6th Tooth

Oh ya while I was in Hawaii Summer got her 6th tooth, she now has 4 on bottom and 2 on top. How did I forget to mention that?!? We spend a wonderful Mother's Day together, we went clothes shopping, and I have determined I have a serious problem. I received a box of clothes from mimi, all the perfect sizes, about 15 outfits, so Summer did not need any new clothes, and yet I still bought about 7 outfits yesterday. I am looking into a program to help today! When we got home from shopping Summer was napping in the car, so I got her out and carried her into our bed, and held her and laid down with her. It was so sweet and so cute and felt so good to hold her while she was sleeping, and it was a good position, neither of us were soaking in sweat! Kris came in and saw us and took a picture, I will post it later this week. Summer loves me, when I was leaving for work this morning she wanted me and cried. I love that little girl!

Home Sweet Home

When I landed on Wednesday I thought I was fine. When I saw the car I was fine. When I saw Kris I was fine. When I saw Summer sitting in her car seat all wide eyed I about fell over with emotions. I could not believe she was awake looking around, and she was more beautiful than I remembered. I jumped into the back seat so fast I ripped off the rubber sealing around the door (don't worry it slipped back on). The entire ride home I spent kissing and touching my baby. I was worried she might be scared of me, maybe she forgot who I was, but she was fine, she smiled at me and kept looking at me. It was a wonderful welcome home, and a great 20 minute car ride to the house. I took off Thursday to recover and spend time with my family, it was a nice day off, I took Summer with me while I had my car washed and my oil changed. She was a perfect angel as usual.
Tomorrow is mother's day and what I want more than anything is to spend time with my family, and cut my hair! I don't know if it is a new mommy thing or if I am just tired of my hair but it has been annoying me for the past month and I wish it was gone. I don't think I would feel bad if it looks horrible, I have had long hair for such a long time, but Kris has made it clear that short hair is ugly so I am going to just cut off a few inches. I should go right now while Summer is sleeping ...
We took some family pictures today, I made everyone buy a white shirt so we all matched. I don't think the family pictures turned out as well as I had hoped, we really need someone holding the camera and getting Summer's attention, so we will probably try it again next Sunday when Cliff is around to help, but the pictures we did get turned out amazing. This was the first time I have played with Kris's camera and I might like it.
Later today we have a birthday party, this will be Summer's first birthday party for some twins we met during one of the mommy groups at the park. It is at 4:00 so I am guessing I will have a few more pictures later today.
Check out today's pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesca/

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I started another blog about my struggles to lose a little bit of the baby weight, check it out http://onehundredandfortyeight.blogspot.com/

Baby Blues

I have the baby blues today. I am in Hawaii and Summer and Daddy are in Nevada. This is the first time I have been away from my little girl. I can still smell her yummy skin and feel her soft tummy. I can see her face clearly and imagine looking into her eyes. At least I will only be gone until Wednesday, I don't think I could take much more, or be gone for much longer. I didn't realize how hard it would be until I was trying to doze off during the 5 hour flight. I kept picturing her face and her smile. While I was waiting to board a lady was sitting next to me with an 8 month old, pure torture! I really thought I would enjoy a little "me" time, I mean I did get to go shopping, I found 4 pair of pants, and if I had a lot more money I could go shopping again, but I would rather be home on the floor with some toys and a baby. I miss my husband too, but it is doubtful that he will change much in four days, not that I expect Summer to be walking when I get back, but she might make a new sound or make a new face or get a new tooth. Speaking of new teeth, she has one! On the 2nd I happened to be feeling around in her mouth and another one snuck up on us. Her bottom right tooth broke the skin. I can't believe she doesn't get fussy while breaking teeth through, are we lucky or what! So far I have written down all the dates for her teeth, I feel so proud to be on top of her books. I also ordered her next three month shutterfly book, 52 pages, it wasn't cheap, but as much as I look back at the first two books, it will be worth every dollar.
Yesterday was park day. I had arranged a mommy park day with the message board group I belong. Daddy wanted to come early so he could take some mommy and baby pictures but of course his car battery was dead (from not driving). At 8:00 in the morning we went to the park close to our house so daddy could get some picture. Then we were home by 8:30 and we ate breakfast, and back out to the scheduled park event by 9:30. Only 4 other couples showed up, but that was enough babies and mommies to have a good time. The kids were great, they don't really play together yet, but they enjoy being outside in the sunshine looking around. Afterwards Casey and I went to lunch, and as usual Summer napped for most of the meal. Ana is getting to be such a cutie, I think her hair is longer in the back than Summer's. We need to get together again, it is crazy to think how fast our little girls are growing, soon they will be teenagers!
One last thing to talk about, Kris and I went to ToysRUs on Friday night. We spent a long time looking at all of the cool toys they have. We ended up buying Summer a thing that you hold on to when you are learning how to walk. We got it home and popped it all together and tried to get Summer to start using it. She did not want anything to do with it. I think it might be too early for her to even think about taking steps, and I have decided I don't want her to walk yet anyway, she needs to enjoy crawling for as long as she can. I will put the toy in her room out of the way and when she is ready she can go look at at. I was reading a book on the flight and it mentioned how toys can become over stimulating, and when I get back I am going to start putting away all of the old toys Summer is no longer interested it, the baby toys as well, and try to keep it to a minimum. This will also help me during the next trip to walmart, I will not be tempted to buy a toy. I am also going to look into more natural toys, wood toys, she loves her wooden blocks more than anything else. I saw some all natural wood toys at the store and they weren't colorful but this will allow her to use her imagination. I am also going to keep her imagination in mind and give her unique toys I have around the house like boxes and books. Oh I am also going to move her crib out of our room and into her own. I think I will try it on Friday night if I can get it in her room. She is old enough, she can sleep through the night if we let her and stopped jumping at every single sound she makes. I have a feeling if she is upstairs we will not be as quick to jump up and give her the pacifier. Well this is my plan anyway, and right now it is making me sad to think about because I am here and she is there, but I will have to cry and get over it, and do what is best for her and I. WAH life sucks. Sorry that snuck out :o0 I miss my baby, so until next week when I have her in my arms ...

Scary Grass

I have been usually busy all week, and felt like I wasn't there for Summer. On Thursday I had an IT emergency and was on the phone all night, and on Friday I worked until 7:00, luckily Kris didn't mind and on Saturday I spent all day with Summer. We hung out a lot, crawled around, took some pictures, went grocery shopping, took a nap together, took a bath, and even shared some food, I gave her some of my pancakes for breakfast (no syrup) and some of my peas for dinner. It was a great bonding day and today I feel like she is my baby! She has started to give kisses on request, well most of the time, ok just sometimes, but they are wide open and slobbery kisses so sometime will work for now. She is also saying bye and starting to wave, I caught her on video yesterday saying bye, you can look at it on youtube, just look up jesca4u to see all of my videos. The photo shoot yesterday was ok, no great photos but I did catch a good shot of Summer in the grass, holding both of her feet up and one arm. I will set her in the grass in a crawl position and she will balance herself on two knees and one hand while holding everything else up. She has crawled in the grass before so I am not sure where this new fear came from, but it is so cute! No plans for today, hanging out together again, probably get some more photos. I just finished the third three month shutterfly book, months seven, eight and nine, and plan on printing that out next month. I love looking back through the books and see how much she has changed, have you seen this kids bangs, her hair has really grown a lot, I have to scoot her bangs to the side so they don't get in her eyes.
I still cannot believe that I have a baby, and that I am a mommy, and that Summer is my daughter. Surely this will change eventually right? At some point it has to stop feeling so weird and seem normal right? I love the feeling I get when I look at my little, or really big girl, and I am so glad I did this. It helps that I have such a great husband to help make me a better mother. I can't wait for my first mother's day, I plan on spending all day with my daughter!

Out to eat

Friday night we went out to eat, a Mexican place, and as we were sitting down at the table, getting Summer situated in her high chair, she manages to grab the two glass plates on the side of the table, hold them up for a few seconds and drop them onto the tile floor, CRASH. It was really loud but only one broke. We continued as normal, Summer was great during the rest of the dinner and the food was delicious. It is darn amazing how quick a 9 month old can be. Not much else happened this week, Summer had a few great night sleeping all night, but last night she woke up a lot and ruined the bragging streak. She is down to 3 bottles a day now, she weaned herself off the 4th, she has a bottle at 6 am, 12 pm and 8 pm. We are still feeding her breakfast and dinner but giving her larger portions, and trying to give her more table foods. Because of her we will probably have spegetti every week now because she likes the noodles. We are planning a trip to the zoo today, the zoo is very small in town but it should be fun enough and hopefully I will get some pictures. This morning I blew up 80 ballons and let Killer loose, he wasn't as excited as I thought and only ended up popping half of them. I used the rest for a photo shoot but the sun wasn't out and Summer was tired so the pictures weren't my favorite, but I still had fun taking them.

9 Months

Summer is 9 months today!!! We have no doctors appointment until she turns 12 months so here is what I measured. 22.5 pounds (and I rounded down) holy CRAP she is huge. I thought she might be 21 pounds, I didn't realize she gained so much in one month, and 29 inches tall- which is the same for the past 2 months, unless I measured wrong, which I probably did, using a measuring tape isn't easy at home but I guess that is still pretty tall. She is crawling, pulling herself up onto everything, and as of yesterday, started opening drawers. Last night Summer opened up the bottom drawer in the bathroom and was playing with all of my hair items, clips, bows, rubber bands, and this morning she learned how to open the drawer with all of our spoons, here is a video. After Cliff saw her in the drawers he decided he needs to baby proof more, so he went to Lowes to get some clips to fix the cabinets. I thought we had more time, apparently not. I cannot imagine how difficult it will be once she starts walking.
Summer is drinking 3 or 4 (8-oz) bottles a day, on some days she only has 3. She eats a large breakfast of rice or oatmeal and fruit and a plastic 4 oz container of vegetables for dinner. I think I will start introducing a regular lunch around 10 months. I am slowly introducing table foods, last week Summer has spegetti and ate them just fine, she has also had some pancakes (no syrup) and lots of soft veggies. When she wakes up from her nap I will give her some baby yogurt, only half so I can eat the rest. Summer will drink from a sippy cup if we help her, but she hasn't figured out that she has to tip it up to get the water yet. She has her two bottom teeth and one on top, the left, but his morning we noticed the top right is very white and puffy so I expect that one to poke through real soon.
For her 9 month birthday I bought her a tutu from walmart for $8.00. I tried to get a few photos today, some were cute. I tacked one pink blanket on the wall and laid another one on the floor and tried to keep her centered, as you can probably imagine, she doesn't like to stay still anymore, so I will take more photos again later, the tutu is really big so we have a lot of time.
She is still such a great baby. She is talking all the time, making all kinds of crazy sounds. We pretend we know what she is saying, and she thinks she is saying something and keeps going, it is so cute.
We went to a pet-a-palooza yesterday and I can honestly say I have never seen so many dogs in one place, it was amazing. Not any of the dogs fought. My poor little guy was exhausted, and twice rode in the stroller, once I held Summer while he rode up top and once he rode in the bottom basket underneath the stroller. We stayed about 2 hours and had to leave, I was fried from being in the sun all day. Summer did great, she just rode around in her stroller looking at all the dogs, never making a sound. I actually was watching Killer more than Summer because I had to keep his leash from getting tangled around himself, her stroller, my legs, other dogs, etc. Luckily when I got home yesterday Kris watched Summer while I took an hour nap to recover.