on anything she can. She only wants to stand these days. And if she can do it by herself, the better. And oh her giggles and those dimples :-) She is also challenging me with her lack of sleep schedule. Nighttime sleep, nap sleep, all sleep. She also has two new cute little bottom teeth. I keep trying to get a good picture but not one yet. Corbin was really excited he finally saw them yesterday.

Here are a couple of videos because I haven't taken any pictures except on my phone for a while.

We made some yummy cupcakes today. Corbin got to lick the spoon.

I feel a little bad for posting this but it was just too funny... I can't leave the room any more (or video I guess either) without her pulling herself up on anything. She is still a little unstable when she gets up, obviously. She is even trying to move from one thing to another, like from the block to me. She is also cruising around things already.

Eliza and her good friend Miles during the Super Bowl.

Corbinizms and play room

Corbin has been pretty funny lately when he is not driving me crazy. Deep breaths, Erin. Deep breaths. Tonight I messed up and did not read the directions for dinner well. Instead of 30 minutes it was 2 hours and 30 minutes. I realized this when it was 5:45 and I was done with the 30 minute part and the soup still needed to simmer for 2 hours! Ha. So to Boomers we went. Nothing like some good old greasy hamburgers for dinner when dinner goes wrong, right!

Corbin wanted to sit by the fireplace in Boomers (they have a big round gas fire place in the middle of the restaurant). There was an older lady sitting next to him. He of course started talking to her. At one point, he leaned over and said. "I like your shoes." He then proceeded to get down on the floor to examine them more closely :-)

The other day, I was putting on my old, ugly, red long underwear and he came up and said, "mommy, I like your pants!" Ha. He is really into complimenting people lately!

We were in Fred Myer yesterday and we got some new Toy Story band aides. Every person that went by and I mean every person, he said "I have Toy Story band aides. There is Buzz and Woody on them. I have an owie on my foot and I need a band aide!" It was too cute! People were quite humored by him.

He has also been using "please and thank you" a lot lately (when he is not whining or throwing a fit). And VERY. Mommy, I am VERY hungry right now. I am VERY happy. Ellie is VERY happy now too. It's too cute! He has also been using happy and sad and more feeling words to describe how people might be feeling. Today Ellie's lovey was out of her crib and he went to put it back for me. He said "Ellie's lamb was sad because her lovey was not in the crib. But the lamb is very happy now that the lovey is back"!

Here are some pictures of the "new" play room (the old office).

We still need to find some fun things for the walls and organize the closet a little more for the art supplies and not so easy accessible things (ie child proof things) but it's coming along! It's nice to have the living room be toy free (mostly)!

PS. Thanks for your nice encouragement from my last post. I have already met my 1st goal and lost 8 pounds! Now onto the next one!

Operation Baby Weight

I don't tend to talk too much about myself here, just the kids these days. I don't talk to many people about this topic but I am going out on a limb and writing about it for the cyber-world, maybe to make it more real, maybe to hold myself more accountable. I am not really sure why but I found myself thinking about writing about it here. So here it goes.

I need/want to lose weight. As those of you who know me in person, I have always struggled with this issue for as long as I can remember. I am usually very happy with myself. I know I am over-weight and am usual ok with some of my extra curves. But according to my BMI, I am obese. I feel like I can do most things just fine. I am active. I like to do active things. But I am not competitive. Who really cares if you can run faster than me. I like to do what I like to do. And for me, I love food. I don't like to be told I can't have something. I love sugar. I love sweets. I have an addictive personality and don't know when to stop. I just plain-old love to eat. So I let myself. But I was not blessed with good weight genetics. I have to work really hard to not gain weight. I have to work REALLY hard to lose weight. In college it got really bad and I reached my peak weight (besides pregnancy) and started to have some health problems. It was scary. Before my wedding I lost 20 pounds and then 10 more after that. I should have kept going... but I didn't. It crept back on. Then I got pregnant.

Some people can loose that baby weight no problem, off it comes. Not me. People said with breast feeding you can eat anything. So I did. I didn't gain more weight but my baby weight didn't really go anywhere. Some said it takes 9 months to put it on and 9 to take it off. With Corbin I gained 28 pounds. I lost 15 after he was born and then could never get those other 12-15 pounds off. Then Eliza comes along and I was 15 pounds heavier than Corbin. I gained 30 pounds. Now 6 months later, I still have only lost 15 pounds. Some of you might remember that I was at high risk for gestational diabetes and other complications. Nothing ever came of it. I had healthy pregnancies but I had to be more careful. So I am on a quest. Operation Baby Weight.

I have garnered some of my mom friends to do a challenge with me. I need to lose 8 pounds in 8 weeks to get me back to my pre-Eliza weight. Then I need to keep going to my pre-Corbin weight but I need to start of with a small measurable goal. One pound a week. I can do it. I wanted support this time. So 4 of my friends are doing it too. We are all going to chip in $10 and the person who loses the most percentage gets the pot. I have a goal. I am trying to exercise at least 3 times a week, hopefully more. I am calorie counting. I am writing down what I eat on an awesome website, www.loseit.com It calculates and does all the math for me and has tons of food /item calorie counts already in their program. I am following some of the Eating Well tips for losing weight. I need to cut 500 calories a day to lose a pound a week. As of today, I lost 5 pounds!

So there you have it. I have said it out loud. I need to do it. It's time. I will need support. I eat more around social events and I am a very social person. I am not going to deny myself anything but I have to be careful. I am hungry. Some days all I want to do is eat more food. I will keep you all posted.

Videos

Ok, here a like a million videos from the last month! I need to post the one of Corbin on his new skis too...but I guess I posted it to Facebook instead. Enjoy!

Christmas Morning



Trampoline



Food



froggy



snow

6 months

Little Eliza Jolie is half a year! Wow, where did that time go? And what a little cherub she is! We had her 6 month appointment last week. She is 16 lbs 5 oz. (60%ile) and 26 inches (50%ile). A little heavier and shorter than Corbin was at that age. My little rolley polley girl :-)

Here are a few other things happening in her world.

• She is on the move! She does a version of what I call the army flop. Not quiet the army crawl and not quiet a full crawl. More like a get up on the knees, lean forward, and then flop down a few inches more. She can get across the rug in no time! Of course her favorite things to go for are Corbin's toys, shinny things like cameras or phones, or small objects she should not have!
• She does planks, down dog, warrior 2, and lots of other yogi moves.
• She can sit up all by herself.
  
• She is eating lots of solid food. She is eating lunch and dinner with us. So far her diet has been; sweet potato, rice cereal, avocado, pears, apples sauce, prunes, butternut squash, peas, carrots, and today mango (by far the favorite!) She ate so much at my parents house this last weekend that she got quite plugged up which resulted in a sleepless night and lots of grunting tears, poor baby!
• She loves her brother, no one can make her laugh like Corbin.
• Sleep... hmm... she is not as good as Corbin. We had to do some major re-training after all our sicknesses. She was hard to re-train. Lots of crying and tears.
  
• She is waking up 1-2 times a night. She usually has a wake up and feeding around 1-2am and then sometimes wants to wake up again for another feeding at 5 or 5:30 am. I am trying to stop that feeding because it's so close to wake up time. But it's hard to let her cry then because that is close to when Adam is getting up and Corbin is in a lighter sleep and is more prone to wake up them. She is in our bed WAY more than Corbin ever was.
  
• Naps, she is all over the place. She still wants to get 3 naps in some days. Corbin was a 2 solid nap boy by 4 months. This girl is all over the place. Sometimes they are 40 minutes, then other times 2.5 hours but you never know. It seems that every time I am home and don't need to go anywhere she naps short. When I have plans to go, I have to wake her up. Silly girl!
• She is so smiley.
  
• No teeth yet. Corbin already had 2 or 3 at this point.
  
• In the evenings, she is a mama's girl or wants to be held. She will be super fussy if left on her own but as soon as you pick her up, she is fine.
  
• Her eyes are going to be lighter than Corbin's. My guess in either a grey blue or hazel. It's really hard to tell now but they are not going to be light brown like his.
  

Here I come...

I have lots of video that I am still trying to play with. I love the Flip video player we got but it has so many things for me to do besides just post the video. I am working on her progression of the crawl but haven't gotten it yet. I am way behind on our blogs as you can tell... soon.

Christmas a little late...

Like I said in my last post, I am way behind! But I use this blog for documentation of our lives so I need to do these, even if it's really late!

Corbin with Santa last year.

Corbin and Eliza with Santa this year.

We celebrated Christmas with Adam's family the weekend before Christmas. Here are a few shots from the day. Corbin is one lucky guy!

"Come in Houston"

Everyone had a little fun with the astronaut helmet!

Then my family came up on late Thursday night before Christmas through the weekend.

Making Cookies with Grammie Dani

Jed, Kara, Great Grandma Marge, Corbin and Eliza on Christmas Eve

Cookies for Santa in his new sweat shirt from Kelcey (thanks!!).

Before Santa

After Santa has arrived!

Ellie opening her stocking with Buppa.

Adam tried to make Monkey bread, he got up at 6 am! But it didn't rise...but it was still yummy gooey sugary dough! We obviously didn't let the rise effect how much we ate!

Even though we celebrated with Adam's family the week before, Susan and Mark came up for the day after dropping Neal off at the airport, on his way to Paris. Corbin and Eliza had all their grandparents (and great) for Christmas. It was pretty special for all of us!

Great Grandpa Dan taking a break from all the chaos.

Erin, Eliza, Great Aunt Mary, Grandpa Dan, Marge, Dani, Kara, Bert-
Mark, Jed (Boo the dog), Adam, Blurry Corbin and Brindzi's head

An attempt at a whole family photo... Corbin was ready to be done and ready for bed. I took some with my new Flip too but can't figure out how to get it on the blog yet (thanks Susan for this one).

Corbin had quite the day. He did great but had a pretty big sugar induced, too many presents, too much excitement melt down before bed... But it was so fun to see Christmas through his eyes!

We bought a Flip video Camera with some Christmas money for ourselves. I took some awesome video that I will upload soon.

We are so fortunate to have such wonderful families. It was really nice to have everyone here for Christmas, although at times chaotic too. We are excited to now add our house into our Christmas rotation.

5 month documentation

I am so behind! Eliza will be 6 months in less than 2 weeks... so here are her 5 month pictures. We have been a little sleep deprived due to our entire house being sick for more than two weeks (ie sleep training out the window- multiple wake up times every night), then Christmas at our house with lots of family members. So next post will include about two weeks of Christmas festivities but for this one... Little Ellie Belly at 5 months!