A Very Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful holiday here in town with both of our families. It got off to a rough start when my parent's didn't think they were going to be able to make it due to the weather conditions. There was another snow storm that hit that morning which was making the road conditions pretty sketchy. Thankfully, with a crazy turn of temperatures, things warmed up and they hopped in the car and made it into town on Christmas Eve day. We all headed over to Dane's parent's house where we had lots of food and family fun opening presents and enjoying the company. Nana made Anna and Myla matching Christmas outfits and they both looked darling. It's fun to watch those two together as they are getting older and starting to play with one another. Actually, at this point, I think they put in more effort making sure the other one isn't playing with their toys for too long. :)

Christmas morning we woke up with my parent's here and opened presents with them (and stockings) and them my mom made a yummy breakfast casserole for us to enjoy. It was a lazy day around the house and then Dane's folks came over and we made a delicious ham dinner to which we all stuffed ourselves into a ham coma. :) We all needed naps after that. It was such a fun Christmas with Anna this year...she actually really got into opening presents. It was pretty cute, she would tear one little piece off at a time and hand it over to us one by one. I'm sure it's going to get more and more fun as she gets older. It was strange to think last year at Christmas Anna was only 1 week old! She was much more interactive this year. :)

It really was a wonderful couple of days but I must say I'm a little relieved that the holiday season is coming to an end...I need a break! I'm ready to relax and just get a few things done around the house. No trips planned...no parties to plan...sounds glorious! :)

Hope everybody had a very special Christmas with their families and that you all had safe travels. Here's to a great 2009!!!

Snow and sickness

Well, I've been reading everyone's blogs about all the snow and loving all the pictures that are being posted and thinking how glorious it will be to have a "White Christmas", all the while, singing Christmas carols out loud and envisioning sugar plums dancing in my head. It really is beautiful and up until today I was really enjoying it. That is until I spent an HOUR (of my 1 hour lunch) break trying to get my car out of my work parking lot. Before I go cursing the snow I should turn my finger around and point it directly at me for being one of those naive west coast drivers who thinks she doesn't need chains in a foot of snow for her Honda Accord. "Meh, my front wheel drive will take care of things". My first (besides no chains) was parking in a place that was slightly downhill, which meant I would have to back out going uphill. Duh...how dumb am I? I immediately started spinning out and tried to get myself out for about 15 minutes. I then wandered back into my building and whined until someone came and helped me. Merri, our HR Director came out and went over to her huge monster of a truck and got out her chains, shovel and just about anything else that we could think of. She's into hunting and things of that nature so she's not afraid to get dirty. Unlike me...I'm become quite dainty in my older age. :) So we put the chains under my front wheels and tried several other ideas and they all failed us. We came so close on several attempts, but alas a couple of strapping young lads (okay, not so young, but they were men non the less) came over and gave me a big shove and that did the trick. My supervisor Carol was also out there digging me out and bless her heart, it was 1:00 (when I was suppose to be coming back from my lunch) when we got done, and she still let me go and take a full hour for my break. What an ordeal!!

Did I go and buy chains you might be asking yourself? No.

Following a weekend of illness on my part (flu, chills, bathroom visits, etc) we had to bring Anna to the doctor this morning. The last few days she has been getting worse and worse...she sounds like an old man, her voice is so raspy. She's had a low grade fever and a terrible cough for a few days, so we packed her into the dr. today and sure enough she was on her way to her first ear infection. This is terrible, but I can't remember what the dr. said is causing the raspiness...she checked her out and said no pneumonia and once she even mentioned that, it was all I could focus on. I didn't even know it would be a consideration! Scary. Anyways, we have some antibiotic that will clear it up and the cough will just clear up in about a week. Fun stuff, these colds. We thought it was going to be croup because our friend's daughter just got that last week and Anna is in daycare with her, but I guess her cough wasn't "seal-like" enough. :) I just feel bad for her that she has an ear infection...I can tell it's bothering her because when we try to lay her down for bedtime or even naps she just isn't having it. Several occassions we've had to rock her to sleep holding her because she's so exhausted but just won't lay down. It breaks my heart. I know, it won't be the last time.

Okay, I'm up way past my bedtime, but I just thought I'd update you all on our exciting day. We are looking forward to Christmas in a couple of days but are behind in our preperations due to the snow and being sick. Eeekk! Who's going to come and wrap my presents?!?

A Look Back...

A brand newbie...so tiny!















1 month old...and so sleepy.















2 month old...still sleepy. :) Look at those cheeks!















3 months old and so sweet















4 months old...our little chub rock















5 months old and so smiley!















6 months old and learning new tricks















7 months old...daddy's little girl















8 months old. Our angel.















9 months old...she only looks innocent















10 months old doing what she loves...eating!




















11 months old and learning to walk!















1 year old...our big girl!!

Anna's big day was today! I think my co-workers were growing tired of me today because I kept outlining my day as it was a year ago. (At 9:00 a.m.) "A year ago today I was getting an epidural" (At 1:10) "A year ago today, I started pushing!" (At 1:34 p.m.) "A year ago today Anna was born at this moment!" What can I say, I'm a sap and unfortuntatly they had to put up with me. :)

Today we quite the winter storm for Olympia...we got 4 inches of snow and pretty much the whole city shut down. Except for my work of course. Dane and Anna stayed home today and enjoyed playing and frollicking and eating all day long. I was jealous. I braved the roads to come home on my lunch break and ended up getting rear ended by some woman that should not have been out on the road in the car she was driving. I'm fine and my car is fine...no damage done, but it still shakes you up a bit. Anyways, I got home and we sang happy birthday to Anna again and she got a little more left over cake. My girl likes her sweets. :) This evening we just spent a quiet evening at home with hot cocoa, baths and more playing. Where did first year go?

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY ANNA BEAR!! Mommy and Daddy love you so very much and you are such a special little girl. You bring smiles and joy to our lives every day and we are so excited to see the person you will grow to be. You have our hearts forever. All our love sweet angel!

Anna's 1st Birthday Party!!

The Birthday Girl!!

Singing Happy Birthday...

Not quite sure what to think about this

Well, okay, maybe a couple bites...

Maybe I'll just start shoveling it in...that seems easier

Anna's friends that came to celebrate with us!

The birthday girl with her Grandpa and Papa

Mommy and her big girl (tear, tear)

Sunday was big day for us in the Bauersfeld home...Anna had her first birthday party and it was such a great day! She doesn't actually turn one until the 17th, but we invited friends and family over to help us celebrate a little early. My parents got into town earlier that morning to help wiht some last minute preparations (after worrying they wouldn't be able to come at all due to this crazy winter storm) and so we finished up some decorating and cleaning while Anna took a really crappy nap. Yes, perfect. Please Anna, only sleep for 45 minutes, waking up at 10:30, only to find her one big crabby apple. Her party was at 1:00 p.m. and at 12:45 I didn't want to even imagine trying to keep her up for another 2-3 hours in the mood she was in. So I made the executive decision to put her down for a nap 15 minutes before her party started. She was asleep in an instant and slept for an hour, waking up to a house full of people, with her attitude completely changed around. Whoo hoo...let the party begin!

We had a house full, which included my parents, Dane's parents and his brother and his family, as well as all of our friends and their little babies/kids. I'd say we had about 25-30 people and we just feel so blessed that so many people love our daughter and came to celebrate with us. We ate, visited, opened gifts (the girl made a haul...clothes, books, toys...you name it, she got it!) and of course had birthday cake! :) She was pretty dainty about it at first not really sure what to make of it, but once she got a good taste of it, she was all over it! We of course got video and pictures to document it all. We had to use Neil and Holly's camera because we lost our battery charger so our camera was dead...yeah, perfect timing. There are some more pictures I will share later once I get a cd from Holly with all the pictures. There is an ADORABLE picture of Dane and Anna that I will have to post once I get it...it's priceless and melts my heart. :)

It was a wonderful day but I'll tell you what...it was an exhausting weekend! Saturday consisted solely of cleaning the house...every room needed a thorough, deep clean. Badly. So we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, and then Sunday was just tiring with all the festivites...I need a few days off just to recoup! I have to say I think Anna has already gotten a sweet tooth from her mama...here's a funny story. Dane picked up Anna from daycare today and Kathy had made some fresh out of the oven cookies and had given us three to take home. Well, they were on a paper plate and here's Dane with the backpack slung over one shoulder, Anna in one arm, the cookies in the other hand trying to get out the door. Apparently as Dane was getting to the car Anna got her little paws on one of the cookies and immediately started eating it. Dane tried taking it out of her hands and she ripped about a 1/4 of the cookie off and shoved it all in her mouth. Dane figured she had her first cake yesterday, why not a cookie today? :) Straight from daycare, they came and picked me up from work (my car was in the shop today...grrr) and she just looked all a mess. The chocolate remains on her face and hair (which was now crusted and plastered to her forehead) chocolate chunks melted on the front of her pj's (no, she did not get dressed this morning...it was about 2 degrees here today...we figured fleece footed pj's would be nice for her) along with other food and dirt from the day on her pjs. And to top it off we had to stop at Target on the way home, and as we're standing in the check out Dane leans over and says "I feel like white trash having Anna out in public looking the way she does". I look at Anna and just had to laugh. She was quite the sight!

She's out little angel made just for us and we are so lucky to have been blessed with her as our daughter. I can't believe it's almost been a year...

Yes, we're alive!

I became aware of how long it had been since my last post, when I got a message from Sara the other night saying she was worried about me and wondering if I was okay....oops! What can I say except life is crazy and I've become lazy about keeping in touch. Shame on me and I have every intention of being better. Except for this week. I have a list a mile long of things I need to accomplish before this Sunday. What is this Sunday you might be asking yourself? Anna's 1st birthday party!! She is going to be turning 1 on the 17th so we're throwing her a party on Sunday for family and friends. I can't believe I have a 1 year old. And I can't believe how stressed out I am about everything I still need to clean/buy/prepare.

We just returned yesterday from a whirlwind trip to Oregon. We stayed Friday night with my parent's to break up the trip, and Saturday morning hopped back in the car and continued south the Monmouth, OR to visit with Dane's family. We spent Saturday visiting with his Dad's family and then on Sunday headed over to his grandparent's house for a wonderful meal with his mom's side of the family. There was a lot of food consumed over the course of the weekend and lots of little kids and babies running all over the place, and of course great conversations. Sadly, we can't find the charger for our camera battery so I don't have any fun pictures to share. I had to steal the two I posted from an email my mom sent! It was a great weekend, but very tiring. All I know is we are ready to stay home for a while. I feel like we've been on the go a lot lately and we are all looking forward to the holidays in town.

We're looking forward to more family time for Christmas...we will be spending Christmas Eve day at Dane's parent's house along with Neil and Holly and the kids. That evening we'll come home and my parent's will be spending the night with us here and we'll be celebrating Christmas day together which will be wonderful. It'll be fun to see what Anna does with her gifts...probably ingest a whole lot of paper if we're not watching carefully. :)

Speaking of that little doll, she continues to be the center of our universe. She is becoming such a loving and hilarious little girl. She says cute little things all the time and tries to imitate what we're saying with the inflection in her voice. It makes us laugh every time. I was giving her some dinner the other night and I was blowing on it to cool it down and I told her "we have to blow on it because it's hot". Anna gets this smile on her face and whispers "hoottt". I don't know why she whispers it but now every time I blow on food before I give it to her she says "hoottt", all drawn out like that and then smile and looks all proud of herself:) Gotta love her. The pictures above were taken at my parent's house...my mom picked her up and put her on the window seal so she could watch daddy load up the car. I love the one of her mouth on the window with her cheeks puffed up! What a ham. :)

I'm just going to say it right now and get it out in the open...I'm probably going to cry when she turns one. I get choked up thinking about it.

Look at me go!

How cute is she?! :) We're going to have a walker on our hands before we know it!

Any words of wisdom?

So, I am in need of some advise from you seasoned mothers out there. How in the heck did you get your kids to drink from a sippy cup? What kind works best to start out with? What liquid did you put in it? WHY WON'T MY DAUGHTER DRINK FROM ONE????

Anna is quickly approaching a year old and I have every intention to stop nursing once that time rolls around. And I am starting to wonder what on earth the girl is going to drink once that time comes. Besides breast milk from a bottle or me, she will not drink anything else. We've tried water, diluted apple juice and formula. We've tried several different sippy cups...one that has the valve in it with handles on each side. She'll grab it correctly and put it in her mouth but she won't suck. She rubs it on her teeth and gums and then shakes it around and proceeds to throw it on the ground. We've tried one that has no valve so the liquid comes out easily without necessarily sucking on it. Once the liquid touches her tounge, she acts like it's motor oil and proceeds to throw that one on the ground. Then someone suggested a cup that has a lid and a straw, so I gave that one a whirl. Same result. She sucked for an instant and thought we were trying to poison her. On to the floor. I'm at a loss!

We tried formula tonight for the first time because now I'm stressing out that my milk supply is running out so we're trying to get her use to it. She drank some out of her bottle, but lost interst quickly. Here's the bottom line: I'm worried that she's not getting enough liquid throughout the day since she's not drinking other stuff besides my milk. I'm starting to have a hard time producing enough for her these days and she NEEDS to learn to drink other liquids. I'm fine supplementing with formula for the next month until she can start whole milk, but who knows if she'll take either!

Any advice???

Night out on the town

We had such a great night tonight! There are a ton of November birthdays in our group of friends and so we thought we'd all go out to a nice adult dinner to celebrate. Sara, you rock for giving me this idea, because it was a blast. There was a group of 20 of us that went out to a Japanese Steakhouse and it was delicious. It's a cheaper version of a Benihana's if you've ever heard of that place. It's one of those places where they cook the food there in front of you and their performance is half the fun. They fling food into your mouth, create huge flames, build "onion vocanoes" and so on. The food was delicious, the company was fanastic and the drinks were divine. You heard it right folks...I had a drink for the first time since before I was pregnant! I only had one at dinner (a lemon drop martini) and I had a White Russian at home before hand and lets just say that is all I needed. Mama is a light weight these days!

After dinner a couple of our friends live right by the restaurant and offered their house to gather at. So we all headed over there for some more celebrating and good times. Somebody had the unfortunate idea to have each of the girls get on the bench press and see who could do the most reps...let's just say I am a whimp. I've never felt so weak in my entire life...actually I know I've never been this weak in my life. I need to hit the gym in the worst way and hopefully this embarrasing display will motivate me.

Anyways, it was such a great night and I was sad to see it come to an end. We were home by 9:00...how sad are we? :) Dane's parent's were at our house watching Anna for the evening which was great. It sounds like Anna did good which is a relief...I know she does fine, but it's still hard not to worry.

I had to include the above pictures I took today. I put her hair in a ponytail for the first time and she actually kept it in! I think it looks adorable...I might try two pigtails tomorrow. :) She loves pulling herself up on everything these days. She grabs onto the baby gate and rattles it like she's a prisoner. :) It's pretty funny. We've got a big day of football and playdates tomorrow...should be a great time!

Another year older and another year wiser

Grandpa and Anna being silly! She adores him!

Happy Birthday to me!

Morning cuddles! No judging...this is me pre-shower and no makeup!

Getting ready for the tub...look at those rolls!

I love this picture...Daddy is adoring his little girl. :)

We spend this last weekend in Portland at my parent's place and celebrated my 29th birthday. Yes, you heard that right...one more year and I am going to be a 30 year old! Why does that sound so wrong. I feel like I'm not getting any older, but everyone around me is! I guess I'd better come to terms with reality. :)

We had a wonderful and relaxing time visiting and playing with Anna. :) On Saturday, my dad and Dane went to a Portland football game while us girls went shopping at Kohl's. :) I think we got the better end of that deal. My mom had a coupon for an additional 30% our entire order (sales items included!) and I got a couple of steals! I got a beautiful cashmere argyle sweater (regular $99) for about $30! And I bought Dane a nice Christmas present and got one heck of a deal on it as well. Gotta love great deals! Kohl's has become a favorite of mine ever since we got one in Lacey about a year ago...I must say though, shopping in OR is glorious...no tax, so it's like getting an additional 8.6% off of everything!

We got home from my parent's house early Sunday afternoon and we just lazed around and didn't do too much else. It was a nice way to end the weekend of traveling. Then it was to work for just one day and then another day off! Score! It was very nice...my supervisor had made me brownies for my birhtday and brought in some ice cream as well, and our department celebrated my birthday Monday afternoon. I love my coworkers!

Today, Dane had some work to do to prepare for a catering event on Friday, so my bear and I got to hang out for the day. We lazed around in our pj's all morning and after her nap we took off for a couple of errands. We stopped in at my old office and said hello (since they had to work...ha ha Madge!) and it is always great seeing them. Then we went to Target...another of my favorite places. :) This evening I went to my friend Allisha's baby shower and got to ooh and ahhh over lots of cute baby things. They are having a baby boy at the end of January and she got all sorts of darling things. It started making me really want a boy! No rush though... :)

Talky Talky!

We had a pretty precious thing happen a couple of days ago...Anna said "hi dada" twice! She's been saying "hi" and "bye-bye" (while waving of course) for a while now, but this was the first time she paired it with a name! So sweet! Apparently, Dane was bringing Anna to daycare and he was walking up to the door and Anna kept saying "hi" and waving to the door and Dane was saying "hi Anna" and she looked at him and said "hi dada"...twice! I probably would have thought he was making it up, but his mom was there with him that day so she could vouch for him. I'm still working on the "hi mama" but she's not giving that up too easily. :) Our little girl is amazing us with how fast she's growing up. Her first birthday is right around the corner!

Speaking of birthdays...my birthday is on Sunday and this weekend we have decided to go visit my parents. We are feeling the need to get out of town and I thought my parents would love to get an "Anna fix". We were going to get together for an "adult dinner" with our friends here in town to celebrate, but it was so last minute that most people already had plans so we're going to do that next weekend. Sara, thanks for the idea! I hope you guys have a great time on Saturday! :)

Well, it's time to get snuggled in bed to watch "The Office" and then "30 Rock". This is the one night that there's actually something on worth watching!

Just because she's adorable

I was looking back at some pictures on my computer and I came across some that I realized I hadn't shared and they are just too cute to not share! I love this girl.

Happy Halloween!!

It's my baby's first Halloween...sigh. In just a month and a half I will have a 1 year old. Where is time going?!

Anna looked adorable as ever today as a turtle. :) We really wanted her to be a bear since she's our little Anna bear, but the only bear costume I could find was too big for her. Our friends had this costume from a previous year and they let us borrow it. I figured it'll do the trick, plus she'd look adorable in a burlap sack, so I knew it would be a hit. And it was. :) Anna spent the afternoon hanging out with Nana and Papa (Dane's folks) while daddy went to coach a football game. I went over there when I got off work we they had made a scrumptious fish dinner and we all played and ate. Here are a few pictures of our little turtle. :)

Feet update

After nearly a MONTH of waiting, waiting and more waiting, we finally found out what they're going to do for Anna's feet. Nothing.

This has been such a frustrating process. I've never had to get a referral for anything before and this was not a good first experience. First of all, after waiting two weeks to hear from my pediatrician's office to say we could go ahead and make the appt, I called them to get a status and they had totally overlooked it. Perfect. So after another couple of days, she calls me back and says they've sent the referral and we can now make the appt at Mary Bridge Hospital. To make a long story short, after several phone calls to the hospital and them telling me they needed to see chart notes, etc, the nurse basically told me it would probably be another week or so before the doctor would even say he would see us because "he's not very good about checking his inbox". Awesome. So 8 days later I call them back because I haven't heard a thing from them, and she gets Anna's chart and says "so it looks like the doctor isn't going to be seeing Anna". Of course. Basically, the doctor said that she's too young for him to do anything right now. He wants us to wait until she starts walking and see what happens after several months of her on her feet. We're suppose to have our pediatrician take a look again around her 18 month check up and see what he thinks then. Then if he still wants us to see a specialist we get to go through the whole referral process again. Lovely.

I spoke with our pediatrician and told them what Mary Bridge said, and he did end up calming me down. He said he was on the fence in the first place about having us see a specialist (which I did know) and he just wanted the other doctor's opinion. And he said he got it and that he's very comfortable with waiting until Anna is a little older and then revisiting the issue. In the mean time, Dane and I will work with Ann's feet once a day, stretching and massaging them to encourage them to straighten. Hopefully between that and her just walking her chubby, crooked feet will straighten out right nicely! :)

Sorry, I kind of got off on a tangent...there was nothing quick about that story. :) On to my adorable daughter.

I thought I would share this video that we took the other night which highlights her stellar dancing skills. Anna cracks me up. Any time she starts hearing music she will immediately start rocking back and forth! If she's crawling and music starts playing from a toy or something, she'll either sit down so she can rock or she'll just rock on all fours. It might be the cutest thing I've ever seen. Take a look for yourselves. (Note: She had been giving us quite a performance before I started the video, so she lost interest sooner than usual.)

We're alive!

Here's my girl making a big mess for us to pick up after her!















More messes!















Making funny faces and clapping...so much fun!















Looking adorable with Uncle Neil















My girl LOVES books!!

I was given a guilt trip by Sara for having such an outdated blog, so I'm here to redeem myself! In all honesty Sara, I had planned on writing a new blog tonight anyways. :)

I thought I'd share some pictures of Anna since it's been a while. That girl is attracted to anything that will make a huge mess. She loves to throw around clothes, pull all the dvd's and books onto the floor, rip up paper and throw it (or eat it). And it is so much fun to watch her explore and have fun with it. We are seriously having so much fun with her these days and she is constantly making me laugh! Does anybody else find their kids hilarious? I just can't get enough of her. Every night my heart is just overwhelmed with love and gratitude for our little girl.

Anna is doing GREAT in daycare in the afternoons. Yesterday when I went to pick up Anna after work, I asked Kathy (the provider) how she did and she said that she is by far their easiest baby right now. She said she plays great, is always happy, she's napping good and she doesn't get fussy if they leave her sight for a minute. Yay Anna! That makes mama so proud! I am so relieved that we found Kathy and her daughter Brittany to take care of our Bear. It seems like the few weeks of adjustment are over for Anna and she is so much more comfortable there. It makes it so must easier to be at work during the day knowing that she's playing and happy at her daycare and is in good hands.

So, I wanted to share Anna's new tricks that she has mastered! She is waving bye-bye to everyone and everything (parked cars, bushes, doors) and it is the cutest thing ever! I swear she's even said "bye-bye". Every day that I go pick her up at daycare now, I walk in and pick her up and give her big hugs and when she pulls away, she turns to Kathy and Brittany and waves bye to them with a big smile on her face...too cute!

She is an old pro at signing "more" (although one might mistake it for clapping) and although she doesn't use the sign herself, she knows what I mean when I sign "milk". She gets all worked up and throws herself back to get ready to nurse...it's pretty hilarious! The funny thing is when she knows she's about to nurse, she says "boo, boo". I use to always say "do you want some boob?" before feeding her...could it be that she's trying to say "boob, boob"?! How funny would that be?! We sign other words to her as well, but we haven't seen her use them back yet. We'll just stick with it and I'm sure one day she'll be using them like crazy.

Dane and I swear that she has said a few words. I don't know when it normally happens, and it could very well just be baby noises that happen to be words...or our girl could be wicked smart and be talking already! :) She has said "up" many times (most of the time in context), she's said "ball" while she and I roll a football back and forth to each other, and Kathy said one day at daycare, she was playing with a bin full of baby dolls and Kathy handed her one and said "here's you're doll" and Anna said "doll" back! How great is that?! Also, I think she's understanding that I am "ma ma" and Dane is "da da". She's saying our names in context a lot more which is so endearing. :)

Another darling thing that she does is shakes her head "no". If she's getting into something I'll say her name and when she looks my way, I tell her no and I shake my head. She now shakes it right back with a huge grin (and then turns back around and continues with her naughtiness). What a little turkey!

Those are just a few of the precious and heart-warming things that Anna is doing these days. I've decided to not talk about how she's sleeping, because I would like to keep this post positive. :) I'll get into our night time at another time. Speaking of which, I'm exhausted, so I'm going to wrap this up and hit the hay. We have a great weekend ahead of us which includes our friends Adam and Courtney's little boy Jaxson's 2nd birthday party on Saturday. Then on Sunday, my parents are coming for a day trip visit and I can't wait to see them. It's been a while since they've seen Anna and she's changed a lot, so it should be a fun day! I'll make sure and take pictures ove the next couple of days and I'll post some in a few days.

P.S. Anna is 10 months old today! My baby is going to be 1 in two months!! Augh!

Is this what it feels like?

I'm a little confused right now...I have the strangest feeling. Let me describe it and see if any of you know what it means. I woke up this morning and my eyes actually opened on their own without having to pry them open. I got out of bed feeling energized and ready to start my day. I looked in the mirror and I didn't look like someone had come and beat the crap out of me during the night. I looked forward to what the day has to offer. Could it be...? Is it possible...? My oh my, is this what it feels like to be RESTED?!?!?

Anna slept like a rockstar last night and I'm basking in the glory of it right now. Let me just start by saying that this last week has been brutal at night. I don't now what has been going on with Anna, but she has been driving us crazy at night. We put her to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 and she goes down without a hitch and falls right asleep. However, lately she's been waking up around 10:30 (of course, it's right at the time Dane and I lay our little heads down to fall asleep) and is fussy and inconsolible until I just break down and feed her because I'm desperate for sleep. I know she's not hungry, I had just nursed her before putting her to bed, but I tell you what, nothing else works. I know what some of you are thinking..."just lay her down and let her cry, checking on her every once in a while...she'll put herself to sleep." Yeah, you come to our house and listen to the bone chilling screaming she was doing when we tried that. I couldn't take it. Thursday night was the worst. We let her cry for about an hour and when I had had enough I gave in and fed her. Usually she falls right asleep after she's done eating...not that night. She got done and I held her for a minute giving her snuggles, layed her down in her crib and got back into my own warm bed. Three minutes later the crying starts again...what the hell? At that point, I had no idea what to do...I was shocked. The boob hadn't worked?!? Dane ended up bringing her into our bed...we don't ever do that, so I wasn't sure if she would sleep (or me for that matter). Anna was crying and the instant she layed down with us she stopped and fell asleep. Aughh...silence. I was just getting back to sleep myself when I felt this little hand petting my face. I open my eyes and Anna is sitting up in our bed playing with my face and hair. Lovely. "Anna, it's time for night-night...lay down" I help her back down on her tummy and she immediately gets up and crawls over to Dane and throws herself on top of him. Apparently it's play time and we didn't get the memo. I'm not surprised she responded that way...the only time she's in our bed is in the morning after we're all awake and we just play and snuggle while we wake up. She must have thought that is was morning. :) So Dane brings her back to her crib (it's about 12:45 by now) and lays her down and by some miracle she just falls asleep and doesn't wake up until morning. What a night!!! That is pretty much how our last week or more has gone.

Well, last night Anna was in bed at 7:30 and didn't wake up until...wait for it....4:00 a.m.! I fed her and she feel right back asleep until 8:45 a.m. this morning!!! That is the lastest she has ever slept! I got up with her while letting Daddy sleep longer and we played and frolicked and had a wonderful morning. Now the little angel is napping and I'm thinking I should probably be productive by showering or cleaning or something. I just wanted to share our victory night! I'm not stupid enough to think this is going to happen every night, but I'm just thrilled it happened once!! :) Horray for a good night's sleep!

Anna's 9 month update

We went to the doctor today for Anna's 9 month check up and just as we had suspected...she still growing. :) She weighed in at 21.2 lbs (90th percentile) and she is 28 3/4 inches long (75th percentile). That's our healthy baby girl!

We did receive some not so good news. It's nothing terrible, just something for me to worry about (like I need extra things on my list). :) Ever since Anna was born the doctor has been keeping an eye on her feet. I guess the whole time she was in my uterus her feet were turned in, so that is naturally the way they want to go now. At every appointment the doctor said he wasn't worried about it and that when she started walking they would straighten themselves out. He showed us a few things to do to try on our own to relax the ligaments and to stretch them out, so we've been doing that. Well, today he said he hasn't seen the improvment that he was hoping for so he is sending us to a specialist at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital to see what he thinks. We may not even need to do anything to correct it, but Dr. Carsley (our pediatrician) said he wanted to at least get the specialist's opinion. He thought it would be good to do it before she starts walking so that it's not a set back for her once that stage begins.

The good news is that it won't take must to correct it if that is what needs to be done. Everything is formed correctly in her legs and her feet have great flexibility but the ligaments just need to be stretched out and be "taught" to stay straight. The bad news is this...if correction is what she needs, that means casts for a couple months on her feet. :-( I'm trying not to get myself all worked up over this because we don't even know what the doctor will say yet. We will just stay positive and hope for the best, but if she ends up in casts I'm sure she will do just fine. I think it will be harder on me then it will on her! It breaks my heart to think about it.

It's going to take about a week to get a referral because apparently the guy who gives them is out with a broken arm so once we get that then I can make an appointment for sometime soon hopefully. I'm just going to feel anxious in the mean time and continue to worry. :) Sounds fun, huh? I'll keep you all posted as we learn more.

Time to get a few things done and then off to bed. Oh yeah...it's our 4 year anniversary today! It's been a crazy day and we've barely seen each other, so we will be celebrating tomorrow night. I worked all day today and then Dane met me at my work to hand off Anna and he took off to coach his football game. We did sqeeze in one kiss in there somewhere! It's after 10:00 o'clock now and he just got home. How romatic! :) I think we might be going to dinner tomorrow night and maybe do a little bowling. I haven't been bowling since before Anna was born and it just sounds fun! :)

Playing hookie

Don't tell, but today I played hookie for the afternoon. This week I was summoned to Jury Duty and my group number got called in this morning so I went through the whole process of jury selection and I ended up not getting chosen. I was done by 11:30 a.m. and while I should have gone in to work for a half a day, I decided to take advantage of my paid jury duty leave and spend the afternoon with my two favorite people. :) As Iwas getting home Anna was waking up from her nap so I fed her and then the three of us went out to a lunch of pizza and salad. The company was great and the food was scrumptious! Dane is now at football practice and Anna and I spent a couple of hours horsing around at house and playing together. She is now down for her afternoon nap. She is such a riot! I attached a video of her and I just think she is so funny...they way she's so wobbly when crawling, how she gets so excited to see me and wants to just crawl all over me. I love that girl to pieces! I don't know if anyone else will get a kick out of the video like I did, but I thought I'd share anyways. :)



Jury duty was an interesting process. I'm actually a little bummed that I didn't get selected...I would have like to experience the whole day. I ended up being in District Court instead of Superior Court, so these cases weren't as "big". The guy on trial in this case was someone who got pulled over last year for suspected driving under the influence. He was pleading "not guilty". I'll admit that it probably would have been a tough one for me to be impartial about...I have a hard time showing any leniency for drunk driving. There were about 23 jurors sitting in the room and the judge asked us all some questions first and then both attorneys had their turn. The state was being represented by a younger gal who seemed like she was just getting started in her career. Then the defense attorney was a complete prick. He was straight out of a movie where he makes everyone feel intimidated and like they have to second guess what they're saying. He was an older guy that has probably been doing this for years and more than likely eats poor, young budding attorneys for lunch. I felt bad for the young girl. Anyway, I guess I'll never know how it turns out because I didn't get chosen as one of the six jurors. Oh well...it gives me a nice afternoon off when it's in the low-mid 80's out today! Whoo hoo!



Well, I'm going to try to upload this darn video and then take a nap while my bear is napping...my poor, tired eyes are feeling very droopy all of the sudden and this couch is feeling oh so snuggly. :)

p.s. There's been about two hours that have lapsed since I wrote this and published it, just to clear up any time indiscrepancies. :)

Happy Mama!

Anna had such a great day at daycare today and it is such a relief for me! Finally, we're getting this thing figured out. Here's some background:

Not that Anna has been having "bad" days at daycare, but she's been struggling with a few things which in turn has been making it kind of hard on Kathy and Brittany (the providers). For one, she has really been struggling with taking a bottle from Kathy...like she won't drink any. She pushes it away before it can even get to her mouth. This is at a time when she should be pretty hungry and I know would eat a lot if I were there nursing her. She's been pretty good about eating solids there, so at least something is getting her belly. Secondly, anytime Kathy or Brittany leave Anna's sight she would cry...cry until she could see them again. This made it difficult for them to get anything done for hte other babies. They have a great room which is the kitchen and family room that open to each other, so if Kathy went around the counter the kitchen and Anna couldn't see her, she would throw a fit. Not too much fun for them! For the most part though, Anna is very happy and plays well with the toys and other kids.

Well the last two days we have gotten GREAT reports. Today she ate a whole bottle from Kathy, and a few hours later ate a WHOLE container of sweet potatoes!! She went down for both naps the last two days without making a peep (usually she fusses for about five minutes and then falls asleep)! And she took a big stinky poop over there today and I didn't have to change the diaper! :) The biggest accomplishment was that she didn't freak out when they left the room...this is huge! I'm really hoping that this isn't just a fluke and she really is feeling more comfortable in her surroundings there and is settling in.

I'm really glad these last two weeks are behind us because they have been LONG. Dane has had a catering job Tues. thru Fri. the last two weeks and on those days he's had to drop Anna off at 10:30 and I pick her up at 5:00...so they've been long days for her to be there. Next week it will get back to normal of dropping her off around 1:00 and I'll pick her up still at 5:00. We are just so happy that she's does so great over there the past couple of days. Progress!

I had such a good evening tonight with Anna. Dane was at a different catering job tonight (he's been a busy boy!) so Anna and I got in some quality mommy/daughter time. Nothing special, but we just played upstairs on our bed rolling around and laughing and playing peek-a-boo and thinking it was the best thing in the world. They we came downstairs and played with some toys and mama's furry slippers which she thought was hilarious. I kept stomping them around her and then acted like they were coming to tickle her...this was apparently some of my best stuff because she was laughing like I've never heard before! It actually brought tears to my eyes because it was so sweet and I just became overwhelmed with love for my perfect daughter. I needed that time with her and was sad to see her bed time roll around. We read several books and had some boob and fell asleep in about 2.4 seconds. What a glorious night we had...it warmed my heart. :)

Recent happenings

I've got to admit that I know I'm not being as good as I would have hoped at keeping new posts on here, but frankly, I'm just wiped every night. Just the thought of every keystroke makes me need a nap. Why am I so tired you might be asking yourself? Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that my daughter thinks I'm a buffet at night and I don't have the heart to tell her no. Okay, that's not entirely true. She really isn't that bad...but she is still waking up twice. We had it down to once, but now it looks like she is starting to cut her two upper front teeth and if you have had a teething baby before, that's all that needs to be said about that. The poor girl is probably in a lot of pain and of course I want to do what I can to help her feel better and get back to sleep. And that means boob. It's taking a toll on me so one of these days we need to get back to only waking up once for a snack.

In other Anna news, this was her third day at her new daycare. We ended up being able to get in to an in-home daycare that our friends Alex and Lexa use for their 15 week old baby girl Leah. I really like the woman that runs it (she also has her daughter there who's about our age, and she has a sweet little one year old boy) and so far it's been going pretty good. I've gotten a call from her each day while I was at work and she was just looking for tips on getting her down for naps and questions about her schedule and things like that. I certainly don't mind the calls and it's just going to take a while for them to get to know Anna and vice versa. Anna is playing really good while she's there, but isn't sleeping really well there so far. I'm sure she'll feel more comfortable in the weeks to come. Most of the time, she will only be there from 1:00-5:00, but this week and next week, Tues. though Fri., she is there from 10:00-5:00 because Dane has a catering job all those days. Those longer days are a little bit tougher on her and she's a little more fussy, but not bad. We are sure happy to see her and get her home to play for a bit. And she is always super happy to see us too...today was the first day that she turned around and saw me and crawled right up to me and put her hands up on my legs....melt my heart! She is getting around pretty good now! :) Oh, by the way...little miss Anna turned 9 months old today! Where is the time going?

Our life is continuing to stay crazy busy between my job (which is still going really great) Dane's catering which is really busy this month, and his football. We are actually getting our first date night in a LONG time on Sunday. Anna is going to go to Nana and Papa's house for a few hours and we are going to go out to dinner and then bowling! I'm really exciting to finally get quality time with my hunny!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful Anna girl!

Looking so sweet and kissable as usual!

Beautiful with her blue bow...notice the football, too! :)

I'm so strong! I can pull myself up and get into everything now!!

Enjoying some nakey time after her bath...she LOVES being naked!

A nice butt crack shot for you all