4 months... and a bit

So, I'm a little late on this... Ooops, but regardless, Baby Girl is 4 months old! Yay! 

"I'm not so sure about this running thing mom. I think it's for the birds." - Everly

Lately, she's been working on rolling over (which she's done a few times) but mostly she just cranes her neck and back into a right angle. 

Indoctrinating her early. Ugg.

She loves putting anything she can reach into her mouth and can stand really well. 

Guess who's going to be Strawberry Shortcake for Halloween?! Eeeek!

She scoots around on her back and gets the things she wants. She loves to grab her feet and shove them in her mouth. 

Nom nom nom

 She loves to have blankets or other soft things put over her face and loves to splash in the bath.  She also has the best smile. It envelops her whole body. I just love this girl. 

She's already good at her "whatever!" face. I'm in trouble.

I'm so happy she's a part of my family!

 

Sleep Training: The Plan

Sweet as Baby Girl can be, she has never been a good sleeper. I chalk this up to her reflux (which took two months to diagnose) getting the better of her and disrupting her sleep. But by the time we got her on medicine and she was feeling better, we'd already started bad sleep patterns and have been perpetuating them for a while.

As of now, baby girl cannot fall asleep on her own. She either has to be in her swing, in the car, nursing or screaming at the top of her lungs in order to fall asleep. I wouldn't mind letting her sleep in the swing if it was smaller and more portable (bringing that swing with us to the beach was not fun. Yes, we brought her swing with us. Don't judge) but it's really hard to get any sleep when Baby Girl is waking up every hour and a half or 2 hours and fidgeting all night. And there are more reasons for wanting to sleep train, but now the time has finally come to execute the plan.

After researching a few different methods, I've decided to try the "Pick up/Put down" method outlined in Tracy Hogg's book The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. In essence, you do your bed time routine and then put your baby to bed in her crib while she's still awake. When your baby cries, you come in pick her up, calm her down and as soon as she's calm, you put her right back down. You do this every time she cries until she falls asleep on her own. Tracy Hogg mentions that you may have to repeat this cycle.. a lot, but that usually within a few days, they've figured it out and can put themselves to sleep.

I liked this method because it doesn't allow for the Evie to cry very long, therefore not letting her feel like she's been abandoned. It also allows us to start training her to fall asleep on her own, without having to hear my baby crying for more than a few minutes (which I can't handle). The drawback of this method is that it is very labor intensive on the parents for the first few nights. That's why we're starting this on Friday night, so we don't have many things we have to do and can get in naps during the day.

Any way, if anyone else out there has done some sleep training, I'd love to hear about your experiences!

Last Minute Trips

Matt and I are the Masters of Last Minute Trips (LMT). We love to just get up and go somewhere for a weekend. Before I got the calling of ward organist and Beehive's adviser, we would often spend the weekends in Charlotte or even head up to Blacksburg. We we would usually call two or three days in advance and then stay with friends. I loved traveling like this and thought my travelin' days were done once we had the baby.

Happily, I was wrong.

Matt decided Monday of last week to take some time off. And on Wednesday, we decided to head to the beach. Unfortunately we had obligations on Sunday at church and I promised my sister we'd come for Easter dinner, so we weren't able to stay the WHOLE weekend. We drove down on Thursday and stayed in a hotel at Carolina Beach. The hotel was lovely, but the weather didn't want to cooperate. It was really chilly and rainy the whole time at the beach and I hadn't packed for chilly for myself or Baby Girl. So Thursday and Friday were mostly miserable (in terms of weather), but it cleared up a little on late Friday so we were able to go for a quick walk on the beach (it was still cold).

We got some great pictures and introduced Baby Girl to the love of her life: the beach. :) We stuck her toes in the sand and she didn't immediately hate it.  I take that as a good sign. Any way, we got some great pictures at the beach and at the aquarium in Ft. Fisher. And even though the weather was rotten, it was still nice to just get away for the weekend.

Moon on the water... No flash. Crazy, right?!

 

Raleigh Rocks Half-Marathon and 5k

I did it!! 

I finished my first 5k in The Racing Year (or TRY is it will henceforth be known). I ran it in 43:44 at an average pace of 14:06 minutes. I am so happy with that! I shaved two minutes off my normal pace (yes, I was "running" a 16 minute mile and no I'm not ashamed of that...ok, so maybe a little ashamed) and I was able to finish with a smile on my face (as opposed to the last race I ran...)  And I was able to run the whole thing! I had planned on run/walking, but I was able to mentally push myself to keep going. I've heard it said that running is a mental game, and I think I finally understand that now.

Any way, the morning was beautiful and the bands were rockin'! It was actually nice how the bands were set up. As soon as you were far enough away that you couldn't hear one, you could just start hearing the next. One band was even playing my jam - Buddy Holly by Weezer. And, as an added bonus, I was able to hear the birds singing their morning songs. It was actually very nice. I think I may have to run in the morning without the headphones more often. Not every time, mind you...

Matt was super supportive and thankfully Baby Girl slept almost the entire time! I was amazed that we were able to change her diaper, get her dressed and put her in the car seat without her waking up at all. Man, we must be real parents now! :)

So, for my next race in May, I plan on trying to shave another minute off my mile in addition to having a smile on my face at the finish line. :) I'm still looking for my May 5k, so if anyone is interested in running circles around me, let me know!