A FULL House

Leighton is nearly 5 months old and we already need to move!
How is it someone so small can need SO MUCH stuff!?! I feel like I pack everything but the kitchen sink when we go to visit anyone! Some of you probably agree, and others probably think I am nuts.

So of course, today I rushed out to get her some MORE "stuff!"
I have been noticing that she isn't having as much fun playing on the floor, and really likes to sit up and play. However, she can't sit-up with out assistance, so I thought she might like a walker or exersaucer! Do you know how expensive those things are?! I mean the "fun" ones! We have been blessed that most of her toys have been borrowed from friends!! (I promise I will wash all the spit-up off, before I return them! :) )

Anyway, I went to kid to kid today in search of a gently used one to save some $$! And this is what I found!


It is awesome because it cost us $40 and it is a 2-in-1 that I have not seen before. When she is done using it as an exersaucer it converts into a walker thing that she can push around while learning to walk!!!

Thanks mommy and daddy for my cool new toy! I love it!!

Of course, I am a little short for it...but it is stll fun!!

I know I am easily excited, but this really made my day!!! Plus, we scored these adorable sunglasses too! All in all a good day!

Daddy's In Charge

Yesterday, my wonderful husband gave me most of the day off. Well, technically I just told him he was in charge, I needed to SLEEP! It has been nearly 19 weeks of not but maybe a handful of good night's sleep! Lo still doesn't sleep through the night on most occasions, and if she does, my dogs don't! AND if I am lucky enough for everyone to sleep well, I DON'T!!! Ah, the joys of motherhood!

So needless to say I was exhausted and decided Chad could handle it for the day! I slept in, I took a morning nap, and then an afternoon nap! It felt good, but sadly short lived. I am pretty exhausted again today, but that is mostly my fault because I just can't seem to "shut off" at night.


Here is a glimpse of how the day went:

Chad made himself breakfast! (Not just Cheerios people, a real eggs and sausage breakfast!) Sadly, I don't have a picture that captures the mess he made out of the kitchen, I didn't think of it until it was too late, but let's just say he didn't leave to many pans or dishes in the cupboards!

Then he dressed my beautiful daughter like this:

Does she look like a boy to you?! I mean seriously!

We bought this onesie before we knew whether she was a boy or girl. We are into Moosejaw stuff, thanks to our friend Chris, not that we are mountaineers or anything, we just like the stuff!
I am sure you may be thinking why not wait...but Moosejaw always seemed to be out of these onesies when we wanted to get them for our fellow Moosejaw friend and his son. So when they came back online we jumped on it...somehow I didn't think it would matter too much, and you can always get away with dressing little girls like boys, but it just isn't well received the other way! ;) (But it does matter, I don't want to go out into public and people say "oh what a cute son you have!") Thus, when she gets a bit older and won't grow out of it too quickly she will be getting girly ones!
But oh well, at least she was taken care of and I got some sleep!

She still is pretty cute even if she was dressed like a boy!

All in all I feel pretty blessed to have Chad as my husband and Lo's daddy! We may not have all the money in the world, but at least he is around a lot! He is a school teacher, so that means he is home earlier during the year and off in the summers and holidays! And he is always willing to give me a break and step in when I can't handle it anymore (ie during the colic phase).
I love you and thanks for giving me some time off and being so great with her!

Cousins

Meet Cathy, who's lived most everywhere,
From Zanzibar to Barclay Square.
But Patty's only seen the sight.
A girl can see from Brooklyn Heights --
What a crazy pair!

But they're cousins,
Identical cousins all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.

Where Cathy adores a minuet,
The Ballet Russes, and crepe suzette,
Our Patty loves to rock and roll,
A hot dog makes her lose control --
What a wild duet!

Still, they're cousins,
Identical cousins and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike --

You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind.

I may be alone in this but I LIVED for Nick at Nite, when I was a little. I loved all those old shows and secretly wish that life was that "simple." Not the crazy, busy, technology filled life that it is today! Anyway, can you guess which show those lyrics are from?


That's right The Patty Duke Show!

Now, my sister and I have two daughters that are cousins. And while I don't really think they look too much alike, I still always think of the Patty Duke song when I see them together!

Aren't they cute? They are holding hands.

I know one day they are going to be great friends and get into all sorts of trouble together!

Happy 1st Father's Day!

Technically, this was Chad's 2nd Father's Day. Last year I was SO HOPING that the pregnancy test would come back positive, so I could use this holiday as the PERFECT way to tell him I was pregnant! Sadly, it came back negative, but a week later (on June 20th) it was POSITIVE!! So his first father's day wasn't actually celebrated. Now, ONE year later we have a beautiful 4 month old daughter to celebrate with!

Here is Daddy with all his kids!
See how Lo is pulling Tuck's ear...let's just say
Tuck is not the biggest fan of this new furless puppy!

Chad is terribly hard to buy presents for because he is notorious for buying stuff for himself or can't wait until the holiday to get it! This day was no different!

Chad's weed whipper died on him a few weeks ago, so he purchased this for himself!
A 3 piece set
Happy Father's Day!



Chad loves to relax by playing video games, this is what he really wanted for Father's Day, so of course he got both!
"Happy Daddy's Day, Daddy!"

Chad, Lo and I both LOVE you very much! And I am so glad you are her daddy! You take such great care of her and I love watching you with her...it melts my heart! Thanks for being such a great daddy (and husband)! I can't wait to watch you with her in all the years to come!

I just love these faces!!!

We LOVE you!
Love Leighton and Chele

4 months old

I can not believe she is 4 months old already! (I know I start every monthly update that way, but I just can't believe it). She is changing so much and so quickly it is hard to keep up with her. And I know in the coming months even MORE changes are going to happen. It just keeps getting more and more exciting and more and more fun!!! She is just developing into such a little person.

Here is a LONG** list of all the great and fun things she is doing and learning:
** Warning this is a REALLY LONG post, and it is mostly for my benefit. Read if you have LOTS of time! :)


*Greatest feat, rolling ALL THE WAY OVER! From tummy to back to tummy again! This was exciting for me. I just love watching her do it, it just makes me proud. Hey, some babies sleep through the night but mine can roll over, so watch out world her comes Leighton! :)

*She can hold your hands and pull herself up into a sitting position, and then sit for a bit slightly supported.

*She also will stand for a really long time as long as you are holding her hands obviously.

We affectionately call these her "thunders"

*She just "talks" up a storm. (I have NO IDEA where she gets that from, she comes from such a quiet and reserved family ;) Hahahaha! ) I have been waking up to her "talking" and giggling in her crib lately. One of my friends say she is "talking with Jesus," and I like that, so that is what I believe she is doing. Either way it is such a wonderful sound to wake up to, beats the alarm clock!

(I tried to upload a clip of her "talking" but it wouldn't load, so perhaps another day!)

*She also is a HUGE CLOWN! Just like her daddy! She smiles and laughs a real little person's laugh all the time! It sure makes all those colicky days disappear in your mind.

Mommy loves giraffes, so when I saw this outfit I just had to have it.

*We are really starting to get into tummy time. She reaches for her toys and actually can hold and grasp some of them. Plus, being able to "crawl" around on the mat and roll around helps too! It really allows me a few quick moments to get stuff done. She especially enjoys tummy time if the TV is on! Gosh, I know...this kid is already a TV addict (must get this from Grammy Jeanne and Aunt Meg ;) )

Here she is lounging and watching TV with daddy!

*She has found her hands and loves to suck on them ALL THE TIME, along with her poodle.


*Still an erratic sleeper! No consistency in when and where she will sleep or nap...here is to one day sleeping through the night indefinitely! This is the hardest thing for me personally to deal with especially when all my friends' babies who are younger are already doing it...come on Lo join the crowd!!!!

If you made it to the bottom of this list congrats! I know it is long (and this post was mostly for me) because I just don't want to forget anything. Sadly I am bad about updating her baby book, so at least I have this to look back on!
I can't wait to see what great developmental milestones she reaches in another month!

Happy 4 Months Lo!

Obsess Much

Isn't this sweet? Lo's big brother looking over her while she plays? Melts your heart doesn't it?


Well it would if he wasn't OBSESSING over that frog!

Tucker was our "first" born. He was our baby, we spoiled him for 2.5 years before Toby and Leighton arrived. Tuck has 2 yes, 2 baskets FULL of dog toys. He is under the impression that ALL toys that enter this house are meant for him and him only! Poor Toby isn't even allowed 1 toy. So now that Lo is getting tons of toys herself, needless to say he is having a hard time coping.
If you are ever looking for Tucker, you can usually find him next to Lo's playmate hoping that he will be allowed to touch that frog!

Even though, this is one of Tuck's 2 fatal flaws, we are very impressed that he knows which toys are his and which ones are Lo's!

Cereal Time!

Well as suggested by our doctor we started Lo on rice cereal Wednesday night. I really am not ready to start her on solids yet, but due to the fact that this kid is STILL not sleeping through the night and the Cry It Out method isn't working either, we decided to give it a try.


I offered it at her last feeding of the day and only made 1 tsp of cereal with probably 1 Tbsp of breast milk. (I know hardly anything, but remember this is our first try!) Basically, it was the consistency of breast milk on a spoon. She actually took to it quite well, I was surprised...she just sucked it down, so I made a bit more and she ate that all too!

Here are some pictures of the experience:

We are not sure about this, plus I am a little upset because I was hoping to nurse!

Trying to soothe ourselves into it...
"Lo you can't eat with your hands in your mouth!"

"Ok, this is good!
It tastes like the "good milk" but different!"

"Ok I have had ENOUGH! Time to nurse!"

Verdict: She slept through the night! Fluke?! Not sure, only time will tell. She likes to play mind games with me and tease me about sleeping! So again here's hoping!

My Best Friend

This is Leighton's best friend, her poodle blanket!

This is how she soothes herself by sucking face with her poodle.

Well between her hands and her poodle we are all set!
Don't we look tired?! :)

My grandma Jo made it for her. I/she got it for Christmas. It was seriously one of the best gifts I received! I just couldn't believe my grandmother made this. I knew she was talented, but this just blew me away. I almost didn't want to give it to Leighton, I wanted it to stay pretty. But I am so glad I did. She absolutely loves her poodle! Lo fits in perfectly with this poodle lovin' family! In case you don't know everyone on my side has poodles. And so when looking for a "theme" for Leighton's room I naturally went with pink Parisian poodles.
Anyway, this poodle is the only thing that soothes her to sleep when I lay her down. I get so mad at myself when I go to lay her down and her poodle is not within arms reach because then I get to start all over.

One night after she fell asleep she woke up after an hour and started crying hard, then all of a sudden it stopped...I sent Chad in to check on her and this is what we found:

She was curled up with her poodle!

Thanks grandma for making this very special poodle, we BOTH love it!

4 month Check-up

Well today was our 4 month well baby check-up. Leighton did great (you know except for the shots part)! She seems to really like the doctor's office, it is weird. She even rolled over from back to tummy for the doctor, he is pretty sure she is going to start crawling soon since she can roll all the way from tummy to back to tummy again...not sure my feelings on that yet.

Anyway my biggest concern this time around was her chronic, massive amounts of spitting up that occurs after practically every feeding! I am talking 2+ ounces! Plus, colic is not really ending so I am pretty sure we are dealing with infant reflux. Now that she is 4 months old we can start introducing rice cereal. I wanted to wait until 6 months, but since she STILL isn't sleeping through the night, I may give it a try! Either way the rice cereal, as most of you know should help her on both counts. However, if the spitting up doesn't slow down she will get on zantac, so we shall see.
Overall, I am just thankful to have a healthy, mostly happy (we are getting better), beautiful baby girl! She just lights up my world and I am so very thankful to be at home with her everyday to watch her grow and change!

Leighton at 16 weeks
she is smiling at her goofy mommy!

Here are the 4 month stats:

Weight: 13 lbs, 8oz (60th%) So thankfully we are starting to thin out a bit, that and we spit-up most of our feedings, but either way she is doing great in the weight category!

Height: 22 and 3/4 inches (9th%)! She is a SHORTY! My sister's baby girl at 8 weeks is 23 inches! Just seem crazy how Lo who is 7 weeks OLDER could be SHORTER.

Head Circumference: 15 and 1/4 inches (5th%) I guess she finally made it onto the growth chart here. I suppose looking back I am glad she had a small head :)

Dog Wisperer pt 2

Well here is an UPDATE on "Riley." Still don't know her real name.

Anyway, so she never did stay on the other side of the fence. When we came back from lunch our other neighbor was at our door (because he thought she was ours...no idea why ;) ) we told him we would take care of her, this was at about 1:30pm. Chad then implemented his method to lower her back over the fence...I went outside to check on her and saw she had once again escaped!!!! So we brought her inside (around 23opm) for a bit, then after she cooled down we started to lower her over the fence again, but much to our surprise we realized there were no other dogs over there!

Eureka! They are home!

We knocked and rang the door bell, the dogs all barked from the inside, but NO ONE ANSWERED!!!! So someone let all the other dogs in but didn't notice one was missing?! So again she came in with us, we left a note on their door to come get her when what ever idiot who is taking care of these dogs comes back!

8:00 pm rolls around still no one comes...I just can not understand why the caregiver is not looking for this dog!!! I mean what is the one thing you don't want to call the owners with...

"hey, I lost your dog!!!"

I am starting to worry about sleeping arrangements...I don't want THREE dogs in my bed!

Well come 10:00pm the owners knock on our door! Yea!

Needless, to say they were NOT happy! This little "Riley" is a nursing mama! She has 1 week old litter inside their house!!! Now as a fellow nursing mama, I just feel for this dog AND her pups. Evidently the moron taking care of their dogs was only to let "Riley" out to pee and then she was to STAY INSIDE! (I mean DUH, you NEVER separate a mama from her babies!) What an idiot...and those poor puppies they hadn't nursed since at least 9:30AM that day.

We still are curious where the communication broke down, we just don't understand how you could lose this little dog who NEVER left her yard or ours, did she even look for this dog?!?! We would have loved to been a fly on the wall when they talked to this caregiver about it!

Anyways I know you all were DYING to hear the end of this saga...maybe their will be a part 3 if we ever get the rest of the story from the neighbors!

The Dog Whisperer

This weekend we have had an extra friend over.

Meet "Riley," (this is what we are calling her, since we don't know what her real name is).


She is a super sweet and loving little dog and if it weren't for the fact we already had TWO other dogs we probably would try to keep her, but since she is the neighbors they may figure it out! OR they may not since they have 5 other wiener dogs and a boxer!!! Seriously, I don't know what it is about THAT house but who ever lives there ALWAYS has WAY TOO MANY dogs!!! But I digress.

Anyway our neighbors aren't home evidently and their little one keeps escaping and we can't figure out from where?! We keep putting her back over the fence and then an hour later she comes running around to our house!

As you can see my husband has jimmy rigged a bucket to get her over the fence safely! Due to the fact that we can't get their back gate open. He is such a softie for dogs!


Step 1 get dog into the bucket.




Step 2 lower dog over the fence "safely".

I am pretty impressed with my photography skills...I just stuck the camera over the fence and just keep clicking!

Repeat!!!

Oh well, hopefully her real family will be home soon!

Here is my DoG WisPheREr!

Splish Splash

Splish Splash I was takin' a bath...
I just absolutely LOVE bath time! I just can not wait for her to get even MORE active during bath time, where we can play and splash each other.
SHHH...don't tell daddy, but we even have a plan to soak him one day! :) Hehehe!

We have now advanced to just laying in the tub for the end of bath time to play with our toys. I love this picture. I think she is saying "Daddy, I am trying to take a bath here!"

Getting ready for my baby massage! The best part of bath time! The worst part is getting dress! This kid loves to be naked!

Mirror Mirror...

Mirror Mirror on the wall who's
the fairest of them all?

This is the best $20 I ever spent! Lo use to HATE tummy time. And every time we visit the doctor, he is always getting on me about giving her tummy time. It isn't that I wasn't trying, but as soon as you laid her down literally 2 seconds later she was crying about it! So what is a mommy to do?


Now with our pretty light up 'n' sounds mirror we will sit there for 5-10 minutes just looking and smiling at ourselves! She even grabs at the toys to make it light up!

And of course,
I think she IS the fairest of them all! :)

We also are putting her in her Bumbo more to keep her off her back too! Not sure how much longer that will last since she about throws herself out of it when you walk by, because she wants you to pick her up!