Lucy is NINE Months!

 I am NINE months old!

 

I like: being held all the time (we call her koala baby), eating real food (more than her bottle or baby food), Cara (seriously gives the most smiles/laughs when she sees Cara over anyone else), splashing in the bathtub and chewing on all the toys

I dislike: being put down for any reason than she asked to be put down, being fed baby food or a bottle if we show her our food

I am now: still in 6-9 months clothes, but we're switching over to 9/9-12 month sizes, she's 16 lbs (and I think 12 oz), and still in size 2 diapers. She's really long and skinny it seems. But her head is smaller than the other girls so that might be good.

A Typical Day looks like: 

We usually wake her up around 7:40 ish

 

7:40-9:30 - I feed her a 4 oz "jar" of baby food with her her probiotic. I then lay her down with a  oz bottle and change her bum. After she finishes that she'll crawl around and play with whatever is near her or wait for Cara to come visit her. Dad will lotion her up and put clothes on at some point after I head up to work (around 8:15)

9:30-11  nap time in her crib

11:00 - diaper change and the next 6 oz bottle. Around 11:30 we'll do lunch and give her some finger foods like puffs or veggie straws. We'll also give her bites of our lunches.

11:30 - 12:30 play time (sitting, crawling, playing, etc.)

12:30-2:30 nap time.

2:30-4:15 - next 6 oz bottle and diaper change then play time

4:15 - 5:00/5:15 nap time.

5:15 - 5:30 - Play and hang time.

5:30 - 6 we do dinner. She gets baby food and tastes of our food haha.

6-7 doing whatever for the night (aka free/play time)

7-7:45 we start our show for the night, at 7:05 she gets her last 6 oz bottle of the night and just relax at this point. If it's bath night (Sunday and Thursday for her), that starts at 7:30 ish

7:45 get ready for bed. We change her diaper, put Vaseline on her dry spots, put on pajamas, take her upstairs, read a book, lay her down and give her the binky.

This Month: Lucy developed such a silly personality. She makes funny faces, she crawls and pulls up to stand on EVERYTHING, but can't figure out how to get back down. She loves random things, still not always one things that will make her laugh every time (except Cara). She loves random sounds, but they have to change up each time we do it haha. She's starting to kind of give kisses and says mama and dada, but she knows baba, num nums, uh-oh, and yay. 

She absolutely LOVES real food over anything else. She hates seeing our food, but getting fed baby food. Although we did give her sweet peas one night and she gobbled those up!

Lucy is even more silly. She is much more happy and playful. She still loves to be held, but she is exploring more on her own as the days go on.

 

We celebrated her first St. Patrick's Day and Easter and she had so much fun watching my sisters celebrate and get ready. Speaking of watching, she LOOVES observing and watching things. I feel like it's her way to figure things out for when she's big enough to do them (like watching her sisters run around in anticipation for when she can run around. Or looking around the house so she knows where certain rooms are for navigating to later).

She's starting to walk more with our fingers and is adjusting well if I hold her and move around. She seems to be most content if I do things upstairs and have to put her down for a minute (maybe because it's new?). 

She got a new tooth, her 3rd, but it's an upper tooth to the side of her front teeth. Still no front teeth on the top, just bottom, so she looks a little like goofy, but a cute version haha. 

It's funny watching her eat as she HATES seeing us eat our food without her. She needs to be being fed OR have big bites of our food to feed herself. She's also still got a tiny bit of stranger danger, but I think she's starting to warm up to people. I can't tell if she's this way because of being inside a bunch due to COVID or that's just her personality type or a little of both. But both girls had that stranger danger phase so I assume it'll pass.

Either way, she's such a cutie little girl and I'm loving seeing her come out of her shell more. I can't wait to celebrate her first birthday...I've got some fun thoughts on what we're going to do and it'll be a great one.

Update on last month's goals:

• Work on crawling - she can crawl with the best of them!
  
  
• Work on pulling up and getting ready to walk soon - she likes to pull up, but doesn't know how to get down and doesn't ever want to be on our sit to stand walker so we need to help her with that more.
  
  
• Get her used to the outdoors - it hasn't been warm enough yet, but hopefully soon.
  
  
• Working on words and sounds - oh she babbles non stop! This girlie will be a talking machine once she figures out more words haha.
  
  
• Have a fun Valentine's Day - We had a really great Valentine's Day and I'm getting SO excited to do more holidays that are coming up!!
  

Goals for next month:

• Work on getting down from pulling up (and being okay with being down)
  
  
• Work on walking more
  
  
• More holidays (St. Patrick's Day and Easter)
  
  
• Get outdoors more
  

Living in a Pandemic - 1 Year Later

So we've officially been "quarantining", or whatever you call it, a whole year now. It was a year ago today that I was told I needed to start working from home (I didn't realize it was because COVID was declared a global pandemic, I thought it was just because I was pregnant and they were looking out for people who could be in a higher risk category). I made a joke that it would be funny if I didn't come back until after my maternity leave and when someone asked if I really thought we'd be out that long I laughed and said "no. I'll probably be back in April." I had no idea that it would go this long! I will always remember that first weekend running to 4, maybe more, stores looking for milk, canned foods, bread, or anything else to hold us over for a couple weeks (THAT was the only time I really kind of panicked). I was comparing pantry stocked pictures with family and friends as a joke. It was a very weird time.

While I know most people are having a hard time with the changes, it has been so ideal for me! I have LOVED being home with my family. It's been so nice not HAVING to get dressed in the beginning when I was 7 months pregnant, not having to commute during awful hours, having lunch with my family and helping dad out! Not to mention I liked being home when I went back to work after my leave to help Larry out with the girls so he could concentrate on Lucy more.

I also feel very fortunate that Larry and I have been able to keep our jobs, we haven't had to take a pay cut, and it's all felt like normal life for us (the only change being that I work in a bed instead of a cubicle).

I'm not sure if/when I'll be back in office, but I am so soaking up all the greatness that has been being home and seeing all the moments I missed before. In the beginning it was hard when everything was closed and I wanted to run errands to get things done, but now that more things are opening and we just have to wear masks it hasn't been so bad. I'll admit I absolutely HATED the idea of being forced to wear a mask, but now I feel as long as I can go shopping and walk stores, I'll wear the dang mask! I still haven't bought reusable ones, I know once I do they'll stop making us wear them haha. 

I feel bad that people can only see how negative this last year has been, but it's really forced us to figure things out that we didn't realize we could do (hello long lines at Costco and worrying if things we needed would be out of stock) and how to handle stressful situations and I'm happy that Larry and I tend to come out stronger from those moments. I'm also glad I never ran low on toilet paper and had to deal with that panic haha.

Lucy's Staycation Vacation

So we really tried to make sure we kept up with our tradition of going on a vacation when the newest baby is 7 months old. Typically we go to somewhere with a beach. Traveling has been so difficult these days, obviously, so originally we had compromised on a Vegas Vacation (wasn't my choice, but when Larry mentioned it and found some really fun looking and good family friendly things to do I caved really quickly). When it came time to actually book the vacation we talked about our options and decided to switch it to a staycation and it ended up being pretty fun.

We had a fun time going to playgrounds (including bringing a training potty since there aren't any really close to the actual playground). I did some fun shopping for some holiday decor and craft items at Hobby Lobby (a favorite store). We also took the girls to the aquarium one of the days, always a favorite indoor activity.

I let Larry spend a day at Wendover to get away and I did some craft with the girls and set up an obstacle course. I thought that would take a bigger portion of the day, but I ended up scrambling for more things to do throughout the day...only a tiny bit stressful haha. Luckily that was on the Friday so I had a good excuse to put a movie on for our Family Movie Night and that took up some time.

I didn't realize I had planned this over Valentine's Day Weekend, so I made sure we celebrated it. I let the girls splash around our tub in their swimsuits as our "beach replacement". I got them some gifts for the day, of course, and we made our new recipe (homemade whole wheat bread). 

We also had some good snow storms so we were able to go out and build a snowman, make snowballs, and go sledding. This was my favorite day as I had always hoped to do that with my kids one day and it was just as fun as I had imagined it. Plus side, the girls had fun with it too!

What's a snow day without warm chocolate? Haha

Overall, while I miss family vacations I'm so glad we're able to have really amazing family staycations that almost make up for them. I definitely look forward to traveling again, one day.

Lucy is EIGHT Months!

I am EIGHT months old!

 

I like: moving around, trying new foods, when we make all the sounds at her, being in the middle of her sisters craziness (they love to run around and she likes to be in the middle of that)

I dislike: Being put down when she's not tired, when she's being left along too long

I am now: still in 6-9 months clothes

A Typical Day looks like: 

We usually wake her up around 8, she's GREAT at sleeping in until then!

 

7:45-9:30 - I give her her probiotic, change her bum and give her a 6.5 oz bottle. After she finishes that I'll put her down to play with toys and scoot around.

9:30-10:45/11  nap time in her crib. Still loves having the binky.

11:00 - diaper change and the next 6 oz bottle. Around 11:30 we'll do lunch and give her some baby food and finger foods

11:30 - 12:30 play time (sitting, scooting, walker, etc.)

12:30-2:30 nap time.

2:30-4:15 - next 6 oz bottle and diaper change then play time

4:15 - 5:00/5:15 nap time. If she wakes up early I will hang out while daddy works out with the older girls

5:15 - 5:30 - Play and hang time. She no longer needs a bottle at this point.

5:30 - 6 we do dinner. She gets baby food and maybe tastes of our food haha.

6-7 doing whatever for the night (aka free/play time)

7-7:45 we start our show for the night, at 7:05 she gets her last bottle of the night (I make 6, sometimes she'll eat the whole thing, sometimes it's just a few ounces. depending on how much food she ate at dinner time) and just relax at this point.  If it's bath night (Sunday and Thursday for her), that starts at 7:30 ish

7:45 get ready for bed. We change her diaper, put Vaseline on her dry spots, put on pajamas, take her upstairs, read a book, lay her down and give her the binky. I usually let her pick her binky (one with the monkey stuffed animal or one that's by itself).

This Month: Lucy finally became such a good napper and sleeper that my anxiety about having to put her down has completely disappeared. Not sure when that went away with the other girls, but Lucy really has been a harder one to gauge how she's going to be and I'm SO happy we got there still fairly early.

Update on last month's goals:

• Get her moving around more: this girlie scoots EVERYWHERE. And now that she's sitting herself up and used to scooting she's a MUCH happier girl
  
  
• Maybe take her vacation: We decided it's smarter to skip a real vacation this year and we've started a Staycation with her and decided next year we'll have to do something BIG (if I feel I can travel with - hopefully - 4 kids at that point haha)
  
  
• Get her used to finger foods: this is a big check! At lunch time we give her some puffs or other finger foods and she LOVES feeding herself. She seems to like eating real food more than her baby food. She reminds me of the fish at Thanksgiving Point, she sees food and her mouth immediately goes to a O haha.
  
  
• Work on getting her to say words: she says mamamama and other sounds like that and she loves when we tell her other words (baba, caca, dada, gaga, lala, nana, papa, tata, wawa, yaya...things like that).

Goals for next month:

• Work on crawling
• Work on pulling up and getting ready to walk soon?
• Get her used to the outdoors (if it's warm enough)
• Working on words and sounds
• Have a fund Valentine's Day
  

Witching Hour Activities

If you have kids you know what The Witching Hour is...the time between dinner and bedtime that kids tend to LOSE it and suddenly have ADHD or something. I used to think that with Larry and I working that we didn't really have a witching hour, we'd just do whatever learning activity we couldn't do during the day at night. However, kids do not have any attention span during this time and do not care to learn anything at the end of the day. Not to mention once they are in school it's totally going to throw them off to learn during the day so I figured we should switch more to that model and I started having Larry do flash cards during the day with the girls (now that I work from home I've taken that on myself and do more fun learning activities during the day). 

However, this does make it more difficult to fill up the 1.75 hours we have after dinner and so finding something to do was a bit of a challenge. It took weeks of trial and error to see what was possible and I think we have a good routine down now so I thought I'd share it:

Games: we have started to introduce easy board games to the girls at night. We feel it's great to teach them taking turns and being a good sport, even if they feel they are losing. So far Gwen is hit or miss when it comes to actually wanting to play games, but Cara absolutely loves it.

Fun Bath: We do regular baths Sunday and Thursday right now, but the girls are always wanting to stay in it longer. I came up with the idea we should let them have a night that is just a "play in the bath" night. Once they are outside more and playing this will turn into a regular bath and we'll just add in another fun bath night, but for now this works for Tuesday night. I made it even better by letting them have this in the big bath in the master bathroom. What's great is we hardly ever use this bathtub, so now we are actually getting use out of it, I get to do a puzzle or laundry or whatever while they play and splash around AND I can get ready for bed while they are playing so they get even more time and it doesn't push into my night activities. I LOVE fun bath night!

Paint Night: I started letting the girls have a painting activity night. We grab some paper from this BIG pad that someone got them for a birthday, I grab some acrylic paint from my stash and let them just go crazy. They are good at keeping the paint on the paper and not everywhere else. I've never been a creative type so it's hard for me to find creative activities for the girls, but this is one I'm proud of. They love having fun with it.

Science Experiments: This one shouldn't be too surprising. I have always talked about loving doing STEAM activities with the girls and so I find fun little science experiments to show them. most of them are things dealing with baking soda and vinegar, but they still have fun.

Story Time: I've been doing my best to incorporate a bit of story time before our show each night. I know reading is SO good for kids and even though we do read before bed, I know you can't ever expose kids to too much reading. 

Of course most of this will probably change once Spring/Summer hits and we can be outside more (when it won't be SO dark at dinner time), but I'm pretty proud of the fact that we've found ways to stay sane and inside while we have littles.