Sharing Some Love…

Just a quick post to let you all know about a great giveaway going on!  Ally of Little Bears Designs is having a custom designed card (Christmas or other) GIVEAWAY! Go check out her new website: http://www.littlebearsdesigns.com!  You can see details of the giveaway on her blog: www.davidandally.blogspot.com.  Check it out! (But don’t enter, because that makes my chances of winning go down…) ;)

Hadley is Ten Months Old!

Sweet Hadley Ann, you are ten months old today!  Your daddy and I are just LOVING this stage of life with you right now.  You are so much fun and are becoming quite the little ham.  You are a girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t stop until she gets it (I have to remind myself daily that this will be a good trait to have when you’re older – not the easiest of traits to deal with now).  Here are our guesses at your stats this month (the weight is right on because we had a doctor’s appointment this morning.)

• Weight: 22 lbs 14 ounces (the doctor always comments on how in shape I must be to carry you around all day – I’m not really, but it is true that you are a workout!)
• Height: 30 inches
• Clothes: Mostly size 12-18 months, some jammies and shirts are 18 months – you have a long torso just like mommy
• Diapers: size 5

We’re entering your first holiday season and it is so much fun to watch you see, explore, and discover all these new experiences.  This month we went to the Pumpkin Patch, the Texas State Fair, and to your first Halloween party where you got to dress up in costume! 

Your eating habits are mostly the same as last month; still nursing on average 4x a day and eating solids 3x a day (with a snack of some fruit or puffs in the afternoon).  We’re kind of stuck in between solid foods and baby food with you right now.  Sometimes I think you refuse baby food because you’re wanting something you can feed yourself, but you are a little bit dainty and don’t always like the texture of holding real food.  Other than every flavor under the rainbow in purees, you’ve had shredded chicken, ground beef, spaghetti (with a tiny bit of tomato sauce), black beans with avocado on a whole wheat tortilla, waffles, whole wheat blueberry pancakes, steamed zucchini and a couple bites of momma’s beef stew (which you loved, but judging by the amount of water you downed afterwards, I think there was a little too much seasoning in it for you!)

Speaking of your disdain for different textures – this video shows how much you love (sarcasm) grass.

We had 2 straight weeks, this month, of you sleeping 12+ hours straight at night.  That unfortunately has stopped, but I think it’s due to the fact that you might have a bit of momma’s cold, and you’re cutting more teeth.  The past 4 or 5 nights you have screamed until I come in and rock you to sleep.  That is SO not like you!  Generally after nursing you squirm in my arms until I put you down – you are not a cuddler at all.  I’m trying to be thankful (rather than frustrated) for these rock-to-sleep nights because I know all too soon you won’t want me to rock you anymore.

Speaking of teeth, baby girl you are popping teeth through left and right – literally!  Last month you had 3 teeth, and this month you have 7!  You now have 3 teeth on the bottom (2 middle teeth and bottom right) and 4 up top (2 middle and the 2 right next to those - the far left one JUST started cutting through). 

One of your favorite “tricks” this month has been waving “Hi!” and “Bye-Bye!”  It doesn’t quite look like real waving just yet - you hold your elbow up to shoulder height and then just sort of flop the rest of your arm back and forth towards your chest – but you get super excited and smile when you’re doing it… so proud of yourself!  You were waving with both arms (with candy in your hands) at the trick-or-treaters in the picture below…

You’re still great at drinking out of sippy cups, I think you tend to get a little more out of the ones with straws, but you can drink out of either kind.  Because of that, we haven’t even tried to give you a bottle recently.  I think the next time I have to be away from you long enough that you’ll need milk, we’ll just put it in a sippy cup for you. 

This video is a little long, but it’s a pretty good glimpse at what our playtime looks like these days… you LOVE to drop things over the edge of whatever you’re sitting on. 

 

Hadley, your daddy and I love you more than you could EVER imagine.  Thank you for being such a blessing in our lives these past 10 months!  We can’t wait to see what the next 10 bring!

Hadley’s First Halloween

We started celebrating Halloween a little early this year.  On Friday, the 28th, we had plans to go up to Matt’s work for breakfast and “trick or treating” at the office, but Hadley had a rough night so we let her sleep in to get some rest.  (Sidenote: just so you don’t think we’re super lazy, “sleeping in” these days means sleeping until about 7:45.) 

The Little Gym that we go to was having a Halloween party for all of the kiddos that same night, and Hadley had been acting fine most of the day, so we decided to go.  She only lasted about 30 minutes at the party, and we couldn’t really get a smile out of her (see evidence below) but we still had fun!  We didn’t let her try any candy, but she did try a nilla wafer for the first time!  I’m guessing she loved it by the fact that she tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth after taking one bite!  We got a couple cute pictures out of the party, too. 

Don’t judge the lack of makeup below… most days I’m just glad to have clean hair and clothing!

These next two pictures crack me up.  I’m not sure if this is teething related or just a personality thing, but Hadley makes the funniest face if you make her “smile” when she doesn’t want to smile.  She was getting cranky at the party, so Matt decided to toss her up – which always gets a smile and/or laugh.  You could tell she wanted to stay cranky, but was having too much fun not to sort-of-smile.   Stubborn little girl – was doing everything in her power not to open that mouth.

She was still munching on the nilla wafer when her teacher, Ms. Christy, came over to say hi.  She wouldn’t put it down, and decided to just hold it in her mouth for a picture. :)  Silly girl!

Since tonight is actually Halloween, we’ll put her in her costume and probably just sit on our front porch to pass out candy until it’s bedtime.  I figured since she won’t actually be eating the candy, it might look a little weird if we took her trick-or-treating this year.   Next year, however…. bring on the candy!!

Happy Halloween!

A certain little bumblebee wanted to wish you all a very happy Halloween – filled with treats and no tricks.  

Cheerios

Dear Hadley,

As much as I’m sure you would love to, you can NOT have Cheerios for every meal.  No amount of screaming, throwing your head back or kicking your legs will bring you more Cheerios.  Unfortunately, until they make Cheerios with a full serving of fruit and vegetables, your consumption will be limited.  I promise that I’m not keeping them from you just to be mean. 

Love,

Momma

Texas State Fair

This past weekend was the last weekend of the State Fair.  It snuck up on us this year, but we decided to brave the crowds (which, at least in the morning, were NOTHING like they are for the TX/OU game, so I was happy).  I woke up with a sore throat, and Hadley fought her nap with everything she had, but we still managed to have a good time. :) 

We figured Hadley would sleep in the car since we left just before her morning nap time, but no such luck.  We arrived with a cranky, tired baby, who eventually crashed in her stroller while we just walked the fair grounds to keep her sleeping.  Once she woke up, we were able to get our picture in front of Big Tex, enjoy some Fletcher’s Corn Dogs, fried cookie dough, fried snickers and fried cheesecake!  Ugh – it makes me kind of sick just typing that.  But it was delish. 

We took Hadley into the petting zoo.  I was surprised by all the different animals they had there.  We saw: sheep, goats, antelope, zebras, ponies, an ostrich (those suckers are scary!), pigs, kangaroos, cows, and others, but I can’t remember what else was there.  She really enjoyed seeing the goats and sheep at the Pumpkin Patch, so we thought she’d enjoy all the different animals here.  Not so much. 

In true Hadley fashion, she was ready to go by the time we were halfway through.  Oh well – maybe next year she’ll enjoy it a little more! 

It’s taken 2 days to get her back on schedule, but it was a great time!  I just love this time of year and all of the activities that come along with it! 

Baby Loves and must haves: Months 6 - 9

Time for another edition of our baby must-haves.  If you missed the earlier editions, you can see months 0-3 here and months 3-6 here.

1. Balboa Baby Shopping Cart Cover.  Unfortunately, I haven’t figure out how to make this fit the SuperTarget carts yet, but it fits every other cart, and high chair, so it still makes the list.  It folds up into itself, has a large strap to keep her in and two loops on the corners for attaching toys or her sippy strap.  Plus, I think it’s pretty. :)  I know these aren’t for everyone, and some people think they are too much of a hassle, but after reading an article that talked about how shopping carts are dirtier than most public restrooms, I think I will stick to using this and washing it when we’re done. 

2.  Puffs.  Is it cheating to put a food item on here?  These aren’t the healthiest thing, but they are a “must-have” because having a handful of these with me at all times enables me to finish grocery shopping or running an errand.  Hadley LOVES her puffs – especially the sweet potato flavor (M thinks they taste like fortune cookies??).  Is it wrong to use food to keep my daughter occupied while I run errands?

3. Convertible Car Seat.  (Not everyone will need this so soon, but we’ve got a big girl on our hands!)  After doing a lot of research, and purchasing and returning one, we ended up with the Britax Boulevard 70CS.  We plan to keep Hadley rear-facing in her seat until she is at least 2 years old (For why – see here or here or – this is a really good link) so I wanted a seat that had high weight & height limits for rear-facing.  Also, because we have captain’s chairs in the Tahoe, I can’t have her in the center of the car, so I wanted a seat that had extra side-impact protection.  This seat was really easy to install using the LATCH system in the car (although it took me a couple tries to get the recline angle right), has an easily adjustable harness, little velcro spots to keep the straps out of the way while you’re trying to get a wiggly baby in there, and the cover (which was one of the few that I thought was cute) can come off and be washed without uninstalling the seat!

 

4.  Sippy Cups.  The two that Hadley loves are the Playtex Little Gripper Straw Trainer cup…

and the Munchkin Mighty Grip Sippy Cup…

We started sippy cups around 6 months with Hadley, and it wasn’t until about 8 1/2 months that she really caught on and could drink out of them consistently, but they still make this list because I think it was important for her to get the practice!  That, and she loved to chew on the Munchkin cup.  I think it felt good on those sore little gums!  We also tried the Dr. Brown’s and Tommy Tippee cups, but she doesn’t like them. 

5.  Speaking of sippy cups – I couldn’t live without our sippy strap!  Hadley thinks it is SO fun to pick up her sippy and throw it down, and this keeps me from washing it over and over and over.  We got ours from Oh Sew Cute Designs and Amanda is great to work with if you need one! 

That’s all I’ve got this time.  Everything else that I “can’t live without” right now is something that I’ve already mentioned on one of the previous lists!  Happy Friday, friends!