My Furbabies

I'm thinking that my two furbabies are getting jealous of all the attention that the human baby is getting! So here is a post dedicated solely to my furbabies, Molly and Dugan.

We got Molly when I was 3 days away from turning 10 years old. Someone had dumped her when she was pregnant. The vet said she was approximately two years old at the time, which would put her at around 16 years old now. She is the best cuddler and the most friendly dog in the world. Here is her pretty face:



Dugan is one of the 6 puppies that Molly delivered on March 25, 1995. Dugan turned 14 this year! Obviously, we kept him. =) He actually had the most white on him out of all of the puppies. Here is his handsome face:




Here are both of my puppies snuggling with me on the couch. This was just a few weeks before my wedding, when I was all tan and thin and had long hair. And I didn't even appreciate it! *sigh*

This about sums up their personalities: Dugan had taken Molly's Christmas present and chewed on it constantly. He had a blue one just like her pink one and he wanted nothing to do with it. And Molly is just being a spaz, as usual.

Lizzie's Cute Things

~My very favorite thing lately is that Elizabeth hugs my neck. It is the best feeling in the whole world.
~She'll also grab the face of whoever is holding her and put her face against it. She will sometimes shut her eyes as if she is overwhelmed by the love she has for that person (G-ma Dianne's theory!). Sometimes she also does this with toys. =)
~When I'm holding her in one arm, she reaches back and grabs the hair on the back of my head, especially if it is in a pony tail. Which effectively pulls a nice chunk of hair out of the pony tail.
~She pretty much grabs anything and everything that is within her reach. Toys, plates, noses, lips, ears, etc. Nothing is off limits!
~Elizabeth apparently thinks its hilarious when we laugh. She did this with her daddy first. She and Nate, or me, or whoever will sit there and just laugh at each other! Its awesome.
~When she sees her binky, she opens her mouth super wide for us to stick it in. Smart girl. :)
~She held her own bottle all by herself the other day! (She doesn't get too many bottles, so not sure when she actually started this.)
~Elizabeth loves her jumperoo even more lately. She is really able to jump her buns off now! So cute! And she can actually touch the floor now without the photo album underneath. She was no where close to touching the floor a month ago! She's getting so big!
~While in the jumperoo, she likes to jump up and grab the bird hanging from the leaf above her. One time she grabbed it and just yelled at it. Poor bird!
~Just yesterday I noticed her babbling for the first time. She said, "Babababababa...." I think that means, "I love mommy!" =)
~However, she has been "talking" for a while now. Cutest thing ever. Nate sent me a text from Lizzie once that said, "Arr agg mm yar yar." I think that also means, "I love mommy!" =)
~Current nicknames: Nate calls her SquidWorm and Squiddy. I call her things like Sweetie Pie or Lovey Lumps. And one that only I have earned the right to call her: Fat Head, of course said with total love and affection!

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Baby Girl!

I can't believe she is 6 months old already! Half of a year has gone by in the blink of an eye. Or maybe its been one really long foggy haze. Either way, its gone by fast and my sweet little girl is getting so big!

POTW Winner!

Elizabeth's Saint Patrick's Day picture won the Picture of the Week contest! Woot! Here is the winning photo:

And here are some of her outtakes. We had a lot of fun!

5 Months Old!

These 5 months have both flown by and dragged on. I'm not sure exactly how that works! I suppose it has something to do with a lack of sleep. =)

Well, Elizabeth is cuter than ever. She just gets more amazing by the day. I am so dang lucky to be her mom because I get to spend so much time with her. She's doing this thing now when I nurse her and I'm not paying close enough attention to her. She'll pull off and look up at me and make different sounds. When I look down at her and smile she gets this HUGE smile and then turns and clamps down again. Ten seconds later she does it again. I adore this.

And she started cereal today! I can't believe she's old enough to be eating cereal. She did pretty good. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this eating solids thing!

So Nate was up with Lizzie this morning while I got a little more sleep. They came in to wake me up and Nate informed me that they named her butt. Her butt is now called "Smelly My." As in, "Smelly My butt, moms!" (We often put words in Lizzie's mouth and when Nate is talking for her, "she" calls me Moms. Not quite sure why yet!) I think they have too much fun together. =)


Here are some pictures from Elizabeth's 5 month birthday yesterday:

Jumpin Around

I ordered the Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo for Elizabeth and she is SOO cute in it! She loves talking (and sometimes growling) to the monkey. I had to put a photo album under her feet since she's still to short to reach the floor. After a few days of trying it out, she finally started jumping! I think I'm enjoying it more than she is.

Sleep update...

Last night did not go better. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was worse. Longest stretch of sleep was 1.75 hours.

Sleeping through the night = FAIL

Tonight is night #4 of Elizabeth's new schedule. After reading most of "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and skimming through "Heathy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," we are trying to fix Lizzie's sleep schedule.

The 1st night SUCKED. Or at least the first part of it did. She thought she was taking a nap when we put her to bed at 7:45, so she woke up about 40 minutes later. It took us 3 hours to get her to go back to sleep! She's used to her 11:30-12:00 bedtime. There were several times where she had fallen asleep, but as soon as we lay her down in the crib- wide eyes. So Nate and I spent those 3 hours in Lizzie's room, in the dark, taking turns rocking her.

The 2nd night she did so good! She went to bed at 8:45 (we figured before 8:00 was too early still). She fussed about 45 minutes later and Nate rocked her back to sleep before she woke up fully. Then she woke up every few hours to nurse, with the longest stretch being 4.5 hours!

Now the 3rd night, last night, was worse than the first. We are thinking that she had a stomach ache or teething pains causing her to wake up a lot. She woke up soooo many times. We have been keeping track of when she's sleeping and I couldn't keep up. All I wrote was, "Woke up several hundred times after 12:00." I fed her and put her down in the crib at 7:00 am. I went back to bed and was woken up later by Lizzie crying again. I looked at the clock and it was 7:09. She slept for 9 whole freakin minutes.

I hope tonight goes better...

We have a foot eater!

Well, ELizabeth's "bend" is doing a lot better. Still not totally repaired, but doing better than it was! She is letting us bend her legs or even sit her down on our laps a lot more. Yay!

And the girl has definitely found her feet! Even when she's not getting her diaper changed, she's now pulling them up and chewing on them! So cute!

A few mornings ago, I heard this strange banging sound coming from the monitor. Nate went in to check it out. The noise was her kicking this dog toy that hangs on the bottom of her crib. She has scooted all the way down to the bottom of the crib! She did it twice that morning and several times since. She thought she was sooo funny!






4 months, 1 week

Shrimpy

Apparently I have a little shrimp for a daughter. I weighed myself and then weighed myself with her, and the difference was only 11 lbs. I got the same answer several times. Then I got 11.6 lbs several times. I know its not the most accurate way to weigh, but she's somewhere around there.

So why isn't she gaining weight?? She weighed almost 12 lbs a month ago. She's gaining inches though. She's approx 24" long. So she's tall and skinny!

She's also doing this thing where she won't sit or bend her legs. She'll just be stick straight. Nate says that her bend is broken. And she's been spitting up a lot more lately. Not large amounts, but more frequently. She also looks like she's always chewing on something in her mouth. So all this on top of a little extra fussiness makes me wonder if her reflux is getting worse.

So good thing her appointment is on Feb 23rd. Oh, oops, no its not. Stupid me called and changed it to March 6th because I didn't want to be alone when she got her shots. That was before I realized how much she weighs and before the extra spit up and broken bend. I tried to get her appointment back but no such luck. So we're going to keep calling and hope for a cancellation. Otherwise we have to wait almost 2 more weeks. =(

4 months, 5 days