Today we went to get Lizzie's picture taken at Photos by Jacqueline from that prize that she won through that dumb newspaper contest. She wasn't very cooperative! Poor baby still wasn't feeling the greatest. Of course, all of the pictures are cute because they are of Lizzie, but I've just seen better from her! She did get one super duper precious picture that mom and I both ordered an enlargement of. Can't wait to get it back!
Also! Today mom was holding Lizzie on the couch and I was walking towards the kitchen and Lizzie waved at me and then said, "mama!" I turned around and said, "mama!" back to her and she said it again!! Freakin finally! ♥♥♥ It was music to this mama's ears!!
In this picture, Lizzie and Molly are having a heart to heart.
Today Lizzie wasn't feeling all better. :( But at least she didn't throw up again other than a little spit up with her bottles. She coughs and chokes on her milk. Poor girl!
And some big news! I got the smallest of glimpses inside Lizzie's mouth and I saw that a MOLAR has started to poke through! On the bottom ont he right side. Crazy! She never lets me get a good look at her mouth so I had no idea a molar was even close to coming through. What a tough girl! =)
This is a picture of a GIANT BABY!!! AHHH!!! hehehehe....
Today Lizzie got sick. :( Grandma Judy baby sat today and had to clean up her puke twice. After Lizzie threw up for the third time in her crib, Nate and I came home from the office. Poor girl had a 103 degree temp. I hope she is feeling all better by tomorrow. I love her so much.
This is Lizzie lounging on the floor. She feels so yucky. =(
In this picture, Elizabeth is chatting away on the phone. She is so cute.
Today Lizzie fell asleep on me while I was reading to her before her nap. It was the cutest, sweetest cuddle in the world. In fact, I am pretty sure this snuggle tied with all of her other snuggles with me. Holding your sleeping baby is the most special, wonderful time ever. While I'm holding her I just think about how little she is and who she'll grow up to be and what she will decide to do with her life and it drives me a little crazy that she isn't going to stay my little baby forever. So today my daughter gave me a magical moment that I will hold onto in my heart and treasure forever.
I am pretty sure she was just making up for the fact that she pooped in the bath tub for the first time EVER this morning.
Today we all hung out at home all day. We went downstairs and Lizzie enjoyed playing on the stairs. Probably because she knows that stairs are dangerous! It was so cute though, so I had to grab my camera... =)
Peaking around the corner at daddy
After I told her she couldn't stand up on the stairs, she sat down and looked sad and precious.
In this picture, Elizabeth is dancing to Famer Tad on her little barnyard magnet thing on the fridge. I LOVE that she is working those shoulders again! She is the best dancer in the whole world. ♥
Today Lizzie, mom, and I went to visit Grandma Connie at Hillcrest in Bellevue. Elizabeth had a blast running around there. She would take off running down a hall way as fast as she could, especially if someone was following her. If we hid, she would usually turn around and come back.
I think she is getting over her fear of strangers though! Or at least starting to. I think this because she smiled and waved to almost everyone who walked past instead of running to me. She watched as a group of people walked by and then just started following them down the hall. She also ran into ao room where two ladies were laying in bed and went behind the curtain and everything! They seemed to love her though. She gave them her most beautiful smiles!
In this picture, Lizzie is using her ring toys as bracelets. She actually has 2 on each arm. I love her. ♥
So I have decided to try to post a picture of Lizzie every day. I doubt I'll stick with it for a year or anything, but hopefully I last longer than a week or two! I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a new blog for these daily posts or to just keep them here. As you can see, I decided to post them here and just keep everything together. Plus I couldn't think of cute name for a new blog that hadn't already been taken. So here goes!
Today Lizzie had her 18 month checkup. (18 MONTHS!) She weighs 24 lbs and is approximately 31" long. She was pretty dang squirmy when the nurse tried to get her height measurement though. They laid her on the same table that they lay her on when she she gets her shots. She freaked out even though she didn't get any shots! Such a punk. :)
On the way to the appointment, I would say "Dr. B" or "potty" (not sure why) and she would burst into these wonderful little giggles every time. That girl cracks me up.
In this photo, Lizzie is reading a book to her daddy while they snuggle on the couch. ♥
My daughter is fearless. She doesn't really seem to be afraid of very many things. When she was still tiny, she was scared of loud noise like dogs barking. She would cry or fuss if someone would cough loudly. But now she laughs. Or pretends to cough herself.
The vacuum sends her into a fit of giggles. She squeals and is fascinated by it. She will go down a dark hallway and into her dark room (I'm talking pitch black here) and find her toys or books and start playing with them. We go down there and turn lights on for her, but she was totally fine without them. One time we heard banging and found her in the bathtub, behind the curtain, in the dark, pulling shampoo bottles off the shelf and dropping them in the tub.
I kinda figured this was a toddler thing. A "lights or no lights, I'm gonna play" type of thing. But a colleague of my husband's told him about her son and how he is a wuss and afraid of everything. She doesn't need to worry about her son diving head first down the stairs or climbing into the fire pit.
My sweet little baby girl is one. Well, more specifically one and a half! (She turned 18 months old 6 days ago!!) She is practically fearless. I know this could change next month or next week or in two minutes. But for right now, I am terrified. And so very proud.
Being a toddler these days is hard work. (Oh my gosh, that is the first time I've called her a toddler. She's so stinkin big!) There is lots of play time and sleeping, more play time, eating, more sleeping, more eating, even more play time... It's exhausting! This is a glimpse into the life of my little toddler (tear!) around 15.5 months old.
Lately my little monster sweetie wakes up around 7:30. Her dad and I take turns with the morning shift, which in Nate's case is from whenever she wakes up to whenever he has to go to work (or around 9:00 usually). After Lizzie finishes her bottle, she plays in her "baby jail" for a while and watches Nick Jr. She giggles along with Jack's Big Music Show the most and dances along usually whenever there is music on (which is often).
After playing for about an hour, I make her breakfast, which is usually something like rice cereal mixed with apple sauce or a banana and a waffle, etc. If I'm feeding her the cereal, I usually won't put her in the high chair. She'll run around and play and come back for bites, or I guess depending on how hungry she is, she'll stand right in front of me as I'm shoveling bites in.
Then we have more play time! Play time consists of hiding binkys in whatever toy has a little hole in it, standing on whatever toy that she can stand on, climbing on anything and everything, dancing in front of the fridge along with her barnyard animals, reading, reading, reading, books, reading, etc, etc, etc. Right now she is loving pillows. She'll roll all around the pillows we put on the floor for her. She'll run and jump into them and today she was banging her head into the pillow and laughing so hard. Hi-lar-ious. And right now she is LOVING running around the moving boxes we have stacked up in the kitchen (oh yeah, we're moving! That is a whole different post..) We'll chase each other around the boxes as I peek around and say "peek a boo!" and she laughs and laughs and laughs. Her laugh is my super favoritest sound in the world, by the way.
This is a video of Lizzie running around the boxes AND dancing in front of the fridge.
These pictures are examples of Lizzie climbing on stuff.
As I said in the previous post, her naps have been a little weird lately. She is still taking two naps per day, but now the first one is at 11:00 ish instead of 9:30 and the second one is around 4:00 instead of 2:30. She usually does really good going down for naps, but sometimes she'll stand up and cry and I have to go in and break her heart (breaking her heart consists of going in, hugging her, telling her I love her and that it is time for nap, and then leaving) before she'll lay down and go to sleep. And one time, yesterday actually, breaking her heart didn't work. There's only so much I can stand. She got out of her second nap yesterday.
After nap #1, we eat lunch. I really need to find some new things to feed my girl for lunch. Right now she definitely gets her fill of Gerber toddler meals. She also gets turkey hot dogs every once in a while and loves spaghetti. She has whatever fruits and veggies we have at the moment. Today she had peas and blueberries with her lunch. Peaches are always a favorite with her. She loves most of her fruits and vegetables. She scarfs them. It is so funny watching her and also worries me a little because she clearly isn't chewing (or gumming) her food at all.
Elizabeth after lunch.
After lunch, we have more play time. During play time, I also put her to work. Yes, I know she is only one year old, but she has chores. She "helps" me with the laundry by taking all the clothes (dirty or clean) out of a hamper or basket and then putting them back in the hamper or basket. She likes to "help" with the dishes by climbing onto the dish washer. And actually, she's pretty good at putting stuff away. For example, right now her clean clothes are folded and perched on the arm of the love seat outside of her room, waiting to be put away. A little bit ago, she grabbed a couple balls of rolled up socks and ran around with them for a bit. Then she went back over to the love seat and put them back! Then one ornery ball of socks fell off a couple times, but my little persistant baby girl kept picking them up and putting them back until they stayed there. She'll also put her blocks back in the canvas bag if we do the first couple, and she has been very good about putting my keys away in her toy box.
After Lizzie saw me sorting some of her old clothes in different boxes, she found this box and pulled some clothes out of her hamper. Then she was pulling the box around the house.
Then we pretty much repeat the nap-meal-play part of the schedule with her second nap, supper, and play time. If it is a bath day, I will give her a bath usually in the afternoon. She loves her baths. Loves them. At long as I don't try to clean her. She gets irritated at that part. Actually, she doesn't mind the hair scrubbing and body washing, she just really doesn't like the hair rinsing. She won't tilt her head back yet so water gets in her eyes no matter how hard I try to prevent it. She would probably stay in the tub for hours if I let her. I usually have to heat the water up a couple times and end up taking her out before she's ready. She isn't happy about that part either.
Getting her clean on.
After supper, we have more play time until its time to get ready for bed. First thing on her bedtime routine check list is a bottle. Not sure when we'll break her of the bottle, but probably won't be in the immediate future. Then she gets her diaper changed and gets changed into her PJs. Then one of us will go brush her four teeth. This is so fun! She takes her binky out and opens her mouth real wide. Then we try to brush while she just tries to suck the tooth paste off of the little finger brush. So cute!
Then we make sure we have at least 2 binkies. One for her mouth and the other(s) for her to hold on to. Just recently I have been able to say, "Go find your binkies!" and she will! Then either Nate or I will go read to her, always ending with the "I Love You, Sleepyhead" book. "I Love You, Sleepyhead" is supposed to be the winding down, calming book, where all the animal mommies are telling their animal babies goodnight. It is really a cute book. Well Lizzie thinks it is hilarious to "boop" the animals. She leans forward and bonks her head on the pictures and of course we have to say "boop!" every single time, even if we are in the middle of a sentence. And if she leans town and holds her head on the picture, we say "booooooooop" until she lifts her head up. It is awesome and fun is definitely had by all. She laughs soooo hard (and as I mentioned earlier, her laugh is the best sound EVER). Unfortunately, this usually results in Lizzie getting the hiccups so the poor kid has to go to bed with hiccups!
After storytime, she turns around and lays her head on my shoulder while we have cuddle and prayer time. In addition to our prayer every night, I always say the "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, may angels watch me through the night, and wake me in the morning light" prayer. The last week or so, when I say the "pray the Lord my soul to keep" part, she giggles. I don't know why, but it is so freakin cute and she has me giggling for the rest of the prayer.
Then I lay her down as I tell her to sleep good and have sweet dreams and that I love her so, so much. I leave the room and she usually just rolls over and goes to sleep.
Elizabeth turned 15 months old last Friday and had her check up today. I hate hate HATE when she has to get shots! But these were the last ones until she's FIVE!!! Not counting the annual flu shot and the Hep A shot whenever we decide to do that. But other than that... FIVE!
She is such a big girl now because she was weighed fully clothed on the big girl scale! She weighed around 22 lbs - which is about the 35th percentile!! That is a huge improvement from being under the 3rd percentile not so very long ago! I am so proud of her for gaining some chub. And she was about 30.5" long. She's grown a little over 10" in 15 months. What a good girl! =)
Doc said everything looks good. She's not really talking yet (well, using real words anyway - she "talks" a ton) but he's not concerned. Said we'll see how she's doing at 18 months. At her 12 month check up, she sat on my lap and let him look her over without so much as a fuss. Today however, she wasn't as easy going. She cried and squirmed and tried to get down and run away. Little punk.
As far as everything else that's going on with my little Lizard, she's doing wonderful. She finally got her two front teeth. One came in on New Year's Eve and the other came in a week or so later. I have the exact dates in her baby book. So now she has four teeth! And oh boy does she grind those teeth. Wow. Funny thing though is that it drives her daddy way more crazy than it does her mom. hahahahaha....
She is still doing really good with putting herself to sleep. Naptimes are getting a little weird. I think she's transitioning to one nap a day instead of two. But then the last few days she's taken two naps (although not as long as usual) so I don't know what she's doing. She is also sleeping in a little later (Thank You God!), waking up anywhere from 7:30 - 8:45 am! Sooooo much better than 6:30!!
In this picture, Elizabeth is dancing to Famer Tad on her little barnyard magnet thing on the fridge. I LOVE that she is working those shoulders again! She is the best dancer in the whole world. ♥
