Best of the Best

Here are some of my favorite pictures since May.

 I got my iPod only 2 months ago and already have over 600 pictures on it.

 99.9% are of Olivia. 

July Means 8 Months!

Dear Olivia,

My sweet little girl! You are 8 months old already this week. Where oh where is the time going? I am going to turn around and you are going to be asking me for my car keys! This month marked a big milestone.... mobility! You took off crawling like you had known how to do it all along and were just patiently waiting for the right moment to show off. It's been so much fun to watch you discover the world around you in your own unique way.  You've even started pulling up on things and we had to put your crib to the lowest setting so that you don't topple over the side rails at night. 

We went to Smith Mountain Lake with the Iskow side of the family.  You went swimming in the lake, rode on the boat and managed to execute an amazing escape plan from your pack n play that terrified your Mother and Father. While we were there you learned how to say bye bye (ok, it really sounds just like ba) and give a cute little wave. You started eating toast with a little bit of butter, yogurt and chicken. Strawberries and blueberries are a favorite morning snack too. I have been trying to teach you some signs to make it easier to ask for what you want. We are learning "eat" and "more" right now.

During the rare times you are quiet and happy to sit in my arms calmly, usually after a nap, I love to stare at all your features. You have beautiful long eyelashes and perfectly shaped almond eyes. They say eye color is pretty much set at 6 months, so it seems like you have a grey/hazel color. Your lips are so sweet and I try to kiss them every day and tell you "kiss!" so that maybe one day you will turn to me and want a kiss of your own! Your hands and feet are are deliciously pudgy and I could kiss your stubby little toes all day long. Not gonna lie, I totally suck on them and it makes you laugh like crazy. Everyone says you have the cutest thighs, which cracks me up. One lady called them "juicy thighs". Like you were a yummy piece of chicken!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Livy Videos

The pediatrician told me at our 6 month visit that it was safe to try and start to get Olivia used to the water.  I did some research and apparently if you blow in a baby's face it causes them to hold their breath for a second or two. So that's why I am blowing in her face before her swim! I delayed doing this for a whole month because it made me so nervous, but I want to get her used to the water.....

Talking to Dada...

Talking to Mama...

Movie night/Stuffed Animal Morning

Just a short and sweet post for you dedicated couch readers out there. We invited Steph and Kevin over for a movie last night to test out the movie viewing capability of the Su Casa sectional. It passed the test with flying colors. Kevin was asleep within 15 minutes of the start of the movie (he still has no idea we even took this photo) and I was asleep within 30 minutes. Not that the new Sherlock Holmes was boring, but the couch was just that comfortable!

Then this morning, Olivia invited her friends over for a couch party. They were all so excited that they could all have a seat while they visited with her. 

I am loving my couch, Su Casa! There is enough room for all my friends to come and play. And if I drool, it wipes right up! 

What Lurks Beneath

We chose the Townsend sectional from Su Casa, which we are totally in love with. However, there is one thing I realized this weekend that hadn't occurred to me before. I am used to my previous couches touching the floor all the way around. So you don't have to worry about sweeping or vacuuming under it.  Usually I would just sweep around the couch until a day came when the cat batted a pen or something underneath it that I needed.  I would have to move the couch away from the wall, gag at the sight of all the hair and dirt under that had been festering and do a quick annual vacuum job.  But this Townsend sectional is a bit more needy. So this is me attempting to vacuum underneath it. It's too big to move out of the way each time I want to clean, so I think this is what I am in store for. And yes, that is my cat with a cone on her face. 

 Another drawback to the raised couch is that you can lose your baby. She's not crawling yet but she has figured out how to slide backwards on the hard floors. And as you can see, she keeps backing herself up and disappearing under the couch! I have to come rescue her and this is another reason why I must keep it so clean under there!

BUT, the Townsend sectional redeemed itself on Saturday night when four very sleepy adults needed a place for a little snooze. Don't we look comfortable?

7 Months

Dear Olivia,

This month you turned 7 months old.  Our days together just get better and better as we figure out what routine makes you the happiest.  Usually you wake me up between 6 and 7am.  On a good morning, you might play in your crib for a while and let me sleep until 8.  You have the biggest smile on your face when I go in to get you like you have been saving that smile all night just for me. Sometimes Daddy will go in and get you so he can have some time with you before work.  You will nurse and then it's time for playing! We play on the floor with all of your toys until it's time for breakfast around 9.  Nana and Grandpa Jim got you a new highchair this week so we have trying that out recently.  You have oatmeal and some pureed fruit and love all of it.  You are a good morning eater! 

Then we do different things depending on the day. If it's a worknight,  we will take a walk and play outside and try to make it back for a nap around 2pm so that Mommy can sleep before going to work. That rarely happens to be honest.  You are just starting to get the hang of a good nap, usually around 2 hours.  If it's a day off of work, we will go for a run or walk and then either visit with Nana and Grandpa if they are home, do the grocery shopping, and run our errands.  I haven't been very good at making dinner lately so Daddy has been taking over that job. And to be honest, he is way better at it.  You got him a chef's mat for Father's Day so that his back and feet don't hurt so much after slaving away at the hot stove all day! 

You have your dinner around 5pm and then Daddy comes home from work and you either play with him or sit in your highchair and watch him make us dinner. Then you have an outdoor bath on the deck and play with all of your bath toys.  We have been giving you olive oil hair rubs since you have cradle cap.  That's been pretty hilarious to season you with olive oil and then put you in a tub of hot water. We are making Olivia Soup! 

Then we take an evening walk around the neighborhood (not recently since it's been ridiculously hot!) and we sometimes find a swing to try out at one of the playgrounds.  After our walk, we come home and get ready for bed. We will read a few books and now we even brush your teeth too.  Then around 7:30 it's off to the nursery for a nighttime nursing.  I try to sing to you but I know how bad I sound so I try not to subject you to that too much. Usually I just end up telling you stories or humming a tune.  

I feel so torn when it's time to put you in your crib to sleep.  I want to sit there and hold you for a few hours, and have even debated just taking you into bed with me while I watch tv and you sleep in my arms.  But I know that's not the best thing for you.  And once you fall asleep, it's my only time to wind down and have some time with Daddy or do all my blogging. That's basically all I have been doing in my free time this month to try and win you a couch! But it's a struggle every night to let you go.  You curl up in my arms and hold onto whatever stuffed animal I decide is worthy of you that night and suck on your paci until it plops out of your mouth and yet you will still suck away as if it's still there.  When I go to bed, I sneak in to see you one more time.  It would just be too long away from you if I didn't!

The silliest and most random things make you giggle.  I am willing to dance with a curtain over my head, make a silly grunty breathing noise, or bounce you up and down over and over again just to hear that giggle! You are sitting up all on your own now and I am sure you will be crawling in the next few weeks.  You can push and slide yourself all over the floor and usually end up underneath the couch.  I come rescue you when you start to disappear.  You can say Mama and Dada, but it's really just the syllables you say over and over again. I don't think you know it's us you are talking about yet.  But we pretend it is! Daddy's favorite nickname for you is banana face.  Maybe that's why you said Mama first?! This month you tried avocados, watermelon, mangoes, and pumpkin.  The watermelon was the favorite by far.  

I know that a lot of Moms feel bonded to their baby immediately. And they can't imagine their life without their baby and don't remember what life was like beforehand.  While I loved you instantly and was willing to do anything you needed to no end, I don't think I "knew" you right away.  This past month has been a huge leap forward for me in that regards. Going to work has been harder rather than easier because I will miss you so much while I am there. Putting you bed seems unfair because I won't see you for 12 hours while you are sleeping. My heart literally aches for you when you are not in my arms. I hope so many things for you and pray that whatever your life has in store, you will always remember my love for you.  I will always be there for you Livy girl.  

Oh dear. What hard teenage years you will have trying to assert your independence from me. Sorry, you are gonna have to work pretty hard to do that:)

Paying for our Mistake

Our sectional sofa from Su Casa has made our every day life much easier and definitely more comfortable if you have been reading along this past month.  It seems like every week we seem to make a new use for it that we never had been able to do before.  This week we learned a valuable lesson....

 Babies need routines.

 Stick to them.

Or you will pay.

And if you have to pay, you will pay dearly.

 But with a sectional sofa you will at least pay in comfort.

We are still adjusting to our new life of staying in with the baby on the weekends. We went out or had friends over every weekend for the past 5-6 years. This past Friday night we tried to recapture just a small bit of that freedom.  We hauled our baby and her 25 essential travel items over to Mike and Emily's house for dinner and some games.  We set up the pack n play in their spare bedroom and put Livy to bed around 8pm per her usual routine. She slept like a little baby log (a twig?) until 11pm when we headed home. I naively thought I would be able to gently lift my sleeping little angel from her car seat to her crib in one gentle sweet motion and then head off to bed myself for a much needed slumber. But, if you refer to the aforementioned warning about babies and the importance of routines, you know what's coming.

She awoke.

She cried.

And cried.

And cried.

Our baby doesn't cry like that. For seven months she has only cried for two reasons. When she had acid reflux in the beginning and when she cut her first tooth. So when she couldn't be consoled that night, we were bewildered.  Eventually after several rocking attempts and walking of the hall and stairs, we tried her infant swing. It calmed her enough to settle down, but she refused to go back to sleep. Joe and I just looked at each other as the clock kept ticking by. We settled down into the sectional with our heads together in the corner piece of the couch and tried to sleep. It was perfect because we could both stretch out and we could both see Olivia from our point on the couch. As 3am turned into 4am she finally fell asleep. We both got up, did a zombie stumble down the hall to the nursery to put her in her crib and then both passed out in bed.

Payment made for a night out with friends.

I hope that one day I will look back on that night fondly.  Joe and I curled up on the couch together watching our baby swinging back and forth in angry defiance at her parents. It was the first time we were able to both sleep on the couch together.  In our pre-baby, pre-sectional days we would take the back cushions off the green machine couch and both of us would fit for a little bit. But only if we had both worked out and eaten only broth for dinner.

I am glad I have that Su Casa sectional. Because it is only a matter of time before we both must pay. Again.

Sweet Moments

Here are some of the fun family moments we have had over the last 2 weeks with our Su Casa sectional. We have become pretty attached!  And our family and friends are too. I think they really like having somewhere to sit when they visit us! If we had more than one guest over, we had to drag kitchen chairs over or one of us would sit on the floor. This is living!

Morning play time with Daddy. 

I think she likes the couch too!

Aunt Steph has been over to babysit several nights this week.  I think she has enjoyed lying with her feet up and reading her book while Livy sleeps. 

This girl makes me laugh!

Olivia is out to discover what is underneath our new couch!

Couch Christening

We have had the sectional sofa from Su Casa for about 2 weeks now.  You know how sometimes you have to get used to a new piece of furniture? It will catch you off guard when you walk into the room until the day comes where you don't even notice it anymore because it just fits? That happened to us almost right away with the sofa. Believe me, we were not sad to part with our little green couch.  That Su Casa sectional was a breath of fresh air to our family room. It's more comfortable, it looks better and it has soooo much more room.

The second day we had the couch, I was so nervous to sit on it. Especially with the baby. We don't have a lot of things in our home of significant value, so it has become a very big deal to me that we respect how nice it is and don't let it get to the pathetic state our previous couch got to.  Well, wouldn't you know it? I sat down on the couch, nursed Olivia and even though she hasn't spit up for MONTHS she decided that of all times and places that would be the perfect place to spew lunch. And spew it she did. All over the cushion of our brand new gorgeous sectional! After a few seconds of sheer panic and a small but very high pitched scream I got my act together and grabbed the nearest cloth.  With one wipe, the spit up came up completely. Which is exactly what the salesperson at Fells Point, Jenny described when she told me about the fabric I chose. She recommended it for kids and pets and I am so glad I listened!

Joe and I are firm believers that it's important to respect the things that we work so hard to get, but that at the end of the day they are just material things. We have a baby now and that changes what it is important to us.  Joe's grandfather always used to say his favorite part of having something new was getting the first scratch on it. So yes, I hope that this sofa can stay in the same pristine condition for the next 20 years, but I know it won't. Olivia is surely going to draw on it, throw up on it or take scissors to it. But that's what we have been talking about for weeks... the memories we will make with this sofa and our growing family.

So our couch is officially christened.

To follow our couch story, keep tuning in! And you can also follow us on facebook and Instagram (@jamers1223). I have also been pinning some cool things from Su Casa on pinterest for all you pinners out there!

Baby Gym

Sitting and relaxing on our new sectional from Su Casa has been so awesome the past few days. Joe and I had a hard time being comfortable on our old two seater.  Most of the time he would stay out on the couch in the family room and I would go back to the bedroom to read or watch tv.  We just both couldn't stretch out and get comfortable in the evening.  But maybe you were wondering what other things you can do with a sectional sofa from Su Casa besides sit and relax. Well, Olivia is here to answer that question for you. She's been into fitness these days. She has been paying extra attention to her core, with daily crunches and plank exercises. She thought the new couch would be a great place to get her morning routine going. Check out what she can do!

Rules of Baby Gym

1. No excessive grunting

2. Clean all exercise machines after use, especially if there is drool.

3. Please excuse yourself if there is a "stinky".

4. No water bottles allowed, only milk.

5. The last rule of baby gym is nobody talks about baby gym....which is the easiest rule to follow since no on can talk yet. 

She got out her yoga mat and stretched to start her workout. She's been complaining about stiffness in the morning, so we thought yoga would help out.  

 Downward dog. Thank goodness for that headband. Things started to get sweaty!

It's working when it hurts!

Now it's time to pump some iron. Or eat it. 

 I am still in shock about how much room we have with this couch! Look at all the babies we could fit on it! If you have a baby who needs to work out, please call the reps at Baby Gym and ask for a free consultation. 

When things get really hard, you can always listen to music to push through. Or hang out with your duck. 

What??? I can't hear you Mom! 

When the workout is done, we offer a complimentary steam in our Su Casa sauna. 

See, there is so much you can do with a couch from Su Casa! Check out their website if you haven't already. And I know I am plugging them for the contest, but I honestly want all my friends who are in to decorating to check out the store in person.  It's full of unique home decor items, not just furniture. And it can make for a fun Saturday to go out to Fells Point or Ellicott City for shopping and lunch. The Ellicott City has a La Palapa right next to it... yum!!