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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

three

My heart is bursting at the seams here people.  I am so incredibly proud to be Emily's mommy.  There are days that she tests my patience and there are days that she makes me laugh till I cry.  Who ever said it was the terrible 2s lied their faces off.  3 is so much harder.  Emmy wears her heart on her sleeve and she is very emotional.  She also is not used to not being the number one priority and we are working very hard on teaching her the importance of patience and taking turns.Yet she is funny, and silly and super duper sweet.  She has the greatest imagination and the best memory on earth.  She is an amazing big sister and lights up like a Christmas tree when she gets a smile out of Sophia.  She sings, she dances, she loves with all her heart.  She gives the best hugs and tells us the sweetest secrets.  She can throw an epic tantrum, but is a big helper.  The last 3 years have been so much fun.  I love this child. I love her more than anything in the world.

So I came across this list of questions on pinterest and I absolutely loved the idea.  Every year on Emily's birthday, and on Sophia's once she turns 3, I am going to ask them the following questions.  It will be so much fun to lack back and see how their preferences have changed over the year.  Emily was in the silliest mood the night we asked her these.  Someone knocked over her giggle box because she thought every question was hysterical and it was tough to get through the list, but here it is!

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Buddies, especially Howie
3. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries
4. What is your favorite tv show? Little Einsteins
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Spaghetti
6. What is your favorite outfit? Little Einsteins t-shirt
7. What is your favorite game? Soccer
8. What is your favorite snack? Raisins
9. What is your favorite animal? Giraffes and elephants
10. What is your favorite song? "The Club Song" Aka Flo Rider's The Club Can't Handle Me Right Now.  Don't Judge people.  She heard it once and we were done.
11. What is your favorite book? She could not answer this one.  Girl likes her some books.  She named every book on her shelf
12. Who is your best friend? Cinderella
13. What is your favorite cereal? Mac 'n Cheese....She doesn't eat a lot of cereal
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play and pick flowers 
15. What is your favorite drink? Water
16. What is your favorite holiday? Santa Clause
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? All my buddies
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Papa's cinnamon bread
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Peanut butter and Jelly! 
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? June (Little Einsteins) or a Princess


So silly.  That Emmy.  She also had an appointment for a checkup with doctor.  She is perfect.  As if we didn't already know that. :)  She weighs 28.6 lbs and is 35 1/2 inches.  

For her birthday we went to Hoot's, which is a jump house and Emily told me "Mommy, this was the best birthday party ever!" We had a great time running and jumping and sliding all morning.  We were glad that so many of her friends and all her Aunts and Uncles were able to be in town too!




This face, this child, she is my world!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Sophia is 8 months!

Time is seriously flying by.  I am afraid to blink because it will probably be her 1st birthday if I do. I have the next week off, so I plan to catch up on my blogging.  A certain little girl is going to be turning 3 in 2 weeks (WHAT??!!???) and I am long overdue on an update of just her.  Plus there are lots and lots of other fun changes in the Ziegler household these days.  We may rename the 2013 the year of change, because it will involve new jobs, a new house and a new school for the girl.  Scary, but exciting changes. More to come.  For now, onto our sweet Sophia. It doesn't seem like a whole lot has changed.  She has grown, and she is much more mobile, that is for sure.

This month:

  • Sophia is really on the move.  She is all over the place, climbing stairs and pulling up on everything in sight.  A few times she has let go and held her weight for a good 10 seconds.  She is growing so fast.
  • She doesn't have an appointment for another few weeks, but if I had to guess, she probably weighs about 18 lbs.  
  • She is wearing size 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers.
  • She has really slowed down on the amount of milk she drinks because she is seriously into solid foods.  Food is fun till one, but I really just care if she is eating good meals anyway she gets it.  She only drinks 4- 8(maybe) oz. of milk a day from a bottle at school.  The rest of the time she nurses once in the am and once in the pm.  She probably only drinks 15 oz a day total.
  • That being said, she eats a TON.  She has a morning snack at school and eats as much, if not more of what Emmy is eating.  Then she has lunch and dinner.  She has tried so many foods and loves them all.  She really likes to eat pasta, and whole veggies.  Among many things, she has tried bread, eggs, lots of pasta, a huge array of whole veggies, pizza.  Pretty much anything we eat, she eats.  And she eats large quantities.  We also offer a sippy cup of water or breast milk. 
  • She sleeps really good.  She continues to be the easiest baby to put to bed.  She nurses really quick, I lay her down with her blankie and she is out till about 6am.  Sometimes she wakes up, sometimes I wake her up to eat before school.  
  • Emily has been such an amazing sister.  She really looks out for Sophia and shares her toys really well.  Sophia thinks she is the greatest thing ever.  If anyone is sure to get a smile out of Soph, it's Emmy.
  • Sophia is a total mama's girl still.  I love that we have such a good connection.  She is so sweet, she never cries, unless she needs something.  She is just the best little baby.  Out life is so much more complete with her here!

Here are some pictures of our sweet girl.  Sorry, some are grainy camera phone pictures. :)















Saturday, November 3, 2012

Sophia 6 & 7 Month Pictures!

Guess what, my 6 month pictures of her were deleted.  I am so so sad. I could cry.  That's what I get for saving them for as long as I did.  They wiped our computers for work because we switched to a cloud network and I didn't realize the pictures are saved in a different area. Super big sad face.  Here are her 7 month ones though.  I am praying I maybe didn't delete them off the the SD card, but that's at work.  Super Duper big boo.









Pumpkin Patch

We have made gone to the McCall's Pumpkin Patch every year since Emily was little and I was really excited to take Sophia for the first time this year.  We had a great time.  Emmy picked out the "perfect" little pumpkin for her and Sophia and we ate lots of yummy food.  I can't wait to take Sophia again next year to see how much she has changed, like we have done with Emily each year.





Who is this kid??
 
This is the classic smile we get out of Emily these days! Crazed lunatic!


Sweet Sophia




And check out this craziness...
Emily 2010

Emily 2011
Emily 2012


Mind Blown!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Sophia 6 & 7 Months

Almost 8 months...I tell you. It is killing me that they blocked blogger at work.  And with 2 kids at home, it is nearly impossible to update as often as I would like. So here I am, blowing the dust off my blog.  I actually wrote a majority of this post when she was actually 6 months, but will just combine the 2 months now.

Sophia is learning so much everyday.  It is so fun watching her grow and I feel like if I blink, I am going to miss something.

At 6 months:
  • She weighed about 16 lbs. at her 6 month check up.  I have how long she is written down, but of course I can't find it. She is pretty close to Emmy's length at this age.  She is in the 50th for both, if I remember correctly.
  • She is in size 2 diapers, but they are getting a little snug. By the time we are done with this big box, she will probably be ready to bump up to size 3.
  • She is still in 3-6 month/6 month clothes.  I forgot how weird the sizes can be.  I think if it is "6 Month" it really is 3-6 month.
  • She sits up really well unassisted and is really close to pulling into a sitting position from laying down.
  • She is for the most part "crawling". She can go a few steps on her hands and knees and then resumes army crawling or plank crawling to get where she needs to go. 
  • Since learning to crawl, she is into everything.  She really like to explore things.
  • She talks a ton.  We have gotten a few "mamas" out of her, but for the most part she babbles "dada".
  • She seriously NEVER cries.  EVER. Instead she yells.  She sounds like an old man yelling. 
  • She is still eating about the same as last month, although she prefers solids over milk.  I know that food is supposed to be for learning and not till nutrition until 1, but our doctor is ok if she cuts back on her milk and eats more solids. We are hoping to keep it to at least 20 oz. of milk a day.  I bet she gets about that, but it's hard to tell since she nurses. 
  • She eats 2 cubes (I made baby food so two ice cube portions) every day for lunch of what ever Steph chooses for the day. I made pumpkin, peas, mixed veggies, mixed veggies with brown rice, and she has organic bananas or organic apple sauce.  She also eats smaller peices of whatever Emmy eats, like pastas, toast, etc. 
  • She loves puffs and mum mums.  She is still working on her pincer grip and making it to her mouth.  She "chews" each puff and its adorable. 
  • She loves to blow raspberries and click her tongue.
  • EVERYTHING goes in her mouth.
  • Sleep--Sleep got really bad a few weeks ago.  I had surgery a few weeks ago (details for another post) and that seemed to really throw Sophia off.  I was feeding her at 7, putting her down for the night and going in to top her off around 10 every night, in hopes to get her to sleep for a longer stretch.  For several weeks this worked great.  I fed at 10 and she would sleep till 6.  Then after my surgery, Zig would have to go in with me and hand her to me to feed and it would wake her up a little more than normal. She would still go down ok, but she started waking up at 2-3 consistently.  Sometimes she would wake at 12.  And the only way to get her to go back to bed quickly was to feed her.  Now, we can't complain.  Neither of our kids have ever woken up in the middle of the night and stayed up.  For the most part, they'd eat really quick or require a quick back rub and doze of again. BUT, Sophia is capable of going much longer stretches, than she has been pulling lately.  So we started to do a modified Ferber and let's just say things are going much better.
  • As for getting to sleep, Sophia is a dream.  I literally feed her, lay her down wide awake and she puts herself to sleep.  No paci, no back rubbing, nothing.  She means business when 7 pm hits. 
At 7 months:
  • We haven't had her weighed since her 6 month appointment, but I am guessing she is in the 18 lb. range.
  • She is in size 2 diapers still.  Man that box lasted a while!  Thank you Amazon! We will move to size 3 here shortly. 
  • She still fits in 3-6 and 6 month clothes, but we started packing those up and are transitioning her to 6-9 and 9 months with the change in the season.
  • She is a crawling MACHINE.  She is all over the place.
  • She can pull up into a sitting position
  • She is the EASIEST baby.  Seriously. I thought Emmy was easy, but Sophia is so calm and just goes with the flow.
  • She eats 2 full meals a day of solid foods.  Still purees, but we are starting finger foods now.  She eats steamed veggies, pastas, small pieces of meat, puffs and yogurt bites.
  • She still nurses in the am and pm and has 2, 4oz. bottles a day at school.  I am guessing she really only gets between 16-20 oz. 
  • She loves to growl and is so silly.
  • She sleeps all night.  We usually put her down at 7 and she will get up between 5:30 and 6, but most mornings I wake her to eat. She still puts herself to sleep no problem, even now that she can pull into a sitting position.
  • She loves cords, remotes, dog toys and shoes.
  • She ADORES Emily.  She loves to smile at her and laugh at her. 
  • She babbles a lot and has the sweetest little growl. 
  • Still no teeth!!
We are really settling in as a family of 4. Emily has been such an amazing help over the last month.  She seems so grown up! 

Sorry for the combined post. I am hitting post now. Last time I tried to save the post till I pulled the pictures off my camera and here I am, now 2 months later still waiting to plug in the SD card and dowload them.  Pictures will be up this week.  I will have to do an update on Emmy post here soon too! She is a total ham.  A definite toddler, crazy, head spinning tantrums and all, but still my sweet girl. 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

5 Months

Sophia has been 5 months now for over two weeks!  She is actually closer to 6 months at this point! Bah!! Where is the time going??!!

This months photo session was a tough one.  Soph is the SMILIEST baby on earth, but she just does not trust technology.  We have to sneak it up on her.  She will be grinning like a fool and then the second you pull out the camera, she is straight faced as can be. 

Case in point

She is also entirely too obsessed with her feet and would rather chew on those, than smile for the camera.






We got some pretty funny out takes




And we managed some smiles, though most are not at the camera




This month was a fun one for us! I will try to keep the stats to where she was 2 weeks ago.
  • Sophia rolls EVERYWHERE.  She is all over the place.  You can set her down and 2 seconds later she is across the room.
  • She also has mastered a weird caterpillar, army crawl kind of move.  She uses this technique to get as close to Emily as possible.  She drags her little body over to where ever Emily is.
  • To say that she loves Emily is a HUGE understatement.  She is OBSESSED with her.  She would crawl in Em's skin if she could.  She loves to watch Emmy, and just be around her.  She smiles constantly at her, laughs and will pull herself to where ever Em is just to be by her side.  Poor Emily is smothered by Sophia, but she is such a good girl and is so patient with her. 
  • She eats 2 oz of a veggie at lunch at school and 2 oz, plus a bowl of cereal for dinner.  She loves her veggies.  So far she seems to enjoy squash and sweet potatoes the best, but really has liked everything we have offered so far.  We are going to try carrots and then some fruits over the next few weeks and then we will start on the more solid solids.  I gave her a pizza crust the other night and she was in HEAVEN.
  • She can sit up for about 10 seconds before toppling over.  Her cheeks kind of gravitate to the floor and she is way to into her feet to be bothered with sitting up.
  • She nurses 2-3 times a day and drinks about 2 5oz bottles at school.  She sometimes gets a nursing session in, in the middle of the night too. She has cut back on the milk quite a bit, but she is not missing any meals.
  • She weighed 15lbs 4 oz when I took her to see the pedi about 2 weeks ago. 
  • No teeth yet, but lots of signs that they may be right around the corner
  • She is still in size 2 diapers, 3-6month clothes.
  • Sleep...Oh sleep...She is doing really well.  I think she is starting to wake now more out of habit, than necessity, but she only stays up for a very short time and is right back to bed.  We are starting to see if we can soothe her by offering a paci and rubbing her back, nursing as a last resort.  She is doing much better.  If I nurse her before bed she usually will sleep through the night, sometimes waking up around 5, but there are some nights where she gets up at 2 or 3 to chat our ears off.
  • She is so happy, and so so easy.  We took a couple trips this month and she transitioned amazingly.
  • At home she naps in her crib.  At school we are working on it, but sleeps great in the swing.  She takes 2 naps a day. One shorter one in the morning (about an hour) and one long one in the afternoon (2-3 hours).
  • She loves her toys and reaching for anything and everything in sight. 
  • Her eye is looking so much better.  It still gets a little goopy during the day, but not as bad as it had been.
Well, that's all I can think of for now!  Here are a couple more pictures from the month.





 Please ignore how awful I look in this picture.  No make up Sunday.  Soph looks to cute not to share!