Climber

Cali is a climber.

I was trying to get things ready so I could take a shower Sunday morning. So I put Cali in her crib so she would be safe while I moved furniture around. You see Cali learned how to free herself from her baby seat during my last shower so I had to bring the bigger swing upstairs. While I was moving the furniture and the swing around I thought how quiet Cali was being and how good of her to be playing nicely in her crib. I went in to check on her and found...



She was on her knees and trying to pull up. When most moms would grab the baby, I grabbed my phone to take a picture.
Needless to say, Nick lowered her crib tonight.

Weekend

As Cali gets older it is great to be able to do things that we used to do BC (before Cali).

This weekend was a good example. Friday night all 3 of us went out to dinner at Olive Garden. Cali sat in the high chair, ate her food, and played with her toys. After dinner we walked around Barnes and Nobles and Target! She did great and even got some new toys. (It is dangerous to take Nick into the kid toy section!)

Saturday morning we all went out for breakfast at one of our favorite breakfast "greasy spoon" restaurants. We ate here a LOT when I was pregnant. It was nice to be back. Then we spent the day helping Nick get ready for Sunday.

These may seem like little things, but it is nice to not feel tied to the house because you don't know what the baby will do or how long you have before she needs to eat/sleep/poop/scream.

7 Months Old

It is hard to believe our little girl is 7 months old! Yesterday was the official big day but it was a long, hard day so the blog update had to wait.

New tricks now that Cali is 7 months old:
- She can sleep all night long!! (8pm-7am)
- She can stay awake during the day for 4.5 hours without taking a nap
- She can sleep on her belly
- She can sit up like a champ!
- She can get places by rolling there (She discovered rolling is more fun than trying to crawl. We are working on it)
- EVERYTHING goes in her mouth
- She is eating 3 solid food meals a day plus nursing
- Some of her favorite foods so far are rice cereal, sweet potatoes and carrots
- Separation anxiety has set in - She screams if I leave the room!

Trying to get her to sit still for her 7 month photo shoot was difficult. Here is what I got!

Shopping Cart

Since the high chair at the restaurant went so well we decided to try a shopping cart tonight.



We used the same cover and went to Wal-Mart. She did great! I just clipped a toy to the cover and she was good to go for the hour we spent shopping. Wal-Mart trips won't be so hard now!

Another first

Friday night we meet Nick's family at Macaroni Grill for dinner. We decided to avoid one of us having to hold her the whole time and tried a high chair. We have a cool chair cover so we put it in the car. I also brought some food for Cali to eat at the table.

It turned out to be a success! She liked the high chair and played happily. We did have to put a sweatshirt in the chair behind her so she wouldn't move around too much. She ate well and kept us busy as she threw her toys on the floor.

11 Hours!!!

That's right Cali slept for 11 hours last night!!!
I put her down at 8pm and she got up at 7am ( had to wake her for work)! We didn't have to go in once!
We don't even know what to do with ourselves!

Escape

It seems like every Monday Cali does something new. One week is was rolling back and forth, another it was sitting up, and today it was this...



She is trying to pull herself up and OUT of the pack n play. The picture is fuzzy because I wanted to get the picture before she was successful in her climbing. Luckily gravity was on my side and she fell back into the pack n play with a huge grin on her face. She was so proud of her accomplishment.

We are in trouble!

Race Day

Nick and I started to run about 2 years ago. Nick has clocked the most miles and even has a 1/2 marathon under this belt. Since Cali arrived there has been limited training time. If either of us gets a run in during the week we are doing good!

Our church was sponsoring a local 5k/10k race so we decided it would be a good excuse to run. So we both signed up for the 5k. Dad had planned to run with us but had a mini surgery this past week to help heal his wound so he and mom watched.

Nick did great - ran the whole thing in around 30 minutes.

Cali and I did pretty well too! We ran the first 1.5 miles and walked/ran the rest of the race. We finished just under 40 minutes. Nothing to brag about other than we finished!

Pre-race family photo


Cali and I about to finish


Nick finishing the race

Nick's 30!

Thursday Nick turned 30!

It was a low key day filled with working. He did get birthday cake for breakfast though!

We had a birthday party for him with my side of the family today. We had lunch at Cracker Barrel and then came back to the house for cake, ice cream and presents.

Happy Birthday Honey! You make everyday wonderful!

Tired

There is a point during every evening where you either let the baby take a nap or push through till bedtime. Well the other night Cali was really sleepy at 6:30pm. I thought it was too late for a nap and was going to try to entertain her for another hour to keep her awake. Since she has been doing so well with the whole Ferber method of sleeping I didn't want to try to put down a non-sleepy baby. So I proceeded to clean up the kitchen. I turned around and found this...



Cali apparently did not think it was too late in the evening to take a nap. I took her out of the bumbo and held her so she could nap. She woke up around 8pm. We did our night time routine (rice cereal, nurse, book, sing) and she went down without a complaint.

Sleep Update

Here is how the rest of the weekend went with helping Cali sleep through the night.

Saturday
8:20pm - Feed Cali rice cereal
8:30pm - Nursed Cali, read a book, sang a song
8:45pm - Put awake Cali in the crib, no crying
8:50pm - Cali is asleep
12:28am - Cali is up crying, Nick goes in
12:33am - Cali is asleep
5:10am - Cali is up, Pam nurses her
8:05am - Cali is up for the day

Sunday
8:50pm - Same bedtime routine
9:18pm - Put awake Cali in her crib, no crying
2:50am - Cali is up crying, Nick goes in
2:56am - Cali is asleep
3:30am - Cali is up, Pam nurses her
8:30am - Cali is up for the day

Monday
8:20pm - Same bedtime routine
8:43pm - Put awake Cali in her crib, no crying

We don't know why we didn't do this sooner. But we are still waiting for a "bad" night.

6 month photos

We went to Portrait Innovations today to get 6 month pictures. Here are some of our favorites!

Sleep

We finally decided it was time to "help" Cali sleep through the night. She has been getting me up every 2-3 hours the past week or so and it has been making it really hard for me to function. 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night just isn't enough!

So with the suggestion of our pediatrician we went with the Ferber or Cry it Out method. I know a lot of people are firmly against it, sorry.

Friday night was "D-Day".

Here is how it went down:
9pm - Fed Cali rice cereal
9:15pm - Nursed Cali, read a story and sang a song
9:25pm - Lay awake Cali down in crib and leave, Cali cries
9:30pm - Pam checks on Cali - this made Cali scream louder!
9:35pm - Nick checks on Cali - Cali screams even louder!
9:42pm - Cali is asleep

2:17am - Cali wakes up, no crying, she goes back to sleep

3:14am - Cali wakes up, cries
3:19am - Nick checks on Cali - Cali cries harder
3:23am - Cali is asleep

5:10am - Cali wakes up, no crying
5:13am - Pam nurses Cali and changes her diaper
5:24am - Pam lays Cali down in the crib awake
5:24 and 30 seconds - After 30 seconds of crying Cali is asleep

8:30am - Cali is awake for the day

Overall not bad for our first night.

Homemade Baby Food - Attempt #1

Here is how I made homemade baby food - Butternut Squash

1- Buy fresh butternut squash (I had to ask the guy at the vegetable stand which one was a butternut squash)
2- Cut in half and take out the seeds
3-Bake "meat" side down in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes with an inch of water

4-Take meat out and place in blender with water, puree

5- Store in containers

6-Feed to baby


I was very proud of my first attempt and have to say the baby food tasted good. Cali is still on the fence about it though. I'll try it again in a few days.

Sippy Cup

At our 6 month Dr. visit he suggested we introduce a sippy cup. We have tried water and breast milk so far. As you can see from the pictures she LOVES it. However, she loves to PLAY with the sippy cup not drink from it. She knows how to get the liquid out and then drool/ spit it out. It is funny to watch! Once she has had her fun she does require a wardrobe change.



This one cracks me up!