Totally getting into this...

Last night I started reading those cookbooks and I'm hooked and ready to start planning out my shopping lists. No Emmy won't be starting solids for over a month, but I can't help but plan/pay ahead for things like this:

Picked these up today...

I cannot tell you how excited I am to make my own baby food for Emmy. I love to cook and I love the idea of being able to introduce Emmy to all types of healthy homemade food. I am so ready to tear into these books!

4 Months

Our sweet little Emmy is 4 months old. Wow a 1/3 of a year gone by already. It seems like yesterday that I was meeting her but the first few weeks with her seem like an eternity ago. I guess that's because she's grown so much since then. They say that at 3 months you hit your stride and things chug along and they're right! We still don't have a hard schedule down (who does really?) but things are a little more predictable.

This month Emmy found her feet! It's so cute to watch her curl those bad boys up to her mouth. She tires herself out doing crunches to get to them. She is full on grabbing things. You hold any toy large or small or her Elmo out in front of her and she will grab it and it instantly goes in her mouth. She's grabbing at Einstein as he comes close to her and he doesn't quite know how to handle it.

She's slept through the night a few times this month but not consistently and that's ok. It's just nice to know that she has it in her! Those nights she's slept from 8pm-4am and after eating usually goes to sleep for another hour and a half or so. Our bodies don't quite know how to handle that when she does it-which may be why she won't let it become a habit! She's starting to self soothe herself at night now when she wakes up throughout the night and usually talks herself back to sleep (thank goodness!). Bedtime is usually 7:30-8pm. She's an early morning riser anywhere between 5:45-7am but then wants another nap around 8am. We're trying to mold her to sleep in longer, but you just do what she wants and that's pretty much all you can do! We walk around her like zombies on the weekends before that 8am nap!

This girl is a talker! She wakes us up most mornings just babbling away in her crib. After 30 minutes to an hour or so we realize she just isn't going back to sleep (her talking takes on more of an attitude) we go in there and find her grabbing her feet and just talking to the ceiling with a big ol smile on her face. It is just the sweetest thing! At her 4 month check up today the nurse was asking if she was starting to coo yet. We laughed and said yes and then Emmy went on to talk up a storm for the 15 minutes we were in there waiting for the doctor...and then talked throughout the doctor's visit and checkup. She also grabbed her stethoscope several times to where the doctor had to actually grab it back from her.

We've rolled over from tummy to back and she's working on rolling over from back to tummy. She's sitting up in the tripod stance for a good while with assistance.

This little girl has grown from 7lbs 11oz and 21 1/2 inches long to 15lbs 6oz and 24 3/4 inches long. We've had lots of growth spurts to fuel that growing! No teeth yet and that's ok with me! At times we think she may be teething but so far no go. She eats 6 oz every 3 hours during the day and then usually once at night. She'll go a good 6-8 hours at night and that's so nice! :)

She is our world now. I can remember my life before her-the napping, the freedom, the ability to be selfish, but I can 100% say that I wouldn't trade this for that life at all. I love her laugh, her gummy bear smile, and the way she falls asleep on me when I rock her. We dance around and sing funny rhymes just to make her laugh. She notices us from across the room now and instantly breaks out in smiles when we go to pick her up in the afternoon.

The love we feel for her is so overwhelming that a lot of times we tear up when talking about her after she goes to sleep at night. She's made our hearts deeper and I fully understand love now.

We are so thankful for you Emmy!

Things That Make Our Lives Easier

We have a two story home so running down to the laundry room when Emmy has an outfit change (bath time, poopy diaper gone wrong, spit up) gets old FAST. We finally decided to keep a laundry basket in her room to quickly toss her clothes/burp cloths in there as we change her. At the end of the week it gets taken to the laundry room and is the same one that comes back up with her clean stuff. So helpful!

I never know when Tony is going to work late (oh the hours of an engineer!) so sometimes I'm alone on bath time. This coupled with a cranky and tired baby can make things super chaotic. I finally wised up and on Sunday night I now lay out everything I will need for each bath time. I put a pair of pjs, a diaper, and a wash cloth for each night of the week. This way I'm not running back and forth from her room to the bathroom while I should be tending to her. This picture was taken on a Monday night so one set was already used on my sweetie! She's almost 4 months old (tomorrow) and I just came up with this idea recently...so silly! I'm sure there is a prettier way to organize it, but this works for us for now! :)

Make This NOW!

Disclaimer: mine is not as pretty as it could be because Tony doesn't like cherries so this one was plain jane but still DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:

1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix

1 1/3 cup Pineapple Juice

1/3 cup Vegetable Oil

3 large Eggs

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

2/3 cup butter

1 2/3 cup brown sugar

1 (20 oz) can Sliced Pineapple

Maraschino Cherries

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small sauce pan melt the butter.

Pour the butter into into a 9 x 13 pan and sprinkle the brown sugar over the melted butter.

Arrange the pineapple slices in the pan in nice little neat rows. Add 1 cherry in the middle of each pineapple slice.

In a mixer bowl, mix cake mix, pineapple juice, oil, eggs and vanilla on medium speed for about 2 minutes.

Pour the cake batter into the pan over the pineapple.

Bake for 30-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cook in the pan for 5 minutes. Invert onto your serving dish.

DIG IN!

This was so moist and wonderful! The last time I had pineapple upside down cake was immediately after I delivered Emmy and it was hospital-cooked. I was determined to have it again without having to go through childbirth for it! If you make it, let me know how it turns out! :)

The Sweetest Sound in the World

Today we went to the garden center near us and on the way I tried to catch Emmy chatting it up with me. She started doing this yesterday afternoon after a visit to a friend's house. So sorry for my annoying high pitched voice-I read that the best way to get a baby to respond to you is to talk in question like sentences...the voice just seems to work with her also.

Enjoy!

Our Little Gilligan

Is so much fun! This Thursday she'll be 15 weeks old and man on man is it flying! Now that she has good head control we are facing forward in the Baby Bjorn and it has opened up a whole new world for us! Now we're taking afternoon and weekend morning strolls and she loves to just look around. She's WAY more happy in her car seat which lets us use the stroller sometimes 2-3 times a day and yesterday on the way home from a friend's house she just chatted it up with me the whole time in the backseat! Tony and I were in LOVE listening to her laugh and talk to us.

Sleep-eh, we've had some regression but it's not her fault. Because of her reflux she had been sleeping in her swing to keep her head elevated at night. She was sleeping from 8pm-2am and then about 2:45-5am and then 5:30-6:45. She has sadly outgrown the swing for comfy sleep so we've transitioned her into her big girl crib. The past two nights she's woken up either at 1am or 12:30 and the rest of the night has been off and on, but we know it'll take some getting used to. She's busting out of her swaddle at night and we've found her sleeping in the silliest positions.

It is true what they say-the sleep-not so predictable and there are days where I'm so tired that I feel drunk. Seeing her smile and listening to her talk and play make it all melt away and the energy comes from some unknown source. However, with that said, we are looking forward to the night where our little angel sleeps for a longer stretch.

She's taking about 6 ounces every 3 hours with a longer stretch at night. She's a little chunky monkey with a full little tummy!

It's crazy that this time last year her room was unpainted and empty, but God was giving her life and we were unaware. Each day life without her gets a little foggier and foggier and I look forward to all the days to come with her. She makes us laugh, makes us cry, and makes every day different.

I ordered this book from Scholastic during one of my last book orders and it is a favorite of ours already. We love reading this one to her, although we have yet to make it through the book without a few tears. It is so beautiful and here is a passage from it:

“Someday, a long time from now, your own hair will glow silver in the sun. And when that day comes, love, you will remember me.”

We're so blessed to be with her!