Winter’s 11 Month Update

BABY WINTER’S MONTHLY UPDATE: 11 months old

Baby’s Age: 11 months old

Height: not sure this month

Weight: 19 lbs 5 oz

Diaper Size: Size 3

Clothes Size: 12 months

(All as of September 10, 2014)

Here is a look back at the past few months:

Here is Winter in her Bumbo:

September 2014 – Last update before Winter turns 1!

Is it really only one month until Winter has her first birthday?!?  No, that is not possible.  It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant.  I was clueless as to what our lives would REALLY be like once our baby would be born.  I thought I knew, but boy was I CLUELESS!!  I didn’t know just HOW wonderful life could be until Winter was born.  Who knew there was a void until it was filled?  Here I was almost a year ago:

First off, I am in denial.  Serious denial.  How could THIS baby:

…already be turning one in a few weeks?!?  This picture was taken at the hospital, right before we brought Winter home.  To think that my little girl is soon to be walking and soon-to-be a toddler blows my mind.  DENIAL!  Here she is now at 11 months:

Winter is a MOVER!  She loves to move, move, move.  She doesn’t sit still.  She is constantly on the go, whether she is crawling or cruising.  This momma doesn’t have much time to do anything besides chase a baby around anymore!  Ha!  I love it.

In the past month we have been busy getting unpacked and settling into our new home.  Winter didn’t exactly pull her weight around here by chipping in for any of our DIY house projects….although I’m sure she would’ve helped if she could’ve!  She’s sweet.  All joking aside, the dog nor cat pulled their weight around here either.  🙂  So, Eric and I have been busy whipping this house into the kind of shape we’d like to live in.  We have been painting like crazy, hanging pictures on the walls and whatnot.  The new house is actually FEELING like our home now!

Winter has been teething hardcore.  She is working on the top two center teeth.  They have been working on coming in for weeks.  Any second they will be cutting through.  (Update: As of Sept 25 they finally cut through.)  These two teeth are little boogers…they have proven to be more difficult and painful than her first two teeth.  Baby Tylenol, teething tablets and amber bead necklace have been our friends.  A friend recommended we switch from baby Tylenol to Ibuprofen or Motrin since she is old enough for it.  She said it is more effective and lasts longer.  I think I’ll be buying some soon!  Now, about these center top teeth, I have to admit…it’s going to really change how Winter looks when they finally come in.  She will look older and different with those teeth.  I bet she’ll be cute, but I am never a fan of change.  😦

While Winter is not yet walking on her own, none of us feel any urgency for that milestone to happen just yet.  I’m sure she will start walking within a normal time frame.  She pulls up on everything, walks along the furniture while holding on with one or two hands, walks while pushing her cruising toy, etc.  She is a mover!

Winter has started making a super cheesy face when she smiles.  She gives a big old toothy grin and squints her eyes–so cute!  She cracks us up.

Nursing is still going in full force around here!  At 11 months, I dropped her lunchtime feeding, bringing us down to 3 feedings per day.  She has done well with the transition.  Nursing only 3 times per day feels SO EASY!  It hardly feels like I’m doing it at all.  I am in no rush to wean her.  We will keep on nursing until I feel that we are BOTH ready to stop.  As of now, we are both perfectly happy to keep on going!  At this rate, we will be continuing past the 12 month mark.  I must say, she is pretty funny when she nurses these days.  She only takes about 5-7 minutes in total, but 1-2 minutes of that is her popping off to play with or pinch my nipple.  It’s hilarious…I laugh every time!  In addition to her “play breaks,” she also is such a mover that she does not just lie down to nurse, she stands up, crawls around and climbs all over me during the nursing process.  I’m like her boob jungle gym!  🙂

I am planning her first birthday party for the day after her birthday.  We are keeping the guest list short and sweet.  We have my sister and her husband coming to Colorado to help us celebrate!  We are excited to see them.  Also on the invitation list includes a few close friends as well as a few of Winter’s and my friends from our mom/baby group.  The theme is a “Winter ONEderland.”  I know.  Perfect!  I bought all kinds of wintery décor and am asking guests to all wear white attire.  I am also planning to do a cake smash photo-shoot.  My goal is to attempt to DIY the photo-shoot to avoid paying a hefty photography bill.  I will post pictures after we do the shoot!  I plan to do the photo-shoot a couple of days before her birthday.

Here is what Winter’s invitations look like (with the address removed, of course):

Milestones: Crawling, pulling up on things, cruising, assisted walking (holding onto our hands), talking a lot (mama, dada, meow, da for dog, and other various sounds), clapping, has almost 4 teeth.

Sleep: Same as before, 2 naps (each 2 hours; 10am-12pm and 3pm-5pm) and 12 hours (8pm-8am) at night.  She rocks!

Best Moment: When Winter called ME “mama” for the first time.  Though she has been saying it for months, I felt like she finally associated the word with ME!

Worst Moment: Winter got her first boo boo.  She felt against our bedframe and busted her lip.  OUCH!  It was bleeding and she was hysterical.  I was too.  Mom fail.  I know this won’t be the last time she gets hurt, but I am not looking forward to future accidents!  😦

Health:  Excellent!  She is growing lengthwise it seems, not weightwise anymore.  She really has “thinned out” lately because she’s so active.  I haven’t measured her in a while, so I will be curious to see how tall she is at her upcoming 12 month appointment.

Eating:  She nurses 3 times per day (morning, before afternoon nap and bedtime).  She eats breakfast, lunch and dinner, all regular foods, no baby foods.  She is obsessed with raisins and bread.  I’ve been working to teach her the sign for “more,” but instead of doing the correct sign, she claps and says “mo.”  I think that is sufficient…

Likes: Eating, clapping, walking/pushing her crusing toy, jabbering, making cat “meow” sounds, getting into everything, feeling soft textures.

Dislikes: Diaper changes, getting dressed after a bath.

How Mommy is doing: I am getting a little emotional that my “little baby” is turning one!  I know every new mom says that the first year flies by in the blink of an eye, and they are right.  It can’t already be a whole YEAR since I gave birth!  You can find me sobbing in the corner looking through photos from last October….

Aside from being emotional about Winter growing up, I’ve been busy training for my half marathon (coming up 10/19), being a table leader at MOPS and doing activities with our mom/baby group.  I love my life and getting to spend my days with Winter.  It’s the best!

Winter’s 10 Month Update

BABY WINTER’S MONTHLY UPDATE: 10 months old

(All as of August 10, 2014)

Baby’s Age: 10 months old

Height: 27.5 inches

Weight: 19 lbs

Diaper Size: Size 3

Clothes Size: 9 months and a few 12 months

Here is a look back at the past few months:

Here is Winter in her Bumbo:

August 2014…We Moved!

Sorry this is posted so terribly late!  I have an excuse every.single.month.  This month I feel like my excuse is even more valid…we moved!  In fact, our moving day to our new house was August 10, the day that Winter turned 10 months.  So needless to say, I haven’t had a moment to spare for blogging.  Not only that, but we didn’t have internet hooked up until this past week, so there we go!

Why did we move?  Well, the true answer is this…our previous home was bought as our “starter home” aka “5-year-home.”  We owned it for 5 years and now have a baby, compared to just the two of us when we bought it.  Our yard was tiny, the house was tiny, and we were feeling cramped!  Since we plan to have another kid or two in the future (yes, I said FUTURE, not NOW!), we wanted to plan ahead and buy a house with more space and a bigger yard.  Done!  Our new house has 2600 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (2 full, 2 half), a finished basement and a big back yard.  We are absolutely LOVING this house!  It has been very busy considering we are DIYers, so we have been tackling projects ourselves.

Packing and moving with a mobile baby sure was an experience.  I utilized naptimes as much as possible.  Packing seemed like an endless job!  On moving day, we had some friends from church babysit Winter all day, so that we could focus all of our energy and effort into loading and unloading the truck.  That was so helpful to be babyless on moving day.  Unpacking at the new house was tricky for the first several days as there were many non-babyproofed danger zones to combat!  Thankfully, after we got a little more organized, put some outlet covers on and installed baby gates, the unpacking process went smoother.  We still have unpacking yet to do, but I imagine that will be the case for a few months to come!  One thing I love about our new house is that we have a 100% baby proof play room for Winter.  It is so wonderful to be able to let her play and make a mess to her heart’s content and not have to worry about her getting into unsafe things.  Every mom should have a baby proof play room in their house!

Winter is growing and getting smarter day by day.  She is very mobile.  She’s an expert crawler (started crawling at 8.5 months) and is pulling herself up onto everything.  She can also cruise (walking around while holding onto objects).  I doubt she’s close to walking just yet–I could see her walking somewhere around 12 months.  Since she is so mobile, she keeps me busy and on my toes!  I rarely have a chance to sit down.  I love it, though!

Her big thing these days is clapping.  It’s her favorite thing!  She claps all of the time.  Since Winter is such a happy girl, she expresses her happiness or joy by clapping when she likes something.

We were slow going on teeth, but now she seems to be catching up.  She got her second tooth, so now she has two teeth on the bottom center.  Her little teeth look so precious.  Thankfully, I have yet to feel a bite from those teeth while breastfeeding.  🙂

We were able to do Winter’s baby dedication at my parent’s church in Indiana.  It was really special.  Since we live in Colorado and don’t have our families here, doing the dedication in Indiana at my home church was really neat.  It was the church where Eric and I were married, and my youth pastor who married us was the one to do Winter’s dedication too.  How special.  Not only that, but it was extremely memorable to us that both Eric’s family and my family were able to not only be present, but joined us up on stage!  Every single one of our parents and siblings was there.  What a blessing.

Milestones: Crawling, pulling up on things, cruising, talking a lot (mama, dada, meow, da for dog, and other various sounds), clapping, has 2 teeth.

Sleep: Sleeping great!  2 daytime naps and 12 hours at night.  (Naps: 9:30-11:30am, 2:30-4:30pm and nighttime: 8pm-7:30am.)

Best Moment: Winter’s baby dedication at church.

Worst Moment: None.

Health:  Excellent!

Eating:  Winter is currently nursing 4 times per day and eating 3 solid meals.  She is a fantastic eater and there isn’t anything she doesn’t like (besides tomatoes).  It’s so nice to be able to feed her regular foods.  She eats what we eat, just chopped up into small pieces.

My breastfeeding plan has always been to nurse until a year old.  As that is approaching, I plan to get to 12 months and then reevaluate at that point what I’d like to do.  Winter is still as excited about nursing as ever, and I’m in no hurry to wean…so I could see us continuing past 12 months.  She currently nurses 4 times per day, and I plan to drop one feeding when she turns 11 months.  At 12 months, I will drop another feeding, so she will be down to two nursing’s per day (upon waking up and before bed).  I could continue with two nursing’s for forever, so easy!  Winter and I have such a bond, so we might go to 13 months or longer.  Neither of us is ready to say goodbye to this chapter!

Likes: Clapping, jabbering, making cat “meow” sounds, getting into everything, feeling soft textures.

Dislikes: Diaper changes, getting dressed after a bath.

How Mommy is doing: Not gonna lie, I have felt a wee bit overwhelmed these past few months.  Moving has been a lot!  Now life can slow down as we get settled.  Summer is coming to a close and Winter’s 1st birthday is right around the corner.  I want to cry just thinking about that!  Ha!   I am in training for my October half marathon.  Running is going well.  This race I am training for and running solo.  It is a luxury to be able to do my weekend long runs ALONE!  No stroller!  As much as I love my BOB stroller, it’s so freeing to be able to go outside and run without ANYTHING!  Woohoo!  Plus, since I’m training alone, I get to ulitize weekend naptime to go out and run while Eric is at home.  Overall, life is great.  Winter is great.  Being a mom is incredible.  I LOVE IT!