Just hanging out

Hi.

So here are 2 things.  A picture of Lena and Aunt Sheryl (notice the hair... Lena's, not Sheryl's... although Sheryl's is quite lovely too)  and a video of Lena being silly.

Enjoy!

 

new things.

The little munchkin is doing some new things.  Most notably, eating food.   AND she needs a haircut too.  Her bangs are so long.  They're all in her eyes.  She's such a big girl now!!! She'll be 5 months old on the 15th which is Wednesday already!  craziness.  Here are 2 shots of her first sweet potato encounter:

So yes, 5 months.  In five months I've learned to do some things I never thought possible.  Change diapers.  Do everything one-handed.  Drive while holding a pacifier in a baby's mouth so she doesn't keep spitting it out and shrieking.  etc.   It's been quite an adventure.  Nearing this momentous 5 month mark I've also recently adopted a new approach to parenting:  throwing out the books.  I like systems.  I like rules.  I like X plus Y equals Z (although I do hate math, go figure).  I like to know that if I do something  the right way, I will get the desired result.   Parenting doesn't seem to be one of those things that can be reduced to a system.  For example:  Book A tells me that 97% of babies whose moms follow their structure sleep through the night by 12 weeks.  (HAH.)  Book B tells me that if my baby still isn't sleeping through the night by a certain time all I have to do is trick her by giving her a pacifier instead of a feeding for two nights and by the third night baby wont even bother to wake up (HAH again... 6 nights of hours of screaming proved otherwise).  Anyway, all these books were ruling my brain and making me feel like I must be doing something wrong if Lena's not cooperating with the systems.   Anyway, now I'm doing things my way.  It seems that for centuries people were parents without these books, so they can't be necessary, right?  Hopefully I won't ruin her...

note:  not that the books were totally un-helpful, they definitely were helpful especially at the beginning when babies were foreign beings to me.  They only became unhelpful when I tried to "systemize" Lena and then doubt myself when things didn't go as written.  So yes, if you gave me a book, thanks, it's not you, it's me.   ;-)

Lena's first Christmas tree

Today was our 4th Annual Christmas Tree Chopping Extravaganza.  Everyone should participate in an Annual Christmas Tree Chopping Extravaganza.  It's awesome.  The day begins with friends coming over for coffee and homemade cinnamon buns with rum-cream cheese icing.  Then everyone piles in cars and drives to Bryan's Christmas Tree Farm out in the PA countryside somewhere.  Ladies in one car, fellas in another.  Mike may or may not forget his boots and have to wear plastic bags over his crocs.  First car to make it without getting lost wins.  Once there you hop on a wooden wagon pulled by a huge tractor and ride up the hill to pick your tree.  It's always freezing.  It's always ridiculously muddy.  After finding the perfect tree, chopping it, and riding back down the hill in the tractor you buy 15 chili dogs for your party of 6.  3 for the guys, 2 for the girls.  YUM.  With full stomachs and freezing fingers and toes you pile back in the cars and head home.  Today Sheryl brought her fantastic camera and fantastic camera skills which resulted in the following fantastic shots of our day.  Enjoy.

Yay for Christmas trees. Yay for traditions.

a video and 2 pics

Just a quick video...

and a quick picture or 2...

photo shoot

Here's a photo shoot of Lena on the floor.  She was loving it

The Patch came over to check out what was going on

and then she watched football with Daddy and Uncle Dave.

The End.

add ons

 This is us all ready for a walk in the cold.

Lena is 4 months old now.  

She has added shrieking to her repertoire of usable communication methods.  

Still working on those videos.  Cannot. Get. Them. To. Load. ARRRRGGGGH!.  

playing and yelling

hello again.

Here are some more pictures.  Lena's becoming a little spitfire that's for sure.  At 4 months she already knows what she wants.  And she has become a bit of a loudmouth (wonder where she gets that from...)  Yea, it's pretty funny, her cute soft girly baby coos have turned into these funny gargle-y yells that she does non-stop.  If I can get it on video I'll post it next time :-)  For now, here is Lena loving her stand-y play center thing:

she's super-fun.  and super-awesome.

<3

chili pepper

Happy Halloween!  

Lena was a Jalepeno for Halloween.  It was pretty cool.

 She also loves to look at her friend in the mirror.  Her friend's name is "Friend Baby".  They talk and smile and such.

And this is Lena all ready for the cold :-)

3 month mark

Lena is officially 3 months old today, October 15!  yay!  Happy birthday little girl!  To celebrate the big day mommy did a Lena photoshoot and got the resulting cute pictures.  We're also going out to dinner and renting the "Babies" movie from a Redbox tonight, that's to celebrate survival of the first 3 months  :-)

Here are the pictures:

So cute :-)  The 1st and 4th ones are my favorites.

On another 3-month-note, I'm looking forward to the time when this little munchkin will start sleeping through the night.  I CANNOT wait.  It pains me to think that I haven't slept a full night since July.  Right now she's getting up 1-2 times a night... 3 times on a bad night. no fun.  We put her to bed at 7pm and then start our day the next morning between 6-7am, so maybe 2-3 times isn't that bad since it's over a 12-ish hour window...?  Mmm, not sure about that one.  All I can say is, bring on the longer sleep cycles.

And here's the other thing about sleeping and nap-time especially, HOW is anyone supposed to know how much sleep their kid needs anyway??!  How many naps?  How long?  what if they wake up early?  must they be in their cribs?  Every parenting book touts their theory on sleep as if it was THE magic formula.  Unfortunately, all the books contradict each other so what does that leave us new moms with?  Not a whole lot.  I guess there is no magic formula.  Too bad.  

Funnily enough, Lena just fell asleep in her swing... it's 4:15 and I was going to put her down for a nap at 4:30, oh well.  I guess she was tired.  Who knew?

an interview

Hello all.

Today's post was going to be a little video of Lena hanging out and talking.   Sadly, once again my posting plans were foiled by a lack of computer skills.... Oh well.  Anyway, Lena is 11 weeks old!  11 weeks sounds like such a short time because it's felt like SO much longer.  Sheesh, what did I DO with myself before she came around?! (  1. slept at night  2. see number 1)

Anyway, enjoy these few pics.  I get to enjoy her ALL DAY which is quite the perk of being a mommy :-)

 

love, 

Kim & Lena

new skills

Laughing Lena

Hi there.

So 10 week old Lena has developed some new skills.  They include sitting in a boppy chair, smiling, "talking", and rolling over onto her stomach at 3am causing her to wail because she hates being on her belly so much.  

Here are some pictures of her showing off her skills and just being cute:

Hi I'm smiling

Crazy-haired Lena with Grami

The Lip

What "The Lip" dissolves into sometimes...

OK, below is a video of Lena.  It's her smiling and being cute and then showing us her most beloved skill at the very end of the video... so you have to watch til the end.  Sadly, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to rotate this video, so you have to watch with your head tilted sideways... sorry

the many faces of Lena Chérie

Here are some of my favorite faces from my favorite baby girl:

This is the crazy-hair fist-pound look

This is the serious face:

Here's the sleepy-head face:

and here's the smiley face:

 

although I do think she doesn't look like herself in this picture for some reason... oh well.

All in all we're doing well!  

We're working on getting the nap-time put-down to be a bit more pain-free (yesterday before one nap she cried for 45 minutes... then fell asleep and only slept for 45 minutes... what to do??!!?)

sheesh.  

Lena's about 10 and a half pounds now and is getting more and more smiley and interactive, so fun!

More later...

thank you photographers

So I have a collection of Lena pictures that I myself did not take.  Blame it on a mix of forgetting the camera at important events and the dead battery in the camera (currently charging).  if you're on Facebook, you've probably seen these already, sorry.

here are some nice ones (thanks Sheryl & Kristin)

LOVE this laughing one, perfect timing!

Cute little face

This is what it looks like to be the center of attention :-)

Lena will be available for autographs in approximately 4-5 years.

a lovely story

Here is a lovely little story.  By "lovely" I mean "gross but funny" and by "little" I mean "huge".

So yesterday night we went out to a friend's house in the country.  It was beautiful.  Rolling hills, corn, farms, trees,.. all the things we don't see here in the city.  Anyway, once we got there I fed Lena while talking to some friends.  As she finally finished eating &  I was pulling her out from under the nursing cover she had a "lovely" "little" diaper blowout.  All over me...

"Oh my gosh, there's poop all over me!!"  Suddenly chaos reigned.  Lots of yelling by all around me, people jumping up to get paper towels, Mike grabbing Lena from me (being mindful not to get any poop on himself), me jerking my nursing cover out of the way of the poop and hoping my shirt was on correctly, Someone removing Lena's soiled outfit while she dangled from her armpits, another laying her on the coffee table to change her diaper, watching her spit up all over the coffee table while having her diaper changed, Lena rubbing her hair all in her spit up puddle on the coffee table...  I could go on.  It probably only amounted to a good 45 seconds of chaos, but it was chaos indeed.  How many people does it take to handle a diaper blowout?  Apparently quiet a few.

The end.

new (slightly outdated) pics

Hello again!  I know, I know, it's been awhile.  Sorry.  We were on vacation for a week & just got back Monday.  We went to upstate NY and it was wonderfully relaxing.  Sadly, we forgot to take our camera with us.  I know, I know, that's ridiculous.

ANYWAY, because I don't want to catch anymore heat about not posting, this is me posting some pics of Lena at 4-5 weeks old.  (She is now 6 weeks old as of yesterday)  They may be a couple weeks outdated, BUT the are cute.

This is Lena in her swing.  Swing, Lena, swing.

Here is Lena hanging out with Daddy and The Patch

Mommy & Lena snuggle-time:

Awww, so cute, I know.

Thanks for checking back with me. I promise I will do a better job of updating in the future.