3 Months!

Dear Eliza,

Oh my sweet girl, I can't believe that you are THREE MONTHS OLD!  You are sweet and smiley and such a joy.  My favorite time of day is when I get to come in and get you when you first wake up in the morning.  You are just laying there waiting for me and when you see me you get this huge grin on your face.  It melts my heart every time.  Last weekend when Daddy was home and we heard you awake we had a race to the nursery to see which one of us got to get you up.  You just looked back at us and smiled and giggled.  We just started putting you in a swaddling blanket that velcroes your arms in because just this last month your arms started waking you up in the night.  When we get you up in the morning and open up your swaddle blanket your arms go straight over your head and you stretch and stretch and make funny faces.  When you've finished stretching you go back to grinning you sweet toothless grin and giggling at us.  Your gummy smile is my favorite, but I can never quite capture it on film!

We've been working with you on taking a bottle this month, and you just refuse.  You used to cry and cry when we put a bottle in your mouth, but now you just sit there and let us hold it in your mouth.  You'll swallow eventually when enough milk drips in, but you refuse to suck on it.  You just don't know what to make of that plastic thing in your mouth.

We're also working on naps.  Just when I thinks I has nap time figured out you go and change your mind.  For a few weeks you would nap in your swing in the bathroom while I showered.  Then you would cry while I showered but would smile and fall asleep as soon as she got out of the shower.  Then you weren't content until you were back in my arms.  So, we'll keep working on nap time.

You still loves baths and bath time is probably your favorite time of day.  You love it when Daddy comes home and as soon as he walks in you only have eyes for him.  Even if you were starving hungry you'll stop nursing as soon as you hear Daddy's voice.  You're starting to be more aware of Scooter and you want to reach out and touch him.  Scooter is very patient with you, but still tries to get Momma or Daddy's attention when they are on the floor with you.  You definitely follow sound with your eyes and your whole head, and you'll follow Daddy too with your eyes when he's walking around.

You are still a great nurser, wanting to eat every two hours for anywhere from 20 minutes to a full hour.  You sleep so well at night usually only getting up once at night.  For five nights in a row you slept for 12 hours without getting up at all.  Momma and Daddy were grateful for the sleep, but I worried about you and still woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep until I heard you on the monitor.  (Apparently I wasn't worried enough to actually get out of bed and check on you.)

You found your hands this month and will bring them together.  You also found your legs and when we change your diaper you always reach down and grab your legs.  You haven't quite found your feet yet, but I'm sure it's coming any day!  You hate tummy time with a passion and will scream until we pick you up.

We love you more and more every day baby girl!

Love,

Momma

Nursery

My favorite room in the house is now the nursery. I find myself in there throughout the day, even when I'm not nursing Eliza.  Here's a little tour.  I don't have the best camera, photography skills, or photo editing software, so enjoy them for what they are.

My favorite spot in the nursery is definitely this chair.  It was our splurge for the nursery, but for how many hours I spend sitting there holding Eliza it's totally worth it.  The blanket on the chair was made by my lovely mother, and the blanket on the crib is from Shawn's Grandmother Helen Walker, whom Eliza's middle name come from.  (Chair from Buy Buy Baby, crib from Babies R Us, table from Ikea, lamp from Target, drapes from Ikea)

This is our changing table/dresser which I love, and our big blank wall I don't know quite what to do with.  I want to put the Alphabet on that wall, but I also want to hang something above the changing table that Eliza can look at while I'm changing her.  

We have a weird angled wall in the nursery, but it's the perfect spot for this bookcase. I love that it's filled with kids books that I've been collecting for years, books from my childhood, and new books just for Eliza.  

This is a close up of the top shelf of the bookcase.  It has two of my toys from childhood, my Annie doll, and my toy clock.  I also love the little ballet slippers, too bad they won't stay on Eliza's feet, and her ladybug bank from her Grandma Harrell.  The three photo books are still empty, and the basket contains her hair bows.  

I made this cute art piece for Eliza with a paper punch and scrapbooking papers I had around the house.  I love the little pop of color.

This is one of my favorite pieces in the nursery!  My Mom made this for her best friend in 1983 and it hung in her house ever since then.  When I had my baby LaryAnn gave it to me!  LaryAnn is my "second mother" and it means so much that it's both made by my Mom and from her best friend.  If you can't read it, it says "I hope my children look back on today/And see a mother who had time to play/There will be years for cleaning and cooking/For children grow up while we're not looking."  I think for me it might need to read "There will be years for email and facebooking."  

Shawn painted this when he was in gradeschool.  (There's a debate wether this was done when he was when he was in 1st grade or 5th grade.)  Grandma Walker had this hanging in her house for years, which of course makes it special. 

This is a painting done by Shawn's mom and it's one of his favorites.  Most of her paintings that we have are landscapes, so this one with kids is fun.  I like having things in the nursery that represent so much of Eliza's family.

Recently. . .

Things have been busy here in the Walker household and we've had no time to blog.  Except at night when I'm falling asleep and composing amazing blog posts in my head as I drift off.  Too bad those will never get published.  But I have a feeling they would be rather long, sometimes it takes a lot to get me to fall asleep.

What we've been up to recently:

• Experimenting with ways to get Eliza to A) nap and B) nap not in my arms after nursing.  For about 10 days she loved napping in her swing in the bathroom while I showered.  Then she would cry while I was in the shower, but fall asleep as soon as I got out.  Now she will do neither.  Sigh.  
• Right now she is sleeping in her swing with the vacuum running next to her.  At least my living room got vacuumed.  For the first time I find myself wishing our house was carpeted instead of mostly wood floors on the main level.  It doesn't take long enough to vacuum my 6'x4' rug.
• Bonus, vacuuming also drives Scooter nuts! It's kind of fun to watch him "attack" the vacuum.
• Thank goodness for white noise apps.  I was just able to stop the real vacuum and turn on the vacuum sound on my iphone.  I hope this lasts, mama needs a bit of a break!
• Lots of baking has happened around here.  I tried some awesome browned butter cookies I found on Pinterest.  I had wonderful plans to post about them, but that didn't happen.  The browned butter icing was the best part.  Seriously so good.
• We also made Cinnamon Rolls for General Conference Sunday.  Yum! And I used it as an excuse to make browned butter icing again.  Even better the second time.
• I baked Smitten Kitchen's Peach Pie with Creme Fraiche again this year.  
• We grew Kale in our yard, so we tried Kale chips and some Kale soup.  Neither was wonderful, so we'll be looking for new recipes.
• We went to the Home Show because we got free tickets and I was DESPERATE to get out of the house.  And then decided we're not Home Show people.  But it was nice to get dressed up (meaning makeup and earrings and an extra check of the clothes to make sure they didn't have spittup on them) and hold my husband's hand while walking around the Expo Center.

And for making it all the way through the post, here's a picture of the cutest member of our family.

Windows

Not my kitchen, but we do have a lovely bay window.

Do you read Design Mom?  I started reading her blog when she was getting ready to move with her kids to France.  It's a dream of ours to move to another country (preferably Europe) for a year or two.  I was fascinated by her descriptions of what was different in France, particularly how school was different for her kids.  What I really like about Design Mom is the variety of topics covered on her blog.  Sometimes it's book reviews, sometimes it's about clothing in Sweden.  Today's post on Window Treatments got me thinking.  Strange that such a simple topic, why did it strike such a chord?  When I was growing up I decided when I had a house I would always keep the windows uncovered.  I loved taking walks with my family and peeking in windows.  We're not talking about stalker peeking in windows, just wondering past houses, and wondering about the people who lived in them.  We had a big picture window in our living room, and I think it was usually left open to let the light in, but we had sheer curtains too, maybe those stayed closed most of the time.

Now, here I am in my own house, home all day and my windows stay covered.  I wish I could uncover my windows and let the light in all day long.  But I have a problem, a dog, who likes to bark.  He barks at everyone who drives by or walks by or even thinks about our house.  So if the windows were uncovered he would stand by them and bark. All. Day. Long.  And so our windows stay covered and I sit in a dark house.  Maybe one day I'll be brave, and open all the windows and just let the dog bark to his heart's content.  Except when the baby is sleeping.

October 1, 2012

Little Pumpkin wishes everyone a Happy October! 

(Especially her Aunt Stacey for whom this month is only knows as her birth month.)