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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

11 Months...Woah

It literally pains me to type this post right now.  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!  How is my baby only a few weeks shy of 1.  Now I know why there are families out there will a billion kids.  It goes so fast and you miss those moments when they were little.  It's totally crazy.  Now I am kicking myself for not blogging more, but really friends, I will never forget how amazing and special it has been watching Sophia grow.  She is the EASIEST baby.  I may have said this before, but Emily was an EASY baby.  Sophia is CRAZY easy.  She never cries, she very rarely fusses, she just hangs out and is happy.  She has been such a dream.  So 11 months....Woah.

This month Sophia...

  • is still in size 3 diapers, size 3 shoes and is starting to grow out of her 9 month clothes.  Everyone says she looks big, but she really is tiny.  Her cheeks are deceiving.
  • is great at signing more and milk.  
  • has just 2 teeth still.  The top 4 look like they are right on the surface, but nothing has popped through yet.  This is CRAZY to me.  Emily had almost a full mouth of teeth at this point.  I think she was starting to get molars around the age Soph is now.  Every baby truly is different.
  • is really starting to develop a personality.  She does not like to be told no. AT.ALL.  In fact, I mentioned that she never cries.  Well that is a lie.  The only time she cries is if you tell her no. She laughs a ton.  She thinks Emmy is hysterical. She will "yell" at you if you take away something that she wants.  She is pretty sassy and very silly. 
  • sleeps like a dream.  We have never had to rock her to sleep.  She just lays down and goes to bed.  She sleeps from 7:00 pm and wakes up around 6:45.  Our routine recently changed in the mornings (the girls are at a new school, more on that in another post) but she has adapted beautifully.  She takes one 2-3 hour nap a day now.  Part of me misses the 2 naps a day, but doing just one has made all our lives so much easier.  We have so much flexibility in our schedule now on the weekends. We don't feel pinned to the house.
  • eats like a champ. This kid eats, and eats, and eats.  It's amazing how much food she can put back.  Since I stopped nursing last month, we reintroduced bottles.  It pained me to do so, since she pretty much weaned herself from them at around 8 or 9 months, but I can get her to drink so much more if I offer her the bottle in the morning and at night.  Right now she drinks about 6 oz from a bottle right when she gets up, then she has a sippy of about 12 oz throughout the day, offered at each meal. She will get another sippy at dinner, and finally a 6 oz bottle before bed.  She is drinking her milk so good!!  We won't transition to whole milk until we are closer to finishing off all the frozen milk.  I still have quite a bit frozen. My plan is at a year, to get her off the bottle and just offer her milk in a sippy at "breakfast" and then drop the bottle before bed.  There have been a couple of nights that we have skipped it and she did fine.  She transitions so easy, I am really not worried.  Solidwise, she eats it all.  She will eat whatever we are having just cut up to her size.  She turns no food away, but recently has discovered how "funny" the dogs are when she throws food off her plate.  Hey Sophia, it's not funny.  This is about the only time we have to tell her no, which she hates.  
  • has been taking a few steps here and there for a couple of weeks now.  Last week she stood up and took 10 steps, like she has been doing it all her life.  She doesn't "walk" consistenly, because I think she realizes it is much faster for her to crawl, but she likes to surprise us when we least expect it by just getting up and walking across the room.  She can stand up with out pulling up on anything and can balance for what seems like forever.  I expect her to be full blow walking and no longer crawling at about a year. 
  • loves to dance.  Anytime she hears music, or if Emmy sings (which she does a lot), Sophia will start to dance.  Adorable. 
  • turns everything into a telephone.  She makes lots of phone calls at night.
  • loves to brush her own hair.  Which means she usually messes up whatever I have done to it, by dragging a comb back through it.  I refuse to cut Sophia's bangs.  If you want to know why, click here. This isn't even the worst of it. Why did no one tell me that I was TERRIBLE at cutting bangs.  Poor Emily.  Plus they are a HUGE pain to keep up with, so we usually pull Sophia's hair up into a top knot to keep it out of her eyes. She pulls out bows if we try to pin them back, so top knot it is.  
  • says dog, daddy, dada, mama, hello, bye and meow and associates them with all the correct objects.  

So, I am trying to learn to use my camera.  The first few pictures, I think the lighting was pretty good.  Then we lost light and all the pictures came out either over exposed, blue tinged or too dark, so I had to switch to auto mode in the interest of keeping my 11 month old happy.  Needless to say, she was not impressed.  I think I MAYBE got 1 good shot of her smiling with the sticker on her shirt and I think it looks blue.  Meh. Here is my sweet 11 month old girl.






If only she was sitting up straight and not trying to eat the sticker...



Not impressed

This is all she wanted to do. The ENTIRE time.

We lost her

Here is the best one I could come up with

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Sophia is 10 months!

Well 2012 has left us and we are now only 2 short months away from Sophia's first birthday. Noah...that's all I can say about that!

Sophia seems to change so much everyday.  She gets more confidence in her standing skills and is a rebel with the stairs. She is super silly and her personality is really starting to shine!  She learned some new tricks this month and we are so excited to watch her continue to learn and grow!






  • We didn't have her weighed this month, but if I had to guess, she is probably close to 20 lbs.  
  • She still eats like a champ.  I am amazed at the types of things she is able to easily eat with little or no gagging.  For the most part, she eats whatever we eat and does so without any fuss.  She really loves food.  Fruit, veggies, protein, she loves it all.  
  • I decided to start weaning her from nursing, since I have a million bags (no lie, I have a stand alone freezer and the freezer on our outdoor fridge full of milk.  Then I have a huge box of milk in both my mom and Zig's moms freezers).  I figured since I worked so hard to make and store all that milk, I would hate for it to go to waste.  My original plan was to wean her morning session first, wait a week or 2 and then wean the evening one, but I am a little selfish and I think I am going to keep the evening one for a little bit longer.  She is so soft and snuggly at that time.  I am not ready to go.  That being said, if I want her to get a full feeding in in the morning, I have to give her milk in a bottle.  She will drink way more.  She drinks great from a cup any other time, but I think it was an easier transition for her.  We will be starting a new routine February 1 when the girls switch to a Montessori daycare (more on that later), so I plan to try and drop the bottle then and pick up with the sippy. We are pretty set on no bottles after 1.  She drinks about 16-20 oz a day still.  
  • She waves!  She was doing it really consistently for a while, but now she is kind of over being a show pony.  She will wave on her own terms, not on demand.
  • She says mama!
  • She started blowing kisses a few days ago.  So sweet.
  • She gives the best kisses ever.  She puckers up her sweet little lips and means it.  No more open mouthed wet kisses for this girl.
  • Neither of my kids were/ are very snuggly once they became mobile. They both would rather be on the move, exploring, than being held. When she does snuggle up, its the best.  Emily has gotten a lot more lovey as she got older.  I hope Sophia does too.          
  • She can sign milk and more.  She goes through phases on using them though.  If you sign milk to her, she understands.
  • She can stand for long periods of time, but no real signs of walking yet.  She is such a fast efficient crawler, that I don't think she thinks walking is necessary at this point.  She cruises between and around furniture like a champ. 
  • She is still in size 3 diapers, size 9 month and some 12 month clothes and size 2-3 shoes.  
  • Her favorite game is chase.  She will look over her shoulder at you to see if you are paying attention to her and then she crawls at warp speed away from you, giggling like a fool. 
  • She also loves to play a modified peek a boo.  She likes when you hide behind things and pop up to peek at her.  She will do it to you too.  Smiles all day.
  • She loves to dance. 
  • She is super shy.  She will hid her face in your shoulder or in the blankets first thing in the morning when you go to wake her up and has the sweetest little grin on her face.
  • She babbles a ton and is starting to put different syllables together.  Instead of just mama, dada, etc, she will babble different sounds like ooh ah, ooh ah, and uh ohh.   
  • Today I swear she said daddy when she heard Zig in the hall.
  • We switched her out of her baby seat and into a rear facing car seat that Emily used to use.  Emmy is now in a bigger convertible seat.
  • She has 2 teeth.
  • She is the BEST sleeper.  On the weekends, she will go to bed at 7 and sleep till at least 7.  We can feed her and she will sleep in till about 9 or so.  There are days she skips that 7 feed and sleeps straight to 9.
  • We transitioned her to a mat at school and she is down to one nap a day.
  • She eats a full lunch and dinner and 2 snacks a day.
Starting February 4th, both girls will be going to daycare.  Stephanie is expecting a baby shortly after Sophia's first birthday and has decided to close the school.  We were pretty heart broken because Stephanie has done some amazing things with the girls.  We love that she takes them on so many field trips and has taught them so many things.  Emily is pretty mature and well spoken for her age.  At the same time though, we are happy for Steph and more than anything we really feel that it is what is best for Emily too.  We had planned to send her to some kind of preschool a few days a week starting this year.  She really needs to work on patience and not always being the first priority.  Right now, she has Stephanie's full attention and has not really learned how to wait. She interacts well with kids, but socially I think she will love school.  I think she gets a little bored with just Sophia all day.  Now she can run and just be a kid with other kids her age.  Sophia will adapt just fine.  She is so easy going.  The school we are sending them to is a great school and we are really excited to start the change. 

It is so hard to believe that Sophia is almost 1.  I feel like I have forgotten to post so much about her sweet little life, but it is forever engraved in my memory and heart.  She is such a good baby.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Christmas!

Christmas was so fun with Emily this year!  She was really into Santa and loved her Elf Pedro.  He did his best to keep here in check! Sophia opened a few gifts, but was over it pretty quickly.  Emily had a blast opening nearly every gift under the tree.  It was so nice to spend the day, relaxing with family!

I will just go ahead and flood you with a million pictures of my adorable children!

The look on Emmy's face say it all here.  Christmas is magical!

 Emily got a bike from Santa and Sophia got a walker/stroller with a baby doll

In Emmy's eyes, her gifts were only hers, but Sophia's were also hers...

She picked up on the concept pretty quick.  We thought for sure she was just going to get up and walk!

Riding her new trike from Santa


This was one of Emily's favorite Christmas gifts.  She had one of these when she was a baby and it broke.  She had been dropping not so subtle hints for a while that she wanted a new one, so Auntie Koley got her and Sophia one.




Here is the gang.  We get matching jammies every year, but always forget to take a group shot.  On a funny note, we set up the camera on the tripod and this is the one photo we got before the battery dies and it's perfect!  Everyone, including Sophia was looking and most of us were smiling!

Ziegler family Christmas photo.  The girls stayed in their jammies all day!

I was blessed with many beautiful gifts on Christmas day.  What was most important to me was spending the day with the people I love!  I have the most amazing husband and wonderful children!  I could not ask for more in life!  Sweet Sophia's gift to me was FINALLY saying mama. I love her!  A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to anyone who still reads this thing!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Sophia is 9 months

Note: This post has been in draft mode since 12/5.  I.AM.AWESOME.

Before we know it, this year is going to be over.  It is totally insane to me.  We have a lot of big changes coming up in our world, and are so excited for them to get here, but we are just enjoying everyday that we have together.  Sweet, silly, sassy Sophia is 9 months old!  Time sure does fly.

We had her 9 month check up with the doctor and everything is looking great!  Here are some stats about Sophia this month.
  • She weighs 18 lbs 12 oz and is  26 3/4inches long.  She is in the 25-50% for weight and 25% for height.
  • She is still in size 3 diapers, 9 month clothes. 
  • She eats a lot of solids.  Some of her favorites so far are eggs, soy beans, stew, bean and cheese burritos, cheerios, yogurt bites, green beans, blueberries and mac 'n cheese.  Really, this kid will eat anything you put in front of her and a lot of it.  The doctor lifted all food restrictions (with in reason) with the exception of honey and soft cheeses, so we are excited to try our first PB&J one day soon.
  • She drinks from a straw sippy cup like she has been doing it all her life.  I remember it being so hard to teach Emmy to do that, but Sophia took right to it.  
  • She does not like bottles anymore.  We have basically stopped offering them all together.  From now on she will only drink pumped milk in a sippy cup or straight from the source.  I am glad she made that transition easy.  I know some friends who had a really hard time taking the bottle away.  She one day decided she just didn't want it anymore.  She did the same thing with the paci at around 6 months.
  • She drinks about 8-10 oz a day from a cup and then nurses in the morning and at night.  She is not a big milk drinker.  We really have to push it, but the doctor is not concerned.  We have about 2-3 months of milk stored in our freezer, so I stopped pumping all together.  Hallelujah! If I had to guess she drinks about 16-20 oz a day.  
  • She sleeps like a champ.  The only time she has woken up lately is because she is too cold or teeth. She still puts herself right down, and if she does wake up.  She is easily soothed.
  • She has one tiny baby tooth. Looks like the other lower is on its way. 
  • She pulls up on everything and cruises around the furniture.  Sometimes she gets ambitious and lets go.  Emmy started walking right around 10 months.  We will see what Soph does.
  • She talks a lot of gibberish, but says dada clear as day.  She says it all the time though, so I am not sure she really associates it with Zig yet.  No sign of mama.  Today, I was holding Bodhi and clear as day she said "Dah" twice while looking at him.  It's funny because that was the first word that Emily correctly associated with an actual object too.


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!