*Happy 7 months Sophia!*

Dear Sophia,

Happy Birthday sweet girl! You are officially over the hump, and you are closer to the 1 year mark, than you are to being a little newborn. You are so ginormous, I have a hard time admitting that you are still *infant status*. Your laugh just completely lights up any room, and can turn anyone's frown upside down.  You are super snuggly and Mommy is still finding it very hard to make you sleep in your own bed, even though you have your very own amazing room now.

You have absolutely no interest in crawling, and I am doubtful you ever will, as you despise being on your tummy for more than a few seconds. Your favorite pastime is taking the contents of your bucket out (the bucket where all her small toys reside), and putting them back in one by one. You have the most focused and driven expression on your face while doing it. You love your new daycare, and thankfully, mommy does too. You don't let Mommy walk away from you often, if I set you down to grab something quickly from the other side of the room, you scream bloody murder. This would actually make a good reality show!

We sleep trained you about a month ago, and you slept like a sweet angel for a few days. And then you got sick. There is no way I could not cuddle and snuggle with you while you were feeling under the weather. And just like that, we were all back to not sleeping. Except for Kaden, he sleeps through absolutely anything.  I am the point now where I feel like "who needs sleep"? Sleep is overrated.

Happy 7 months to my sweet girl who melts my heart each and every day. You are an absolute BLESSING!!!!

I love you,
your mommy

*photobomb*



Just before we moved into our new house, Chad found an awesome pic of me when I was Sophie's age, sitting on my front door step beside a pumpkin. I could not get over how much we looked alike. I planned to scan it in to the computer and do a little photo shoot of Sophie dressed in a similar outfit on our new front porch. Minus the tights, I feel there is just something evil about putting a baby in tights. Tights are SO uncomfortable! Anyway, now that we moved, that pic if MIA, so I went ahead and did a lil photo shoot of her anyway. You just have to imagine that there is a pic of a mini me next to hers for comparison purposes.



reading her favorite book "hello bee".



*a belated halloween post*



me and my babies at Boo at the Zoo.



Kaden and his friend Casey striking a pose.



nosey nosey with a furry friend.



Kind of ridiculous that I am just now sitting down to write a Halloween post. We have been going a little crazy since we moved into our cozy new home.  We moved in the day before Halloween, so we tried to squeeze in snippets of Halloween here and there when we could. We went to Boo at the Zoo the Sunday before Halloween which is always one of my faves! I love to see the little ones all dressed up and how they react to one another. We went with my friend Beckie and her little guys and had a blast!

The great part about moving into a new house just before Halloween is that it gives you a chance to meet your neighbors and get a feel for who is in the neighborhood. Chad and I took turns going out with Kaden and Sophia so that someone could be at the door for trick or treaters. We were both so excited for trick or treaters!!! So much fun! I went out with Kaden and met one or two neighbors, and then Chad went out and Mr Personality met the whole damn neighborhood!




a flower and spidey.







and.....he's OFF!!!!



checkin out their *goodies*





punkins!




After closing on the house, we celebrated. Sophie is celebrating having a rug!

I need ideas for this kitchen! The boy scout colors are KILLING me, but I want to repaint the cabinets white and redo the countertops, and paint the walls a light gray. Who wants to have a serious paint party????? Come play!

Happy Belated Halloween to everyone!

Look for a happy belated 7 months post for Sophie in the very near future.....







*happy home*

ours!!!!!

After 12 years of renting and living in *the funk*, we finally bought our very first home in the BURBS!

                   

 

kaden's favorite part of the house.



*sleep, glorious sleep*

It's no secret that my sweet little girl is a raging insomniac. This child NEVER SLEEPS. The first three months, she slept like it was her job. Then, something shifted, and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with that anymore. Naptimes were just as bad, if not worse than nighttime. She would need to sleep in my Mei Tei babyhawk wrap, or I would hold her. the whole time.  The second I would put her down and gracefully try to set her in her crib, she would scream bloody murder. So I rocked. a lot. And I co-slept with her for 6 months. Part of that was my working mama guilty conscious, I wanted to snuggle a bit after being away from her all day.

Yes I know what you are thinking. But you have done this BEFORE! You KNOW what you are not supposed to do! Babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own, it is a skill that must be mastered.  Most babies wake a few times a night, some babies (you lucky mamas!) actually sleep through the night. Since Sophia turned 3 months, things have progressively gotten much worse, waking a few times a night, to 5 or 6 times a night, and then to this past week where she was up every 15 minutes and absolutely nothing would console her or put her to sleep. I tried EVERYTHING, and then I lost it a little.

Sleep deprivation makes you feel like a walking zombie, and as a therapist, spending my days listening to horror stories and stories about trauma and "bad parenting", I began to realize that I was not present, nor was I making good judgements, both at work and at home. And Sophia was feeling it too, she was absolutely miserable. She always looked exhausted and was inconsolable.

I have always been anti-Cry it out, after some research in grad school and a practicum that focused on mama-infant attachment, I thought there was no way in hell that that would ever be me. Rewind to Kaden at 10 months, and we were at our wits end. We ended up using The SleepEasy Solution with him, and after two nights, he slept through the night.



Sleep training is rough. It goes against every mama instinct that I have. I am not sure I would have went through with it if it had not been for Sophia's pedi who looked me in the eye and said "It is your JOB to jelp her with this".

So we did it. The first night hurt my heart, we did the 5,10, 15 increments of time like the book says, and finally she was asleep. And then she SLEPT. For like 5 hours. AM-A-ZING!!!
The second part of the night was a wee bit rought and she work up 3-4 times, but in the morning, she was her smiley self again. It has been 4 nights since we started, and each one has gotten better and better. And tonite, I put her in her crib, kissed her good night, she smiled at me, turned over and went to sleep. WHAT?????!!!!!!

Slowly, with each night of more and more sleep, I am starting to find me again. Sleep is one ridiculously wonderful thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*randomly random*

Pretty much all of my recent posts have been some type of randomly random. Get used to it. Until we all get more than a few hours of sleep, life is pretty much randomly random.

Sometime during the night on Thursday evening, it SNOWED! What??!! We were just enjoying the changing leaves and the first smells of pumpkin, we are not ready for this white stuff yet! (And I started writing this LAST weekend, so this post is a wee bit outdated).



we keep her sleepers unbuttoned as much as possible so her feet are more accessible to her...she loves to snack on her toesies!

Last weekend, we went to the annual four mile park fall festival. Love love love this time of year, and this festival is always a way to jump start my favorite season! I have been going since we first moved here, and we had Mamaw and Papaw come along for this year's festvities. We went on the second day, and the pumpkins were scarce, but there was still so much awesome fall energy there.

her first meeting with a pumpkin!

completely random. my friend that is studying in the Phd program in osych at DU had to do an assortment of psych tests on little ones. I volunteered poorKaden for the job. After about 2 1/2 hours, he was DONE, and during the expressive language test, these were his amazing responses....


over it. this was the repeat after me section. "yep".
And on a more somber note, there was another tragedy in Colorado this week. This week, sweet Jessica Ridgeway,was abducted just minutes from where my mother in law lives on her daily walk to school. This case completely consumed me and my heart is broken for her, and for her family. It is so hard to imagine anyone doing this to ANYONE, let alone a sweet 10 year old innocent child.  I can't even begin to comprehend how scary it must have been for that sweet little girl. And they need to catch this guy. like right now.

This case is reminiscent of little Kali Poulton's case back in the 90's in Roch-cha-cha. I remember the way my Mom talked about the case, and how she was consumed by it as well. I can remember the posters so vividly, and I remember the sick feeling I felt when I saw that precious little girl's face. It took a year for us to find out what happened to Kali, I only hope that Jessica's mom can find some peace in this lifetime.



 



How on earth are you SIX MONTHS already!!!???

Happy Six Months Sophia!

holy moly! She's a half of a year already!

Dear Sophia,

It's so hard to believe you have been here a whole six months! Time has flown by! You are an incredibly amazing little person, and I absolutely LOVE watching you grow, and seeing your little personality starting to shine. Oh the places you will go little one!!! I cannot wait to see where your path takes you....

In a nutshell, you could use a wee bit of extra help in the sleep department. Mommy has always been pretty anti-crying it out at this age, but after months of minimal sleep, I've developed my own little version of sleep training, and so far, it seems to be helping a wee bit. Now, to get you to realize that your crib IS in fact large enough, and you do not HAVE to sleep in the queen sized bed every night. Part of that could be working mama's guilt, and thow in the fact that you are an amazing snuggler, and maybe Mommy is at fault after all.

You love to eat. Right now, you love avocados, bananas, pears, prunes and grean beans and oatmeal cereal. Sweet potatoes got a big ol thumbs down.

You love leaves. You love to eat your socks and eat your feet as well. You simply adore your brother, he can do no wrong in your book. You love to be tickled. You love to people watch. You are sitting in the "tripod" stance right now with a teeny bit of support, and I am sure in a couple weeks you will be doing it on your own! I have a feeling you are anxious to do this so you can join in and play with your brother's trains. You have rolls that roll for miles. And you love Obama. Or at least I think that's what you said....

I love you Sophia!!!
Happy half a birthday incredible girl!!!!
love,

your mommy


happy birthday mamaw!!!