Love Love Love

Hi beautiful girl. Right now, you are napping.  Your daddy rolled his ankle really badly yesterday, so he is laying in bed with his foot up taking a sick day from work.  Your favorite, the doggy, is cuddled up with daddy.  I am trying to get a few things done before you wake up and want all my attention again. I have some delicious coffee with peppermint creamer, which always makes me happy, especially around Christmas! Christmas is my very favorite time of the year- it really is magical.  I absolutely love getting people gifts and watching them open them.  It is also pretty fun getting a few gifts. I can't wait until you are old enough to start giving gifts- it will be so fun to take you shopping and let you pick out what you want to get for daddy or grandma.  I can hardly believe that you are already 8.5 months old- time is flying by! You have been learning so much lately and are really mastering some new skills! You wave hello and goodbye, you do the sign language for "all done" when you don't want to eat any more food, you army crawl like a pro, you climb up onto things (like through the coffee table or the legs of the chairs), you can turn a light switch on and off, you push your little play table around and walk with it! you are so quick at getting where you want to go! I can turn around for a minute to put away a jacket or something and when I look back, you are across the room standing up when you were just sitting by my feet a minute ago.  You have recently gotten so chatty! Your little voice is probably my favorite thing ever! You are always telling me things- especially right after you wake up. I will put you on the changing table and start getting you changed and dressed and you will just talk and talk and talk to me. It is so precious. I kind of don't want you to start saying words yet because I am enjoying your babbles and squeals sooo much. but i know it will be adorable when you start saying real words too.  actually, you do say "ma" when you are calling for me. you will do it mostly at night when you are tired and i leave the room ;) You are SO attached to me. it is crazy. I love it and feel like the luckiest mama in the world, but sometimes it is so exhausting. You are in the process of getting your top 2 teeth! I can feel the little bumps when I rub your gums and you have clearly been teething- you have been extra drooly, cranky, etc.  I will be happy when those pop through and you will be so much more comfortable! You are still waking up once a night- you usually wake up around 10-11pm and then again around 2-3am...so if you wake up early enough I feed you before falling asleep, but if i head to bed around 10 sometimes you wake me twice :( I do not even know how I am handling so little sleep. It has literally been over a year since I have slept through the night and yet I am doing fine- adjusting and learning to function. and you make it all worth it. You are so perfect and precious my baby! I just thank the Lord for you every day. I am so THANKFUL that He gave you to me to raise and take care of. What an honor to be your mama! I am making myself cry. I just love you more than I knew I could love. You fill my heart and my life with so much joy. I am so happy to have you in my life, sweet girl! I am getting so excited to spend our first Christmas together- and even though you won't remember it, to watch you open a few gifts! I hope that Christmas will always be a time of magic for you and a beautiful time to reflect on the love of the Lord for us.  It takes on a whole new meaning for me this year thinking about Mary with baby Jesus in the manger. The song "Mary did you know?" talks about how the tiny baby Jesus would someday die for us and save the world and it is so much more powerful to me this year because I know a mama's love.

little miss exploration!

Hi sweet baby! I love taking time to sit down and forget all the day to day chores and worries and just reflect on you. You are such a joy in my life! I love keeping this blog and knowing that someday you will read my letters to you. I can't imagine how they will make you feel. I hope they will make you laugh and teach you a lot about who you were as a baby. I hope that they will teach you even more about who I was as your mama and the ways that I grew through raising you. I hope they reflect my unconditional love for you. I hope that they build you up and give you insight into how your life as a mommy might look someday. I hope that they make you cry sweet tears of joy and fill your heart with encouragement! Most of all, I hope that these letters will be there for you someday when I am not.  It brings me great comfort to know that if the worst were to happen and you had to grow up without a mommy, you would still get to know my heart for you and know how loved you are!  Anyway, enough of all that sappiness- making myself cry!

You are 7 and 1/2 months old now. You are so incredibly curious! and adventurous! and fearless! You army crawl everywhere! You have even started leaving the room to go explore, but you are quick to come back and check that mama is still close. You love to walk! You crawl up to me and find my hands to pull yourself up and then you walk around holding my hands for as long as I will let you! Sometimes, you find a toy that interests you and sit down, but you are asking to walk again only a minute later. You are still a great sleeper (we got lucky!)! You go to bed at 6:15 each night and wake around 6-7 the next morning. You are still taking 3 naps a day, but they are getting shorter (45 mins each). You are still waking up 2x every night to eat.... I can hardly believe I have not slept through the night in probably a year now, but it is worth it. I love nursing you in the middle of the night- you are so snuggly and soft and you often fall asleep in my arms. You are too busy exploring during the day to ever cuddle, so I try to savor those late night, sleep depriving moments. You have recently gotten so talkative! You babble all the time and I am enchanted by your voice! It is so sweet! You hardly ever cry, but are so good at expressing yourself with babbles and squeals.  I cannot believe how fun it is to be with you- you just amaze me.  Before you were born, I always said that 1.5 to 4 years old were my very favorite and that still may be true, but I am loving this age so so much. You are getting independent, but you still want mama so much. I feel so needed and I am so thankful I get to be there for you- to hold your hands while you walk, to nurse you to sleep, to make sure you don't fall while you are trying to climb up on your toys, to teach you new words.  You totally understand certain words... doggy, kitty cat, mama, dada, no, milk, ni-night. It is really fun to see you respond to us! I think you will be walking by 9 months... you furniture walk, stand against everything and only use 1 hand- it is amazing.  You are so active! I think we will have to put you into sports early... ;)

You were a zebra for your first Halloween- you love to knock on doors, so we took you trick or treating around grandma sandee's neighborhood. and then we went to church for the harvest party and you loved the game with duckies in the water.

You are such a social girl! You love mom's group and play with all the babies so well. You love to watch what the big kids are doing and want to crawl right over to play with them, but they are running trucks around and might run over your hands, so I take you back to the babies... We are doing Gymboree classes for 2 months, which is really fun (but it is kind of during your nap time, so you are not the most vibrant lol). You stay in the church nursery the whole service now :) and you love just about all people- you wave hi and bye to everyone we see and will squeal and smile when someone acknowledges you. you love gramma sandee and aunt alisa- you get sooo excited when you see them! and you are such a daddy's girl- you love spending time with him (when you're not tired). you will just watch him all the time when he is home. it is super sweet!

i love you more every single day and am so thankful for the opportunity to watch you grow and nurture you! thank you for being my baby! xoxo

Love,
Mommy

6 months old!!!

Baby! How are you already 6 months old?!!?! I can hardly believe that you have already been in our lives for half a year.  In fact, just about every time I think about it, I start tearing up.  You are growing up so fast!  Your daddy doesn't understand why I get so emotional about your growing up- and I don't really either.  You are getting so fun and so much easier, so I am glad that you are growing up.  But at the same time, I just want you to stay little forever.  I love how dependent you are on me- for food, for comfort, for stimulation.  You are starting to have some separation anxiety.  When I leave the room, you cry! and when you are with someone else and you see me, you will lean toward me and reach out with your arms.  It is really sweet! I love it, but I know other people are sad about it.  You light up around people- you are such a social little love! We are a part of a mom's group that meets once a week and it is so much fun! You love all the other kiddos! I have tried putting you in the nursery at church two weeks in a row now and you will not have it! I have been called back out of church both times HA! Oh well, you will grow out of it eventually.  You got to meet your uncle Nick for the first time this week, so that was really fun! You are still such a good sleeper- you go to bed at 6:15 on the dot and wake around 6:15-6:30, so we are trying to keep you up a little longer in the hopes that you sleep later...we will see how that goes! You have started eating solids, and pooping solid too! You love avocado and sweet potato the most! You are trying new foods all the time- today we tried chicken and spinach! I don't puree the food, just break it into tiny pieces and you do great! It is really fun :) and you have 2 itty bitty teeth! They are just barely showing, but you seem to be in so much less pain now! you are drooling less and are so much happier than the past few weeks, so thank goodness! You have been sitting up for over a month and are just starting to pull yourself up to a stand! Amazing! You are just getting more beautiful every day- you have gorgeous, big eyes and a ridiculously cute smile! Your little laugh just lights up my world.  I love getting to know you more! Anyway, you are SO much fun! you are such a blessing to me, sweet girl.  I thank God for creating you- as I always say "Jesus made you perfect" and for entrusting me with you! I am so thankful to be your mommy and to get to take care of you and love you.