Noah's Ark

I'm so glad I got Autumn her Little People Noah's Ark for Christmas. It's one of her favorite toys. She loves playing with the animals and especially "No-o" (Noah). Along with her mammals book, I've been teaching Autumn her animals. She knows all of them, but was a little confused during her video (hehe, getting close to nap time). I will apologize though, youtube doesn't have an option to rotate the video. So you have to watch it sideways. If anyone knows how to fix this problem, please HELP!!! :-)

I would like to add that when Autumn and I watched this video together, she pointed to the panda right away on my phone.
Hehe, she's so silly!

Bath Nights

I absolutely cannot get over how much Autumn loves to go down for a nap and bedtime. It makes me smile. Everytime I ask her if she wants to go "na-night", she gets super excited, yells "na-night" and will come up to me with her arms up! Now if she'd only sleep through the night ;-)

I'm starting to give Autumn a bath every night now. It helps keep the smell of her little bum down from her night time diaper. Last night I couldn't give her a bath because Jordan and I were gone at his work party. My mom ended up giving Autumn her bath instead. My mom mentioned that she told Autumn that it was time to take a bath. So, Autumn started walking towards the stairs that lead to the upstairs bathroom (she's so smart). However, my mom needed her pjs and a night time diaper, so she quickly ran downstairs to get them. Next thing she hears is Autumn at the top of the basement stairs yelling "AHHHH!!!". Apparently Autumn wasn't very happy that Grandma went downstairs instead of upstairs. Hehehehe. So my mom followed Autumn to the stairs going up to the bathroom and into the tub :-)

I love this girl!

First Haircut

I can't believe I'm typing this already, but yes, I gave Autumn her first haircut. Haha. It wasn't an "official" haircut, but enough to save some hair ;-) All I did was trim up the back. She was starting to lose her hair back there. It was getting really stringy and just didn't look nice. So, I figured, giving it a nice trim will allow it to grow out nicer and give her hair a thicker feel. It did just that and I'm so glad that I did it. Autumn was a trooper, we distracted her with some tv, and gave her my water bottle and a clean comb to play with. So, enjoy some pics (sorry for the quality, my nice camera is still not working).

Happy now that she has something to play with.

First cut!

"Whatcha doing mommy?"

All done!!!

PS ~ The pic I took of the back of her head didn't turn out. I will post it when I get another one.

Flu Bug

It's official... Autumn got her first spout of the stomach flu last week. I felt so bad. She didn't understand what was going on. It wasn't horrible. I don't want to go into too much detail, but she recovered quickly. Started in the middle of the night and was chugging water before 11am. She was a trooper! Daddy got sick next and I only had a little bit of it. Which was great because keeping up with Autumn is hard enough healthy, let alone sick.

Autumn is still working on her molars. Three out of the 4 have now broken skin, so hopefully it's easier from here. I've been having to give her some meds at night to help her sleep, and tonight I decided to give her any to see how she does. She feel asleep without it! So far, so good :-)

Well, back to the flu. Haha. Since I ended up getting a little dehydrated (not much), but enough to knock down my milk supply a little bit... I decided to start weaning Autumn. It's a little bit harder, for me, than I thought it would be. Autumn is amazing! So right now, she only nursing at night, before she goes to bed. I took away her morning nursing (right when she wakes up) about a month ago. After I got the flu, I decided to take away her afternoon nap nursing (right before she goes down for a nap). The afternoon nap was harder for me to take away. I almost cried. But I reminded myself that I am about to achieve my goal. My goal was to nurse Autumn til she was 18 months old. She's only 16 months old now, but by the time I take away her bedtime nursing, she'll be 18 months. I absolutely loved my bonding time with Autumn. It's amazing! I've also been able to keep her so healthy for so long. I will say this, it's definitely getting easier for me to give her a bottle in the afternoon. It's not the same, but I thank God for all the wonderful months of nursing that He has given me with Autumn.

Ok, I won't lie... American Idol is on. I'll update more later ;-)

Horrible Blogger

I will admit, I was a horrible blogger last month! Autumn's been switching over to a one nap schedule and not to mention that I was double and triple booked with clients up until Christmas. It's nice to finally sit down and do nothing while Autumn's napping :-)

Christmas was absolutely wonderful this year! Autumn really got into opening her gifts and appreciating what she got. We even got her to say "thank you" several times. I think everything was laid out perfectly before us at every event. Even though Autumn napped in the car several times. But I really enjoyed how excited she was to play with her new toy, then she'd get bored of it, but just in time to open her next gift. Then after all the gifts were opened, she'd go back to gift number one and start all over again. It was hilarious!!! Just like her birthday, she got a nice combination of clothes and toys... Keep it up family!!

Just before Christmas Autumn had her 15 month appointment. Of course, she did really well and didn't surprise her pediatrician how advanced she is in everything. Autumn weighed 21 lbs 12 oz and is 32 1/4 inches long (so tall)!!! Her head circumference is, and always has been, in the 95th percentile. It's because she has all those brains that make her so smart. LOL. She was not a fan of the 5 shots she ended up getting. I felt so bad. She almost passed out because she wasn't breathing. I kept blowing and blowing in her face and she wasn't taking a breath. Finally I got right in her eyes and blew with all my might and she finally inhaled! Oh man, poor thing. I feel so bad, but it's for the better....

According to the pediatrician, Autumn should be saying around 4 - 6 words right now. I didn't realize how many words she actually knows and says until I sat down and thought about it. She says ma-ma/mommy, da-da/daddy, ba-ba (grandpa), na-na (grandma), dog, kitty, love you, thank you, baby, bear... (I know there's more, and I'll add them as I remember them)... not to mention all the animal sounds that she knows too. She knows the sounds for dog, cat, cow, horse, pig, sheep, and elephant. She even recognizes every animal from her Noah's Ark collection I got her. I will set all the animals in front of her and ask her to find this animal or this animal and she will. She may pick up another animal first, look it over, put it down and then show me the actual animal in the end. I love watching her brain at work!

We're still working on the baby sign language and she's getting better everyday! She'll even show me signs that I didn't even know she knew. I'm really working on having her say "please" whenever she can and now I almost done have to ask anymore. I especially like her signing at dinner when she's "all done". I really helps me determine if she's really done or just playing with her food before she eats it.

I'm also noticing that her frustration is starting to show through. She's be working at stacking something or putting shapes into a specific hole. If it doesn't work at first, she'll throw it down. However, I've noticed that she'll sit and look at it for a minute, then try again! She's such an observer! Ever since she was born. She likes to analyze things and issues, especially people, before she either approves or moves forward. I hope she carries this throughout the rest of her life. Maybe she'll learn to think before she speaks or acts (not if she's my daughter, HAHA).

I have a few other stories I want to share, but I'm gonna save that for another post. This one is already getting too long. My goal for this year is to update my blog, twice a week. I'm hopefully taking my camera in next week to get it looked at. That way I can update with more pictures. For now, I have to steal my sister's camera in order to get the pictures she took from Christmas... I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

First Snow

Despite the nasty colds we both have, Autumn and I were able to go out and enjoy the first snow together today! Last year doesn't really count since she was only 2 months old and didn't understand a thing :-)

When Autumn woke up this morning, there was snow on the ground! I couldn't believe it! I was just telling my dad yesterday that it's not the same listening to Christmas music without snow. I do love snow, just not when I have to drive in it. And today, I didn't have to go anywhere. So I love snow today!!!

I brought Autumn to our slider door this morning and showed her the snow. She just stared and stared. Kept saying "pretty" and then "dada" and "bubba". Haha. Not sure why she was saying that. Maybe because they're out working and she's concerned about them coming home in the snow ;-) Right before lunch I brought her to the slider again and opened it for her to see the snow better. By then we already had 4 inches! She again, just stood there and stared. I tried to get her to touch it, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Just kept looking around.

After her nap, I bundled her up to go outside. I set her on the cement driveway at first and she just kept running around, wouldn't go near the snow. So I picked her up and set her in the snow. She didn't move an inch! Hahaha!!! Just stood there. She eventually did stick her glove and tried eating the snow. I think it was too cold for her. Then she started to whine and got close to crying. But quickly learned that she was capable of walking away and did just that. She wouldn't go near the snow again. But did enjoy walking around and laughing at Jade who was going insane in the snow. Jade absolutely loves the snow and I love playing with Jade in the snow. Jade is horrible at catching tennis balls. She lets them hit her in the face. But throw a snowball at Jade and she's golden. She'll catch them everytime!

I was finally able to upload some pics using my mom's camera. Mine is still broken, ugh. Eventually I'll get it fixed. I'm missing out on a lot. Enjoy :-)

Jade enjoying some time in the snow

Pondering going back in the snow.

What's all over me?

Starting to whine after I put her in the snow.

She wasn't too sure about the whole experience :-)

Stuffy at 3am

Autumn and I ended up with colds, again. Ugh! I feel so bad when she's stuffy. Not only is she grouchy and achy, but she doesn't really understand either. It's so difficult when she tries to nurse or even breath at night. She ended up waking up twice last night. 11:45 and then again at 3am. Part of our routine when she wakes up is to cuddle in the rocking chair a little bit. Then she'll push away from me and give me her "more" sign (to nurse). At 3am, she thought it was play time! I normally play music for her when she's nursing to help her relax and fall asleep. This time she was dancing to the music. Held her hands together and shaking them from side to side. Haha, it was really cute. Then she grabs my arms and tries to rock the rocking chair back and forth. I couldn't help but giggle and then she giggled herself! Ugh, I was not about to be awake at 3am!!! Especially since I was starting to feel the affects of my cold coming in. I finally got her to nurse (after using her boogie sucker) and she was asleep. Sigh. So nice. I didn't end up falling back asleep til after 5am. I hate having a cold. Not being able to breathe through my nose at night is one of the worst feeling. Sigh. Praying for a quick recovery, for both :-)