Happy Halloween

I actually did not plan on taking Megan trick-or-treating. Nor did I plan on this being her outfit. She was supposed to wear a cute duck costume that I got years ago (literally). It's over 80 degrees here...and she was already hot and the costume was REALLY heavy. So, as I was getting the under clothes on for the duck costume, I saw another one! The little skirt actually came from my neighbor. I was keeping it for future play..who knew it would work for a costume now!?

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Attempt 3--Action Shot
Don't you love the rings?

We weren't going to go trick-or-treating b/c it just happens too late. And Miss Megan decided she didn't need a nap this afternoon, again this week. So there was NO WAY we were delaying bedtime. We did that after the zoo a few weeks ago, and it wasn't pretty...for anyone in this house. But, the local businesses were doing trick-or-treating downtown late afternoon. And since she was CRABBY she needed to have something to keep her busy. This was the perfect opportunity. We weren't down there long, but long enough to keep the crabs away for a little while...and supper is cooking right now.

Such a helper...

Helping Dad stock the fridge,
or is it supervising??? hhmmm....

Here's Megan playing "peek-a-boo".

Secret Blog Pal Revealed!

My Secret Blog Pal is....Tracey!

It's been so fun getting to know Tracey & Richard as they are waiting for their son, Sam. He should be here in a little over a month. Want to see a cute picture of little Sam??? Head over to here for a REALLY good 3D ultrasound of their precious Sam. And pray for Sam's birthmom, K, she's having some complications that could end up in a c-section.

Thanks, Tracey!

Pure Cuteness

She uses all sorts of things for a phone.
Here it's her music player, but the rings are used often.

She was being so cute when we were outside, I had to get a picture.

Sleep update

I got some great ideas...thank you. Unfortunately, most of them we've tried. The one thing I didn't mention that we tried was different diapers. I had a theory that her very wet diaper felt cold and woke her up early. Megan is a BIG drinker at supper. I mean she can down 6oz of diluted juice (in addition to her big appetite--she can eat 2 eggs, plus peas. She ALWAYS has room for peas!). Then she'd have her bottle--which she'd drink at least 6oz of it, sometimes all 8oz. Needless to say, the diaper was ALWAYS completely soaked by morning. I've heard that Huggies made some great overnight diapers. Well, I could only find pull-ups that were overnights. So, we tried them. They seem to be working. It seems they have a liner of some sort that keeps her from feeling how wet she is. But, maybe it's just happen chance and completely unrelated to the diaper. I don't know. It could also be because she's teething. One molar popped through during this time. She's got another one where the gums are simply bulging, but as of yesterday it still hadn't come through all the way. I also noticed there are a couple of other places where her gums are really tender, so I'm sure she's working on a few more.

At any rate, over the past week, she's slept until sometime between 4:30-5:55am. Although that can be deceiving. She's started having a "tough hour" typically between 11:30-12:30 where she is so fussy, it typically requires me to go in and rub her tummy or back. Often time, several times during that hour. She'll slip off into sleep, but then semi-wake up and then be frustrated that she is awake then throw her paci somewhere and can't find it. Some of the time she is awake and looking at me, other times her eyes are closed. She's really restless during this time as well. The morning she slept until almost 6am, she actually woke up at 3:30 and then fell back to sleep in the rocker with me after I gave her some tylenol. Since we don't have a clock in there, I simply rocked...and dozed off a few times. I couldn't believe it was that late!!! Needless to say, the rest of the naps were a bit late too, so thank goodness we have some flexibility in our schedule!!!

I'm not sure what we are doing to make it better. Or maybe it's nothing that we are doing and simply she's sleeping. Who knows! I can say that we have started putting her pjs on right after supper, then we play quietly (well, not rowdy games, which I have to remind DH!) for about 30 minutes. Then we read books a little after 6pm, have milk, then head to her bedroom at about 6:15. It's sure helped her to go to sleep easier (well, except last night when Dad put her to sleep for the first time since surgery). And she seems to be doing better. I don't know. Again, maybe unrelated. The other thing I'm doing differently is I pray while we're rocking that she'll have sweet dreams, fun dreams, happy dreams and that she'll rest well (and long!). So that's another change.

Afternoon nap--well, I decided I just couldn't always squeeze in the 30 minute video, so I've started reading books. I tell her when the last book is and what we will do after it and it seems to help her wind down and go to sleep fairly easily. We've had several 90 minute naps over the past few weeks. That's good. She's getting about 12 hours of sleep a day, and we're edging toward 12 and half hours. I'm hoping for 13 hrs very soon.

Now..the next area I need help...breakfast! She's apparently not a big breakfast eater (although she makes up for it at lunch and supper!). I've tried eggs, waffles, poptarts, various kinds of cereal. She pretty much was "no go" on all of it the except Kix. Oh, and sometimes Cheerios. Sometimes she'll eat some of my cinnamon raisin bagel with a little peanut butter. Otherwise, she takes one look at what I offer...drinks her juice...maybe takes a bite and signs "all done". That's her version of turning up her nose. Silly girl. So, I regroup and offer something else. Suggestions???

What an Exciting Day!

Secret Blog Package

What an exciting mail day today!!! I got a fun package from my Secret Blog Pal (and most of the chocolates didn't even make it long enough to get a photo of it! As evidenced by the pile of wrappers...so sad.)! I am looking forward to making that puppet...looks like fun! The small nail care kit will go in the diaper bag...I never seem to have a fingernail file when I need one! Thanks so much! I'm anxious for the big reveal next week!!!

Hair clips

Then...I also got my box of hair clips. I've been excited to get these for several days...and they arrived today!!!! I won't say how much I spent on the 30+ clips, but it was reasonable This is not all of them...Megan has one in her hair right now. AND I got some for Christmas presents for various individuals (and I didn't want to ruin the surprise as I think their parents all check the blog) so they are not in the photograph. Each clip is "no slip" that seems to work! Megan's had hers in for over an hour, and it has not moved (even though she's not STOPPED moving!). They are SO CUTE! And VERY high quality! If you are interested, I got them from Love to Sparkle. Heather is awesome to work with!!!! And her prices are incredible!

It's going to be SO FUN to pick out a hair clip every day! I've not put what I have in unless we are going somewhere because they get loose, then she pulls them out. She touched this one when I put it in, but hasn't touched it since! Seriously, the picture does not do them justice! They are AWESOME!!!!

And...to top it all off...Fall weather has FINALLY ARRIVED!!!! It was warm this morning (mid 70s), but a cold front come through...it's probably in the 50s now! Feels SO GOOD to have cooler weather!!!!

17 Months!

Turning pages of the book with the rings

The rings are always with us!
Who can hold a bottle, when they MUST HOLD RINGS (preferably the orange ones)
Thanks to Bethany, she has 2 orange ones, now.

Megan is now 17 months old!!! She still cruises like crazy when crawling. Seriously. She's fast. She's starting to bear crawl quite a bit, like a half walk, half crawl. I'm hoping it means that she's closer to walking all the time. She is walking better all the time, but often chooses to crawl over walk (after all, right now she's still much faster crawling than walking). Besides, it's now sock season, and they are slippery on the tile!

She experienced the zoo on Friday for the first time.
She could have cared less about the animals, but loved trying to get everyone's attention.
Oh, my social butterfly!

Happy Fall!

She promptly grabbed the stem and
tossed it to the ground (that part NOT caught on camera!)

Sweet picture of Daddy & Megan

Fall family Photo

She's smiling so sweetly...

Pictures & stuff

Megan & Daddy

She loves having books read to her in the bath

And we love to look through the books while Mom is getting the bath ready

Our new skill...moving the chairs around.

Got a new do today....LOVE IT! It should be pretty easy to keep fixed, too...

Interview

Wendy at Adoption & Fire has asked to interview those who follow her blog (and she follows ours, too!). I figured I was game...so here's her question for me:

You are celebrating your 11th anniversary being married. What advice would you give a young couple about to be married? How have you grown as a person since you were first married? And has having a child changed your marriage?

You may have noticed I said Megan gave us an anniversary present of walking by herself on our anniversary. If not, we celebrated 11 years of marriage on October 4th. So, to the question...

Advice for young married couples: never say something without thinking how the other person will respond to what you have to say. Always think before you speak. Always. You absolutely cannot take words back, and as much as you apologize for something you said without thinking, they truly can never be forgotten.

Now to the area I'm truly "best" at: advice to newly married (or soon-to-be married) women. There are several things I like to share, but it all pretty much can be summed up in one area. No matter how much you cannot believe it (and don't want to accept it), you are the manager of the household. That does NOT mean that you do it all, it simply means you "manage" the household chores to ensure they get done. The approach you use to work with your husband to complete the household chores is key; it must be teamwork. It doesn't get messy by one person, it shouldn't be cleaned up by one person. That's my philosophy, anyways. And, he truly does NOT see what needs to be done. Honest. He doesn't. Watch the tone in how you ask if he'd be willing to do this particular chore--or better yet list the things that need to be done and discuss who's willing to complete which ones.

How have I grown as a person...well, I'm far more patient, accepting and willing to give the benefit of the doubt than before I got married. I also think that I ask more questions before reacting now, but that could be more to having more education than before, I don't know.

Has Megan changed our marriage. Um, ABSOLUTELY. It took us quite a while to find time to talk about our day with a kid who would only sleep when touching one of us (preferably me). Since she goes to bed so early (back then it was 5:30!), it meant whoever put her to sleep holding her (and thus not talking) until we were ready for bed--um, that means all evening. And since she was awake every 90 minutes or so all night long, whoever was "on duty" (me when DH worked) slept in the extra bedroom with Megan so at least one of us would get some sleep. There was not much time for each other. Period. But, now she's sleeping by herself. She's sleeping more through the night. So that means once she's in bed (around 7pm), we have time to catch up, discuss different household problems, Megan problems/excitements, make decisions, etc. Things are so much better, but for 10 of those 11 years we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Now, we have to do everything around Megan's eating and sleeping schedule. It's definitely different, but I think we are enjoying our new life.

How the heck...

...do I get little Miss Megan to sleep past 4 am???? I cannot figure it out. Maybe I'm over educated? (haha) Really. Any ideas? It's been since DH was in the hospital that she slept past 4am. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that she sleeps pretty much without interruption from 7pm (maybe a bit earlier) to 4am. BUT COME ON!!!! I've tried pushing breakfast back to closer to 6am. Didn't seem to matter (but she's frequently not a big breakfast eater). I've tried keeping her room cooler...warmer...with music...without music. I've tried scooping her up and rocking her right away hoping she'll go back to sleep. I've tried leaving her in there. Nothing seems to work. And yet, I know she's still sleepy. The other day I was changing her nighttime diaper and she signed "bath", meaning, I want to take a bath, watch my movie and go back to sleep. I thought it was funny, to be quite honest!

I do have to say that naps are getting better. We can almost guarantee she'll sleep at least an hour, then will likely go back to sleep in our arms for anywhere from 15-30 minutes. This morning she slept for over 90 minutes almost all in her bed! So, even putting her down for morning nap at 8am, she's still wakes up when she used to go down for her nap at 8:30...typically between 9:30-10am. She stays right on schedule!

According to the reading I'm doing on sleep, she should be getting between 13-14 hours of sleep...we're getting around 12. Yes, that is more than it's EVER been...but if she'd just sleep until AT LEAST 5:30...I'd be so much happier (and so would she)! The ideas the book offers are really for older kids--reasoning with them why it's not morning time. Other ideas are that it's too bright (not), too noisy (she's the only one up!)...nope not applicable.

I'm fine if she is a natural morning person (I am too), but 4 AM?! I saw someone note their daughter was getting up at "the butt crack of dawn"...um, yeah. Except that she's up before dawn EVERY CONSIDERS cracking. Heck, she's up to wake the roosters to wake everyone else up.

Please...advice needed BADLY!!!!

(I know, no photos, I'll find some later.)

Just stuff

Calculator as Phone

Busy watching Signing Time probably Vol. 2

Megan has started putting everything up to her ear like a phone. She doesn't say anything, but she tilts her head like she's talking on it, then hands it to me to talk on it too. If she can grab my cell phone, she loves to use that. But one day it was her rings (of course), another day it was the magnets to the LeapFrog Farm Animal toy on the frig. And in this photo, it's a calculator. She wouldn't, of course, hold it there long enough for me to snap the actual photo, but you get the idea.

She loves to watching "her movie" (aka Signing Time). I think it's her favorite part of the day when in the morning after bath she gets to watch her movie while I get ready. I thought Vol. 2 was a little advanced for her (at least conceptually) with signs like "share", "your turn", "my turn", "clean", "dirty", but she has learned so many of the signs already. I started a list so I can ask her to sign different things when she's wiggly on the changing table (it makes her straighten right up and anxiously await what sign I'm going to ask her next!). She can sign over 30 signs. That's a LOT of signs! She knows when the movie is about done, and that we then have milk and take a nap. It's part of the routine, I guess. I've considered making Vol. 1 part of the lunchtime/afternoon nap routine. She goes to sleep so much easier when she knows what comes next. I feel like I kind of "spring" afternoon nap on her. I mean she has lunch, then plays a little, then we have milk and take a nap. But, she has such a hard time winding down between playing, milk and sleeping. I tried the movie one day and it seemed to work really well, then (honestly) I've been lazy since then. I have to decide if I want to give it to her in our room (like the 1st one) or the living room (where's there are lots of toys & distractions). Then it impacts my ability to eat lunch, besides it's 30 minutes. But, I need to just buck it up and pay attention to time so she can try it. And I think in our room is the best. I can shut the door so she's stuck in there with me...and she can crawl around our room, but mostly just pay attention to the movie. I think I'll do it again today and see what happens.

Megan continues to work on her walking abilities...and is improving every day! I'm so anxious for her to chose walking over crawling.

NanaLin noted that almost every picture Megan has her rings either in her hands or somewhere near. I guess I'm so used to seeing them with her all the time, I hadn't really noticed. But when I look back at her walking video, she has them in her hands. How funny.

Dissertation update: with DH in the hospital and recovering all these days, my plans went a rye for a few weeks. But, I'm back at it. After talking to my chairperson, I've moved to actually doing some research while she's napping (and/or when Grandma V comes to play). Some asked about my topic...so here is it (in a nutshell)...I'm looking at students who participated in community service while attending their institution (college or university) and if they were satisfied with their education at that institution. Additionally, I'm looking at whether if they could start over, they would return to that institution. I may look at historical data..I may look at one lone institution...I may look at national data...but it's all based on an annual survey conducted at many institutions. I'm not sure on that part. I may throw in some demographic data, I'm not sure. At this point, I'm simply looking for other research out there--and coming up with my justification on whether this is "study worthy" or not. So far, I'm finding reason to research it simply because there seems to be nothing that looks at these 2 things together. There's the update.

I think that's enough for now...back to grading papers.

She's Walking

She decided today to really begin standing more on her own...and actually walking! YEAH, Megan! Today's our 11th Wedding Anniversary...what an excellent "present"!!!

New Abilities

Newest Family photo
(taken on Tuesday)

Today has been quite the day for little Miss Megan! For the first time, she took about 5 steps by herself! YEAH, Megan. We've been really working hard to encourage her to walk by herself...our goal for her is that she would walk on her own before DH goes back to work in about 2 weeks. I think we can do it. She's so close. We're having her walk to each other several times a day. I'm anxious for her to walk. She's so difficult to keep under "wraps" in stores. All she wants to do is get down and crawl around. I'm not about to let her do that...hence the reason she needs to get walking! Yes, I'll have to chase her, but you wouldn't believe how fast she can crawl. Really. And she'll be down so she won't be wiggling in my arms.

The other thing she did today...which was amazing and hilarious at the same time. It was about 4:45pm and she was hungry. I figured she was hungry because she was SSSOOOOOOO crabby and it was about dinner time. She did her usual "look at me--I want something" scream. I replied in my usual way "well, my goodness!" as I turned and looked her. What did she do???? She signed "more" then "eat" then "please". Her first sentence. There are so many amazing things about that, but the most amazing thing is that I have ONLY EVER had her sign "please" when she is walking with her walker and she's bumped up against something and needs me to turn it around for her. The fact that she put it with her desparate desire to eat is absolutely amazing.

So, there you have it...the latest news at our house!

Video

Megan has started saying more words...she LOVES dogs. I don't mean loves, I mean can spot them anywhere and everywhere we go LOVES! Not only does she frantically sign "dog" when she sees them, but now she has advanced to her version of "ruff-ruff". But, her new favorite word is "Irish". Poor Dakota is out in the cold, but I honestly don't think she cares. So, here she is with her version of "Irish". We were just getting ready to put pjs on for bed, hence the "naked" baby look.

And a special surprise from my Secret Blog Pal arrived yesterday!

Chocolate & Relaxing music, I agree, what more could I ask for?

Thanks so much! Neither I nor DH could keep our hands off the chocolate. In fact, I'm sort of surprised there was any left this morning!

6 Month Anniversary

April 1, 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008


September 2008

October 2008

She has changed so much over these 6 months...it's amazing!

Congrats....and Welcome

Congrats to Megan's uncle (Mom's brother), Collin, and his recent engagement to Gina. Welcome to the wild and crazy family, Gina! I know the in-laws are looking forward to having new member in the "club".

Megan sends kisses (she always does).