Best 4th of July Ever

It's amazing how having a baby can make holidays more enjoyable!

Monday marked my 28th Independence Day and I have to say that hands down, it was the best one yet. We spent a good part of the day with some of Carl's family, hanging out by the pool and enjoying tasty food and great conversation. Then, we had a relaxing and quiet evening at home.

Several years ago, I would have thought this was the recipe for a snooze fest but now I know that alcohol and fireworks aren't needed for a good time. All you need is a baby, a dog and a good-humored husband!

And of course, a camera to capture some of the moments:

Wearing my patriotic onesie. Gotta sport the Red, White and Blue!

You've got to be joking, Mom. I'm not going in that GIGANTIC bathtub!

This is much more like it!

Lynn teaching Ethan how to get into trouble

Duck!

Getting a ride from Daddy

The Best 5 Months Ever

Last Tuesday marked Elsa's 5 month birthday. Wow - time is just flying by!

Her 5 month mark just happened to land on her favorite Uncle's birthday, so, of course, we had to celebrate by wearing a special outfit just for him!

She was very excited to take pictures for her Uncle, so she was all smiles for the camera. Here are my favorites...

Beautiful blue eyes

Proudly displaying the O

Scheming away

Cheese!

 

 

 

I continue to be amazed at just how fast the days fly by now that Elsa is in our life. The last five months quite honestly have been the best in my life. She brings so much joy to my heart and a smile to my face. Even when she's swatting away a spoonful of oatmeal or has delivered me a diaper full of poop!

We Have an Eater

After several weeks of taste tests, Elsa has decided that big girl food is actually quite tasty!

We started with baby oatmeal, but she was less than thrilled (quite honestly, I can't blame her... it looked  kind of gray and nothing like the tasty oatmeal I eat for breakfast every day).

After several more failed attempts with the oatmeal, we moved on to trying rice cereal. She was apprehensive the first time around but a couple of days later, she decided it wasn't too bad. In fact, I think she found it pretty tasty.

Because rice cereal was a big hit last week, we decided to introduce her to peas last night. She's decided peas are the tastiest food ever. She couldn't get enough of them, grabbing the spoon from my hand and refusing to let go (and getting peas all over the place in the process).

This is such an exciting phase in her life. I can't wait to introduce her to more foods and seeing her initial reactions to the diverse tastes. Next up - chicken!

I Made It!

My 60-day sweets fast has come to an end, and I'm proud to say that I made it!

There were just three instances where I had a "sweet" and I feel they were somewhat justified. Two occasions I had half of a Costco muffin (they really should be called cupcakes because they're so sweet) while at a breakfast time meeting. And once I had part of a can of Sprite because my stomach had been giving me problems throughout the day.

What really made this fast a success is that I found some great, healthier alternatives to eat as snacks and "dessert" that I plan to keep in my diet. Who knew that frozen fruit or plain yogurt was so delicious?!
However, I have to admit that I have been very excited to drink a Diet Pepsi with my dinner tonight. I have a feeling that I will savor every drop.

Of course, a secondary goal of the challenge was to lose some weight. And, I'm happy to report that I lost just over 10 pounds during the 60 days. Woohoo!

On to the Next Challenge!
Now that my sweet fast has come to an end, I've taken on a new challenge - the Couch to 5K (c25k) workout program. I started it this Monday and for the next nine weeks I will be running three days a week. The program gradually takes you from doing intervals of running and walking to running a full 30 minutes.

This is a much greater challenge for me than the sweets fast. I've always had a somewhat easy time eliminating foods from my diet but have never been able to maintain my motivation when it comes to exercising. I'm doing c25k with a friend in hopes that it will keep me on-track for success.

Something else that will help is my pastor just started a series at church about winning the fight against the Devil. Many people would think this would just be about spiritual battles but in reality, the Enemy is looking to trip us up in all aspects of our daily lives to plant doubt and fear in our minds. I've always looked at running as something that I can't conquer, so I'm going to take the information he gives in his sermon series and apply it to the mental block that I've allowed to build up over the years.

Yep, I'll be praying that Jesus gets me through my workouts; quite honestly, without Him by my side, I don't think I'd be able to run for more than a couple of minutes!

The Sacrifices We Make

Parents make sacrifices from the time of conception through their child's life to ensure they are safe, thriving and content.

I always knew this but never fully understood it until Miss Elsa was conceived. I was thinking of these sacrifices earlier this week as I was trying to get ointment in her eye to help take care of her eye goop issue. She was fussing, skillfully turning her head from side to side to dodge the glob of ointment I was trying to smear in her eye. She certainly wasn't enjoying herself and I wasn't necessarily having fun, either. But I kept pursuing her eye because I knew that it ultimately would be the best for her in the long-term.

While some of my sacrifices have been small (no sushi or deli meat during pregnancy, cutting back on caffeine, eliminating my favorite belly sleeping position, digging out boogers from her nose), others have been more significant. Like quitting my job so I can care for her full-time, cutting sweets out of my diet to be a more positive role model, and, for a short time, feeding her every two hours to increase her food in-take.

Some of these sacrifices weren't necessarily required. They were choices that Carl and I made to help ensure we were doing all we could to keep Elsa healthy and developing. And I know that some people may not agree with all of my choices. I kept that in mind when I recently read a post in "The Art of Making a Baby". The woman who writes this blog had made the choice to essentially go into a self-imposed isolation while pregnant. Aside from prenatal check-ups, she is determined to limit her contact with other individuals (aside from her husband) during the 9+ months of pregnancy. This will keep her home-bound and away from friends and family.

This blog came to my attention through my online mommy group, where everyone had an opinion about this woman's sacrifice! However, I didn't write about this today to pass judgment on her choices. No matter how right or mislead she may be (I'll leave that up to you to decide), you can't dispute the fact that she is determined to do all she can to do what she believes is best for her future child. This shows the level of commitment and sacrifice us parents are willing to go through to do what we believe is best for our children.

It's pretty amazing what we will give up or take on to keep our little ones safe!

Goo-be-gone

I continued to be surprised by the simple things that now excited me due to mommy-hood. Case in point, I never thought I would be so excited by the lack of eye goo!

Elsa was born with clogged eye ducts, something that is fairly common for babies. We were told that her eyes would eventually clear themselves but after four months of daily eye gunk, and the goopiness getting worse instead of better (The poor little miss was waking up with her eyes glued shut! And my mom made a joke the other day about buying stock in whatever brand of cotton balls we were purchasing... that's an indicator of how bad it was), the pediatrician's office provided us with a prescription for eye ointment.

While lots of fuss has been made (I can't blame her, I definitely wouldn't want my dad holding my head while my mom came at my eyes with a cotton swab), we are seeing the results. We haven't had to clean Elsa's eyes for two full days and you can now see that she has beautiful, full eyelashes! With only three more ointment applications left, I'm incredibly excited to stop having to mess with Miss Elsa's eyes.

That's One Strong Girl!

Miss Elsa has started discovering the various features of my face... with her tiny (yet strong!) fingers.

The past couple of weeks, she has started to grip onto my nose...my cheek...my lips... and, perhaps worst of all, my throat. While I'm excited that she is learning to use her hands more and her coordination is improving, her fingers of steel hurt!

Oh, and her new obsession with my facial features has motivated to finally take the plunge and clip her nails. I was making Carl do it before but now it needs to be done much more frequently because she's about to draw blood (for whatever reason, she never scratches her own face.. only mine)!