Newsletter--10 months

Dear Lylah,

 I know, I know. I say this every month. But HOW? How are you 10 months old? In my mind you are like 6 months old. But people ask how old you are and I have to say 10 months. People guess a year all the time, because you are not small. You are adorably chunky. I don't mind if people say chunky, but chubby bothers me. You are just healthy! Breastfed babies are just chunky. And healthy. :)

Somewhere along the line, I became this tree-hugger, natural parent. Did not see that coming. I hate disposable diapers. Hate them with all my heart. It physically hurts me to put you in one. I can't stop thinking about the chemicals in them. And how that diaper will sit in a landfill for 500+ years just because I didn't walk down the hall and grab a fresh one out of the dryer. But that's a whole other post. And I am big on breastfeeding. Want everyone to do it. And I cannot decide when to stop. At least 1 year, if not 18 months. I just think it is so important. And you have not been sick ONCE.

Okay back to you.

You are so fun. You are a social butterfly. You love the nursery at church. Any place where you are free to roam, crawl, and cruise, you are a happy girl.

You say Da-da, ma-ma, ba-ba, ly-la (la-la), book, yes (it sounds like yaoass), and...hmm...other gyberish. You say "keko" and "de-go, de-go..." so cute. It's your own little language. You just babble to yourself and it just warms my heart.

Every day you wake up between 7-8. 8:15 at the latest. You nurse, then have your independent play time in your pack n' play. I used to do it after your solid breakfast, but then I discovered you do better before. This is great because I can take a minute to wake up and get ready a little. Ha, who are we kidding. I only get ready if we are going somewhere.

Then you eat. For breakfast you have cereal or oatmeal, apple sauce and a piece of bread cut up. And water and maybe a little juice. After breakfast, you play with me, or we go out. We make sure we are home before 10am, which is your nap time. I usually clean, edit pictures or watch TV during your nap. After your nap, which can be 45 min-1.5 hours you eat again. For lunch you have fruits and maybe veggies. Then we play somemore, then you nap again at 2pm. That nap usually is 1-2 hours. 2.5 if I really wear you out. Then for dinner it's veggies and whatever else we have. :) You go down for the night between 7-8 depending on your nap.

You go down fairly easy. We still let you cry. I am big on being consistent. I don't want you to think that sometimes I'll come if you cry hard enough. Not that I let you scream for hours. If you cry for 20 minutes, I go get you. But usually you conk out pretty quickly. But lately, you just give a few little cries and you are out. You've started sleeping with your bum in the air, which I think is too cute.

I can't believe I am planning your birthday party. Where did the time go?

Peek-a-boo!

Favorite Things:

The dogs

Your book Mimi gave you

Anything shiny

Baths

Yogurt buttons

Daddy in the mornings

Books

We love you, Peanut Butter!

Mom

Newsletter--9 months

Dear Lylah, 

This has been by far the craziest month we've had yet! We went to Australia to see Gramps and Gigi. You were such a trooper! You were the best travel baby. I will post more about Australia later. But just know this, you had a great time. You loved hanging out on the plane, meeting people and seeing Gramps and Gigi of course. 

Jet lag induced here...

You had a little trouble adjusting to time back in the states. You have been standing up in your bed for a few days, and you have forgotten how to put yourself to sleep. Daddy discovered a magic method of keeping you in your crib and patting you. You fall right to sleep. Oh Daddy. 

Sleepy eyes

Still loving your baths. You are all over the tub and Daddy freaks out. Mommy lets you crawl...I figure you will learn. You just love the letters in the bath and splashing. And screaming. You also love books. Oh do you love books. That would be your toy of choice, definitely. 

Bath time 

Your Daddi graduated at the end of last month and got his masters. You were pretty good. I had to walk around with you for a while. It was too long for you. And me. :) 

During Daddy's Graduation

You are so curious. You are everywhere. You don't mind playing by yourself. You find everything. I will hide something behind my back, and you will start playing with something else....then somehow you find whatever I hid. You are TOO smart!

We got your a swing for our backyard time. At the new house our backyard is awesome, and the dogs love it. We go outside in the evenings and throw the balls for the dogs. You sit and watch and squeal. 

Loving your new swing

Love your Great-grands!

In Australia....hiking in the Daintree Rainforest. You are so happy in your carrier!

You are standing by yourself. What? I don't know how you pick this stuff up so quick. You can easily manuever yourself around any room. You crawl on your knees and then if there is tile and you have nothing on your knees, you switch to this cute crab crawl. So smart. If you REALLY want something, you do this hop crawl. You are just so cute!

You have 4 teeth now. Teething on our trip was interesting, but you did well. 

Feeding yourself

Your new trick is clapping! It's so fun. The "Oh!" I make at the end is cause you make a big toot. 

People ask me all the time why you are so happy! I love that. You love people. You smile at everyone. You still wave at people and you will go to anyone. I just took you to check the mail in the stroller and you waved at every car that went by. I couldn't make this stuff up!

We love you so much Peanut. You add so much to our lives. We miss you when you sleep. We love you so much!!

Love, 

Mom

STTN, my favorite acronym

When you become a Mom, you suddenly learn all of these new acronyms. How the heck do you spell that? Thank goodness for spell check. Anyway, acronyms. LO. (little one?) STTN. (Sleep through the night) LOL (laugh out loud. I did know that one.) You will literally see Facebook posts that say:

My LO went AWOL to get her AIO. Help!

And I'm like wha?

I met a woman this week who told me she had 6 C-sections. I responded: "Umm..I don't know what to say to you."

Anywho, back to my favorite acronym.

STTN. Sleeping through the night.

How did I do it? I don't, for the life of me, know.

What do I know? Not much. I know it is way to late to be starting this blog post.

Shall I finish it?

I will recommend Babywise. The cover says "give your child the gift of night time sleep."

And that we did.

Do I follow it? Yes. EXACTLY? No.

But my baby sleeps. A lot.

That is all.





for now.

These are a few of Lylah's Favorite Things

MIRRORS

AUNT K

EASTER EGGS

LOUNGING WITH HER PACI

THE CAMERA

Newsletter-- 7 months

Dear Lylah,

What a crazy month! We moved. Eek. We made it, though. We lived with Memaw for a bit in Ponca City and then we finally settled into Stillwater, OK. Aka Podunk. Where there is a lot of orange. Which is very hard on this Sooner-lovin' Momma. But you don't care. You're too cute for it to matter right now.

As I say every month, how can you be 7 months? Every morning, as I make coffee, I look up and see this beautiful little girl wanting to eat oatmeal....How did you get so big? And how are you ours? We love you so deeply. We spend the evenings watching you army crawl and laughing at you.

You are such a good girl! Cashiers always comment on how good you are. We just started putting you in the cart instead of your carrier, and you think it is a ride at Disneyworld! You just smile and laugh and wave at people. That's one of your new things...waving. I can't wait till you can say Hi! with your wave. It's coming, I can tell. 

You are always up for a photoshoot. You don't mind it at all. You love being outside, so it's perfect for us both. I snap pictures with you look around, grab rocks and just smile. You are so fun! 

You still love baths and love to talk. You have a new love...HATS!
My Mom, your Mimi took a picture of you in a hat and.... it's so weird...This picture could be from my babybook! CRAZY.

You got your first tooth at the end of March...18th? And your next tooth promptly followed. See below. You haven't bit us yet. But you love to eat, so these teeth help!

Right now you eat three times a day. In the morning you have oatmeal and apple sauce. For lunch you have your veggies. You eat some oatmeal and usually some avocado. Today you are trying winter squash! If I can figure out how to use the food processor. For dinner you have Sweet potatoes, and some barley. You also eat bananas, but just every few days. 

You are definitely a Harms! You sleep 12-14 hours a night! Whoa! The Kellys do not sleep. So you are definitely sleeping like a Harms, which I am very thankful for. You are such a sweet girl. We love you so so so so so much! I have lots of cute Easter pictures, that I will post soon!

Your favorite things: 

1. Hippo squeeky toy

2. watching the puppies or Daddy in the backyard

3. eating

4. being outside

5. meeting people

6. riding in the car

We love you!!

Mom and Dad

Lylah & Santa are BFFs

I love that double chin so much!

:)

My Favorite Things

Yup, just like Oprah. I interrupt these posts about Lylah, to bring you my current favorite things. Well, they are about Lylah because I use them with her.

1. ItzBeen

A friend recommended this, and I love it! You can put in what time you started feeding, and it helps you keep track. You can also track how long baby has been sleeping and how long since the last diaper change. I use the feeding one the most. When we first got home from the hospital we used the star button for my pain medication. Great invention!

2. My Breast Friend

I first saw this on TV. Bethany Frankel was using it on Bethany Getting Married. (love!) I googled it, and thought it looked interesting. At our Breastfeeding class at the Hospital, the lactation specialist recommended it. She said that many women had told her it made the difference for them being successful with nursing. And I have to say, I love it. It stays on your waist if you need to stand up while nursing (holding baby of course). It has a little pocket on the side to hold your ItzBeen, and snacks. I usually have some candy stashed there. I love it. If you are planning to breastfeed, you need it and it is worth the price.

more info



3. My Babywise Book

Yes, I'm one of those. I love Babywise. Ryan got the book when I was pregnant and made me read it. It's awesome! It has helped Lylah be able to sleep 7 hours a night, which is beyond amazing. You can read more about Babywise here: www.babywisemom.com

4. Little Einstein Piano toy 

A church friend gave us this toy at a shower and it is Lylah's favorite. She has even started pressing the keys! So cute. I need to video it. Absolutely love this toy, love the music and Lylah loves the flashing lights and colors.

5.  Woombie

Uh, this is not Lylah, btw.

Lylah sleeps in a woombie allllll the time. We started out swaddling her, but she always broke out, no matter what we did. Remember this? My friend Susan had used this with her daughter, so I went and bought one at the Nappy Shoppe. Then I bought another. It's great because she can move her arms around because it is stretchy, but she can't wake herself up with her arms. And saying "woombie" is just plain fun.


So there you go. No one asked, but these are my current favorite baby things.

Lylah's First Halloween

I wasn't planning on doing much for Halloween. I have never been a huge fan of the holiday, because I usually wind up eating way too much candy. Plus, we could never top this costume. But I wanted to dress Lylah up as something....I just didn't know what. Then my Mom gave us a little bear hoodie that my sisters and I wore as babies, so I thought we would use that.

Cute, right? :)

Then, I made a trip to Gymboree. I had a giftcard, and needed to buy tiny little black shoes for our Family Pictures. On my way out the door, I saw the clearance rack and decided to take a peek. What I found was this awesomeness...

I love that little lobster! And for my fellow FRIENDS obsessed friends...."She's our lobster!"
See this video for reference.... totally worth it...

We went over to the Browns house and went down the street to a few houses. Lylah was a trooper...anytime Ryan is holding her, she is happy as a clam lobster. (See what I did there?)

This was right before she conked out. It was so fun to have someone to take around at Halloween, even if she had no idea what was going on. It's only going to get more fun! Crazy to think how big she will be at the next Halloween. 

We love this lobster!

2 month Newsletter

Dear Lylah,

We've definitely had a fun month! You are getting more and more interactive, and we will do anything to see you smile. You make the absolute cutest noises. You went to the doctor last week and you just "coo"ed and "gee"ed at the Doctor. I never knew I could be so proud of someone! We also had to get your two month shots, which was absolutely NO fun. I hate hearing you cry, and especially when you cry hard. AND, I forgot your pacifier! So I was mad at the nurse for making you cry and mad at myself for forgettin the paci! Ha. But you calmed down after they were over and slept the whole way home.

We got some family pictures taken and you were an angel! You didn't fuss once. After we took the pictures we even got to eat out at Babe's (YUM!) and you just slept. You are such a good baby! I can take you anywhere. You had your first meltdown at Target, and it was amazing how much faster the service is when you are holding a fussing baby. You really weren't that bad, but everyone around you was nervous. A lady offered to push my cart, and the cashier loaded my purchases in my cart for me. It was pretty nice. Thanks for that. :)

This morning I took you to a Stroller Strides class where we exercised. Well, I did. It was my first hard workout since having you. But, I was very thankful...you would fuss right as I was getting tired and I'd give you your paci, and it was a welcome break. Once or twice I just pretended you were fussy. Don't tell the instructor.

You are a pretty good napper and a great eater. At night you have been doing pretty well. You will give us a 6 or a 7 hour stretch, which is awesome. But after that you will only give me 2.5 to 3 hours, which is okay because then it's time to get up. I think you are going to be an early riser. I like mornings and all, but not so much when I am not getting a lot of sleep. :) Daddy helps with you at night so much. He will give you a bottle if I need him to, and if I ask he'll put you back to sleep for me after I feed you. He's the best.

You were a lobster for Halloween and you were so cute!

Your favorite things to do are stare at the hanging items on your playmat, sing with us (We'll we sing, you stare and smile), skype with Gramps and Gigi in Australia, go for stroller walks, and be held (especially when Daddy holds you and pats you). We love to sing "You are my Sunshine", "The Hokey Pokey" and "Super Bass". Yup, Nicki Minaj.

This month I started teaching piano again. Daddy comes home early to be with you. I miss you, but it's not for too long. I have been taking pictures again for a month or so now, so I've had good practice. It's not fun to be away from you, but I know it is healthy. Plus you love spending time with your Daddy.

You are just an absolute joy! I hold you after feeding you and just repeat over and over again how much I love you. Cause I do. I can't get enough of you. I love spending the day with you. When you nap, I miss you. I am so blessed that God gave you to us. We love you so much.

Love,
Mom

2 Months

"Wait a minute... how often are we doing this?"

"Every month?!?"*

*Oh you KNOW she gets her picture taken way more than once a month. Te he he.

Newsletter to come....

I can't get enough of this little baby girl