So proud

Tonight I put you in your crib at 9:00. You only fussed for about 1 minute and that was when I was telling you goodnight and kissing you. As soon as I walked out of the room you quit!! You ended up taking about 30 minutes to fall asleep, but you never cried at all. You finally just fell to sleep.

I am so proud of you and so thankful that God is helping and making this easy. I was so worried you would cry for hours when we started trying this method of going to sleep, but you are doing so good.

I love you my sweet boo bear!

We are thankful for...

Part I

I thought since Thanksgiving is fast approaching we would write down what we are thankful for each day. This is our list from this week...

Outside playtime

We decided to take you outside and let you play in the leaves. We didn't get any good "fall color" pictures of you in the leaves this year because with you being so little and short to the ground its hard to get good pictures because they are all dead.

So we thought we would at least let you play in the leaves we had and snap some pics. Daddy was blowing leaves today so we thought it was a good time.

Then we headed to a local park that has a Duck pond, but the Ducks had all left for the winter. We still shot some cute pics and you of course loved being outside.

We had a great family day and just enjoyed our time together.

P.S. Notice the outfit changes! When playing outside after a rain of course you get wet:) I only let you stay outside for a couple of minutes at a time so you wont get sick.

P.S. x 2 Hey Nae Nae check out Callie's tongue! Who do you think she gets that from??

Sleep update 2

YOU DID IT!!! You ended up sleeping through the night in your crib.

You slept 7 straight hours. We are so proud of you this morning. I got up at 3 AM to check on you and you had turned upside down compared to how you had been when you went to sleep. I didn't even hear you moving around, which shows that I slept much better myself.

I can tell a difference between both of us this morning and that we both feel better.

I hope this is a new beginning to better sleep in our house!

I love you.

Sleep update 1

It is 11:05 PM. One hour after we started you are alseep. I am really proud of you and the fact that all together you really only cried about 20 minutes. And thank goodness you didn't cry hard.

We will see how the night goes...

The hardest thing so far...

SLEEPING!! Well tonight I decided enough was enough. You my dear are the lightest sleeper I know besides myself. Plus you DO NOT think you need to sleep.

This past week has been so bad that one night you woke me up 19 times. It's to the point where you and I are so exhausted we stay cranky 99% of the time.

I have tried everything. The other day I left you in your crib for 2 hours and 15 minutes and you still were not asleep. I would go in every few minutes and check on you, try to lay you down but you would not have it. I never said a word to you because in the latest book I am reading it says not to speak. Well it didnt help. After the long battle I finally gave up and said forget it. So you and I were both upset, and not in a good mood the rest of the day.

So tonight I rocked you to sleep. Which was easy this time because you were very sleepy. I put you in your crib and you made it about 15 minutes and woke up. So I had already decided I was going to have to force myself to make you stay in your crib until you went to sleep. So I went in and patted you for a couple of minutes and you calmed down and closed your eyes. But as soon as I would quit patting you would wake up. So after 5 times of this I walked out.
Which was the hardest thing for me to do because of course you started crying.

Although I will say you didnt even cry hard enough to have tears which is better than usual. With my tummy tied in knots and shaking to death I decided I had to find something to do to be busy and avoid going back into the room until you went to sleep. So I started cleaning the Kitchen and Microwave. Then I decided I might as well take a shower (which I find hard to do these days bc you want in there with me).

We started this at 10:05 PM and it is now 10:46 PM. For the last 15 minutes you have not been crying, but you are not alseep!! You are sitting in the crib looking like you know someone is going to come and save you.

OMG!!! This breaks my heart and I hate to do it, but if you and I don't start sleeping we are never going to be happy and healthy like we should. I firmly believe that lack of sleep causes health issues plus tons of other things. I know that when I even think about putting you down for a nap or for night night my head begins to hurt and my blood pressue goes up.

So we will see what happens. But for now I am just praying extra hard for the strength to do this. I am sorry boo bear, but in the end it will be worth it.

I love you so much sweet baby girl.

I'm a big girl now!

(well a big, tiny girl)

Here are some pictures I took of you in your new big girl carseat! You didn't know what to think since you could see where you were going. You look so tiny in it:)

I love you doodles!

Your 1st Birthday!

We celebrated your 1st birthday beginning last Friday. We checked Eden out of school early and went to Sheridan. When Daddy got home from work we let you open all of your presents from us. You had a blast! At first you didn't know why we were letting you tear into the paper on your presents, but soon got the hang of it:)

Then on Saturday we had your party. You tore into your presents better than the night of your birthday and enjoyed looking at all of your new goodies.

You didn't want to get very messy while eating your cake, but you seemed to have fun with it anyways. You only wanted icing and didn't care about the cake part itself!

Guests at your party were: Mi Mi, Uncle David, Aunt B, Eden, Weston, Aunt Janet, Krysta, Uncle Eddie, Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Sudy, Aunt Marie, Nanny McCool, Dustin, Hannah, Sophia, Tiffany, Brianna, and Aunt Lindsay.

You really got the "royal treatment" and loved all of the attention. You were getting a little sleepy at the end so we wrapped it up and went back to Mi Mi's so you could play with your new things. You had so much you sort of didnt know where to begin.

We ended up meeting Aunt Marie and going out to eat. You slept through the entire thing and ended up sleeping about a 2 hour nap. You were worn out!!

So far your favorite things are your Elmo phone, phone and key set, radio, animal sounds puzzle and your Princess car.

I really hope you had fun. It was a very hard day without Paw Paw being with us. I made it fine until there were just a few of us left at Mi Mi's and then I lost it. I know he was there with us and watched you from Heaven, but it was still hard.

Thank you to everyone for coming and celebrating with us and for all of Callie's new goodies!!

Here are the pics...and yes there are a ton! Just between my camera and Aunt Janet's camera we took 609 pics!!

Here are some of the gifts you received:

baby doll that sings, little people princess castle, princess ride on car, board books, bath tub toys, little people mini van with mommy and baby, learn and laugh lawn mower, little snoopy pull along puppy, elmo phone, elmo musical books--from mommy and daddy

leap frog learn and groove radio, animal sounds puzzle, diapers--aunt janet and uncle sid

purse with play accessories--krysta and janae

rudolph rocks tu-tu, see and say, keys and cell phone set--uncle david, aunt b, eded and weston

musical guitar and vtech laptop--mi mi

pjs and $--nanny and poppy mccool

bounce and spin zebra--tiffany and brianna

cat truck (uncle eddie picked it bc it is the type that he drives for work) and baby doll that dances and sings bingo--uncle eddie and aunt dorothy

clothes and musical sing along book--aunt marie and uncle ronnie

musical book-- aunt sudy

taggie blanket and book--the peach family