The Past 2 Months

I believe this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this thing. Several reasons for that, but the main one is that it takes FOREVER to load and format pictures on blogger now. I don't know what they did, but I dread posting pictures because of it. So for the two people that actually read this thing, I'm sorry. But I honestly don't know how much longer I'll keep it up regardless. Time is precious these days. (I typed this paragraph before I loaded my pictures, and I will have to say it was better this time. Maybe they fixed it...)

So what's been going on in our lives over the past three months you ask? Here's a summary.

1. We've been on two unsuccessful dates this year so far - the first ended with Jeff puking from the stomach flu (and me later that weekend) and the 2nd ended with him puking in the Emergency Room from a kidney stone. I have NEVER seen my husband in that much pain, nor do I want to again. I brought him to my hospital because I know people there, but was regretting that decision after he walked in cursing like a sailor and stumbling around like a drug addict. Thankfully they understood the situation:) Needless to say, we haven't been on a "real" date since (although we've had plenty of fun!)!

2. I finally got a smartphone, though only out of necessity. I lost my older phone in a hurricaine force toilet at the hospital. It fell out of my pocket as the toilet was flushing and dissapeared before I knew what had happened. I had no loyalty the the phone, but it had so many cute pictures of Emery on it that I hated losing. Plus getting all my numbers again - no fun. If you haven't heard from me in awhile, I probably still don't have your number re-entered, so send me a text if you have a chance.

3. We took a long weekend trip to Atlanta to visit our peeps in March. It was a great visit - just went by too fast. Emery was a trooper, especially considering her eyes were swollen shut most of the time from allergies.

4. We are tackling another screen porch project (I know, when will we learn??). We do have a deadline on this porch - three weeks to be exact. I'm trying to be optimistic, but we'll see. It's turned into a much bigger project than we anticipated (fancy that). Let's just say it took 100+ 80lb bags of concrete to pour the pad. Once again, our porch will be the safest room in the house in the event of a hurricaine. The picture above is when we were pouring the pad. And yes, I did help with the first 30 bags or so even though I could hardly pick them up. When we started, Jeff was telling me not to pick them up at all. But by bag 15, he changed his tune to "well do you think you can at least get it in the wheelbarrow?" He was BEAT. Thank goodness for my brother showing up, or I don't know what we would have done. CL was throwing those bags around like they were pillows!

5. We are going to Hawaii end of June with Shasta, Creighton and Baby Caleb. I am so excited, but absolutly dreading the plane ride with a one year old. Any airplane tips from fellow mommy's?

6. And finally, sweet Emery. LOVE her and cannot believe she is already 10.5 months old. She is crawling full force these days, and babbling up a storm. She goes to bed early and likes to get up early too (although I refuse to get her out of bed until 7am). She says a few words - dog, dada - no mama yet. She can wave, clap her hands and dance. She loves people, just like her daddy, and pretty much eats anything these days. She gets gassy easily though, so I still have to give her gas drops almost everyday. We went swimming for the first time last week. The water was FREEZING! She didn't cry, but had me in a vise grip the whole time. She still just has 4 teeth (although I think she's working on another one) and very little hair save her curl on the top of her head. But she is just perfect to us!

Okay that's all for now. Pictures above are from late April/Easter, the porch and our trip to Atlanta.

SICK

Yes, that pretty much sums up 2011 for the Smiths to date. Jeff came down with a nasty bronchitis virus in January - it lasted 4 weeks. I caught said virus mid January - it lasted 5 weeks, and during 3 of those weeks I was unable to taste a single thing. How often we take for granted simple things like our ability to taste and smell. That was by far the WORST part of this whole ordeal. Forget sleepless, coughless nights, stuffy noses and endless boxes of kleenexes - not being able to taste food for almost an entire month - TORTURE. As they always say - how often we don't appreciate things until they're gone. And for those of you thinking why didn't you just go to the doctor - well Jeff did. Two times in fact, for 3 rounds of antibiotics. And what did they tell him - it was a virus, which means the drugs did him no good, they just kept him from getting any sicker. So when I started coming down with the same symptoms, I avoided the $150 doctor visit and had a ZPAC called in just to be safe. I did end up staying sick a week longer than Jeff, but I think that was more a result of being a rundown mom than anything. Babygirl decided to cut 2 teeth during this sickfest, which made for a week or two of very little sleep. But the story doesn't end here. After a month and a half of the bronchitis virus, the stomach bug hit our house this past weekend. Babygirl and daddy came down with it Friday night, and I thought I was free and clear (despite being puked on several times) until my stomach started rolling Monday night. Thankfully I still had some phenergan left from my early pregnancy issues, so after I had sufficiently emptied my stomach, I took my pill, threw up once more an hour later and was finished. I will have to say, however, that being pregnant and very sick for three months really puts a 24 hour stomach bug in perspective. This was even noted by my husband, who commented that I was oddly cheerful considering the nature of my illness. What can I say - when you throw up 3-6 times a day for 3 months, a 12 hour stint really isn't that bad. And since the stomach bug does appear to be going around these days, take it from the vomit veteran, don't drink water, drink sprite or gingerale (I go through about 2 liters everytime I get sick). I won't go into details, but trust me, it helps a lot. And get some phenergan if you can.

Much to my delight, my taste buds returned in full force on Valentine's Day, just in time to enjoy a lovely chilled glass of wine alongside my husband's fabulous gourmet meal. That is my standing request for all Valentine's and Anniversary holidays - a home cooked meal from hubby. He loves to watch cooking shows and always comes up with some really tasty dishes. This year it was a portabello mushroom appetizer, spinach, candied walnut and blue cheese salad with a homeade balsamic vinagrette dressing, penne pasta with chicken in a tomato sauce served with baked artichoke hearts and sundried tomatoes, and ice cream for dessert. Just perfect! Although Jeff would love you to think he cooked every bit of that himself, in actuality he was running late and got several things premade (thus it only took 30 minutes to throw everything together). But as always, he doctored each of the dishes up with his signature flair.

We also enjoyed our first fine dining date since baby at my favorite restaurant, Bravos. I have been craving Bravos since before Emery was born - we actually went there the night of her due date, but they were closed. It a lovely meal (despite the fact that Jeff started getting sick there and couldn't touch his entree), but Brooke you will be very dissapointed to know they no longer have your shitake mushroom and chicken pasta dish. In fact, they really don't have any good chicken pasta dishes, which is what I really wanted. They had a beef and portabello mushroom dish, but I wasn't in the mood for beef. I ended up getting a cajun pasta dish, and it was just OK- did not have a whole lot of flavor in my opinion. I think my cajun jumbapasta dish is much tasiter. Thankfully our calamari, spincach salad and my all time favorite creme brulee definitely made up for the less than stellar entree. And thanks to my sweet sister who watched baby girl while we went out - and ended up getting puked on herself because I didn't know she was sick. I am just praying she doesn't get sick too!

Despite being sick for months, we've still managed to get out and enjoy the fabulous weather this past week. Hubby and I LOVE a good long spring stroll, and so does baby girl. And as for sweet baby girl - she is growing like a weed these days. Big news for this month - she is now on formula. Long story short - nursing had become a less than pleasant experience since about 6.5 months. I've always felt that my milk irritated her stomach no matter what I did or didn't eat, but it had gotten to the point where she would only drink an ounce or two at a time, and would not take any more without a huge fight. I felt like I was torturing her trying to get her to eat. After 3 weeks of this (really just on the weekends because Mon - Thurs she got bottles) I decided enough was enough, and started to tranisition to formula. She didn't like it at first, but after a week decided she liked it better than mom's milk. In fact, for the first time ever she is actually drinking all of her 5oz bottles at daycare. It was a hard decision to transition, especially since I still have plenty of milk and feasibly could have kept pumping for another several months, but since my milk seems to cause her distress, didn't see the point in that. So this is week 2 of the great dry up, and I will have to say things have not gone as quickly as I'd hoped. I was hoping the stomach bug would do a major number for me in that area, but no such luck. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them on! On a positive note, last week was the first time in 5.5 months I haven't had to drag my pump to the office. I thought I would be elated, but I was actually kind of sad about it. Kind of the end of an era I guess. But as much as I never thought I'd ever say this - I am looking forward to being able to start running again. Wow - those hormones must have really done a number on me! Ok back to baby girl - forget baby food the girls love the real thing. She does eat babyfood at daycare for convenience sake, but at home it's whatever mom can put together that seems healthy. She's had waffles, eggs, chicken, cheese, pizza crust, bananas, peaches, bread, pasta, rice, beans - and loves it all so far. I've pretty much thrown all of the rulebooks on introducing foods out the window and adopted more the anything goes approach. She is cutting 2 more teeth as we speak (for a total of 4), and although is not crawling or scooting yet, is rolling everywhere. She is also going through some major separation anxiety at the house - we can't step out of the room for a second without a meltdown. This could also be due to the fact that she is teething and doesn't feel good, but it makes it challenging to get things done at times. The funny thing is she doesn't cry when we leave her with other people, like at daycare or the nursery, just at home when we leave the room. Crazy girl! She is still such a joy though, and we love her to pieces even when she is screaming.

Kisses

After 3 (almost 4) weeks of bronchitis and colds, the Smiths are finally on the mend. It started with Jeff and a nasty case of bronchitis - which took 2 rounds of antibiotics to beat. Then I got it and finally started feeling better this week after 2 weeks of misery . Baby girl just had a runny nose, thank goodness. But she also cut her first tooth in the middle of this sick fest, so between that and waking up all hours of the night because of one of us was coughing, Monday was the first full night of sleep I've had in over a month! Man that felt good!

Emery has been talking up a storm these days. She was kind of clingy over the weekend, and we're hoping it was just her first tooth coming in but could very well be the start of separation anxiety, as she's right at the age where it starts. She's been eating a lot the past couple of weeks. She still doesn't really get the whole feed herself thing yet (gets the food to her mouth then drops her hand like she's forgotten it's there), but she still loves to eat. I have to be very careful about what I feed her for dinner because of overnight stomach issues (see previous post). For the past week she's had mashed banana, avacado and cereal for dinner, which seem to work well. Monday night she seemed exceptionally hungry so I gave her some peas in addition to her main fare, and she woke up in the middle of the night again. So we were back to the usual last night. I hate to feed her the same thing every night, but until her stomach evens out I don't see that we have much of a choice. I haven't found anything she doesn't like yet, although I'm sure that's coming. I haven't really been good about introducing things slowly either, but aside from the rash on her face from oatmeal and a different type of cereal, shes tolerated everything else pretty well.

Emery loves it when we kiss her, and lately she's started putting her slobbery mouth on my cheek to give me a kiss. It is the cutest thing. I ask her to "Give mommy a kiss" and she slobbers all over my cheek, then I of course cover her cheeks with kisses in return. It's probably the cutest thing she's done so far, in my opinion. It's amazing to me how quickly they learn - I had no idea she would even know what a kiss meant at this age. They are little sponges, thats for sure. She also goes "mmmmm, mmmmm" the entire time she is eating. I realized this is because that is what I do when I feed her - I'm always saying "mmmmm, this is good." So she says it back to me now. It's so cute.

I mentioned earlier that she cut her first tooth over the weekend. We are still nursing, but I'm waiting to see if she starts biting or not before I decide if we're going to keep going for a few more months.

I have not been able to taste a single thing for the past 2 weeks, and as a result have finally dropped a few pounds for the first time in five months. I feel so sorry for anyone who has no sense of taste or smell - you don't realize how much those senses affect you until they are gone. I have no desire to eat anything I can't taste, so have essentially been eating just enough to keep my stomach from shriveling up.

That's all for now!

Holidays 2010

My favorite time of year has come and gone yet again. As eager as I was to get the tree up this year, I was equally as eager to get it down the day after we returned from our holiday trip to LA.

We've had way too much going on the past few months to catch up with, so I'll try to hit the high points.

Emery attended her first NBA game in New Orleans in December, thanks to Uncle Creighton. Ironic that we now have the ultimate sports hook-up at our fingertips, and neither Jeff nor I care a lick about sports. However, I will have to say watching the game from the VIP suite was awesome. Admittedly I didn't watch much of the game, but I certainly enjoyed all of the free food. And Creighton moved Jeff and my grandfather courtside for the last half of the game, which was awesome for them.

Christmas was lovely. Everyone kept asking us if we were so excited about Emery's first Christmas. Well I love Christmas, but she had no idea what was going on. We enjoyed her on Christmas as much as we do every other day, and tried to keep her from eating too much wrapping paper. We kept it pretty low key for her present wise, since we knew she would get a lot from the families.

Christmas day night we drove to LA for a week with Jeff's family, and it was probably one of the best visits we've had there. Emery was a doll, aside from crying out several times a night and waking up mom. Thankfully we didn't continue the trend once we arrived back home.

During the month of December, my grandparents from Atlanta sold their house and bought a new one in MS. They've been in Atlanta thirty something years, and are now here with us. I know they miss their house and friends in Atlanta, but we are sure happy to have them here!!

Jeff hit the new year running with his new job, and I've been busy making up all the hours I took off for the holiday. I'm looking forward to vegging with my girl this weekend, after we get through hosting family night tonight. Baby girl is growing like a weed. We recently started solids, which I'm not too sure about because I swear she sleeps worse on nights she gets food. So far she's had cereal, squash, steamed carrots and a mashed banana. She loves everything so far, but I think the squash gave her a little rash on her cheeks. We went through a three or four night earlier this week where she had a hard time going down at night (which she never does) and woke up 2-3 times a night. She could be teething, but it seemed more like she was uncomfortable with her stomach. The child also pees like nothing I've ever seen, and since she is a stomach sleeper fills up her diaper by midnight. We're still trying to figure that one out, because I think that was one reason she was waking up. The good news is she has been taking longer naps - although I had to break down and swaddle her again to get her to do so. If I don't she just rolls around the crib and plays - I've watched her on the monitor for 45 minutes before. She's been sleeping between 12-13 hours a night, with a feed in there sometime between 5-6am. That works for me right now because I get to see her before I go to work. Right now daddy is in charge of morning duty - he gets her up, fed, dressed and to daycare. Emery LOVES her daddy - it is so cute to watch them together. She is still such a joy, and we feel so blessed to have her in our lives. What a gift!

I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas and happy new year!!

Just Pictures

Ho Ho Ho

I cannot believe the holidays are here already. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving at our house with my parents, sister and family, grandfather and cousin Shasta and her family. Shasta and I grew up down the street from each other in Alaska and spent most of our holidays together growing up, but this is the first time we've been together over the holidays in eight years. She and her family just moved from CA to New Orleans for a few years, so we are making the most of our time together while we can!

Dinner was fabulous with way too much food, as always. The table in the picture above was just appetizers and desserts. In true MS style, it was about 80 degrees on Thanksgiving Day, so we were all in tank tops and shorts. Miss Emery enjoyed her first Thanksgiving very much. She spent most of the meal in my lap gnawing on my napkin. She is defintitely starting to notice food, and will try to snag a spoon or fork when she can. I still plan to wait until 6 months to introduce solids a. Because she is not suffering AT ALL in the weight department and b. because I am in no hurry for my baby to grow up! I can't believe she will be six months old in January!! For those of you who have been through the baby food transition before - I am really wanting to try pureeing things we eat to give to her once we get past the initial introduction of solids. Has anyone done that, and if so when did you start?

Shasta and I braved the crowds the day after thanksgiving for our very first Black Friday venture. I'll have to say I was a little dissapointed. Of course neither of us were ready to get out at 5am, we waited until almost 7am. Shopping with my cousin was fun, but the sales were just not that great, although we did score some adorable hats for the kids. We also took the kids for their very first pictures with Santa. Emery was a champ, and even smiled for hers.

I have a confession to make - I've become a little obssessed with HSN and QVC. I believe if I had the $$ and stayed at home, I'd probably never venture out of my house to shop. I started out watching it when I was feeding her because it's low key and not loud, but they actually have some really neat stuff and good deals. Now if only they had a Home Shopping Outlet - then I'd really be in trouble. I have a hard time paying full price, even half price, for anything these days, since I know I can almost always find it at a better price at the outlets or Hudson's.

Life is very good right now - we both feel tremendously blessed this holiday season. Jeff has been busy busy with his new job. We finally caved and got internet at the house, so he's busy loading loan applications in the evenings after Emery does to bed. I'm loving this cooler weather and coming home to a house filled with christmas lights - this is my absolute favorite time of year!!

There was a little girl...

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Well Emery is certainly not horrid, but she has one lone curl on the top of her head that makes me think of this nursery rhyme every time I look at it. She looks just like the qewpie doll sometimes with her round little face and curl!

Cutest Cat in Town

Emery was a lion for Halloween, thus the title of my blog post. Honestly I've never cared much for the Halloween holiday. I guess it's because I grew up in Alaska, and having to wear your snowsuit over your costume kind of takes the fun out of it all. But it was definitely more fun this year with a baby around.

Emery turned 4 months on Sunday, I can't even believe it. Where has the time gone?? You know I never thought I'd be one of "those" moms who had nothing to share but news about their baby, but here I am. Although really just on the blog - I promise if you talk to me in person I really don't say that much about her. I might stare at her the whole time, but I always remember my mom warning not to brag too much about your child because it will come back and bite you, so I try not to. Plus I get that unless you have kids yourself, most really just don't care about the intricacies of motherhood. I could listen all day to a mother share her stories and strategies for navigating infancy, but understand I am one of a rare few. I share on the blog because people have the option of not reading if they are not interested.

Oh how my life has changed in just a few short months!! Sometimes I wonder if I'm normal because I love her/motherhood/my new life so much. I've even had people say "You can be honest with me if it's been hard" and probably think I'm lying when I say I am being honest, I have honestly enjoyed every minute with her. Granted she is a great baby - something we can take NO credit for. And on the very rare occasion when she "really" cries because something is wrong, it absolutly breaks my heart and all I want to do is hold her close until she calms down and we both stop crying. We have only been on one date since she was born - not because we don't have people that will watch her, but because we just love being with her so much ourselves!! I guess since she's not talking or mobile yet, Jeff and I still feel like we get good quality time together even when she is around. We go walking together most evenings, and love staying in to watch a good movie. All in all we just feel tremendously blessed!! And I do let other people hold her..occasionally:) Seriously I will let anyone hold her if they ask, but don't expect me to offer because I love holding her myself!!

Here's an update on what's going on with our little princess, for anyone interested.

Save one bottle in the hospital, Emery has been on an exclusive diet of breastmilk up to this point. I think I'm still going to wait until 6 months to start solids unless my milk production slows down. She has definitely filled out - especially in the last month. We think she is around 14lbs right now, and close to 25 inches long. She goes in for her 4 month shots (which I am DREADING) in 2 weeks, so we will know for sure then. As far as personality goes - I hope she continues to be as laid back as she is now. For the most part she is pretty content wherever we set her unless she is tired or hungry. Yesterday we went on a 2 hour walk and she was happy as a clam in the sling up until the last 3 minutes because she was hungry. Hopefully she'll continue to love her walks and being outside, because that is something Jeff and I both enjoy.

She started moving to a 4 hour schedule last week, and is eating more at each feeding now (finally) after months of barely taking 2-3oz per feeding. Two nights ago she drank almost 8 ounces in her evening bottle! She typically goes to bed around 8/830 and is up between 5/6am for a feeding, then up between 630/700am for the day. She was sleeping until close to 8am, but with the time change she's been up at 630am the past 2 days, so we'll see if that sticks (I hope not!). She is probably old enough to cut out that 5am feeding, but most days I leave so early I would not get to see her if she didn't get up then, so I'm in no hurry to drop it.

She's been sleeping tightly swaddled up until the last week. I think we've successfully dropped the swaddle for all but our evening nap, but she still needs it at night. I left it off the other night, and she woke herself up several times flailing around in the middle of the night.

She is still doing great at daycare - aside from getting sick every other week the first month and a half. She is extremely social and loves to watch the other kids. She also does well with different people. She doesn't seem to mind strangers, or when my mom or sister pick her up from daycare.

Although she does smile a lot, she is also very serious and we have a hard time getting her smiles on camera. She started laughing about a month ago, but it's usually just one squeal at a time and not a consistent "giggle" yet. She also talks a lot - just like her daddy.

A month ago she started doing well with sleeping in my arms or in the sling when we're out and about. I don't know if it's because she is used to sleeping with a lot of noise at daycare, or is just a good sleeper in general, but I LOVE it. Not just the snuggling part, it also makes it so much easier going out if I know she can grab a catnap in the sling or in my arms. Although she normally takes 2 hour naps at home, if she can get 20-45 minutes on the go she is usually good as gold when she wakes up. They say around 4 months they start wanting to just sleep in their beds, so I am treasuring every second of this current phase. I wish she would nap more in her carseat when we are out and about, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

We are headed to New Orleans to meet our new baby cousin Caleb this weekend. All 4 of the grandgirls and five of their six babies will be united once again. I'm sure it's going to be a great albeit chaotic visit!!

I really hate whatever blogger has done with their photo upload, so there are just a few random pics at the top of the post. Hope everyone has a great week!

Just Pictures

So Tempting....

Lucky for Emery, green is not really her color.