Happy belated easter!

I haven't had much time for the computer lately, but here are a few pics of our little Easter bunny! Just a few days late :)

9 months old!

Well, I have been a little MIA lately but finally have a few spare mintes to post Zoey's 9 month pic. I pretty much gave up having her pose with the little signs because it is pretty impossible to even get her to sit still for the picture, so I know that sitting and holding onto the sign just would not happen.

So, here she is....9 months old today -such a big girl! Where did my little baby go?

This past month has been a big one! She has started crawling and pulling herself up and will cruise along holding onto the furniture or our hands. It's exciting, but exhausting! I can't turn away from her for even a minute because then she just doesn't stay put. So I spend a lot of the day chasing her around and trying to keep her from getting into things that she shouldn't. She also has finally got some teeth in. The two on the bottom have broken through. And another big milestone this month is that we started finger foods. Anytime I tried to feed her off the spoon, she would try to just grab the food off the spoon and then shove it in her mouth, so I started experimenting with just cutting up her food really tiny and letting her feed herself. She loves it and it's really surprising what she can handle eating. She eats pretty much all of her fruits and veggies in pieces rather than purees and she's also done some grains like Cheerios and toast. I feel like I'm always a nervous wreck when she is eating because I'm afraid she will choke, but she does really well.

Bedtime and naptime has turned into a nightmare!

Well, of course I have read and heard that when babies learn a new skill, it can affect their sleeping, but I never would have imagined what we were in for! These past few days, putting Zoey down to sleep has been just awful. Whenever I put her into the crib, she will not lay still to settle down. She crawls around, or holds onto the crib slats and pulls herself up. When she gets sick of this, she will continue to hold onto the crib slats, and then just cry and cry. I will watch the whole process on the video monitor, and she looks so sad, like she is in jail! :( She does know how to get herself back down and lay down but she just doesnt. I try not to go get her right away to see if she will settle down, but so far she hasn't and I have to go get her, and then I will nurse her to calm her down again and then put her to bed all over again. So, at any given naptime/bedtime it is taking 2-3 attempts to put her to sleep and I think I'm getting back in the bad habit of nursing her until she is actually asleep and then putting her into the crib. But that isn't even working that well because she has started to either wake up shortly after going down for the night, or in the middle of the night. So I finally decided that it looks like we are going to have to re-do Ferber/sleep training with her and let her "cry it out" a bit. I hate to do it, but I really think we need to so she will start going to sleep without a fight.

So, Thursday night when I put her to bed, of course she started screaming her head off. She was not happy with me - as you can see:

Don't those pictures just break your heart? :(

Well, after about 45 minutes of crying, all of a sudden it was quiet. Because of where she was in the crib, I couldn't see her on the video monitor. So, I snuck quietly into her room to take a peek and see what she was doing. This is what I found:

She had fallen alseep sitting up! Poor little thing, she was just so exhausted! I couldn't imagine that she would be comfortable sleeping like that for the whole night, but I was afraid that if I moved her, she would wake up. I was debating what to do and decided that I would let her sleep a little bit so that hopefully she would be in a deep sleep before I tried moving her. But...it never got to that point and she woke up crying about a hour after falling asleep. Luckily, when I lay her down that time, she settled down and went to sleep almost right away. She must have just been so exhausted!

I was hoping that after falling alseep sitting up once, that would be the end of it, but no such luck. Here is Friday's morning nap:

Bedtime was a little better that night, but here is today's morning nap:

Do you see a pattern developing here? LOL. All I can do is laugh about it at this point, but it's getting a bit ridiculous! And the worst part is she is only napping for maybe 30-40 minutes, and only once a day, so I know that she isn't getting enough sleep. But, I'm just not sure what to do! I'm really hoping that this phase passes quickly.

Wow, that turned into a really long post! If you made it this far, thanks for reading!! :)

pulling herself up

Well, now that she has crawling mastered, Zoey has started working on her latest trick - pulling herself up. She has been using the couch, her toys, etc to pull up to her knees all week and has also just started pulling herself up to her feet to. She is still pretty wobbly, so I'm sure we still have a ways to go until walking, but it's exciting to see how much she is learning so fast!

8 months old!

Well, I can hardly believe that it has been 8 months! It is no longer possible to get her to pose with the little sign (she just wants to eat the paper!), so had to edit in the words after taking the pic. Such a sweet happy baby - we are more in love with her every day! :)

Nestie playdate!

This morning we had a playdate with the girls from the Nest. Baby's sweet beginning was had a "Mommy & Me" and it was so much fun. Best of all I got to meet the newest nestie babies -Eve and Ethan. They are so cute and tiny. Zoey looks like a beast in comparison!

Here are a few pics:

Julie & Ethan, Melissa & Eve, me & Zoey, and Melanie & Justin

and two of Zoey and Justin (stolen from Melanie's blog because her pics came out much cuter than mine! - Thanks Melanie :)

We have a crawler!

She did it!! :)

Zoey has been working on her crawling for a while now, and today she finally got it! Within these past few days, she just started to take little "steps", or "crawls" or whatever you would call it, but after about one or two, she would flop down to her belly. So we have been trying to motivate her by telling her "come to mommy", "come to daddy", or putting her toys out of reach. None of it really seemed to be making a difference, but today she was bound and determined that she wanted the dog's toy. Haha - doesn't it figure?! The girl has a ton of toys of her own, and the thing that she loves the most is Lexi's disgusting, dirty stuffed animal. So, she set her sights on it and just crawled right over to it! Of course it is Lexi's favorite too, but she has been so good and is so gentle with Zoey. She doesn't even try to take it away from her.

I do have a very short video of her crawling, but for some reason, blogger isn't letting me post it. :( So, I'll just have to post a pic. After mastering this skill today, she did not want to go to bed. She just crawled around her crib - so smiley and proud of herself! It took about 3 attempts of putting her down before she finally went to sleep!

My new mommy vehicle!

Well, but having the new carseat in the Tiburon just was not working out. It was such a pain to get her in and out that I was dreading going anywhere. And then because of the way the back seats had kind of a "dip" in them, it seemed like the seat wasn't in there tight enough, so I was worried that she wasn't safe. So, as soon as we got our tax return, we went out car shopping and I fell in love with the RAV4. I never thought I would be *that* mom that runs out and gets an SUV once she has a baby - LOL. But, hey in motherhood you find that there are lots of things that you thought you would never do that you end up changing your mind about. Oh well....I dealt with the carseat in the 2-door for 7 months, so I did my time! And I absolutely love, love, LOVE the RAV4. I thought I would be nervous driving something so much bigger than my teeny-tiny Tiburon, but I actually really like it a lot better than a car. And it's so easy to get her into the carseat since she is higher up and I don't have to bend down at all. It's really nice. So, yep, I'm happy with my new "Mom car" :) And because I am a dork, I will post a pic!

Here it is:

Can you tell that Zoey is thrilled about the new car too? :)

The end of an era...

Well, we finally broke down and bought Zoey her bigger carseat. I was hoping to make it through the end of the winter because it's been nice to be able to use the snuggly carseat cover and not have to worry about bundling her up too much in the cold. Even though she isn't quite over the weight limit on the infant carrier yet, it was getting way too heavy to lug her around in it, so I decided to make the switch. We bought the Evenflo Triumph, and I really like it. It's really easy to loosen/tighten the straps and she seems very comfy in it. The only thing is that now we actually have to put a coat on her since we can't use the carseat cover anymore. It's a big of pain, but she looks so cute in her snuggly furry coat all cuddled up with her blankie! :)

The only other thing about the new carseat is that it does not work well at all in the two-door car. I went and had it installed by a technician because I was nervous about getting it in there right since the backseat of the Tiburon is so tiny. I knew that having a 2 door car with a baby was not going to be ideal, but it really wasn't so bad with the infant seat because I could get her all buckled in and settled while we were still in the house and then just have to snap the seat into the base. I was actually thinking to myself for these past 7 months "hmmm....2 door cars with a baby really aren't that bad, I think the people who told me so were exaggerating"
But.... since having the convertible seat installed on Monday and now getting her into it is such a HUGE pain! There is no way to get into the back seat on the passenger seat where her carseat is, so in order to go anywhere we have to go through this big process - I have to climb in the backseat behind the driver seat, while holding her and being really careful not to bonk her head on the ceiling since it's such a tiny car with not much room inside. Then I have to manuever her into the carseat sideways which is really awkward, buckle her in, then climb back out of the car, and then readjust my seat and get myself settled. Ugh, it SUCKS! I really don't know how long I am going to be able to deal with this. I have a feeling that we are going to be going car shopping as soon as the we get our tax return. I really wanted to wait until Sept when I go back to work to buy a new car, but I really don't know if I can deal with the hassle until then.
I guess when I bought myself a cute little sporty car to celebrate my first teaching job, I wasn't really thinking of carseats at the time - lol! That was 2001, so I guess I have gotten my money's worth out of the car, and it's time for something new!

New tricks

Well, Zoey has quite a few new tricks lately. She is finally sitting up on her own. I think that she's been strong enough to do it for a while, but wouldn't actually concentrate and stay in one place! But now that she has mastered it, she loves to sit and play with her toys.


posing for the camera - awwww!!

playing with the toy that Aunt Shannon gave her for Christmas

And, we also need to report that she's on her way to crawling. One of these days, I think she's just going to take off! :) She can get up on all fours and rock, but still pretty much rolls, or twists or squirms on her belly to get where she wants to go.

And lastly, she has mastered drinking from a straw. She really did not seem all that thrilled with the sippy cup. I think that having to tip it up to drink from it was too difficult for her, although she loved banging it on the tray of the high chair! So, I saw a baby cup with a straw while I was grocery shopping and figured that we'd give it a try. She figured it out right away - such a smart girl! Look how happy she is!