8 Months Old!

Today my baby girl turned 8 months old!!!  Didn't I tell you she's growing like a weed and time has flown?!?!?!?!?!  Here are some facts about my baby girl at 8 months:
-Emslee still cannot crawl forwards.  She can however crawl backwards like a pro!  It is very frustrating to her that she can't get to the toy she wants and moves farther away from it.  She is pulling herself up on furniture and mommy and daddy and can stand for a minute at a time while holding onto something!  This is why I think she'll be walking soon!  Lord help me!!!
-Emslee is sleeping 11-12 hours a night!  This is SO nice for her and mommy! 
-Emslee's hair is really starting to grow!  It's getting thicker and and so far staying blonde!
-She is babbling all the time now and can say "momma", however I'm not fully convinced that it means me lol.  She also loves to fake cough for attention and will mimic you if you do it back to her.  She loves the "b" sound and still squeals when excited! 
-Emslee is wearing clothes anywhere from 6 months up to 12 months!  She wears mostly 9-12 months, but can still squeeze into a few select 6 month outfits.  It's crazy to me that she is growing so fast! 
-Emslee LOVES to dance now (if you call bouncing up and down dancing)!!  Anytime she hears music she likes she will start bouncing to the beat!  Mommy and daddy are SO glad she loves music as much as we do!
-Her favorite foods are squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, mixed berries, milk, and turkey.  She is slightly orange due to her vitamin A intake lol!
-Emslee still has no teeth and is teething like crazy!  I hope for her sake, and mine, that she gets them in soon! 
-Emslee's favorite toys are her keys, nesting cups, leapfrog dog, and musical bird.  Although she really enjoys playing with the tags on anything she finds! 
-Emslee loves to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune (though now she can't because she goes to bed at 7).  Seriously, though, she will stop whatever she's doing to watch and so we think she's a brilliant baby ha ha!

Emslee Grace, your mommy and daddy love you very much!  We are so proud to be your parents and we thank God for blessing us with you!  You are a sweet, loving, and fun little girl!!!!!  We love you!!

Water Baby!

If you know Emslee, you know that she doesn't giggle very often.  It takes something extra special to elicit a giggle.  If you remember the "ripping paper" post you heard her giggle, but she no longer finds that funny.  Likewise, while she is giggling over water splashing on her belly, alas it is no longer funny anymore :(  At least we have it on camera!  I've watched this video at least 10 times and it's the best!  I hope one day she'll giggle more frequently so I can stop watching the video and see it live ha ha!

Sleep Training

Emslee has never really been on a sleep routine.  It is fully my fault, but I have some "good" reasons why I never started.  I nurse Emslee and I have become her "pacifier" (which I said I would never allow to happen).  Whenever she would wake up in the middle of the night I would make excuses for her that she must be hungry (breastmilk does digest quicker than formula), having gas pains, teething, etc.  The same goes for napping.  If she wasn't sleeping it was because she was hungry, not feeling well, etc.  Emslee does not take a pacifier.  She only took one while we were at the hospital and for whatever reason would not take it once we got her home.  I have tried so many times to get her to take one, but it doesn't work.  Most people would say enjoy it, because you won't have to break the habit later.  I say it sure would make getting her to sleep through the night much easier.  Emslee has always made her nap schedule and bed time.  We just figured she liked to be up late (10-11 pm).  It was always "nurse her to sleep and then HOPE that she doesn't wake up when you lay her down".  If she did wake up then I'd have to nurse her to sleep again and try it once more.  This is exhausting and most nights led to me sleeping with her on the couch when she'd wake in the middle of the night. 

Our trip to North Carolina was a wake up call for me and Joshua (though he never gets up with her at night).  Emslee was up a minimum of 4-6 times a night and ended up sleeping with us in our bed every evening.  Part of that was she was out of her environment, but most of it was she was taught (inadvertently by me) that when she wakes at night I will nurse her back to sleep.  When we visited our friends Brent and Kaylyn for a few days we were amazed that their daughters (one 3, the other a month older than Emslee) went to bed at 7 and slept until 7.  Nap times were scheduled and the girls understood that when they were laid down it was time for bed.  They fussed a little initially, but gave in quickly, knowing that they weren't getting up.  So we asked Kaylyn and Brent what the "secret" was and decided right then and there that as soon as we got home we were changing everything we had been doing!  Emslee would no longer be in control of sleep times, we would.

Here is what we do:  Emslee goes to bed at 7 and take naps at 9-10 am, 1-2 pm, and 4 (give or take on the times). We have created a bedtime routine where we read her a couple stories, change her diaper, put her in her pjs and then I nurse her. As she's falling asleep while nursing I take her off and lay her in her crib. I have started giving her a little blanket with a lamb attached to it to give her a new sleep association, other than me. Then I kiss her, tell her it's night night time, turn on soft music and leave the room. She cries....and this is very hard for me, but I let her cry.We've done this for 9 nights now and the longest she's cried is 40 minutes. Then she drifts off to sleep. If she wakes up in the middle of the night (which has only happened a few nights), I go in give her her lamb blanket, turn on her music, tell her it's night night time, kiss her and leave. She cries for about 15 minutes, but goes back to sleep. It's all about changing yourself as her sleep association and replacing it with something else (like a blanket, paci, etc.).  She is now sleeping 11-12 hours a night and did it from the first day we started!  It was like she was waiting for us to just put her to bed and let her sleep.

This has given Josh and I alone time every evening for a few hours before we go to bed and it's been so good for us!   Emslee is also a much happier baby!  Here is a link to site I read before I started.  It was a huge help in addition Bren and Kaylyn!
http://www.sleepthroughnight.com/

Oh, and now I can say I am SO happy she doesn't take a pacifier, because that's one habit I won't have to break lol!

Pretty in Red

Seriously this girl needs to stop growing so fast!  She's such a pretty girl (though I may be biased) and I love her so much!!!

Picnic at the Park

This weekend Josh and I took Emslee to have lunch at the park.  We had a good time!  We also ventured to the library and found out that they have "baby time" on Thursdays with songs/stories/finger plays for babies and I am SUPER excited to take Emslee!  I'll post about how it goes :)  Here are some pictures from the park!

A Couple of Pictures from North Carolina

 Kaylyn's daughter Emmeline (who's a month older) and Emslee.

We didn't take a lot of pictures since we spent the majority of our vacation inside.  I'll have to download some photos dad sent me later and post those.

We're still here!

Sorry I've taken so long to update...I've been busy and preoccupied with other things.  Here are some updates from the last month!

-Josh and I traveled up to North Carolina for his spring break at the beginning of March!  We got to visit with my dad and our friends Brent and Kaylyn and their 2 little girls.  We had a lot of time to chat and sit around since it rained everyday but 2.  We did get to go to the mountains one day, but due to the cold and rainy weather we couldn't see them as it was SO foggy.  Bummer!  We enjoyed spending time with family and catching up with friends!  Emslee had a very hard time sleeping.  Thanks to Brent and Kaylyn we learned how to sleep train her and got on that as soon as we got home (see more in another post).  Josh's parents let us borrow their van to use on our trip and it was a huge blessing!  We were able to take Emslee out to feed her, let her play, and nurse her, yet keep the van moving.  We didn't want to make the trip any longer than it had to be (10 hours).  She did really well traveling and slept 6 hours each way.
-Josh interviewed for a position at a graphic design company.  We were so excited at the opportunity this would give us to pay off debt faster and save up for a home.  Unfortunately, they told him that they could not hire him without a degree.  He is on track to graduate in December.  For now we are trusting God to provide for us and teach us patience.  He likes his current job, but it's not a dream job for him and doesn't have any room for growth.  We know the Lord will provide him a dream job one day!
-Emslee is growing like a weed!  She's around 18lbs right now and somewhere between 26-27 inches long.  She turns 8 months on Wednesday and I'll post some more specific updates then.
-I am just enjoying my time at home with her.  Being a stay-at-home mommy is so rewarding and such a blessing!

I think that's the major things.  Hopefully I'll be a little better about updating more often!