I noticed lately that I have very few pictures of Sophie and me together, so I've tried to remedy this problem. Here are a few that we've taken recently.
Before a walk
I think we were heading out for a walk here too...can't remember.
Before a bath. (Sophie LOVES bath time. I'll post some pictures of that later.)
After a bath. We can't believe we captured that grin! So cute!
And lastly, a family picture. I've also realized how few family pictures we have taken.
My aunt Jane made Sophie a beautiful quilt that came in the mail a week or so ago. We absolutely love it and today I took a bunch of pictures of Sophie on it. I think these are the first smiles I've captured on camera! She must really love her quilt!
And, yes, she has on her "I Voted" sticker given to her by the cutest old man working at the polls. He insisted that she have a sticker.
Sophie didn't really nap well yesterday...just cat naps here and there. So by the end of the night she was a little beside herself. Not pretty. We had to run some errands, and we thought she might calm down in the car and sleep a little while we were out. No such luck. She calmed down, but didn't sleep. When we got home, we gave her a bath, she nursed, and then fussed a little more. So I swaddled her up, rocked her a bit, and then handed her off to Matt! Ha! I knew she was about to hit a wall and crash, but so was I. Within 15 minutes...Matt'll probably argue that it was less than that...Sophie was off in dream land. Beautiful. Off to the crib for her and into bed for me. (It was around 10pm by this point. She's usually out for the count much earlier than that!)
Well, the next thing I knew it was 3:30 and I heard her crying a little. I felt pretty good about that, because she's been sleeping for about 5-6 hours when we first put her down for the night. After that stretch she usually wakes up every 3 hours. So this was pretty typical and I thought, "No problem, I'll just nurse her and put her back down." So I went into her room and she was still sound asleep. I was a little shocked! I mean, she cries in her sleep fairly often, but I was shocked she was still sleeping so soundly. So I figured, what the heck, I'll just see how much longer she can go. I climbed back into bed figuring it would only be another 10-15 minutes. Nope. Wrong. THREE more HOURS!! That's right, Sophie slept until 6:30 this morning. 8 1/2 hours straight!! This is a milestone ladies and gents.
Hopefully it wasn't a fluke.
So, we're not really sending out baby announcements to everyone we know. Sorry if you were anxiously waiting by the mailbox. We're ordering just a few cheap-o ones from Sam's to send to out-of-town family, and I was able to cut and paste the "preview" after I made them on-line today. Here's what they look like. For a cheap-o generic announcement, I think it turned out pretty cute. It's a little blurry, but consider this your official announcement!
So the whole tagging thing seems a little silly to me, but I like the concept behind sharing things about yourself that your fellow blogging friends probably don't know. It's just fun.
Anyway, we were tagged by a friend and I'm going to go ahead and do it. Here are the rules that she sent me: Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.* Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.* Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog...
I decided to hodge podge things about all three of us.
1.) Katie: I don't like showering. Yes, you read that correctly, but only for the reason that it's just a hassle. I like the shower itself and find it quite enjoyable, relaxing, and refreshing. However, I don't like all of the work that comes after the shower. Dry my hair. Choose a new outfit. Put on make up. Style my hair. Slather on lotion. And on and on. It takes too long! If body odor and greasy hair didn't exist then I'd be quite content to never shower again.
2.) Sophia: She loves fresh air and sun. It was definitely our life-saver when she was first born, because the weather was so nice for so long. If she was crying or fussy, all we had to do was step outside and she calmed down. We'd go on walks and she'd fall sound asleep, but the second we stepped back inside (even if we kept walking around the house) she'd wake up and start crying again. Luckily Mom & Dad like being outside, too!
3.) Matt: I was born in the same town that Tea Leoni calls home.
4.) Katie: I love mashed potatoes. I could eat them all day. It is my favorite "meal" food. As far as my all-time favorite food it is a close tie with ice cream. I think I love both equally. One year at Thanksgiving, my aunt was in charge of bringing the mashed potatoes and she brought INSTANT mashed potatoes. That's just plain wrong!
5.) Katie: Speaking of Thanksgiving...it is my FAVORITE holiday. I love it because my whole family gathers out at my aunt & uncle's lake near Warrenton, MO. They've turned part of the barn on their property into a loft and we smoke the turkey in the big smoker outside...we also deep fry one. :)
It's better than Christmas to me, because the food is SO GOOD, the weather is still nice enough to take a long walk after we stuff our faces, and there's not the stress of getting presents for everyone. We just get to talk, play games, laugh, eat, and be together out in nature for a day. LOVE IT!
6.) Matt: He loves to cook. I'm always surprised at the new creations he comes up with. I enjoy cooking, too, but at the end of a long day at work it's the last thing I want to do. Matt, however, doesn't mind getting in the kitchen and coming up with something new and creative! (I took over this one for him, because #3 was lame and he was being a bad sport about thinking of something else.)
7.) Katie & Matt: We want to live out in the country. That may not be a surprise to some of you, but it is something we both dream of! We want to buy some land and build our own home someday...hopefully designed by Katie's brother who is an environmental architect.
My (Katie's) dream includes a weeping willow (my favorite tree) and a big oak tree in the front yard. I also want lots of woods surrounding our house so that our kids can built forts like my brother and I did when we were growing up.
Matt's dream includes a big greenhouse where he can have reptiles, birds, and lots of plants. (This will not be attached to the house if Katie has any say in the matter...it will have a huge pad lock and bolt on the door so little children can't sneak in without their father.)
And even though I think the tagging thing is silly, I'm going to do it anyway, because it's the only reason I ended up doing this myself. I'm not going to add comments to their blogs, so if you girls read this post and want to do it...then consider yourself officially TAGGED! :) And if you don't see your name below, but want to do it...then consider yourself tagged, too!
1.) Erin D.
2.) Jen N.
3.) Jessica B.
4.) Stephanie H.
5.) Katie H.
Katie and I finally watched "The Happiest Baby On The Block" DVD last night. It was recommended by the nurse who taught our "baby" class and a lactation consultant. The St. Louis Public Libraries did not have the DVD in their system, but Katie's mother was able to obtain it for us through her library network. After Katie's mom watched it and gave us a glowing report, we were eager to find out how to have the happiest baby in this sector of the universe. I'm sure baby Wookies are pretty happy as they live in the lush wroshyr forests of the beautiful planet Kashyyyk. It has been a long time since I have played any Star Wars Battlefront games.
Ever since our little Wookie was born (she has a lot of hair, c'mon!), we were convinced that she was one of those few babies who refused to be completely swaddled. While we were in the hospital and adjusting to the first few weeks at home, she would scream and wiggle until her arms were free or we released our little bird from her cage. I'm sure she will use that analogy in a decade. Well, we stopped swaddling her completely. Sophia has been somewhat cantankerous lately, constantly fidjeting, waking herself up repeatedly during the night, and waking up whenever we would put her down. We were hoping our movie would remedy the situation.
As we watched the DVD last night, we realized we had given up on swaddling too soon and learned a number of new techniques to pacify and relax our little girl. After our movie time, we tried the techniques mentioned in the DVD and Sophia was soothed immediately. We swaddled her tight and followed the rest of the "program." We were amazed and still are. The developer of this approach and his methods are truly genius. If you have a baby and have not seen this, rent it, now. You, yes you, dear reader, rent it. Unless you are the baby whisperer already.
Good science demands replication of experiments. Last night's experiments confirmed our initial hypotheses and we are anxiously awaiting the collecting of data tonight. The pictures below depict little Sophia Grace sound asleep, comfortably and tightly swaddled. I swaddled her, positioned her at her preferred side angle, swung her for a few minutes, and she was out! Using the methods introduced by the DVD, we can soothe the wildest screams and squirms in minutes.
We already knew some of the information and had developed or stumbled upon our own techniques, but the DVD was immensely helpful.
Swaddle-Side/Stomach Position-Shush-Swing-Suck=Boojah!
What a cute little girl!
Today we went to Rombach's pumpkin patch! It's in the area I grew up and I have a lot of fun memories of going there as a kid, so I wanted to start sharing the memories with my daughter. Sophie wasn't so sure about this adventure with Mom and Dad. She definitely wasn't the happiest pumpkin in the patch. I can't blame her, though, we were pretty unrelenting in trying to get a cute picture of her amongst the pumpkins. Here are some of the shots we got.
Sophie propped up against some pumpkins. Check out her cute pumpkin socks. Her bib reads "My first Halloween."
