three months

That's right. Ryann is three months old today. I really need to stop saying how much I can't believe how old she is. My baby girl is getting SO BIG! She still isn't a big chunky baby by any means, but she is getting rolls on her thighs, her cheeks are filling out, and no longer feels like a lightweight when I pick her up.

We didn't have to see the doctor this month (hooray!) so I don't have any official stats, but Chris and I did our best to see how she measures up. Ryann is roughly 12 pounds 10 ounces, and about 23 inches long. She is wearing 0-3 month clothing (but some outfits are getting a little short!) and size one diapers. She is eating 4 ounces of formula roughly every 3 hours.

Most of the time Ry is still a pretty calm, exceptionally good little baby, but she is most definitely developing her personality more and more each day. She isn't a cuddler, she loves to lay on the ground and move around, and take in the world (or her frog of course). She hates riding in her carseat. She is picky about when she actually wants her pacifier. She can be a bit of a bear when she is tired. When she isn't extremely upset, but isn't getting her way fast enough, she has this sort of fake cry, that is somewhat of an aggressive 'eh eh' sound (usually when she is hungry, and you are in the 'feeding position', she will do this until the bottle is in her mouth).

Sometimes she is stingy with her smiles, they are adorable, but you usually have to work to get one (unless you're her daddy). We haven't really heard a giggle or laugh yet. When I am trying to get her to smile I usually get a lip twitch with an eyebrow raise, as if she is saying 'Is that all you've got lady? I'm not buying it.' Her eyebrows and eyes are extremely expressive.

I am happy to report that our evenings getting Ry to sleep having been going MUCH MUCH better. As in, my baby has been in her bed asleep between 9 and 9:30 for the past week, and she will sleep 8-10 hours straight. We lightly established a routine. Starting between 8:30 and 8:40 we give her a bath, lotion her up, put on jammies, have a bottle, read a book and then rock to sleep. If it has been an exceptionally exhausting day we usually don't make it to the book as she falls asleep while she is eating.

She is still sleeping in the arms reach cosleeper in our bedroom, but I think she will soon be transitioning to her crib. I am dreading that. Yes, I'm aware I will probably sleep much better if there isn't a grunty/snorty/wiggly little baby sleeping next to me, but I can't imagine not being able to just glance over and see my little girl. And I love pulling her into bed with me in the mornings. BUT... I don't want her sleeping in our room forever, and I'm sure it will be much easier to break that habit now rather than later.

As far as napping is concerned... napping Ry is not friends with. She usually only lasts 60-90 minutes before she is ready to go down for a nap, and she fights it like it's her job. We are still swaddling for naps, and it usually involves me standing (she usually screams if you sit), rocking and bouncing my little burrito for 20 minutes or more before she will finally fall asleep. Chris can do his little Jedi mind trick (aka, using his finger to put very light pressure just above her nose) and knock her out better than I can most times, but occasionally she just won't have it. Sometimes she will sleep for 40 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, it just depends. And so far, forget napping in the crib. She is still in the swing. I know I need to transition her out of it, but it is so defeating to spend thirty minutes getting your baby to sleep, only to have her wake up within 10 minutes of being laid down in the crib. We don't have a white noise machine for her bedroom yet, and I think that is part of the problem. So if anyone wants to suggest theirs feel free!

Right now Ryann is loving her black and white rattle (as seen in previous posts), still having a love/hate relationship with that frog, and is indifferent to Sophie. She isn't effectively grabbing or reaching for anything yet, but she does a lot of swatting at toys that I think is intentional. Rolling from tummy to back is definitely a skill that stuck, but she isn't that great at it. Every time I put her on her stomach, she is instantly trying to roll back over, but her arm is usually in the way and she can't quite figure out what to do with it. I would say she rolls over probably once a day. (It might be more if she didn't get so ticked off when it doesn't happen as quickly as she would like!)

It was hard to get a good picture of her facing the light, because she kept contorting herself into all sorts of weird positions. Possibly attempting to roll over? Who knows.

We believe the poor baby has her first cold, or she has been doomed to have a horrible combination of sinus problems from both Chris and myself. She has been so congested, we are using the booger sucker like crazy (which sometimes she finds funny, I guess maybe it feels weird to have your boogers sucked). Hopefully the congestion clears up soon, I think it is keeping her from getting restful sleep, even though she is sleeping for a good length of time.

I think that is all I have to share for now. I am excited to see what we will be discussing next month!

i want to win it!

So I mentioned the silhouette machine that I so desperately need, right? Well first, I found out that yes, I can indeed use it with my Mac, thanks to a plug-in that makes it work with Adobe Illustrator. SCORE! Then, when I logged on to my reader this morning I discovered that there was a silhouette giveaway at Just a Girl. I want to win it so bad.


She also mentioned in her post that Silhouette is offering a great deal on the machine right now through July 1st, and although not quite as awesome, a pretty good deal from July 2nd-7th.

Keep your fingers crossed that this fancy pants machine will become mine!

enjoying the weekend...

...in some shades.



I had nothing to do with the following picture. That is all auntie Lorin.


Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

cheesy tomato sausage skillet

After clicking through numerous food blogs earlier this week, I decided on this cheesy tomato sausage skillet for dinner on Wednesday. It was fairly easy to make and had great flavor. Because I'm a whimp, the recipe had a little too much kick for me to want to eat more of it, but honestly it tasted great.


I would suggest NOT doubling the recipe. The recipe calls for 8 ounces of pasta and 8 ounces of sausage... the packages we purchased had 16 ounces each, so I figured what the heck, I'll just double the recipe. With those amounts we fill a wok to the brim. Oh well, I had extras to share with a friend. :o)

Enjoy!

embrace the camera

Emily of the anderson crew challenges her readers every Thursday to get in a photo with their kids. She makes a good point... even though 99.5% of the time I HATE the way I look in pictures, or hate having my picture taken in general, Ry will probably appreciate pictures of her and her family when she grows up. Plus it will break up the thousands of photos I have of her from the waist up :o). You can read more about embracing the camera here.

Ry doesn't seem to keen on taking photos with her mama...

I also had to pop these in here. Ryann and I went to hang out with JT and Jenn again today. They are both getting so big!

And this one, well to me it looks like Ry is thinking 'whoa buddy, where do you think your hand is going?', and JT seems pretty happy with himself. Don't worry Chris, he didn't get fresh with her. :o)


I must say, I think JT looks pretty studly in the polo onesie that I just might have given him...

i hate sleep

Apparently anyway.

I should preface this post by saying I know I should be thankful. Ryann really does sleep pretty well. We have had almost two weeks of her sleeping from 11pm - 7 am. I was getting almost 8 straight (ok well that is a lie, but I'll explain later) hours of sleep. No parent can really complain about that can they?

But here are my problems. First and most importantly, I am not a late night girl, and never have been. I was usually the first one asleep at slumber parties when I was a kid, and in college I often didn't go out because I honestly was just too tired to leave the house after 10.

Ryann however, has seemingly decided that her bedtime is between 10:45 and 11:30. The good side of that, is we don't have to be super worried about being out later in the evening, or people being at our house.

My next dilemma... for some reason I'm an early riser. It is nearly impossible for me to sleep past 6am, unless I am completely exhausted. In college when I would decide to be adventurous, and stay out until 2 am or so, I would still be awake by 7:30 at the latest. At sleepovers I would always be laying around my friend's houses just hoping they would wake up.

So even if Ry sleeps until 7:00 or later, I am laying in my bed awake at 5:45. I have tried to use this to my advantage but getting up and taking a shower before she is awake, but sometimes I want to be asleep so bad I can't make myself move.

Which brings me to my last dilemma. If I wake up in the middle of the night anytime after 3am, it takes me hours to get back to sleep. So the last two nights when Ry has decided to want a 3am feeding (I know I should be lucky that she only wants to eat once in the night!) I proceeded to lay awake for the next 2.5 hours listening to her grunt and wiggle around (she is an extremely noisy sleeper), Chris snoring, and my brain spinning with things I wanted and needed to get done. By the time I'm falling back asleep Chris is getting up to go to the hospital, which means I go in and out of sleep until 7 when Ry decides she is up for the day.

I don't know how to convince Ryann that bedtime is earlier. I can't figure out how our bedtime routine should go, or when it should start. Last night my theory was that I was going to put Ry to bed after her next to last feeding (which was around 7:30) and then half wake her up around 10:00 for one more bottle (I don't think we can skip this last feeding, as it is she only takes in 20oz a day) and hopefully she would be out for the night. She was in her bed asleep at 9, and was awake again by 9:10, fussy and cranky. Chris tried to soothe her back to sleep with no luck, so I tried to give her another bottle. She only took part of it, fell asleep by 10, and was extremely grunty from 1:30am-3am. At 3 I gave her a bottle in the hopes that she would calm down and sleep more soundly. It worked, for about 30 minutes. So I would call my plan a fail.

The good news? My girl looks adorable in pjs. :o)



If any of you brilliant mothers out there have any suggestions for a nighttime routine, be it things you do to calm your little one, what your timing is, etc, I would love to hear it. She fights going down for a nap all day long (she does take them, it just takes me at least 20-30 minutes to get her to sleep) so by bedtime I really am so ready for some peace... and sleep. I know she is a baby, and it takes some babies a long time to figure out this sleep thing, but any help I could get would be amazing :o).

i want one

Meet the silhouette machine.


The silhouette machine is like a cricut, except you don't have to buy special cartridges to get different fonts and designs, you design everything on your computer. For a computer/graphic design/ crafting geek like me, that sounds AMAZING. This thing can cut paper, it can cut vinyl, it can do a lot of things. Seriously go to the website and take a look. Also, check out the projects that Chris at Just a Girl has made with hers:



Its only flaw? It claims it doesn't work with Macs. Definite shot to the heart. I know someone had posted about how they made their silhouette work with a mac, but I can't for the life of me remember which blog I was reading. If anyone can give me a little step by step on how I could make it happen, I just might HAVE to buy one.

touches of yellow

Remember when I saw those yellow rose pillows that I needed? Well I found them at Target, and now they are mine. :o) Its the middle of June and I have finally acquired a couple of yellow items to give my family room a touch of summer.


The yellow flower sprays are from Hobby Lobby, and the little lantern thing is from ZGallerie.


My green pillows definitely aren't bright enough to play up the yellow, and I still want to find a yellow or green patterned lampshade for the table lamp that is sitting when you walk into the room. I also feel like this room is in need of some wall art, but I can't make up my mind what I want. Surprised? I bet not. Wall art seems to be the hardest thing for me to pick.

Before any of this will really look good, it might be best for me to clean out the closet so I have a place for my office. The iMac is quite the accessory for the bar. Oh, and do you like that my 'winter sticks' are still in here?

Meaghan said its ok, they're just sparkle sticks. Thanks Meg :o).

to my two favorite men

"Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad."
Anne Geddes

My daddy:

Those glasses are probably the coolest thing since sliced bread. Love ya dad :o).

(side note: Dad, this is the last picture I can find on my computer of the two of us. That is two years ago. That is pretty sad. I am making a mental note to change that!)

My dad is an amazing man. He has taught me to think intelligently, encouraged me to be resourceful, showed me how to be strong, and most importantly, when I fail at all three, he demonstrates how much he loves me and helps me along my way. If it weren't for him, I would be lost.

He is turning out to be a pretty awesome grandpa too :o).


The father of my baby:









No one else out there could be a better daddy for my little girl. Christopher is so loving, so caring. He can make his baby smile in an instant. I have a feeling Ryann is going to grow up being a daddy's girl, and though I may be a tad jealous :o), I couldn't be happier. I can't wait to see their relationship grow.

Happy father's day guys, you're the greatest.

ryann and the frog, the neverending saga

Don't you even think about touching my rattle. I'll bite you. (Or gum you I suppose)


I think this frog has to become my running joke. I know, you're probably sick of seeing pictures of my kid staring at a frog, but I think it is too funny how much she chats it up with this guy, and often gives him evil looks.

And on a side note, I made her hold onto that rattle. She still isn't reaching out to grab things, she swats at them, but doesn't try to hold them. Occasionally I put her hands around things so maybe she'll figure it out. As soon as I put the rattle in her hands, it went straight to her mouth. Typical baby I suppose :o).

blogging from bed

Yesterday morning I couldn't sleep. I woke up 2 HOURS before Ry, at 5:20am. So when I couldn't get back to sleep I shopped the iPhone app store.

I ended up purchasing one called 'blogpress'. We shall see how posting from the phone goes.




I'll leave you with Ry chillin' in the bed yesterday morning.

Hopefully this actually posts to my blog...

*EDIT* The post did make it to my blog, so I can successfully post from my phone! Only a couple of things I don't like... it made the picture pretty small, and I don't think I can add my labels. Oh well, I'll survive. I suppose I can fix those things when I'm at a computer.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

cheesy mashed potatoes

This weekend I had a craving for cheesy mashed potatoes. (Ok lately I am craving cheesy anything, I just decided to go with potatoes) I didn't take a picture of mine, so here is the one from allrecipes.com.


Although the potatoes were good, I don't think it is the best cheesy potato recipe out there. I don't know that for sure, considering I have never tried another recipe, but I felt like there was something missing from these. With that said, if you are looking for a cheesy potato recipe, this one will definitely suffice. You can find the recipe here.

Enjoy!

ryann and the frog part 2

Hey frog, what are you lookin' at?


Seriously, stop staring or I'll beat you up!


Ha ha, just kidding!


We can be friends. :o)

houston, we have a roller

Please excuse the volume of my voice. I was a little bit excited.

This is the first time she rolled from tummy to back, and I just happened to catch it on video. It definitely wasn't the most graceful roll, and I don't think she will be very consistent with it any time soon, but I'm so proud. :o)

If you would have asked me at 20, the things that would excite me in a few years, I can almost guarantee I wouldn't have said shower curtains and babies rolling over. Oh how things change.

is it overkill...

... to have ruffle curtains in Ry's room, and a ruffle shower curtain in my bathroom?

We repainted the bathroom and I got a shower curtain shortly after we moved into our house. After bringing home 7 shower curtains I settled on this one:


And probably less than a month later I decided I hated it. My bathroom doesn't look horrible, but it isn't fun. It seems a little, um, old? Boring? Blah? I don't know. I figure, it is two young girls (ok me and a baby, whatever) sharing this bathroom. It should be a little more fun right? At least a bit of a brighter blue if nothing else.

I saw these shower curtains on Anthropologie's site a while back, and have been mildly in love with them. The price tag is a bit hard to stomach for a shower curtain though...




And then, go figure, I log on to blogger this morning to find this image on my reader thanks to House of Turquoise:


Which makes me think I NEED that shower curtain. Chris was going to buy me a right hand ring for my birthday, and we never settled on one I liked... maybe I should get a shower curtain instead? :o)

Any thoughts?

babysitting.

I think babysitting my printer is almost as much work as taking care of my baby. I am on to some invites, which are a little less work to print than the programs, but still require babysitting nonetheless. Luckily Ry has been taking great naps these past couple days so I can get some work done. Too bad my to do list is a mile long... and the only things I want to check off are 'write a blog post' and 'upload pics to facebook'. Don't judge.

My girl turned 10 weeks old yesterday. 10 WEEKS! Has it really been 10 weeks since she was born. Has it only been 10 weeks? I'm not sure which part sounds crazier.

Here is a compilation of videos with her testing out her vocabulary. The first clip is my favorite right now. It just makes me laugh.

Oh and thanks for teaching me to rotate my videos. It is much appreciated! (And maybe if I had spent five minutes trying to figure it out last time it would have happened. Oh well.)

And back to loading paper. Sigh.

this and that

My printer and I have a love hate relationship. We are currently deep in the middle of one of the hate phases. Therefore I am sitting here babysitting my printer while I attempt to make 200 wedding programs. Which means... I am blogging some tidbits in my 90 second intervals between pushing print for each of the 200 programs, and loading paper one sheet at a time. Joy.

:: Ry and JT had another play date. I thought Ry was doing great gaining weight, but at 13 pounds, I think he has her beat.

:: I wish I wasn't babysitting my printer so I could make something delicious for dinner, instead of ordering pizza. But then again, who am I kidding, pizza is pretty tasty. But I do feel like cooking, mostly appetizers. I'm not sure why :o).

:: My small collection of babylegs arrived in the mail on Friday. I'm in love :o)

:: Seriously, this is a total daddy's girl. She lights up when she sees him. I have also discovered that she doesn't nap as well when he is home, which makes me think that she would rather hang out with her daddy than sleep.

:: I'm in the mood for a trip to HomeGoods. Not that I really have any money to blow on home accessories, but I'd love to at least browse and dream.

:: We started practicing sitting in the bumbo this week. She only lasts about three minutes before her head gets way to heavy for her, but she tries so hard, and often seems pretty amused to be sitting up.

:: I really want to put up a backsplash in our kitchen. We are planning to at some point, but I think I want to make it happen sooner rather than later. My first choice would be some sort of glass tile, but I don't know what kind, plus that could add up. White subway tile would work, but that would be a lot of white. Anyone have any suggestions?

There are many more random tidbits that I could share, but I have a feeling you're getting bored with me. Plus it is hard to focus when I keep switching back and forth between inDesign and the internet. Guess I'll just have to browse etsy!