Christmas Dress

Looking back over our Christmas photos, I realized that we didn't really have a lot of great photos of Lyla in her full Christmas dress with her fancy shoes and all. By the time we were ready to take pictures on Christmas day, her diaper had leaked causing us to remove her tights...and her fancy shoes just wouldn't stay on without the tights. So I decided to dress her up in her Christmas outfit one last time and snap some pictures. The dress was a little small for her when we bought it, however I noticed that even though it has only been a few weeks since Christmas, the buttons on her dress were almost about to pop!

Sleep Update

Well it has been two weeks since we started Lyla's "Sleep Challenge"! She isn't exactly "sleeping through the night", but things are soooo much better than they were two weeks ago. The thing that changed the most was they way Lyla goes down for bed in the evening. No more tears at bed time for Lyla...or us. I am no longer nursing her to sleep (which honestly, I didn't realize I was truly doing...or maybe I was just in denial) and she goes down in her crib awake but very tired. Now, we read her a story before bed, say our last goodnight, and she drifts off to slumber land all on her own without a peep. We are still totally amazed by this each night.
She is still waking up once in the night...but we figure it will eventually get easier. At least it's just once and not three times. I'm not sure what our next step will be...I guess we will keep trying with what we are doing and hope for the best. Maybe she just needs a little more time than two weeks...

Balloon

Lyla LOVES balloons.
Loves them!
Today her Granny brought her one from the grocery store and she took it everywhere she went.






When we were feeding her dinner she kept looking over her shoulder. I thought she was watching me make dinner, but then Amber pointed out that she was staring at her balloon which was in the living room. Once we brought it to the dinner table she was able to focus on eating her veggies!





















Then she took it to the living room to play for a bit!
















She even took it with her to her bath!





















She probably would have loved to take it to bed with her, but we had to draw a line somewhere.

Crazy weather

You gotta love our weather here! Yesterday we were all bundled up as it was one of the coldest days we've had this winter. Lyla was wearing a thick coat to keep her warm as we ran a quick errand. She wasn't too happy about the coat because she couldn't move around in it.






















Today we were outside swinging in the sunshine!

















The forecast shows that tomorrow will be a lovely 70 degrees or more! I love it! This will give us a chance to get out and work in the garden before it turns cold again!

Lyla's 2 week sleep challenge!

One of the most popular questions we get about Lyla is, "Is she sleeping through the night?" Before we had Lyla, I probably asked this question to lots of new moms as well. Now I know why I got all of those dirty looks. From now on I will just bite my tongue...when asked this question, my eye begins to twitch.
Perhaps it is because I am so darn tired!
So no, Lyla isn't exactly "sleeping through the night" which was okay for a while. She was getting up once, maybe twice and it was fairly easy to get her to go back to sleep. But then things changed...she has started waking up 3-4 times in the night crying her little eyes out and the only things that will calm her down and get her back to sleep are rocking and nursing. So that is what we have been doing lately. This isn't really working for us though as we are all exhausted. So I checked out some books from the library to get some ideas of what might work for us to help our June bug (and us) get a good nights sleep. The book I liked the best is called Sleeping Through the Night by Jodi Mendell as her plan to help baby sleep fit in most with what Amber and I are comfortable with. The whole idea is that if you can help baby learn to fall asleep on their own, then they will be able to sooth themselves back to sleep when they wake up in the night...pretty much common sense right. I guess the reason we like this plan so much is that when baby wakes up in the middle of the night, you are encouraged to continue doing the same things to get her back to sleep (rocking and nursing). Which even though we are so very tired, we enjoy doing. So Mendell says that a majority of babies will be sleeping better in the night by two weeks. We started this plan on Dec. 31st, so check back by Jan 13 to see if Lyla agrees with Dr. Mendell.

Look who's talking

I managed to catch some video of our little chatterbox!

Hello 2009!

Happy New Year! We are all so excited about the new year ahead of us full of possibility, happiness, and lots and lots of laughter! This is going to be an amazing year!