New Love

I have a new love: baby leggies. Before Logan was born, I saw them all over the place online (mainly in those winter months of my third trimester) and always thought, "well, those are cute, but WAY too expensive." They usually ran $10-20 a pair and that was just way out of my price range. Our hero, Target, now carries these wonderful creations for under $3...hello affordability!

Don't I look like the star of an 80's workout video?

Ok, dad, enough of that, I'm way too mature for kisses. :) (actually, she really loves them and will return them to both Mike and I in the form of a very slobbery, wet, open mouth on the cheek and a "muuuuuuuuuh" sound)

Anyway, the leggies are great because it's a little cool here some mornings and so I can throw them on her with a short sleeved onesie and know her little legs are warm. They also have been wonderful for her sweet little knees since she's trying to crawl and on them quite a bit AND they are incredible during diaper changes--no more pulling pants off to get that diaper done!

Mommy Creations

I've been crafting like crazy the past few weeks in effort to:

1. Save some money on L's accessories/clothing

2. Get ready for some big things: a consignment sale that is selling my bows and a craft fair in November and I'm getting ready to re-vamp my etsy site so that I can start really selling my stuff there.

So, the other morning L and I headed out for a morning of watching flag football. We have so much fun playing outside, BUT, Lo has very very fair skin--more fair than her Danish grandmother--and so we have to do several things to keep her from burning. One of the easiest, of course, is to stick a floppy hat on her. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my crafty desires), floppy hats don't come with bows on them, so we had to fix that.

I present to you exhibit A: mommy made bow.

And what the little bow does for her hat just tickles me:


Logan was excited too!I meant to get pictures at the game but forgot my camera so our little porch had to do.

Hello world!

Onto craft #2! I've been working on some different patterns for Logan. I mastered the pillowcase dress and had been working to make the pillowcase shirt work and finally got it down last week. Here's L in her mommy created designer outfit (please pardon the open drawer in the background):

Getting a 7 month old to look at the camera when you want her to is a daunting task.

But we got it!

Taggie Ball

This is Logan's taggie ball:

I got it in hopes that it would encourage Logan to crawl.

My logic was that if it rolled away, she'd have to go and get it. Unfortunately, this is how she keeps it from rolling away:

Yeah...she lays her head on it so that it doesn't move away from her. While it's cute, it totally defeats the purpose of the ball!

Oh, well. We tried, right?

Update Long Overdue

It's really been a while...hasn't it? Things here have been wildy busy for us as Mike is in full swing with school and work and L and I have gotten into a nice routine. Usually when I have "down time" I'm rushing around the house to get things clean, laundry done, dinner prepared, etc, so I don't think to sit down and write. I realize that there are those out there (cough...grandparents...cough) who are restless to see some new pictures and hear some sweet Logan stories. :)

So, our new morning routine includes L playing in her pac-n-play while I make the bed and either fold laundry or pick up/vacuum the bedroom. She loves to sit, watch and sing to me as I work.

Logan outgrew her newborn carseat about 2 months ago and was in desperate need of a new one. Every time we put her in her seat it was a five minute fiasco trying to fit the buckle around her sweet little thighs and so her Nana Kathy and Gradpa Don were very sweet and got her the new carseat that we had been eying for a while. I think we'll probably go with this seat for all of our subsequent children--it has a newborn insert and they fit in it until they are about 40lbs so it's a great convertible seat and it's so comfy. L hated riding in the car after about 6pm in the old seat but since we've had the new one (knock on wood), she has been fine all the time.
We're starting to notice L's personality coming out more and more. Sunday before church she and daddy played for quite a while. She's in that "find something that I think is funny and I'll laugh on command for hours...and then never will think it's funny again after that" phase.
I don't really remember what was so funny that morning, but she was in stitches.
Now, we mustn't forget that the best time of year is here- college football season! We've been counting down the days until we could watch Buckeye and Seminole football with L and it's finally here. Now, I must say, we're quite disappointed with the 'noles after their performance on Monday night but are looking forward to seeing them redeem themselves throughout the season. Here's Logan's gameday outfit (we have plenty more on the way throughout the season):
And we're about to hit a new milestone. Prior to the last week, I could leave L sitting like this and walk out of the room to grab something so long as I didn't take more than about 2 minutes:

I can no longer do this because:
Yes, Logan has reached the stage where she is rearing to crawl. She can actually get a few inches every time she gets into this position and so I can no longer look away without hearing her get into something that was nowhere near her when I set her down. It's exciting, she's growing up, but very bittersweet because I can't just leave her for a minute anymore and she's becoming more and more independent. :)

7 Months Old!

It seems like she's on a race to get to her first birthday, doesn't it?! As I watched her fall asleep on her own today, during her naptime, I realized that my baby really is growing up. While she prefers to have me rock her to sleep, she doesn't NEED me to anymore. One of the things that I've really been struck by lately is how they go from being COMPLETELY dependent on you to meet their every need to slowly weaning themselves and becoming able to do things on their own. I know this will continue for the rest of her life, and I also knew it would happen, but it is a very strange, sad, and satisfying feeling experiencing it from the parenting side of the spectrum.

So, Logan, you are SEVEN months old today! What are you up to?!

- You are 18lbs 11oz and 26 inches long.

- You are wearing size 3 or 4 diapers (when you're not in cloth) and have actually moved into pampers cruisers and are no longer small enough to wear their swaddlers anymore! (mommy almost cried when she made this discovery)

- You can go from a sitting to a crawling position on your own.

- You can crawl...only you do it backwards and don't get very far before looking up at mommy or daddy and wanting one of us to move you.

- You have just learned the "ma" sound and say it over and over and over and over again during the day. I know you don't know that "mama" means me, but it just melts my heart when I hear it. Just this morning you started saying it to get my attention so I think you're starting to get it.

- You take two naps a day, one in the morning for an hour or two and one in the afternoon for two or three hours. You're a pretty good napper and when you're not--well, we try not to get there.

- You're not sleeping through the night yet, still waking up once after about 5 hours for a quick snack and then back down for the rest of the night. I consider us blessed because I've heard of several other mommy's who are up a lot more than I am with you. I also know that one day I'll look back on our "special times" and smile, so, I try and treasure them.

- You love to read...well, be read to. You sit and listen and watch the pictures. Your two favorite books are "Moo, Baa, La la la" and "No, No, Noah!" We read "Moo, Baa, La La La" probably 50 times a day and we read "No, No, Noah!" every night before bedtime.

- You can fall asleep on your own. You started that yesterday, actually. I've rediscovered the miracle of the swing and in a last stitch attempt to stay sane yesterday (when you wanted no nap), I stuck you in there and you gladly fell asleep on your own. I've started using that to wean you from falling asleep in my arms and also am using it to get you used to sleeping in your own room.

- You're eating a bit more solid food. We've got you eating about 3 times a day. You eat yogurt in the morning, fruit in the afternoon and a veggie at dinner. Right now you love: sweet potatoes, yobaby yogurt (banana is your favorite), bananas, butternut squash and peaches. You like: pears, apples, and yellow squash. So far this month, we haven't found any more food that you hate.

- Your favorite toy this month is your taggie ball. Mommy got it for you in hopes that you'd use it to learn how to crawl. So far, when you roll it away from yourself, you look from the ball to whatever adult is around until they help you get it back, but you've started to get into your crawl position in effort to go retrieve it.

We love you SO much! I was just thinking this morning about how truly blessed I am to have such a wonderful little girl and can't wait to continue to watch you grow up (just not too fast!).

6/7 month well baby

Yesterday we went in for L's 6 month well baby appointment. We seem to be a bit off on the timing of the appointments (4 month well baby happening when she was 5 months, 6 month well baby happening 3 days before she turns 7 months). Anyway, she's doing wonderfully! Here's the rundown:

-She's a VERY HEALTHY 18lbs 11oz and in the 80% for her weight (not surprised, she's a lot harder to lift out of her carseat and that's how I've gauged when she's gaining weight). The Dr. made sure to give me a "go mom!" for keeping up the nursing, even though she's eating a couple things of babyfood a day, most of her nutrition is still coming from me.

- She's 26 in. long and in the 55% for that.

-For head circumference she's in the 75%.

All in all, she's developing just perfectly. He was very surprised to hear that she's already trying to pull up on things and that she actually does get places when she tries to crawl (even though she gets there backwards...minor detail). We love our new pediatrician, he's very nice and is so wonderful with her. She was all smiles for him, which, I'm sure she won't be next time because we'll be going in for shots...ick. Here are the pictures from the day:

This is quite possibly my favorite time of day with L. She's SO PRECIOUS in the morning. Sweet and snuggly and happy as a clam. She'll laugh and smile at anything during the first couple of hours she's awake. Not to mention that I have a slight obsession with footed pj's, there is just something incredibly sweet and innocent about them.

Logan was much more interested in the paper on the table in the Dr.'s office than she was with all of the toys they had for her to play with. She spent quite a while just crumpling and pulling at it.
And then proceeded to cover her head with it which she's in the process of doing in this picture.

Then we had a relaxing afternoon at home. We played with our toes and read books, which she's very into right now. She'll sit and listen and look at the pictures for hours if you read to her.
Logan finally is starting to get the hang of this "say cheese!" thing. Every once and a while she'll see you pull the camera and she'll ham it up for you. We love her!

Logan Laughing With Daddy

Please pardon my extreme shrill and annoying voice, we were having a lot of fun with this and I got excited. This is the tail end of the game we were playing with her. She actually was entertained and laughed for 5 minutes before we pulled the camera out, and sure as the sun rises in the east, that was the end of it.