Happy (belated) Valentine's Day

We had a lot of fun celebrating Emily's first Valentine's Day! Grant finished his busy season this week so we've been able to have him home more.  He even got Thursday and Friday off for this week!  It's been so nice having him home, but he's still been busy.  There have been lots of projects around the house waiting for his attention.  But at least we were able to go out for Valentine's Day yesterday!  Here are some pictures of our cute girl on her first V-day:

Thanks Grandma Barb for all of the gifts!  Happy Valentine's Day!

craft corner

When Grant and I moved into our house, we were a little concerned at first about how we were going to fill it.  I mean, how were we going to take everything from our small two bedroom apartment in Provo and fill a four bedroom house?  One of the perks of living close to family is that they give you things they're getting rid of for free!  With all of our furniture from Provo and several things from my generous parents (my old bedroom furniture, a love sac they used to have in their gameroom, the piano, etc.) we've been able to make our house look pretty nice!  The only things we've really had to get were some new couches (which we didn't actually need, but wanted), Emily's bedroom furniture, and some small decorative touches.  The house is coming along great, and hopefully it won't be too long until we're ready to post pictures of the finished product.
One of the things we received from my parents that I'm most excited about is this secretary:

This has been in my parents' entryway for as long as I can remember. My mom was ready for a change and asked if I'd be interested in it before we ever even moved to Texas.  I didn't think I'd have any use for it as it was, but thanks to Pinterest, I knew it could come in handy... as my craft closet!!  I was so excited!  Over the past few weeks, my mom and I have been getting it ready.  We sanded it, painted it, changed the hardware, and changed out the windows for fabric and voila...

Isn't it cute?  I can't wait for the boys to come over and bring it up to my craft room.  Yes, that's right, I said craft room!  Having my own craft room has always been a dream of mine that I never really thought would become a reality.  The floor plan of our home usually has 2 full bathrooms upstairs instead of 1, but when our house was built, they turned one of the bathrooms into a small bonus room, which has now become my craft room!  I'm one happy girl :)

I've also been spending some time making the house look a little more festive for Valentine's day.  Here's what I've been working on:

The silver tree with the ornaments is something my mom got for me and my sister at Halloween.  She gave it to us with some Halloween ornaments.  Fleming and I have decided to make it a year-round thing, so each month we've been looking for ornaments to put on our tree.  I've also decided to keep the vase out all year and change out the candy and flowers.  We'll see how all of that goes!  I'll be sure to post pictures!

In other news, us girls decided to have a little fun for the Superbowl this year.  We turned to Pinterest for ideas and created a little feast for all of the boys.  It was so fun!  Fleming and Jeff hosted the party at their house so we could break in their new 60 inch TV and we all had a great time!

four months

Little Em turned 4 months old on Sunday, and it's so crazy to me how fast she's changing!

-We've finally started sleep training.  We wanted to wait until she was in her own room so she wouldn't get confused and have to start over when we made the transition.  With the move and waiting for her crib and all of the projects we had to get done, we're just now moving her to her room.  Sunday was our first night.  I was nervous about it since she was in a new bed and a new room, but we were determined.  We did our nightly routine and put her down while she was still awake.  I was worried there would be lots of tears.  She didn't cry AT ALL.  Not for one second!  I couldn't believe it.  I knew it was probably too good to be true... and I was right.  She was up a little more often during the night than usual and we'll definitely have to get her used to falling back asleep on her own.  Last night, she cried for about 30 minutes before I went in to calm her, but then she fell asleep after that.  She was up again at 11 and had to cry it out a little bit, but after that she was much better.  She was only up for one feeding and then slept until morning.  Hopefully she continues on the right track and it all gets worked out soon.
-Emily can now reach for objects, which makes toys a lot more interesting to her.  She also loves playing with people's hands.  If she can get toys into her mouth, she will.  She's even put her pacifier back in a few times.  She can usually get it to her mouth, but the tricky part is positioning it correctly.  If she can't get it, she'll always chew on her hands.  She LOVES chewing on her fingers!  When we did her photoshoot, it was hard to get any pictures of her without her hands in her mouth.  Because of this, she gets drool everywhere!  There's always slobber all over her face, hands, and clothes.  We've heard this could be a sign of teething, so we'll see.
-Her coos have gotten a lot louder.  She's been experimenting a lot with her voice and she loves the noises she can make.  She tries to communicate with us.  She'll start humming at the end of her feedings, and I think she's trying to signal to me that she's done :)  She can laugh, but not really on demand.  She'll do it randomly, but then if we try to get her to do it again, she won't.  She's getting there, though.
-She's had a big case of stranger danger lately.  Maybe it has something to do with the move and the fact that she's mostly just with me all of the time.  She loves other people as long as they're not holding her.  She'll smile at them and talk to them, but as soon as they pick her up she'll start crying.  It's like the flip of a switch and it flips off immediately once I take her back.  She'll always go to me or Grant, and usually my mom.  But right now most other people scare her.  Occasionally she'll let people hold her for a few minutes, but it doesn't last long.  I'm hoping it's just a phase, but I'm not sure what to do to help her with it.

We wish we could've gotten a better picture of her this month, but like I said before, she had her hands in her mouth pretty much the whole time.  Either that, or she was playing with her onesie sticker.  Here are some of the outtakes of our cute girl:

three months

-I feel like I'm finally starting to get some sleep at night.  For the past few weeks, Emily has consistently slept until about 4 or 5 every night.  She'll then go back to sleep and wake up again around 6 or 7.  I've tried keeping her up in the morning, but she gets cranky if I do.  After she eats for her morning feeding, she'll go right back to sleep until about 9 or 9:30.  At least it gives me a chance to sleep in!
-Emily loves staying up at night.  I've tried several times to move her bedtime earlier, but she either won't go to sleep, or she'll only sleep for an hour or two.  We've decided it's because she wants to spend time with daddy.  When he gets home, no matter what mood she's been in previously, she's all smiles when she sees him.  She adores her daddy!  It's fun to see that she knows who her parents are.  She'll smile and laugh at the sight of us or the sound of our voices.
-It's fun to see how things she used to hate have now become some of her favorite things.  She now loves diaper changes.  As soon as I set her down to change her she'll start giggling and talking.  It's hilarious!  The only exception is during the middle of the night.  She would much rather eat and go straight back to bed, so she gets really annoyed if I try to change her.  If she's not dirty or too wet, I sometimes let it go by to help her sleep better.  Her night feedings have become smaller, so I'm hoping that's a good sign that she won't have trouble sleeping through the night soon.  She's also starting to be able to soothe herself, which is another plus.
-Emily discovered her hands this month.  She's been chewing on them like crazy, and she's even sucked her thumb a few times.  While I know it could be a habit that's hard to break in the future, it sure is nice that she can resort to her hands when her pacifier falls out, rather than me having to go over and give it back to her all the time.

Outtakes:  She did such a good job during her photo shoot that we couldn't help but show more pictures :-)

Emily's new trick

Our talented girl learned a new trick today!

two months

We realize that Emily's two month birthday was a couple days ago, but with all the excitement of Thanksgiving, family being in town, trying to run errands while Grant's off work, and internet issues, we're just now getting around to blogging.  We did take pictures on her actual birthday, though, so maybe we can get credit for that.  We took Emily to the doctor on Halloween and she was in the 80s for her percentiles in all categories (weight, length, and head circumference).  Now she's in the 70s.  She's still a big girl and we're glad to know that she's staying proportionate :)  Here's our big two-month-old girl:

-This month was a little harder than the first month.  Around 5 weeks she started getting a lot more fussy and would cry every time I fed her.  It got pretty bad, to the point where she would sometimes refuse to eat and arch her back and kick her legs when she cried.  Thankfully, a friend mentioned that it could be reflux, so we took her to the doctor.  The doctor agreed about the reflux and prescribed some medicine.  It helped a little bit.  It calmed her down enough that she was able to get through feedings, but she would still cry at the end of feedings until she was burped.  At her two-month checkup yesterday, the doctor said she thought Emily might respond better to a stronger medication so we're planning on starting that soon.  She was a lot fussier in general this month and it was a little discouraging some of the time.  After reading some books and getting advice from friends we were able to help out with that.  But the last week has been so much better so I think we might be past her fussiest point.  Now, looking back on it, I feel like it wasn't that bad, but I probably wouldn't have told you that in the moment.  It's crazy how fast we can forget those things :)  And luckily, even during her fussy days, she still had happy, smiley moments that made it all okay.  We're glad to see those smiling faces coming out more often.

-Because of the reflux, Emily was eating smaller, more frequent meals for a while.  She's eating a little more now, but she's still up a few times at night.  She pretty much eats every 3 hours 'round the clock.  The past three nights, we've seen a glimpse of better sleep patterns forming.  Monday and Tuesday night she went 5-6 hours her first stretch and then about 3 after that.  Last night was incredible... She slept 7 hours and then 4 hours after that.  And we found her awake in the morning smiling and talking to herself in bed.  What a great Thanksgiving gift!  We're thinking it could possibly have something to do with her being tired from her shots yesterday, but we're hoping it means good news for nights to come. Her naps in the day are a little shorter and she's starting to become much more social while she's up.

-Toward the beginning of this month, Emily started losing some of the hair on the sides of her head from the way she laid while sleeping.  The hair on the back of her head started getting much longer than the rest and it looked like she had a little mullet.  All of her hair has started growing out again.  It's spikey and really cute.  Inside it sometimes looks brown, but when we're outside it's a definite red and it usually shows up more red in pictures.

-She's been mistaken for a boy twice now.  One time it was understandable because she was wearing green and I had taken her headband off.  The other time was a little surprising.  Emily was wearing purple and she had a purple headband on.  The lady looked at her and said "Oh, look at him sleeping.  He's so cute!"  Really?  She also commented on how much she liked "his" car seat cover, which has flowers on it and adds to the girliness.  I couldn't believe it!

-Emily is a talker!  She loves having conversations with anything and anyone.  Some of her favorite things to talk to are lights, colorful patterns, the bugs on her mobile, and the dots on the inside of her carseat cover.  Sometimes these things are funny to her and she laughs a lot at them (which right now usually comes out as a gurgle sound).  She's started using consonants sometimes when she coos.  Usually it's still just vowel sounds, but she has used the letters h, k, and g.  She focuses a lot better on things and is fascinated by what she sees.  She could spend all day long staring at lights.  If you hold her up in a burping position, she'll lean back as far as she can to see the lights above you.  It's adorable.

-She still loves bath time, and she's actually gotten to where she likes the shampooing part, too.  For our bedtime routine we'll have a bath (not every night), put on pjs, nurse, and then sit in the rocking chair for lullabies.  She loves rocking and listening to me or Grant sing.  Sometimes she'll sing along with us.  It does a great job of calming her down enough to get her to go to sleep.  She still tries to fight sleep sometimes, though.  She'd rather be up with us.  One of my favorite things when she's tired (whether it's after she wakes up or when she's about to go down) is that she'll rub her eyes with the back of her hands.  If she's swaddled up or in a position where she can't get her hands to her eyes, she'll rub her face against the shoulder of whoever's holding her.  It's adorable!

-Some of the things that work best to calm Emily down when she's upset are taking her outside, swaddling her, walking around with her, or giving her a pacifier (not necessarily all of those things together).

-Emily would still much rather be held by someone than left in her bed or a carrier.  She's usually okay in her carseat as long as the car is moving.  She'll usually cry whenever we get to a stop light and then she'll be okay when the car starts moving again.  Sometimes when I try to put her down to sleep she'll be okay for a few minutes and then start crying.  The second I pick her up or put her in the big bed she'll go right back to sleep.  She definitely prefers sleeping in someone's arms.  We don't want to sleep train her just yet, so we'll see how that goes in a month or two.

-She's rolled over twice, but we think they were flukes because she hasn't done it since then.  The other day, Grant was getting ready for work and found her laying on her side in her sleep.  And today I saw her roll onto her side while sleeping.  I don't think it will be long before she rolls over for real and starts doing it on a more regular basis.

We're having a great time with this little girl!  We're so glad to see her becoming happier more of the time.  She's growing and learning so much every day and I'm sad to see how fast she's changing!  But it's also a lot of fun getting to watch the growth in our little baby.  We can't wait to see what the future has in store for us and Miss Emily!