39 Weeks

THIS is the weekly photo that I have seriously been thinking about for, oh, 9 months :) As soon as I realized that Halloween was on a Sunday, I knew that Annie HAD to be Raggedy Ann for her first Halloween :) Although the costume was a little large, I still think it looked ADORABLE.

On Friday, our family received some bad and good news - Becca, Ben's sister who was pregnant with triplets, had found out that one of their babies had died at some point between Tuesday and Friday morning. This was the smallest of the 3, who had complications for the past 6 weeks. Although we had mentally prepared for this possibility, since she was 29 weeks, 5 days I think we all thought they would be born early but that all 3 would be there. Since there were also issues with the other two babies, Becca had a c-section on Friday afternoon. The whole family went to the hospital, and we got to meet all 3 babies and got to hold little Ian Gregory for a few minutes and grieve for him. It was a very emotional day - so difficult to see Ian, but I think we are all grateful that he didn't have to suffer. It was also so amazing to get to meet my niece, Grace Kaye, and nephew, Samuel James and see their tiny little bodies in the NICU! I have never been in the NICU before and it is a scary place. As I said in my monthly letter, the whole experience just made me realize yet again what a miracle it is when you end up with a healthy, full-term baby. We went back and visited again today and I got to touch both of them - they are just so tiny, but are doing really well!

Sam and I today

Grace and her favorite aunt (ha - just kidding! I will happily share that title with her 3 other aunties :)

Sam and Grace's little tiny diapers

That pretty much overshadowed the entire week - I have a bunch of pictures, but not a lot of energy to write another blog post right now, so I'll just settle for photos for now!

We took a trip down to my parents house on Tuesday, and Annie had fun playing with Maggie and her grandma and grandpa!

We took yet another trip to Blue Door Pub on Wednesday

Just looking cute in her hat before daycare on Friday

Luckily, Annie managed to keep herself entertained in the family waiting room at the hospital on Friday

We had planned on going to the Traveling Photobooth Halloween party on Friday night - Ben does work for them and really wanted me to check it out - we left the hospital at around 6:30 but still managed to get a quick stop in to see the set up - it was a great party for the 15 minutes we were there :)

In pretty good spirits despite being awake way past her bedtime

We had lunch at Noodles on Saturday with Mindy and 2 month old Abby!

Annie and Madeline had a great time playing on Saturday night

When we visited the hospital today, Annie got to see one of the our main nurses from our postpartum stay

Raggedy Annie with her aunt and uncle!

Aunt Liz (who is doing her clinical for PT at Riverside) got to stop by and say hello

Annie was a great little helper with the trick or treaters tonight!

Grandma and Grandpa got to come up to see Raggedy Annie tonight!

The week ended for Annie with a family hug - not too shabby!

9 Months

Dear Annie,

9 months today! You have reached the point of being outside as long as you were inside me! (well, close enough - technically it's 4 more days but who's counting?!) I know I have been saying this the past few months, but wow - time is just flying by at warp speed. You are SUCH a joy right now - you are so happy and smiley and fun, and you've reached an age where we really can take you most places and you are pretty content!

Your dad and I love you so much, Annie. A few recent events have just served to remind us what a miracle you are. You now have two beautiful cousins - Grace and Sam. We are so thrilled that they are here, but it will be a long road for them as they were born over 2 months early. It really just brings into focus how lucky we are - we definitely have been hugging you a little tighter and longer and forcing you to sit through even more snuggles and kisses!

This was also a great reminder for me that any "problem" you are having is really just not that big of a deal. If you're fussy for a night, oh well. If I ever start to get worried about your development or something ridiculous like you aren't pulling up to stand yet, I just remind myself that you are a happy, healthy and beautiful little girl and that you are doing EXACTLY what you should be doing - I'm trying really hard to enjoy what you are doing right now instead of fixating on the next step.

Your dad and I frequently fight over who gets to hold you - yes, that is a little ridiculous, but your snuggles are so rare now that you are on the move that we need to ration you out! We also frequently spend time after you go to bed looking at old photos of you - just because we already miss you a bit and looking at them makes us smile!

When I wrote your last monthly letter, I predicted that by this month you'd be all over the place, and I'm pretty happy to report that you are not! You are a much better crawler and sitter-upper now, but you still just crawl to get somewhere, not just for fun. You aren't much of an explorer - if you have something to occupy you nearby, it seems you have no desire to go out of your way to find something different! You may take after your mama with that :)

You also seem to be quite the chatterbox! You have lots of sounds and babble quite frequently - you say noises starting with D, T, G, M, B, and probably more - and you have been laughing a lot more lately which we love! You also love your baths and would splash around for as long as I would let you - frequently you get me pretty wet from your splashing around!

Eating has been going even better this month - you nurse 5 times a day (but I'm definitely dropping you down to 4 next weekend since you really aren't too into it a lot of the time anymore!) and eat 3 solid meals. You have been really great at feeding yourself - you've got the pincer grasp down! You honestly will eat pretty much anything we give you, except avocado. Your favorites are cheerios, blueberries, peas, and yogurt with banana or apples and cinnamon.

We love you so much, little girl! We are so thankful that we get to be your parents and look forward to each and every day with you.

Love, Mom

38 Weeks

This was a pretty low key week for us! Definitely a nice change, especially after our busy weekend. Not too much seems to be new with Annie this week... she is really content lately, even on weeknights!! What an awesome change that is, seriously. Several nights this week she would really just play happily with her toys right up until bedtime - no meltdowns at all!

Getting a back rub from Dad - Annie has an extremely rough life

She was pretty thrilled to go to daycare on this morning

We watched Mia on Wednesday night - her and Annie had fun playing for a bit. It's interesting to watch the things Mia gets into at our house - I'm still kind of shocked that Annie still hasn't gotten into much. She very rarely goes after cords, and really barely ever crawls for more than a few feet at a time before sitting and playing with something. She goes right for her toys each time we set her down and then plays with them for a few hours sometimes. And then does it all over again the next day!

One funny story from this week - Ben was out one night, so I was home alone with Annie. We were just playing in her room for awhile, all was dandy, until I (not her) got bored, so we changed scenery to the living room. Our stupid security system was beeping because the internet had gone down earlier in the day, so I was over there and pushed a button that I thought was the button to stop the beeping. It worked, so I just went back to the couch. I had already read Annie several books that night, so I decided to read her our CSA newsletter for some variety of language :) I was in the middle of it and my phone rang - some number I didn't recognize, so I didn't answer. A minute later, there was a knock on the back door - I assumed it was Nate, so I said come in - he knocked again, so I went back there, and he's on the phone with the dispatcher from the security system - apparently I had accidentally called emergency medical services - whoops!!! Unfortunately, it was too late to call them off, so a minute later, a huge fire truck shows up at my house - I took Annie out with me so they would take pity on me :) The dude said hi to her, and laughed at me - he didn't seem angry at all, phew! The neighbor kids definitely enjoyed seeing the fire truck too - they were all "What did you doooooo?? Is that baby yours??" So that was our excitement for the week!

More and more, Annie is noticing the details of things. The stupid basket we have her toys in desperately needs to be replaced, because as she bangs on it, little pieces come off, which she inevitably sticks in her mouth. No piece of lint is safe around her anymore! She also has been grabbing at my face more, poking at my eyes, my mouth, nose, and she really likes poking at my wedding ring. She loooooooooooooooooves necklaces too - she just likes to play with them, she doesn't try to yank them too much, which is nice. It's actually one of my favorite ways to trick her into sitting on my lap for awhile :)

A few more attempts at pulling up this week, but she got no further than her knees. I'm excited for her to do it, but I'm trying to remain zen and appreciate where Annie is right now instead of always trying to push her to do the next thing. She is growing so big so fast, and she is SO much fun right now, I kind of want to keep her this way for awhile!!

Halloween costume #1 - our little bumble bee!

Nate and Molly had a little Halloween gathering yesterday - it was difficult, nay impossible, to get a good shot of everyone, but I think this one is hilarious

We had a mom & baby gathering tonight, and I think that really helps me see how wide of a range of normal there is with respect to babies developments! Some are chattering away, some don't babble much. Two are pulling up and crawling all over, a few aren't crawling at all. Only one is waving, one scoots on his butt a bit but that's it. And they are all doing great! Of course everyone looked super cute in their Halloween costumes too!

Annie and Ruby had similar costumes - wings and antenna for both!

Best picture ever :)

I also liked hearing about how different the eating habits of each baby was at mom & baby - a few are down to 4 or even 3 nursing sessions/bottles per day. Some seem to be voracious eaters, and a few apparently barely eat any solids. I've been contemplating eliminating a session for Annie, since right now it feels like she's eating all the fricking time. Especially with table food - today I gave her peas, some cantaloupe chunks, blueberries, sweet potato and cheerios for lunch. She ate for like 40 minutes. It was kind of nice, I just plopped some food on her tray every few minutes and cleaned a lot of the kitchen while she ate, but good lord! She still usually takes all her bottles at daycare and will happily nurse so I'm hesitant to change anything yet. I don't really wait for her to cry to feed her though - I just feed her every 3-4 hours... so I could just try it out one day, but of course I'm scared that she will wake up starving that night or something!

Speaking of... Annie has been waking up crying a few times this week at like 9-10pm - once it did seem like she was hungry, but a few other times it was just to cry. I honestly wouldn't mind much if she just calmed down immediately when we pick her up, but that isn't always the case. She just wiggles around and still cries - who knows why! She eventually figures it out and goes back to sleep, but it's unnerving... I hear there is a 9 month sleep regression, basically when separation anxiety kicks in, but this doesn't seem to be that. Whatever - I'm sure it's just a phase that will pass, hopefully soon.

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Pie

Well, if this isn't the most enticing name for a dessert ever, I just don't know what is! I am not a huge lover of caramel apples myself (too sticky and hard to eat) but I know most people love them. When I offered to make dessert to bring to Becca's birthday gathering, I knew a cheesecake would be my best option, since I could make it the night before and it would be big enough to feed the whole family.

Since we were making a trip to the orchard earlier in the week, I knew I wanted to incorporate apples, and this dessert seemed to be the perfect combination! Becca's enthusiasm over the idea sealed the deal :)

I followed this recipe pretty closely, but did use caramel sauce I purchased from the orchard instead of going through the steps to make my own. I have failed at that before and didn't want a repeat :) Plus, this is already more work than a typical cheesecake because of the peeling and chopping of the apples and preparing the apple mixture... so I took the easy way out this time! Pretty sure no one noticed the difference - this was delicious!

37 Weeks

Well, if Annie were still in the womb, she'd be full term now! Ha. Pretty crazy to think that Annie hasn't even been outside as long as she was inside yet. Well, I guess pretty close if you don't count the first 2 weeks of pregnancy when you aren't even pregnant. Whatever.

Annie figured out how to crawl over the door frame after a few tries this weekend, and also had to practice her yoga there as well. Dress tucked into tights to avoid frustration :)

Again, this week was really fun - Annie is just at such a fun age right now! She's so interactive and is very content almost all of the time. She has her cranky moments, of course, but doesn't seem to be so stubborn that she can't get over whatever it is that is pissing her off pretty quickly.

We started a music class on Monday night that Rebekah set up in her neighborhood. Her neighbor is a music teacher, so a group goes over to her house on Monday evenings to sing and do a little dancing :) Annie is by far the youngest, with the next youngest being 14 months, so it is a little comical to see her just sitting there, mesmerized, while the rest of the group is all bopping around, following instructions (some of them at least) and in general understanding what the heck is going on :) I figure it's something to do, and just exposes her to more things, so it can't be bad! It's 8 weeks long, so the best part will be seeing how much she changes from the beginning to the end.

This is probably my favorite outfit yet.

Annie has started kind of pulling herself up on low objects now - so far she's only tried her carseat (which was on the floor) and a person's lap who is sitting down, and she gets up to her knees. It's pretty funny to watch her - she's concentrating so hard! She can definitely stand up alone holding on to stuff, but we've been trying not to put her into positions that she can't get into on her own. So when she could sit up, of course I'd sit her up for the occasional photoshoot or in a cart/highchair/whatever, but when she was playing I'd still put her down on her back and she'd just flip over to her belly and play that way until she could sit herself up. I found out the hard way a few times when she would fall over when sitting, or get super pissed that she didn't know how to get back down, so now I just put her down in a position she at least can get out of on her own! She has figured out how to do everything else so far with no "teaching" or demonstrating from us, so I know she'll figure out how to stand herself up as soon as she's ready. (this is what I repeat to myself whenever I'm getting neurotic about the milestone chart, by the way :)

An example of us standing her up for a photo op :)

My FAVORITE milestone of the week was the introduction of the M sound to her extensive vocabulary! Annie now said mamama :) (or, rather, mem mem mem or sometimes mum mum) Yes, I know she has no clue that mama is ME but it's still nice to hear nonetheless! She also seems to be imitating a lot more - we'll say byebye and she says buh buh, I say Hi and she says Ii, etc - it's very cute! She's also been making waving motions sometimes but clearly has no clue what she's doing yet :)

Eating has been great for Annie this week for the most part - she's getting even better with finger foods. Today for lunch (which I treat as kind of a bonus meal - if she eats, great, if not, whatever) I just gave her some cubes of sweet potato, whole peas, and pieces of toast with cream cheese. After playing around with the stuff for like 10 minutes, she figured out it was all food and then went to town! It was pretty funny to watch her marvel at the peas rolling around on her tray :) She also has been very intently examining details lately, and poking at stuff with her index finger. No spec of dirt is safe on the floors.

Yup, she's giving peas a chance, as her bib (FROM SHANNON!) says :)

Ben and I went out on Friday night for the launch party for the cookbook that Kate photographed - Nate and Molly watched Annie and she had a blast playing with Mia (and then Madeline too) - since I was borrowing his camera as I am considering an upgrade, he took a few iPhone pics to summarize the night! These 3 girlies are just so cute playing together - I can't wait to see how they grow up!

Mia looks like a giant next to shorty Annie!

This time bathtime wasn't as traumatic :)

Here are some photos from the rest of our weekend, which was filled with bridal and baby showers :)

Liz, Annie and I at her bridal shower! This shower was at 12:30, and I was a bit nervous to take her since Annie usually naps around 1:30 or 2, but I just had her take her morning nap later and then she was a-ok! She's more adaptable than I give her credit for, that's for sure.

We went to Flamingo, an Ethiopian restaurant, near our house with Bill, Kim, and their son Billy who is 1 day younger than Annie - despite having no functioning high chairs, and me discovering again that no, I really don't like Ethiopian food, we had a great time :) Camera nerds - this was taken with Nate's camera, and I had accidentally set the ISO at 6400 - oops. I obviously should have known this if I was paying any attention, but I had my hands full :)

Becca and I at her shower - she's 28 weeks today!

I made cupcakes (vanilla and chocolate) and pasta salad for the shower

Since the shower was 2 miles from our house, after Annie's nap, Ben brought her over! Of course she chose today to take the longest nap she's taken in like 6 months.