We had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving and Matt and I loved how it all worked out this year. We went to his family's on Thursday and my family's on Saturday and had huge delicious and traditional dinners at both with a day of rest in between, it was perfect. The weather has been so nice and we took Elyse to two different parks one day. She loves to be outside, swing, and people watch.....the park meets every one of those little desires. The tree is up and decorated, Christmas music hums in the background on most evenings, and that "feeling" is truly in the air. Like most people, I absolutely love this time of year.

I continue to get more and more comments on how many people love the pictures I post, so I'll attach a few random ones from the last several days.

This is our french princess in her little beret. She can seriously make anything look cute, in my humble opinion.

This was taken on Thanksgiving day at Mark and Kathy's. It was so cute to see Kathy's grand kids all lined up in a row entertaining Elyse, and entertained she was.

Elyse with her Opa (Mark), he is tickled pink with her.

Okay, totally random picture here. This was me trying to be creative with one of Matt's favorites. He loves sloppy joes, so I tried to make a "sloppy joe bake" by using crescent rolls as a crust around it. Some things should be left well enough alone. It was good, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it I guess.

Matt ran a quick errand on Friday and came home with these "just because". I love the spontaneously thoughtful side of that man.

Elyse and I in front of her very first Christmas tree.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As soon as our sleeping beauty awakes from her nap we'll be on our way to Mark and Kathy's. I've already have so much to be thankful for just in this day alone.
1. Elyse slept until 8:30am. She is healthy, happy, and ours.
2. I woke up next to a man I love, respect, and am proud to be doing life with and in a marriage I have so much confidence in.
3. The weather is gorgeous.
4. I only had to make 1 side as my portion of the dinner today.
5. I am loved, undeniably blessed, and aware of it all.

It was still dinner to me

I made spinach-lasagna rolls on Sunday night because Matt requested something Italian for when he came home from the game. I told him what I made and described them to him.....mozzarella, noodles, spinach, egg, cottage cheese, etc. He proceeded to tell me in a joking manner, "That's not dinner if there isn't any meat in it." Now that's the encouraging husband I love! He is such a meat and potatoes kind of guy, I should have left the meatless part a secret because he really liked it in the end. I actually liked this much better than traditional lasagna. It was easier, cheaper, and healthier by far.....it is definitely going on the repeat list. I also like that it's something I can make ahead and refrigerate overnight and then just pop it in the oven for dinner. I feel like it's a recipe I could easily toy with by adding or deleting ingredients, and for me to feel bold enough to do that is a pretty big deal.

I've been neglectful of household duties lately so I'm committed to having 2 days of productivity before the holidays swing into full motion. I'm excited to be off for Thanksgiving and the days surrounding it....that's a first in almost 7 years for me, and yes, I'll enjoy it!

I got the feeling this was a common saying, but at church on Sunday was the first time I've heard it. "If it's on your mind, it's on God's heart, and if it's on God's heart, it's in God's word." In some ways I've had a lot on my mind, and in other ways I feel like I haven't had enough. For lack of better words, I've felt heavy lately. Not burdened per say, but just heavy, and I'm not quite sure why. Thinking of that saying last night prompted me to get out my bible before bed. I wasn't quite sure where to turn to, so I opened Psalm 139, it was hard to feel heavy after that. I often forget how well He knows me and my thoughts. He knows me better and more intimately than I'll ever know myself because He made me, today I'll rest assured in that.

We once again had a good weekend. Friday our small group got cancelled and since we had a sitter already we had a little date night out and met up with a friend. Both Saturday and Sunday morning Matt gave me the best gift ever! Elyse woke bright and early, I fed her, then he got up and changed, played, etc until he put her down for her morning nap. I slept until 9am or later both days! Sparkly jewelry, fancy dinners.....I'll take sleep over those any day. We spent time with his family on Saturday and Matt was able to go to the Bucs game on Sunday, the game was a complete blow-out, but he had a good time with his dad.

Time to get to my housework!

Our first day at the park......

I can't believe I haven't taken her sooner. I just figured there wouldn't be much she could do, but she LOVED swinging, the nice weather, and watching the other kids play. It happened to be a Westchase Mom's Club play date as well, so I connected with a few other mom's in my area. One of the girls I had met at the deli counter at Publix last week. Our daughter's are just 4 months apart and we seem to have a lot in common. We both got out of the house, Elyse had fun, I met a friend, and the weather was gorgeous....it just doesn't get much better than that.

This chicken dish looked almost too good to eat. It came out so juicy and tender, I don't think I've ever been able to cook chicken just right like that. As for flavor....it still just seemed like plain old chicken breast. Oh well, we still enjoyed it and it was pretty healthy.

The ever changing hair of Elyse

This picture was taken when she was one week old. She still had her head full of brownish, reddish hair.

By the end of her first month it was thinning out, but definitely still there.

In October "the mullet" hit. She was almost completely bald on top, but had very long, brown hair in the back. Matt would say, "Business in the front, party in the back."

Here she is this morning with quite a bit of very blonde hair making it's way in. It's still far too thin and short for fancy bows, but we're just happy it showed up.

She is very into grabbing and grasping things lately. She will try to lean and get to anything nearby, and of course, everything goes right to her mouth. She tries to take cups out of your hands and wants to hold everything to explore it's shape, texture, and sounds. While Matt was giving her a bath this weekend she became mesmerized by the water coming out of the faucet. She tries so hard to grab it, hold it, and put it in her mouth. She will concentrate and focus so hard on the little stream of water. She will hold her hands so steady and so carefully, she will leave them open under the water then quickly she will grasp and pull her hands to her mouth. It's so cute and so sad at the same time because she just doesn't understand why the water doesn't come with her hands.

Just getting around to you blog

This past weekend was very busy. Matt worked a half day on Friday so he could come home early and take over baby duty so I could go to a friends bachelorette party in Siesta Key. It was the first time I had ever left Elyse overnight and it went wonderfully. I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself and I was thankful for the little get away with the girls. For awhile now I've been saying that I would love to have a night without a baby monitor because although Elyse sleeps through, she will still make noises throughout the night that wake me. The thought of one long night of uninterrupted sleep sounds so refreshing. Well, I had no monitor Friday night, but I was sleeping on an old, creaky, beach bungalow pull-out couch next to my friend Rachel. We stayed up entirely too late and I would have slept much better WITH the baby monitor at home, although that wouldn't have been nearly as fun.

I came home late Saturday morning and the 3 of us just hung around the house. I was tired and actually managed to squeeze a nap in which was wonderful. It was a very lazy, relaxing day that Matt topped off by grilling burgers outside since the weather was so nice. We went to bed early because I had to work Sunday, so Matt had another full day of baby duty. He did all the feedings, naps, diapers, toys, bath, books, and even a load of dishes. My shift at work was smooth and fun and I came home that night to a delicious pot roast awaiting me. I sat down and started eating, it tasted so good and I was so thankful for the fact that he cooked it. I was eating away and Matt was sort of picking at his with his fork examining it. He said, "I think I cooked it too long, it looks a little over-done." He explained how he had gotten distracted by Elyse during cooking, etc. For the first time I think we both truly felt what it was like to be in the other person's shoes. I had worked all day, I was tired, I missed my little girl, and I was just happy to sit down with him for a hot meal. I didn't even pay attention to how the roast was cooked. I said to him, "Oh wow, is this what it's like when I cook and get all worried about it, do you really just sit down and appreciate the meal without thinking twice?" He said "Yes, definitely." That was such a refreshing moment to me and I'm glad we were both able to observe and appreciate a little glimpse of how the other person really sees things.

He did such a good job caring for Elyse, but I spent most of the day yesterday grocery shopping and establishing order in the house after a weekend of daddy daycare. To no fault of his own, the house was a mess. It's still not back up to par, but I can chip away at it today after Elyse and I go on a play date.

Cold

It's cold today and I like that. I like that a lot. In fact, a little too cold to take my evening jog with Elyse. The past two days it was too rainy, now it's too chilly.....maybe I'm just too lazy. I love the first true cold day we get down here because I get excited over which winter clothes I'll wear. I don't have many and the ones I do have are several years old because they just don't get worn like my other clothes. It was also fun to dress Elyse in some warmer clothes as well....she just looks so snugly and huggable all bundled like that. I'll have to add a picture when I get the chance, but she's taking a late, extra, much needed nap right now. We have had such a groove the past several days. Her routine was like clock-work, almost to the minute. Her naps were consistent and restorative for her. We did all of our busyness in between them and it helped me feel so competent as her mother. I could read her cues, respond to her cries because I was absolutely sure what she needed, more so than that, I could confidently anticipate exactly what would be needed and when so there was seldom even a reason for her to cry, everything was just flowing so nicely and I felt like we were finally in our niche......then came today. It's amazing how one day can rock my assurance as a mother, and it did. I'm not sure what caused it, but the only thing certain was that it was certainly different. Everything that would be her "norm" went out the window and I found myself trying so many different things this evening to figure out what was wrong. Her naps were short and random which threw off her eating as well. She took a mini-nap in the car while running a lengthy errand (which I try to avoid) which further threw the day out of wack. By the time this afternoon rolled around she didn't know what she needed and neither did I. I tired feeding her, putting her to bed, playing with her, rocking her.....nothing seemed to work. I felt like I was a babysitter for someone else's child trying to calm this upset baby while anxiously waiting for her mother to walk in the door and fix it all. She finally settled and played happily for awhile but then got pretty tired, so a late nap it is. Hopefully all will be well tomorrow because I don't like feeling like that, but I'm learning over and over that it just comes with the job.

Oh, I almost forgot, here's a story for you. Yesterday evening I was checking the mail after dark. I stuck my hand in the mailbox to retrieve the mail and I felt something that didn't belong. I wasn't sure what it was, but it felt like the carcass of a lizard or frog or something. Because it was so dark I couldn't see in the mailbox to confirm the suspicion so I did what all loving wives do. I called Matt who was on his way home from work and asked him to check the mail. I told him my story and said use your cell phone as a light or something before you go in blind. Shortly after he walked in the door holding the mail and I asked, "So, was there anything in there?". He snickered and said, "Yeah, the mail." Weird, I thought, I was sure I felt something. That was the last of that.

Today I went to check the mail during the day while it was light out and I stuck my hand in to grab it and ran my hand smack into a frog skeleton! Yuck! I'm not sure if a neighborhood kid is playing a trick, if Matt just somehow missed it yesterday, or if my mailbox somehow became a frog cemetery, but either way I was totally grossed out. I'm SURE it was there last night, and it's still there as I type. I'm not touching that thing. I'll just ask Matt to get the mail again tonight ;).

This whole cooking thing.....

is going much better! I got a great new cookbook that a friend suggested and it seems to be a great beginners/busy/intimidated person's book. I've made some Mahi, meatloaf, chicken, sausage manicotti, and today I'm baking a loaf of banana bread from scratch. Later this week I'm going to attempt a roast and some ribs....wish me luck. One of the things I've come to love about some of the recipes is the left-overs! I can spend 30 to 40 minutes on dinner one evening and eat from it for 2 or 3 meals which is a great time and money saver. I still need to figure out exactly which staples I need to be sure to have around, but I think I have most things and I'm slowly building up to the rest. A couple of the recipes I wanted to try required either a deep fryer or dutch oven and I don't have either of those. Not having a fryer is probably a good thing, so I don't think I'll go buy one. I'm not sure about the dutch oven as to how useful they are and if you can make a lot of things using them, I'll have to look into that one.

The productivity doesn't stop there, today I cleaned out Elyse's dresser....she seems to be growing out of clothes so fast! I'm sure there are things she never wore or maybe wore once. Thankfully she's been dressed primarily from hand me downs and I hope to pay that forward to another baby girl someday. I'm also tackling the cabinets beneath my bathroom sink. I need to stop hoarding hotel toiletry samples and hair products that I've held onto for years and years but found I didn't need them. I just have such a hard time throwing stuff like that out. I better get to it though.

Boy did we ever have a busy weekend. I love weekends like that. Busy with fun almost doesn't feel like "busy" until you come to a stop. Matt and I had booked our baby sitter weeks ago for Friday night because it was our usual small group get together, but after the trying week with Elyse we decided to be selfish and take that night for ourselves. We went to dinner at P.F. Chang's and ended up meeting up with 2 other couples for a little while. It was so nice to get out like that.

On Saturday some of Matt's family came over from the east coast of Florida to spend the day so we all had a BBQ at Mark and Kathy's. It was so much fun to see everyone and some of them we hadn't seen in about a year. Elyse quickly became overwhelmed by so many people and sort of went into panic mode. She's funny like that. She LOVES to be around action, she just doesn't want the action to be around or about her. I set her in her little chair with some toys off to the side and she just had the best time. She played quietly to herself and would look around at all the commotion and all of the people, but if too many people surrounded her she would get scared. It's so amazing to be witnessing aspects of her personality unfold. The other thing I've noticed about her is how gentle she is. When I watch other babies her age play with toys they tend to grab and bang them and she just doesn't really do that. She will turn her hand upside down and gently "cup" toys with her hands, almost as though she's trying to create a soft place for a bubble to land. Her movements are careful and intentional. Don't get me wrong, she does occasionally get excited and bang on things, just not as often.

Sunday we went out to lunch with our small group and made it home in time to watch the Bucs finally win a game. Matt and I relaxed on the couch while Elyse napped. It was a wonderful way to end the weekend. I'm a little disappointed in myself though, I took my camera to all of the different things we did and never snapped one picture. I do that a lot. I remember to bring it, but forget to use it. I need to get better at that.

Now that it's Monday the house needs tending to and laundry needs completing, but I didn't sleep well last night so I may procrastinate the chores until tomorrow. Elyse must be feeling the exhaustion too because she is a napping champ today. I love it when things like that work out. I'm tired and she's napping wonderfully. I'm feeling lazy and there isn't anything that absolutely must be done today. I think I'll declare this as my day "off". That's one of the many blessings of staying home.....there's always tomorrow, so no need to stress over it today. I don't ever let that frame of mind become a habit, but today I'm grateful for it.

Rough but rewarding

I haven't been blogging much recently and the blogging I've done has been more "surface" because my mind and heart have been very pre-occupied with this whole "parenting" thing. It's been a very rough week or two with Elyse. This was something we actually sort of brought on ourselves, but Matt and I both believe it's what needed to be done and I just had to endure it this week. I think it was our first test of many where we needed to make a decision and firmly stick with it regardless of how hard it was. We were having pretty significant sleep issues with Elyse. It was taking forever to get her to go to sleep at bedtime or for naps because she would fight it and would wake up if her paci fell out. Then it started affecting us in the middle of the night as well. I was getting up 5 or 6 times, sometimes more, just to give her the paci back so she would go back to sleep. We both felt like we were the "paci police" getting up over and over to retrieve it to get her to go to and stay asleep. We were all enslaved to the paci and Elyse's inability to sleep without it. I was becoming over-tired and she wasn't getting the sleep she needed either, no one was. She didn't need to eat, didn't need me, she was just hung up on the paci. It had become a joke in our house that we needed 3 hours to watch a 2 hour movie because we knew we would be interrupted so many times over this issue.

I brought this up at her 4 month visit and after a clean bill of health ruling out any other issues she could be waking for, her pediatrician highly recommended we begin sleep training Elyse because she felt she was entirely to pacifier dependent. I've been told over and over that the longer we wait the worse it will be, so sleep training we began. That basically means we do our nap/bedtime routine of rocking, cuddling, reading a book, etc, and then she gets put to bed, fed, safe, and secure, and that's it, we don't go back in. As you can imagine it's absolutely heartbreaking because at first she would cry for what would seem like hours (but was actually only 20 minutes, which is still an eternity for my maternal heart). I would lay on the floor of her room where she couldn't see me and just cry. I would whisper to her in my mind promising her I was right there, that mommy didn't leave her, but that she just needed to learn to fall asleep. It went on and on like this for days, for every single nap, for every bedtime. She was crying, I was crying, and I felt horrible. I doubted myself over and over if it was the right thing to do. How can a good mother ignore her child's cries? But that was just it, she didn't need her mommy, she didn't need her daddy, she needed to sleep. Matt had to remind me over and over that she isn't missing us, she was just in a panic over why that soothing piece of plastic wasn't magically finding it's way back to her mouth. His constant reassurance was so crucial for me and he was a tremendous help through this.

I prayed and prayed for God's confirmation in our decision and for confidence to carry it out because I knew consistency was key. I knew she HAD to learn this or it would be a much harder battle down the road. I felt confident that we were helping her learn the skill of self-soothing and just because it wasn't easy didn't mean it wasn't right. It won't be easy the first time we spank her, but she will get spanked. It isn't easy when she fights being strapped down in her car seat, but she must stay buckled. Like I said, I'm sure it was the first of many battle's we will have with Elyse, but we are her parents and things like bedtime and car seats are non-negotiable. I just had no idea we'd be battling so soon, but it's amazing how fast this sweet baby started expressing her will and testing limits. Responding to this is what we needed to do and knowing that we did it adds so much more confidence to me as a mother. Matt was such wonderful support and was 100% with me on it which helped so much, but he was at work for almost all of it, so it was hard doing it alone. A week or so later, I truly believe it's working. She is finally just "talking" herself to sleep and guess what....no more getting up in the middle of the night!!! She can put herself back to sleep on her own. It's by no means perfect (the time change and her wanting to drop her 4th nap didn't make it any easier) and there are still times she fusses, but nothing like what it was before.

At first I felt like this was our dirty, dark secret that we let our baby cry. I was ashamed and doubtful and the harder she cried, the worse I felt and I didn't want anyone to know. Now that I truly believe we did the right thing I feel comfortable sharing. I'm so proud of my precious little girl, but more importantly, I'm proud of myself and Matt. I know we handled it in the best way for our family. We handled it quickly, firmly, consistently, and together.....I feel like those are the makings of some pretty good parenting skills for later on. I just hope we have a little reprieve before we are faced with the next obstacle.

Grocery helper

Since Elyse holds her head up so well she absolutely loves to take in the world around her from a more upright position. That along with rolling over has caused her to fight being confined in her car seat, and fight she does. When I look at her in the mirror she is trying with all her might to arch right out of it. If it wasn't for the screaming I would almost think it was cute. The fussing makes for anxious driving but alas, she will have to get used to this, car seats are not negotiable try as she may. However, I adapt to her new interest in the world where I can by wearing her in our Baby Bjorn carrier facing out. She loves it. Shopping is fascinating to her now and she loves all the people who come coo and talk to her. It has it's downfalls though, it's hard to bend and get things from lower shelves and it made it very hard to load our pumpkin into our cart. When I went grocery shopping on Monday I was reaching for something on the highest shelf and I heard all these pasta boxes falling below me. My little Elyse was clearing off the shelf. I know when she's older I'll have to avoid encouraging things like this by laughing, but that day at that moment it was hysterically cute. She changes by the day, I almost can't keep up. I just love that sweet little girl.

A few pictures

Here's Elyse and Matt before her 4 month check up at the doctor.

This is Matt, Elyse, and me with the cake our small group got Matt for his birthday. It looks like Elyse will either love cake or be a pyromaniac.

Yes, mommy stuffed her in a pumpkin several times trying to get a cute memorable shot for her first fall. She may not fit in one next year, or more importantly won't let me stuff her in one, so I took advantage of it. She did pretty well with it......

......at first. I think being outside in the sticky goo scared her more than anything. I scooped her right out and loved all over her. If she ever has a fear of pumpkins later in life, we'll know why.

My mom got her this little ensemble, and of course, she's grabbing her feet.

The mean mom that I am tried her in the pumpkin again, but this time I did it inside and that seemed to go over much better with her.

Here she is in the Bumbo in some festive pj's and socks.



A friend of ours gave us these ladybug pj's and we used that as her costume. I wanted to dress her as a little lamb, but ended up not seeing the point in spending the money on something like that, so a ladybug she was. She was asleep before the first trick or treater ever came to the door which made me especially glad that I didn't bother with a fancy costume.