a trip to the park

In Lititz Springs, PA. We took a day trip here to meet up with Mike and Gabrielle while we were visiting Steve's parents in PA. The other reason was to visit Amish country... which I'd never been to! Steve had, but apparently had gone on a Sunday and said everything was closed... hmmmmm... LOL!

Anyways, we saw a couple buggies and went to a pretty great buffet full of the best homemade food, it was simply delicious. Eliza ate her carrots and spinach and then proceeded to try and fall asleep sitting up in the high chair... Grandma R rescued her though and she was able to take a nap while the rest of us finished lunch ;)

Here is a view of the duckie river walk. Well, that's what I call it :) There were LOTS of ducks! And Eliza likes ducks. The truth is, she hasn't met an animal that she doesn't like yet. I'm sincerely hoping that her enthusiastic animal love isn't ruined by some nasty dog one day, or some other unfriendly pet :/

 

We paid a quarter (or two) in a gum ball style duck food dispensing machine so that we could feed the ducks some treats. They had clearly been eating a lot that day as they weren't super interested in what we had to offer. That, or the "duck food" was really guinea pig food and the ducks were just holding out for stale bread ;) Regardless, Eliza seemed to enjoy the quacking, and so did we :)



Eliza doesn't mind being in the grass. She will sit in it or roll around. She is happy whatever the case. And if she comes across a leaf or weed, she is most happy to taste it and possibly ingest it. Sometimes she comes inside and I notice the heels of her socks are dirty... from all the kicking she does when she's excited about all the treasures she finds... LOL!



Our visit was the perfect type of weather. It was cooler, but not too cool. And on the same token not too warm either! It was basically ideal :) We also visited the Wilbur chocolate factory and got some goodies... nomnomnom!

trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house

It was two weekends ago already that we made another visit to Grandma and Grandpa R's house in PA. Both Steve and I forgot our cameras! So I stole the ones posted on facebook for this post :)

This trip down was probably the easiest we've had so far as far as longer road trips go. She is finally sleeping better in her car seat, although still doesn't sleep much longer than 30 minutes. I'm not sure if it's just because she is a light sleeper or if she's not very comfortable, but putting her in the car seat has never been a sure fire way to get her to sleep ha! She screamed the whole way home from the hospital in fact...

At any rate, while we were there, so were Sarah and Devin. We went to Lititz Springs on Saturday which is in Lancaster County and there are some pictures of that in a separate post. The Saturday evening we spent just hanging at the house and watching a movie and eating good food :) Good memories being made! That night was also when this happened ;)

 

As you may be able to tell from the picture above, Eliza loves her cousins Calli and Clover. You should see how very excited she gets when they walk in the room. Especially after it's been a few weeks since she's seen them ;)

Clover really does like Eliza and gives her lots of kisses, but you'd never be able to tell by this picture... since she looks like she is a 5 year old only posing for the pic under threat of torture.



Uncle Devin and Eliza played together and it was adorable. There really isn't much more to say that these pics don't!









 

Auntie Sarah just loves the little smoosh! I am so happy that Sarah is able to see her so often, even though they live on Long Island I would say we've been able to see each other about once a month (or more!) since Eliza was born! Do you see Clover's paw on the right side of the picture above? HA!



Ahh yes, the family picture ;)

 

Grandma and the grandbaby and grandpets ;) this always makes me laugh :)

pumpkin tastes like squash

As fall begins to settle upon us, the pumpkins have returned! I just love pumpkins. They are tasty and delicious as well as super cute decorations... they truly mean fall :) And currently, fall is my favorite season.

I am pretty terrible at actually documenting things that I want to blog about at a future date. What usually happens is I have a picture and think oh I will blog about this. But what I would like to do is be totally with it enough to take detailed pictures and post "how-to's" even though I don't really give a care if anyone reads it, it's just fun to me!

Anyways, all that to say, the other day when I was making up some pumpkin puree for Eliza, I actually had the thought to take a few pics... and there's only 3, with no evidence of the final product. Deal.

I started off pre-heating the oven to 350. I then cut the pumpkin in half, scooped out the seeds and set it on a cookie sheet with about a half inch of water. I made sure to pick up the pumpkin halves so that water could get on the inside and create the steam that would make it soft!

 

I threw it in the oven (ok, so I didn't throw it, because that would have been a hot mess, but rather I gently placed it in the oven) for around 45 minutes, I didn't set a timer because I forgot.

When I looked in and saw that the pumpkin had caved in on itself I figured it was done. And it was!

So I scooped out the insides with a spoon and put it in the food processor.



I have a KitchenAid food processor and it has a smaller bowl with smaller blade attachment that sits in the top of it. It is amazing and perfect for making baby food! If I had to use the big section of the food processor I would have to make larger portions to make it puree properly. But this smaller bowl is great and lets me make just the right amount.



So basically I pureed it all up which didn't take very long because it was so soft and then scooped it into ice cube trays and froze. It tastes exactly like butternut squash. I am serious. Seriously, the only reason I think people don't make that association is because pumpkin is usually prepared as something on the sweeter side. Well, add pumpkin pie spice to some butternut squash and voila, same taste again. So weird.

instagram phone dump 3

I love these phone dumps because it gives me a chance to document more day-to-day type things that I may not really think to do a whole post on.

So here we go again!

::



Here we have Eliza hanging out in the cargo compartment of our new jetski! Don't worry, it's not like we won the lottery and all of a sudden can afford this super fantastic toy ;) It doesn't run, needs a lot of work. But hopefully Steve will have it all fixed up by next summer and we will be cruising around the lake! Eliza is very interested in everything related to this jetski though, including helping Daddy diagnose the engine problems ;) Too bad it will be quite a few years before she will be allowed to ride it!



Lately, as part of my initiative to get Eliza to take 1-2 longer naps instead of 3-4 short ones, we have been going on a nice morning walk. She usually chills out majorly, to the point of almost sleeping, but usually not actually going to sleep. This is proof of her enthusiasm each morning ;) She really does enjoy the walks, we have a lot of fun.



Bath time has become a lot more fun around here now that she can reliably sit up on her own! And since she loves the water, it has now become a time where I set her in the tub with a few toys and sit outside the tub reading or whatever. But we chat some while she's in there, in between splashes ;) She is a hoot!



In my efforts to keep her up longer in the morning and extend her midday nap (which has been working by the way! Several days in a row of 2 hour + naps = success) I have had to wake her several times. It is a very sad time for her when that happens, so I try very hard to not let her actually fall asleep. However, this is a time that she did indeed fall asleep and I was trying to wake her. She was very unhappy with me... but she gets over it so quickly, and then I see a face like below ;)



Another picture on our morning walk :)



Meet Bait and Eleanor. They are two of Eliza's best friends. And the two that receive the most "love." She chews and sucks on them constantly. They are quite crusty. So they received baths and were all clean and presentable for our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's last weekend :)



Daddy reading stories to Eliza at G & G's house before bed. This book has a scritchy scratchy hedgehog in it, which makes it my favorite boook. I think it might be Eliza's favorite too ;)



Then on the way home from G & G's Sunday afternoon she took a much needed long(er) nap. Normally in the car, she will nap for no more than 30 minutes. It is so frustrating at times. However, this one she managed to squeak out an hour and a half and that made me happy... because she is not a happy girl when she doesn't nap long enough :/



I've already posted half of this picture, but I decided I wasn't going to leave out any of my instagram posts. I quite like my fall decorations. I just remembered I have a glass pumpkin I'll have to bust out too and fill with some sort of goody goodness aka delicious candy.

sugar high for a baby girl

Last night Steve and Hoa took the boat the the jet ski out for what may be the last spin. Eliza and I didn't go because honestly, the work to fun ratio when taking her to the boat launch isn't in my favor. I instead met them afterwards for some dinner at Bill Gray's.

I am apparently a sucker for advertising because seeing chocolate covered waffle cones dipped in rainbow sprinkles was enough to make me want one. Even though I really wasn't all that hungry and had already had some ice cream that same day. I decided to get one, and almost immediately regretted it. Abbott's is just a plain rip off in my opinion! I mean, I know they are like a Rochester tradition/staple, but that does not give them an excuse to charge ridiculous prices for not very much mediocre ice cream. (ya ya go ahead and flame me, I know it's custard. I don't care, it's not amazing or anything!)

Eliza was of course eagle eyeing my cone as soon as I sat down so I gave her a tiny taste. Which produced the following.

What to do with a baby stinkastoo?!?!

before I forget...

This morning, as I was feeding Eliza her first breakfast at 6:45, she finished up and proceeded to roll herself away from me a bit and rest happily on the pillow beside me. As if to say, "Yes Mommy, I am all done eating, now we can go back to sweep." HA! This is a normal occurrence, but what was so funny about this morning was that as I was just looking at her thinking how grown up she looked laying there beside me like a big girl, she woke all of a sudden and with one eye open gave me a side smile. I went to pick her up and she just giggled at me, like she was never really sleeping at all and playing a trick on me ;) She has such a sense of humor, I love it!

So I did pick her up and carry her back to her room, she smiled at me as I did. I laid her in her bed and she said a few more yaaaa, baaaaa, maaaaa's (in her own language of course) and went back to sleep for another hour or so.

What a sweet little stinkastoo I have on my hands!

lately

Lately I've been thinking a lot about things I want to do. I have like 28 things swirling around in my head at any given moment and trying to pin just one down to do is next to impossible! Today though I actually did something creative and I was pretty excited about that. My mother in law gave me a great idea that she found on pinterest to put a mum inside a hollowed out pumpkin.



Voila, fall decoration win!

I am truly terrible at seasonal decorating. I basically refuse to buy things full price and then after the holiday is over and things are on clearance I'm so apathetic about it and not in the mood anymore that I don't get any then either. Oh well.

Anyways, that is not the point of this post. I have been trying to decide more specifically what to do with my time on the artistic side. I have been doing a lot of work for my friend Tiffany and have truly been loving it! So far we have done a CD cover, a book, a coffee mug and the corresponding workbook and leader's guide to the book she wrote, The Insatiable Quest for Beauty. Here is a picture of the workbook cover.

So all these things have been swirling up in my head lately. Should I start doing more work like this? Is it worth my time? Will I get burned out the way I have with photography if I do it as a job? Plus I didn't finish my schooling for graphic design. Not that you need to in this kind of work, but there are a lot of really critical people out there and I know I've done the same with amateur photographers who try to start doing photography professionally with literally no experience and very little talent... side eye. Yes, I have judged. I don't want to be judged by the meanie heads.

But I don't know, there is so much more to it than all this. And I realize there is really no point to my writing here, I just need to get it out and written down somewhere. I really want to travel some with Tiffany and work with her as much as I can because I really believe in what she is doing. So maybe that's what I should look into more. I'm sure there are a lot of doors and opportunities just by pursuing what is already in front of me.

So that's what I've been thinking about lately. Random, I know.

before I forget...

We just got home from PA where we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa R. Sarah and Devin were there also, with Eliza's cousins Calli and Clover (they are doggies ;) Well, more about that later, but what I want to share is about our experience sharing a bedroom with Eliza. Ever since day 1 having her home with us, I have been unable to sleep well with her in the same room. She was too grunty and noisy as a newborn and now as a light sleeper it's impossible to have her near us. So she is always in her own room in her own bed!

However, when we travel and sometimes when we have company, she sleeps in the same room with us. So last night I put her to bed at her usual time and everything was great. Fast forward 3 hours and Steve and I were ready to go to bed. I had the white noise on in the room and being that M & D's house is brand spanking new, there are no floor creaks and the doors don't squeak or anything (unlike our house ;) Needless to say, there should have been no way she could hear us walk in. We were being as quiet as humanly possible. But sure enough, she woke. She cried out as if to say I know you are there, and if you are there you should be holding me. Not happening little girl, not happening. You are undeniably adorable, however, the middle of the night is not the time for adorableness :P

So Steve was in the bathroom attached to the room when she woke and I was laying on the bed silently. I texted him and said to make sure he turned the light off before coming out. So he did, but she totally saw him in the darkness and started crying again when he opened the door. UGH!!! So we hit the floor! literally! We were crouched down on the opposite side of the bed from her laughing like teenage girls at how silly we were behaving. We waited for her to settle a bit then army crawled into the bed and waited... she did not want to go back to sleep so I ended up rocking her for a bit <3 and then we all enjoyed a very nice long night of sleep :)

silly girls

My girl has always liked it when I lay down next to her. For some reason she just thinks it's the funniest thing. Sometimes I would get under her play mat with her so I could enjoy her view ;)



Anyways, laying down next to her has always been a fun activity for us. Seriously, you think I'm kidding, I'm totally not. She just gets the biggest kick :) Below are some super cute ones of us together, but that is not the point of this post. I am about to reveal to you the strangest most silly side of Eliza, one that I'm sure you haven't seen from many 7 month olds... if any.

 

Do tell me please, what is she doing in the pictures below?!?



Top left: reasonably odd face. Top right: another reasonably odd face! Then, THEN, we have the bottom left: What in the WORLD?! who teaches her these things??? and the bottom right: well, she is just terrified of my lips apparently!

The other day my mom was telling her friend Missy that Eliza is just such a silly baby and how she has so much personality. And Missy responded by saying, "Well what did you expect? Ducks have ducks!" It's twu, the silliness is generational.

Before I forget...

This week she has been eating a ton more solid food. Last night she nursed at dinnertime and then proceeded to eat 5 and a half cubes of food with oatmeal! She's a hungry little stinkastoo, no doubt learning some new tricks ;)

instagram phone dump 2

Looking at my crappy phone pictures big as life on here is making me sad and ashamed of myself as a photographer... but the fact remains, my phone is more handy than my huge camera and way more convenient to upload!!! And let's face it, even these grainy crazy focus camera phone pics are way cuter than no pics at all ;) who can resist a baby stinkastoo!?!?

So 2 weeks ago on Sunday morning, Eliza had a little runny nose. I truly think it was teething, but I didn't want any mad mommies at me so I decided not to leave her in the nursery. Instead she played with Bait all throughout the service.



It's no big shocker that our nickname for the little girl is stinkastoo, yes it is. There is no real good reason as to why... but the name has stuck. And we have come to know this face right here as the "stinkastoo face"

 

I wanted to get some biscuits or something hard for her to eat (ya know, besides the burned choco chip cookies I give her, cuz we don't like those ;) and finally I found some. I mean, seriously, it shouldn't be hard to find this kind of thing, but I imagine they were just out of stock for a few weeks or something? Anyways, now we have some and she loves them! Baths for everyone when she's done eating! ha jk ;)

 

It's hard to believe there's only 6 months difference between Will and Eliza, it's such a contrast now but I know it won't be in a year or two!



Just helpin Mom hang the diapers ;)



Oh, this face. I cannot get enough of it I tell ya. We were at the end of doing her 7 month photoshoot and the baby legs and hats were laying on the floor next to us, so I put them on ;) She wasn't so happy about the second hat, but it's just so cute!



I love that almost every time I am holding her and walk by a mirror she grins :) I say "who's that baby??" And she just smiiiiiiilesssss :) <3



Last week I had a lot of work to get done! So I set up the pack n play in our bedroom and set her in there. She played happily for over an hour that day! I had a stash of toys to rotate in when she started getting bored ;)



This picture will receive it's very own post soon. The faces this girl makes. Seriously.



We started going for morning walks last week, which also happened to be the week school started around here. Made me happy because it means fall is coming, but then I started thinking about my baby going to school and started the hyperventilate. Thank God it's not for another 5 years... I seriously need that long.



Her newest skill. Drinking from a cup. Who taught her this? Why she taught herself thankyouverymuch. With dirty bath water nonetheless. Disgusting. So when I gave her a bath after this occurred, I decided I wouldn't wash her until the end and let her play in the semi-clean bathwater that she insists on drinking... here's a video.

Last week Mom and Dad R were here to visit and Mom took me early birthday present shopping, YAY! I got a bunch of fun things, including this wall art for Eliza's room. I also rearranged the nursery. I actually like this layout a lot better! The room seems bigger this way, though I'm not sure why... But anyways, this decal was just perfect in her room, I am so happy to have found it!

she's not so good at eating cheerios...

Rather than eating them, I believe her goal with cheerios is to see how quickly and how many she can remove from her tray. She prefers to be fed like Cleopatra than to put them in her own mouth ;)

Letters to Liza - 7 months

Dear Eliza,



These last 2 months you have grown and changed so much in the large motor skills area! Just before your 6 month birthday you became a true unsupported sitter and now that you are turning 7 months you are a solid sitter! I can set you down almost anywhere and not be afraid of you just falling over backwards. Though often, I still do put a pillow or something soft behind you. You have been known to just throw yourself backwards when bored with sitting there too long :)



One of the other things you have learned is how to go from sitting to your tummy. It's not always a graceful move, but you do it nonetheless! And once on your tummy you now roll everywhere. I put you on your playstation today in fact and when I came back in the room a few minutes later you were about 5 feet away from it! We have a truly mobile stinkastoo now ;) Daddy used to say when you first started rolling (because you have been able to roll since you were 3 or so months, but just didn't do it very often) that you were a "semi-mobile stinkastoo" hehehe :)

It blows me away every single day how much you have changed in these last few months, yet you still are exactly the same as the day we first met! I have even looked back at some of the videos from when you were so tiny and your facial expressions and the noises are all still the same you! I can hardly believe it.



Your hair has really filled in this last month. It is getting noticeably thicker and growing so fast. I cut off the long "old man" hairs over your ears, they were about 2.5 inches longer than the rest of your hair, and when I did that, your hair was all even over your ears. That was 2 weeks ago, and your hair has grown well over your ears at this point. It is also soooooo much lighter than when you were born! People who haven't seen you for awhile all exclaim this! Your hair was a dark brown at birth and then turned to a brunette/red color and now over the summer has just lightened so much it is very much a dirty blonde. You just want to be blonde like your mama ;)

This was the month you got your first tooth! It was a long time coming, at least it felt that way to me. I had taken you to the doctor when you were just 4 months because I was sure you had an ear infection. She told me you didn't have an ear infection but you were indeed teething and sometimes those two things can look similar. So I figured any day... was I wrong! It was 2 months of thinking "any day" which in retrospect isn't so long. But it really is when you don't know what to expect :) You only had 1 tooth for 2 days, and then you had teeth. Yes, that's right baby girl, two teeth right away! You weren't messin' around.



Another first for you was that you began to eat solid food. Up until you were 6 months you only had breastmilk, and you seemed perfectly content with that. However, you would watch us eat looking longingly and "practice" chewing. Your mouth would move up and down as if you were just waiting for us to put something in there :) Now that we're feeding you though, it seems as though you were much more interested in what you thought you couldn't have ;) You like your food it seems, but it really is a timing game with you. Sometimes you will eat it, sometimes you DO NOT want it. And you'll hit the spoon, I'll hold your hand down with my free hand and you will turn your head as far around as you possibly can and then, if I do actually get some in there and you truly do not want it you just push it right back out ;) But more often than not you are a good little baby and eat your food :)



You've really become taken with your toys now. You seem to have more defined preferences and get excited when you see your favorites. Speaking of favorites, Daddy is definitely your best bud. When you see him, or even hear his voice, you get the biggest smile on your face! He loves this, of course :) But the two of you just love each other and I am thankful that you've had a lot of time to spend together this summer as I've been away at weddings.



Let's talk about your sleep. You are an awesome sleeper! I am so thankful for the way things are now. I had hoped with all the work I did while you were tiny gently training you to sleep when you needed to that these days would come and they truly have. You take 2-3 naps a day depending on when you wake in the morning... say for example if you don't wake to eat until 7, you will most likely take a morning snoozer for a half hour or so and then a late morning and mid afternoon nap that are approximately 1-1.5 hours. Bedtime is usually between 730-830 depending on the day. You sleep all night long and have been since about 5.5 months. Sometimes I will hear you wake, but you almost always go right back to sleep. But sometimes, I just want to cuddle you, so then I will come get you and nurse you and cuddle you and put you back to bed :) I absolutely love snuggling you and watching you sleep. It's the most precious thing in the world to me.



Also, you have ditched your swaddle. Oh how that was a stressful thing for me. In the beginning of swaddling you, it was no big deal to me, but as you were 3 months turning 4, 4 months turning 5, I wondered if you would be going into kindergarten and I would still be rolling you up like a burrito! You are however not sleeping in a swaddle anymore and you are still many years away from kindergarten ;) At the same time we stopped swaddling you, we also stopped giving you the nuk to fall asleep with. You now go to sleep very well on your own, usually on your tummy with your soft blanky. When I lay you in your crib on your tummy, your little arms reach up awkwardly behind you until I put your blanky over you and then you grab fistfuls of it and are happy :)

Speaking of your crib, we lowered it. I had said we would lower it before it became dangerous. When trying to decide when that would be, I figured when you were sitting up well would be a good time. You still don't even know how to get yourself into a sitting position, but I would honestly rather be safe than sorry. So you are all the way down in your crib. You don't seem to mind though, it all still looks the same ;)



You also have begun being more verbal this month but the babbling is still rare. I've heard you say and repeat these babbles "lalala" "wawawa" "dadada" (daddy's favorite ;)



When we go out to the store or anywhere you can see new people you give them smiles and just make everyone around you feel happy. People stop to smile and talk to you all the time. And you are happy to oblige them :) You have a social streak that has me very intrigued to see how it develops as you grow. You also love animals. And when I say love, I mean LOVE. If you see a kitty cat walk through the room, you just go nuts. Feet kicking, hands waving, shrieking. And if said animal is brave enough to get closer to you, you will normally lunge at it trying to grab fur or ears or whatever else you can get your hands on! Needless to say, kitties don't like to get close to you often. Dogs are much more friendly it seems, they are more used to your kind of love ;) But we've been working on being "gentle" one of these days you will make friends with a kitty cat :)



That about sums up the month as well as you can really sum a little tiny baby stinkastoo into words. You are so much more than words to me though, my Dear. You are the absolute joy of my heart and have made me happier than I ever thought possible. I love you so much!

Love,
Mama