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Because I just can't stand how cute she is!

12 Weeks

I can't believe it, my big girl is 12 weeks old. I hadn't planned a "photo shoot" for today, but maybe I should seeing that it's sort of a big day. :) Things are really going well. Kate is now very predictable, I call her my "clock baby." She eats literally every 2.5 hours on the dot. She eats, sits up for 30 minutes after eating, then lays on the floor and plays for about 45 minutes, gets crabby, I lay her down for a nap, she fusses for about 2-3 minutes, and then falls asleep. She sleeps for one hour, and wakes up exactly 2.5 hours after her previous bottle. Rinse and repeat all day long! She goes to bed every night between 8-9 pm, and sleeps for 11-12 hours. It's nice to have something so consistent.

Little Miss Kate is going to be quite the jet-setter. Over the weekend I booked us a trip to Minnesota for late September, and tonight, Jeff and I are going to book a trip to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. We have so many rewards points from our credit card that all these flights are going to be free! You can't beat that! We are so excited to see our friends the Broggis', who we originally met in Oklahoma, then they moved to Boston and us to Texas, now they are in Atlanta. They have a little boy Jack and just had another baby boy, Luke, in March. We joke that we're going to arrange a marriage for them, so we are excited for them to have their "first date." Aww how cute. :) And of course the trip to Minnesota will be so exciting because I will get to share Kate with all my friends and family up there.

But first is our trip to Chicago in less than 2 weeks! I CAN'T WAIT! I'm so excited to see Andrea, Steve, and Micah.

Edited later to add: So here are tonight's pictures of Kate. I didn't go through the effort of a photo shoot, but got some pictures of her bath & bedtime routine.







I'm such a mean mommy! She was ready for bed! But she's just so darn cute in her sleepers!

Kiddie Kandids

I was walking around Babies R Us last night buying Kate a couple sleep sacks, and a girl from Kiddie Kandids stopped me and said they have some new infant poses they're wanting to try out, and wanted to know if they could borrow Kate. For my trouble, they'd give me a free 5x7. I had some time to kill, so I said sure!

I'm sure they do that to everyone, and it's just a marketing scheme to get people in, but I didn't care! So they tried 2 poses on her, and here is what we got.





Then they also gave me a coupon for 30% any order and a free 8x10 collage if I come back within 30 days. I wanted to get 3 month pro pics done anyway, so I might just go there!

She Did It!

My big girl slept in a sleeper last night, no Sleepsack, sleep wedge or anything... She's growing up so fast! I really wasn't sure how she'd do, but she slept like a dream. I've been reading that babies need a distinct bedtime routine, but when we were swaddling, each nap was no different from bedtime. So now that she wears a sleeper to bed, I established a new routine. Plus, up until now, we've been rocking her to sleep for every nap and bedtime, and I decided yesterday that we need to stop doing that as well. So for her last 2 naps of the day, I just laid her down when she was ready for a nap. The first nap she fell right asleep! Wow. The second nap she fussed for 5 minutes 3 different times, so finally on the third time I had Jeff go rock her to sleep since I was cooking dinner. She went right out.

So last night I put her in the sleeper, went to the rocking chair, and read her "goodnight moon." Then I laid Kate in the crib, kissed her goodnight, and walked away. We heard 2 skwaks out of her, then the next time we went in to check on her, she was out. I told Jeff I couldn't believe how lucky we are.. he said "Well, let's see how nights 2 and 3 go before we think anything." So I guess he's right. But first of all I just can't believe how easy the transition from swaddle to sleeper was. I just decided on Thursday to start weaning! I guess she really was ready. She slept 11 hours. :)

So I'm still expecting a battle to work through with laying her down for naps without being rocked, but we're going to give it a shot! From what I've heard, sleep habits get really established at 3 months so I'm trying to work through all this before she hits that mark. The first nap of the day is underway without too much drama. I laid her down and left, she cried for about 5 minutes but then gave up and fell asleep. Good girl.

First Trip to Oklahoma

We took Kate to Oklahoma for the first time this weekend. Overall it went pretty well! On the way up, she cried for the last 20 minutes of the trip. Then of course, as we pulled onto the Blairs' street, she fell asleep. Figures. But it's nice to know that she does give up after a while, and decide that sleeping is better than crying.

She had fun and got to meet her Great Grandpa. Jeff took some pictures, but unfortunately he's not gifted in the area of photography, and the camera was on the wrong setting, but he snapped away anyway. The pictures came out so blurry you can't recognize either of them! Hopefully next time we can get some better pictures.

The drive home went about the same. Right around the 1.5-2 hour mark, she's had ENOUGH. We were nearing my parents' house at that time, so we picked up dinner and ate at their house, so Kate could get out of the carseat and stretch a bit. That seemed to work out well.

The biggest news of the day is that we are swaddle and sleep wedge FREE!!! Today is our first day without the swaddle blanket and wedge, and it's going amazingly well. She's had two successful naps sleeping in her Sleepsack. This is Kate when she woke up from her most recent nap.



It has been a much easier transition than I imagined it could be. It's wonderful to not be dependent on swaddling. I can't wait for the night when I put my baby in a sleeper and put her to bed! I might actually try that tonight and see how it goes!

Finally, Kate's first FLIGHT is booked!!! Kate and I are going to visit Uncle Steve, Anutie Andrea, and cousin Micah in Chicago from August 8 - 13. I'm a little nervous about flying alone with her, but she's really such a good baby that I'm not too concerned. I am so excited and can't wait to go.

Weaning From Swaddle & Swing

For the last week or two, when I've gotten Kate up in the morning, she had worked both arms out of her swaddle overnight. So, I decided to try taking her cue and begin the weaning process from her swaddle. (I'm scared to death!)

The other thing I decided to work on at the same time is getting her to nap in her crib. She sleeps in there at night like a dream (8-10 hours straight every night) but has been napping in her swing ever since 6 weeks.

So, here's her first nap of the day - it's going GREAT so far!! She didn't nap as long as she normally does, the first nap of the day, but it's a start! Fingers crossed!



And while I'm here, a couple pictures of Kate from today's photo shoot.

I'm in TROUBLE

Gymboree's new Fall line is "Pony Ranch." Our checkbook is about to take a hit...

Kate's New Mei Tai

A few days ago I finished Kate's new mei tai!



I love it. I even made a couple matching burp cloths! Lots of fun. Kate is doing better. Her original infected eye is just about cleared up, and her right eye is still going, but I think it's just taking the same course the left one did, so give it a couple more days. And she had her poop explosion on Friday night. I was on the computer and I heard Jeff yell "I think she pooped!" So we ran into the nursery for a tag-team diaper change. We began to clean her up, but... OOPS she wasn't done! Lovely. So we got a good laugh out of that diaper change. And since then she's been in a much better mood!

Today was Kate's first day in the nursery at church. I wasn't worried about a stranger handling/taking care of her, but my concern is that they don't know all of her idiosyncrasies and clues as to when she's ready for her food, play, sleep, etc, and exactly how to use her swaddle blanket and just how she likes to be rocked to sleep... I didn't want her in the nursery crying because her needs weren't being met correctly. So I gave instructions the best I could, and walked away hoping for the best. The nursery workers said she did great. I checked on her between Sunday School and the Worship Service, and she was doing fine. When I picked her up afterwards, she was asleep in a crib, so I guess they did something right! At home she only naps in the swing! Although lately I haven't tried to get her to nap in the crib, maybe I should try again. So all in all it went well!

Poor Thing.

Now it's the other eye. This picture just sums up Kate today.



She's crabby, overtired, but won't nap, hungry every 2 hours but spits up SO much after each feeding, and hasn't pooped in a week. She just needs to get it over with!

At least despite everything she can still be smiley. What a sweetie.

My Poor Baby!

Well, after ANOTHER trip to the pediatrician, Kate has an infected plugged tear duct.



It doesn't seem to bother her, but it looks so sad! I have an ointment to put in it 3x a day, and they said all we can do is hope that it un-plugs! Tears always run down her face, poor thing! I hope it unplugs! They said I can massage the area between the nose and eye a bit, but it's so tiny it's hard to get my finger in there!

She reacted to her shots amazingly well. She wasn't fussy at all, she was just more sleepy than usual for a couple days. What a trooper!

I had to edit this post to add... Breastmilk is such a miracle cure! I went on my mommy message board today talking about Kate's eye. They recommended putting a drop of breastmilk in her eye a few times a day, to clear up the infection, because breatsmilk has so many antibodies in it. At first I thought that sounded so unsanitary! But I looked it up, and it's perfectly safe. So I did. The picture above was taken this morning. And this following picture was taken less than 1 hour after the milk.



What a difference! The more I read online, some women say it was the only thing that cleared up the infection and unblocked the duct, despite medication. I'm a believer! Of course I'll continue with the ointment the Pediatrician gave us too.

Kate's 2 Month Checkup

We had Kate's 2 Month Checkup this afternoon.

She weighs 11 lb 8 oz, 60th Percentile.
She's 23.5 inches long, 90th percentile. My tall girl!
And her head (poor thing) is still really small, in the 15th percentile. Her head doesn't look small to me!

She also has the beginnings of cradle cap. The Ped told me to put baby oil on it once a day, and brush her scalp with the baby brush.

We were going to delay vaccinations, but knowing that Kate will be going into daycare, our Pediatrician really encouraged me to get them fully and on schedule, so she's totally protected from the other kids. So Kate got 3 shots. Man, that was rough. I have heard Kate's "pain" cry before, but never to that degree. I definitely cried! The nurse was sweet and handed me Kleenex, she told me she still cries when her kids get shots. :) She also said the nurses were fighting over who had to go in and give Kate the shots. No one wanted to do it! haha.

So I just ran out and got Kate some tylenol, so hopefully we'll keep her feeling good. She was smiley and cooing after her first nap after the shots (pre tylenol) so she seems to be handling it well.

In good news, Kate slept amazingly well last night. She went down at 8:30 pm and didn't wake up until this morning at 6:30 am! 10 Hours! Amazing!

Here is a picture of poor little Kate after her shots. I think you can see the bandaid on one of her thighs? They did shots on both of them. :(



And then, tonight we had our first mei tai outing! We went to Kroger. She loved it and zonked right out. I'm going to go buy a more girly fabric and make another one for her. I just had this one laying around from when I was making them a lot a couple of years ago.

Two Months Old

My little Kate is 2 months old today! Where does the time go? Our 4th of July was pretty good. We hung out with friends for the day. Daddy even got to change his first explosion diaper! She got poop all over her pretty white 4th of July onesie. Oh well. At least she got to wear it for the day! I have it marinating in Stain Stick - we'll see if it comes out or not. If not, then we have another "bedtime onesie" to add to the pile. :) The bad part of the 4th of July was that people all over our neighborhood were putting off fireworks last night, freaking the dogs out, and keeping Kate awake. It took forever to get her to sleep with all the booms and light right outside her window.

Happy 4th of July!

Oh The Explosions

Kate has reached the "I'm only pooping once a week" stage. Her first major explosion was last Thursday, all over the car seat I might add... And had her second one today. It took 11 wipes to get her cleaned up! haha. Daddy hasn't been home for one of these diapers... Hopefully someday he will. They're wonderful. hehe. She is going to kill me someday for this entry. But the good news - she must have felt better because she took a 2 hour nap after that diaper change! :)

Cherries Jubilee

It's so fun that Kate is getting bigger, and starting to fit into her 3 month outfits. She gets to wear something new almost every day! Here's today's new outfit.



And to show the full cuteness:



I think the Fenugreek is helping my milk supply already. At each pumping session I'm getting about 25% more than I was before. So that's great! I even had enough to freeze my first milk in about 3 weeks! The weirdest thing about Fenugreek that I didn't know before is that it is often used in flavoring maple syrup. It's known to make you smell like maple syrup, and I sure do! Kellymom.com said that it can also make your milk and/or baby smell like maple syrup, but I haven't noticed it on Kate yet. Strange!