Juliette

Okay...how could i not post about my favorite little baby girl! She is at SUCH a fun stage.

7 months old

wears size 3 diapers

Fits into size 6 months clothes

still a baldy

LoVes spoons

Last Friday Jessica and I took our kids to the farm at Thanksgiving Point. It was so fun and perfect weather. 

 Jackson riding the pony....Carson, Juliette and I feeding the chickens. My favorite animals were the goats and sheep. I love baby animals. 

 Loved the double stroller

 Cousin Oakley is so cute! 

 Juliette wants to crawl. She gets up on her knees and then goes back onto her tummy and scoots. She is such a busy body!

I want to post a video but an error message keeps coming up. Dumb thing. 

 Juliette LOVES to eat. She eats rice cereal, applesauce, banana and squash baby food about twice a day. She likes formula and still loves to breastfeed every morning and night. She's still pretty small. I think she weighs 15 lbs.

 She's big enough to sit in a high chair at restaurants!

She's a friendly little talker. She makes lots of noises- mostly gagaga, dadada, and bababa and squeals.

7 months

Yes Juliette is 7 months old today, but that's not what this post is about. Its about ME and being a mom. I have now been a mother for 7 months and I LOVE it.

Great things about being a mom:
Unconditional LOVE. Feeling so much love for a little baby and feeling loved as a mother and wife. I love the look in her eyes when she sees me. She knows I am her mom and just gets so excited and smiley. Matt and I could just stare at her and play with her for hours! She is the best. I also have more of an appreciation and love for my mother.

See learning and growth- every achievement is so fun and exciting. She is so smart! She's a determined little busy body. She is getting a personality and likes to babble a lot. I LOVE have the cutest baby ever!! She really is darling with her bald head and cute dimples. Everywhere we go people say she's a good, happy, cute baby. I love dressing her in cute little outfits, cleaning her earrings and putting a bow on. She's my little girly girl.

Family- Knowing that she is my baby. Matt and I created her. Knowing that you are an eternal family. I'm thankful for the unity a baby brings and I just love seeing Matt be a father. He's an incredible dad! I am just so grateful for the opportunity and trust that Heavenly Father must have for parents to care for his children. I have learned so much as a mother and want to do my best. I have learned patience! I have learned that it is ok for kids to cry. I'm thankful for Baby Wise. Juliette sleeps through the night and has since she was about 8 weeks old.

There are some challenges too. Here are some I've faced:
Pumping at work. First of all I loved maternity leave!! It was so nice to be home with the baby and feed her and play with her. People say that they get depressed after having a baby and being cooped up in the house. I never really felt depressed. I felt honored to be a mother to this beautiful baby girl. The first two weeks were a blur with little sleep and lots of feeding and cuddling. The third week was a little annoying because I was ready to get out of the house but under doctors orders we had to wait until she was 3 weeks old since she was so small. Week 4-10 were awesome. We never got bored and I didnt get nearly as much done as I thought I would being home all day. Taking care of a child is hard work! But I was SOO happy. And... I knew the day would come when i had to return to work to make some money for the family. I bought a nice Medela double pump and was kind of excited to use it. When I went back to work I thought it would be so exciting to reunite with my friends/co-workers and get busy working with clients again. But it was hard. So hard. I didnt cry when I left Juliette at day care or with my mother-in-law becuase I know that they know how to take care of her and that she'll have fun and be safe. But I cried every single time I pumped. I felt so out of the loop at work. I missed Juliette and would rub baby lotion on my hands and just sniff it, look at pictures of her and cry. I felt like a cow hooked up to a milking machine. I felt bad leaving for a half hour twice a day when I had a lot of work. I just kept on pumping everyday because I know how important breast milk is for infants and felt it was my responsibility to provide her with this milk. I also felt truly blessed becuase I had a lot of milk, didnt have any problems with her latching on or drinking from a bottle, my nipples never got sore or cracked and I just felt so lucky to be able to breast feed so I wanted to continue doing it while I could. I love the faces Juliette makes while she is eating and it was sad to be pumping and not seeing her smile and just look so satisfied with a little milk mustache after eating. I love my baby girl!

I believe you are more forgetful and clumsy while you are pregnant becuase your hormones are out of whack but I was also forgetful once I had the baby too. The first few weeks back I would always forget to take something I needed to work. Sometimes I would forget the little ice pack for my cooler, the cooler, the bottles, or my pump all together. There was this day where I forgot the bottles but my breasts were full and I needed to at least express some milk. I go into a private EMT room to pump. It was probably the fifth time I went to pump at work. Since I didnt have any bottles I saw paper cups in the EMT room and thought "Oh perfect, I'll pump into the cups and when I'm done pour it into baggies and take it home" So I got situated and started pumping into this flimsy paper cups. Little did I know that the EMT room light is a motion censored light and it went off. I was sitting in the corner, in a pitch black room in a chair hooked up to a machine with two open cups of milk- and I couldnt just walk around and get the light to turn back on. I kicked my legs but it wasnt in range to turn on the light. Finally I stood up and one of the cups of milk poured down my leg onto my light gray pants. Awesome! How awesome. Not only was I all wet but I also smelled like a milk factory. I took off my pants and called Matt not knowing what to do. He laughed (now looking back it is pretty funny) but I cried. I wished my work had hand dryers but no luck, just paper towels. I dabbed up as much as I could and then swung them around making the air drying process faster. I collected myself and went back up to my office once my pants were dry enough to put back on and didnt look like I'd peed myself. I decieded to never again pump into an open cup and I also got a lamp in the EMT room so I could turn it on in case the motion sensored light shut off. Fun times. I think I'm done pumping...

Being on time. As if I wasnt already a person that was always running late, getting a baby ready and out the door takes even longer! When I go somewhere with her it seems that she always spits up or has a blow out right before we leave and I have to wipe her down and change her outfit. In the mornings it is hard to feed her and then just rush and get ready. Sometimes I just have to warm up a bottle and have her feed herself if I wake up late. I wish I could wake up, feed her, cuddle and just hold her and stare at her while she's a little baby and then get ready and go into work like at 9. But somedays that's not an option. It's hard to balance everything like giving rides to day care, working, doctor appointments, appointments for myself (doctor, dentist, etc.) and being on time to them all. Its something I really need to work on.

Seeing babies in pain. It is SOO sad when she is sick. Both times that she's been really sick (and couldnt go to day care) I had events at work and couldnt stay home with her. One day Matt stayed home with her and the second time my mother-in-law took her to the doctor and she had a high fever and a double ear infection. It was so hard not being with her when I knew she was feeling crummy. It is hard being a parent and wanting to be able to help them but they just have to get better on their own and with medicine.

6 months

  Juliette is 6 months old!!

She likes to smile!
She is the best baby ever.

She weighs 14 lbs.

She wears 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers.

She is a great sleeper and sleeps from 9 pm to 6 am.

She moves around a lot while sleeping.

She is still bald and finally getting a little peach fuzz.

She can sit up, roll over and loves to giggle and wiggle.

She now understands peek-a-boo and it's so fun to do. 

She likes when I sing and give her baths.

She loves books. 

She is now eating rice cereal and likes it with applesauce and banana baby food.

She pushes down with her legs and is getting so strong. 

Tries to get things out of reach.
She loves when her grandma's and Josephine watch her.
She likes to be outside.

She looks like she wants to crawl but not quite.

Still LOVES the mirror. 

Likes dogs, fish and all animals.

I think she knows her name!

Juliette's pretty earrings

We decided to get Juliette's ears pierced at 5 months old. It was a little sad, but they turned out great and she looks adorable!!

before

during

after

Matt picked out the cute blue flowers.

I love weekends. Afterwards we went to the Zoo! 

I wasn't sure if Juliette would get it but when this squirrel monkey and Juliette saw each other they both put they hands up on the glass and were enamored. It was fun!

Like an infant gorilla baby

Dinner at Bucca de beppo.

HeLLo....look at me, I'm cute!

Mrs. Wiggles

At church on Sunday our Relief Society lesson was on the talk "Children" from Neil L. Andersen. I honestly believe that being a mother is my calling. I feel like motherhood gives you so much purpose. It gives you an opportunity to show selflessness, compassion, love and patience. I absolutely love being a mother. I know that having children is an important part of this life. I am thankful for my parents and Matt's parents.  I know that it is important to teach our children. I'm thankful for families and I know that through our Savior Jesus Christ we can have eternal families. I know that with God on your side, all things are possible. I'm so thankful for that!

Juliette is at such a fun stage. She is starting to entertain herself with toys and sucking on things. She is such a wiggler. She loves to arch her back and roll over. She doesn't like tummy time very much, so she quickly learned that if she rolls over she is on her back and likes that better.

We got out this baby entertainer and she loves it!

It was VeRy sad...last Wednesday Juliette go her first fever and sickness.

 I was super busy at work that day with 2 events and helping my boss with some stuff so Matt stayed home with her Wednesday and I stayed home with her Thursday. We didnt take her to the doctor cuz her fever was ranging from 100.3 to 101 and then went down after some baby tylenol and stuff. She was a ScReaMer! We were glad she was feeling better by Friday and both ready to get back to work.

She still has a stuffy nose and a little cold, Matt and I both got the cold too :( But now I think we are finally all feeling better. We love to see her smile and laugh.

OH something else that is new- she is starting to recognize when I leave the room and she cries---do we have a momma's girl on our hands? I think so. But you can never be mad at this girl. She's too cute!

FRIENDS 

she loves dogs

and we love her!

4 Months Old

This little stinker brings us lots of joy and laughter. We love her! And she is now 4 months old.

Juliette is so beautiful! 

She is pretty good with strangers and will smile and coo at them.

I think she is going to be a talker. It is so cute and fun when she "talks" but sometimes its more of a high pitch squeal haha.

She can sleep through the night! She's the best. Sometimes we are lucky and she goes to sleep for the night around 8 or 9, but normally she wants her last feeding around 11 or 12 then she sleeps until 6 or 6:30 am. On weekends she even has slept in til 8 (or we just dont hear her...) I think she sleeps in. We normally get at least 6 hours a night, that is if we get to bed right away.

She loves dogs.

She just starting wearing size 2 diapers (but still fits in a 1-2.)

She mostly wears 3 month clothes (some 0-3 and some 3-6.)

She can hold her own bottle. She loves to eat! She eats about 4-5 ounces per feeding.

She can roll from her tummy to her back!

She likes music, singing and jack-in-the-box.

Lauren is a good photographer- 

I love our family!

Look at those blue eyes! She loves to suck her fingers (or whole fist sometimes) and is a drooler.

She loves to grab and play with her little toys. She is starting to put everything in her mouth and have better control of those tiny little hands. She also loves to feel different textures and grab onto our clothes.  

She recognizes mom and dad! It is so cute to see her get excited when she sees me and hears me talking.

When she gets excited she flails her arms and legs. She can kick and wave. She is strong and can hold up her head while she sits in her bumbo. She might be getting too big for her bumbo becuase she tries to twist out of it. She always arches her back too.

When I read to her I feel like she is actually looking at the book.

She also loves cell phones and ipads, its true, she is Matt's child =technology lover.

Things to do in the next month:

Go to her 4 month dr apt on Friday to get immunizations

Start introducing rice cereal

Establish a better/more consistant bedtime routine and time

Read more books

Get her ears pierced

Get out the blocks for Juliette to play with

She is growing so fast and so much fun. We enjoy every minute we can!

Love you Little J