Milestones

Elena Rose got a new carseat to replace her infant carrier. There are a lot of advantages to the infant carriers, like she would stay asleep when taken out of the car, you can cover it and take it inside and they're not exposed to the weather, etc. But her infant carrier is only good for babies up to 22 pounds, and at this point she's 19 pounds. We could have used it a little longer, but it's really difficult to carry around a 19 pound baby in a carrier that weighs about half as much as she does. This one she can use until she's 70 pounds, so we're good for a long while.

I also started brushing her teeth . . . both of them. And she loves it!

I cooked her first really savory meal. In case you can't read the bag (I pureed the food and froze it in cubes), it's chicken with leeks, sweet potato, and carrots. So far she's not the biggest fan of savory, but we're gonna keep trying until she gets used to it.

It's raining, it's pouring . . .

Literally, all day. Which brought our attention to a couple small leaks in the attic we'll need to take care of. Our entire backyard is flooded.

At night Jorge realized we had a big puddle on the family room floor by the wall. Turns out the side of the backyard was flooded so bad that it was above our slab foundation. So Jorge was out there in the dark, freezing cold while it was pouring rain, digging a hole under our wall. He was successful, the water drained out through the front. So what did we do today since we had to stay in? We slept in a little. We played.

Elena Rose chewed on Elmo.

She sucked on her floor (don't worry, it's new, so it's not dirty yet!).

She showed a slight interest in her baby doll, especially when I played with it.

She watched Daddy go outside to work on the flooding.

Drumroll, please!

Ta-daaaa! Notice anything different about me? NO BRACES!!! Yep, I finally got them off.

My Big Girl

Sometimes when I look at Elena Rose it's like she's almost not a baby anymore. She's getting up on her knees and rocking now, and she dances as soon as music comes on. She's so close to crawling and being more independent. At the same time, she's getting more clingy with me. At night I have to lay next to her until she falls asleep; Jorge tries to help, but she just cries. We lay her on the couch with us and I just cuddle next to her, and she'll play with my hair and pass out. Sounds like it's pretty easy, but my face needs to be right next to hers and she isn't always gentle with my hair. I know some people use the cry it out method for sleep training, but that's just not for me. She's doing great with her solids. She's so good with eating now. I make her food and freeze it in cubes to give her later. The other day I took pictures while I was feeding her, hoping I could zoom in to see her teeth (she doesn't open her mouth wide unless she's laughing or eating). Didn't really work out, but I got some cute pictures.

You can actually see her bottom teeth here.

We use bows now! Her hair has grown and her bangs almost cover her eyes when her hair is loose.

Eating Out

We go out to dinner pretty much every Friday night after work. Elena Rose loves it because she likes to watch people. She stays occupied the entire time, usually sitting on the table. Jorge holds her while we eat (now that she can sit up on her own we can try the highchairs). Yesterday we went to BJs and I took this picture on my phone.

April's Baby Shower

On the 5th we drove up to Santa Maria for the day for April's baby shower. She's due in a month. It was so nice to see everyone, and the baby had a lot of fun.


Here's a picture of me and Elena Rose with my sisters, and the baby bump.

My grandma was ecstatic that Elena Rose was kissing her. She does the really cute kisses, the kind with her mouth wide open, which shows that she wants affection, but doesn't really know how to give little kisses yet. I love them however they come!

Present time.

It looks like Elena Rose is waving at to the camera. I made the diaper cake in the background.

Lately

Random things that have been going on. Elena Rose continues to eat a lot, as you can see. She's a healthy girl! Love the sweet rolls.

Elena Rose loves the dogs. Charlie likes to jump into Jorge's lap, whether or not the baby is there. I like this picture because you can see Charlie's tongue.

This is when we were leaving to Santa Maria. She always smiles when I pull out the camera.

On a random note, Charlie figured out how to jump on the planter, and now when we get home we see him running back and forth. Looks like a little rat.

Everyday Things

While I was bathing Elena Rose, Jorge put his beanie on to run an errand (it was cold outside). He walked by the sink and the baby started crying. When he realized it he took the beanie off and walked up to her smiling and said "It's just Daddy!" She stopped crying and went back to playing in the water. After she was dressed in her pajamas I put the beanie on her for fun and took this picture. You'll notice that she's wearing a bib; that's because recently she learned to stick her tongue out and blow. When she does this enough times, her chest gets all wet, hence the bib.


Here she's chewing her giraffe teething toy. This is the only toy that she really gnaws on when she wants the pressure on her gums. Speaking of which, she cut her first tooth Saturday! We didn't even know it. I thought we would be well aware because of fussiness, fever, white spots in her gums, etc., but we had no idea. She seemed pretty normal, maybe a little fussy, but nothing out of the ordinary. Jorge found it by accident because she grabbed his finger and started chewing on it. You still can't really see it, but you can definitely feel it! Way rougher than her cute little gums.



She loves her Elmo puppet. We're really good about not buying her toys. We've been blessed and friends have given us so many toys so we haven't had to. But when we were walking through Buy Buy Baby I played with the puppet while she was in her stroller, just to keep her amused while we shopped, and she really liked it. So we bought Elmo, and I'm really glad that she still enjoys him.

Sitting Up

Elena Rose is getting a lot stronger in her core. She can sit up with support, but needs help sitting back up when she starts to melt into the floor around her. She really doesn't like to be on her back anymore. We sit her up in the corner of the couch, usually sitting in the middle of the Boppy pillow to stabilize her. She seems happier now that she has more control over her body and can reach for things better. Now when I bathe her, still in her infant tub in the sink, she's sitting up through most of it, and then I just lay her down to rinse out her hair at the end.


When I lay her down to rinse the soap out of her hair she immediately goes into a crunch with her feet in the air, attempting to sit up. I try to do this part very fast.

She looks like her daddy

Finally nice weather!

We've had a good couple of weeks. Sure there were a few cold days in there with some wind, but we've had plenty of days in the high 70s. I love it! I wish it could be 80 degrees every day, I don't need variety. Whenever the weather is nice we go for a walk. This weekend I took her for a walk with her just strapped into her stroller, rather than in the carrier sitting on top. I think she really liked it, she could see way more. Hopefully we get to go on lots of walks during the spring!

She's getting so big!

Okay, I'm now one of those parents who complains about how fast their kids grow! I can't believe half a year has already gone by. Elena Rose is constantly playing with her feet when she's on her back, she's gotten really strong on her tummy, she smiles all the time, and she loves observing what's going on around her. She really likes to watch people, I mean reeeaaally watch. Twice I've been out with her when she was staring at random people around, and they pointed out that she really doesn't blink. And it's true. She starts watching someone and the kid does not blink. I think one of the ladies started to get a little uncomfortable and said "She must have really moist eyes!" She must. She loves to watch Charlie and Ginger play, too. More recently she developed stranger anxiety and now she really only likes to be held by Jorge and me. If a friend holds her, she starts crying. It makes me feel so bad because she gets one of those adorable little frowns and looks at me. So many changes, so many good times . . .

Solids!

Now that Elena Rose is 6 months old, she is eating solids. So far she's had rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, avocado, sweet potato, peas, and apple. She's doing pretty good, and she's getting better at opening her mouth when she sees the spoon approaching. She has basically the same reaction to all the foods and doesn't appear to have a favorite. The good thing is that she doesn't seem to have one that she strongly dislikes! It started out pretty messy, but it's getting better now that she's getting the hang of it. It's pretty adorable, actually, but at the same time it's a little sad that I'm no longer her only source of nourishment. It's okay, though, because she's still constantly nursing! I go see her during my lunchbreak almost every day from work and nurse her, and she really only snacks when I'm not there. She makes up for it at night. She goes to sleep between 8 and 9, then wakes up around 3 am, 5:30 am, and 8 am. Once she wakes up, we just bring her to our room and keep her in the bed between us. Say what you want, we love our cuddle time! And it makes nursing her way easier on both of us. And in the morning if she wakes up before us she makes noises until we wake up, and when I look at her she's staring at me and she just smiles.

Elena Rose's First Christmas

Christmas was so nice with Elena Rose! It was very different, all about her, which was nice. She got to spend Christmas Eve with Jorge's side of the family, while we all ate Guatemalan tamales. Then Christmas day we drove up to Santa Maria after opening her first gifts at home. She got to visit with my parents, siblings, neices, and grandma. It was a good Christmas.

Hats

I had to do this post because Elena Rose is so cute in her hats!