Half Birthday

Today Allyson is 6 months old! Its hard to believe that 6 months has passed since I was the size of a house and went through the whole labor and delivery ordeal. I have 7 friends that are due between August and September this year so I have been doing a lot of reflecting back on my pregnancy to try and offer advice when they ask but all I keep thinking is how great it feels not to be pregnant anymore! Allyson has certainly changed a lot since the first few weeks and keeping this blog with her photo and stats each month has really made for a fun way to compare and see the changes from month to month. Sometimes she looks so small and like a baby and sometimes she looks like a big girl but I guess that's what moms are supposed to say since I see her every day.

Here is an updated list of her accomplishments thus far:
First trip to WI at 4 weeks
First plane ride at 5.5 weeks
First sleep through the night 12 weeks
First roll over 16 weeks
Sits up well at 17 weeks
First rice cereal at 20 weeks
First fruit (pears) at 21 weeks
First veggies (squash) 22 weeks
Creeping at 24 weeks

Some other fun notes from this month:

• Ally loves all types of fruits and veggies including squash, green beans, sweet potatoes, pears, and apples but isn't as crazy about peaches and applesauce
• We are now working on two meals a day- starting this week she gets cereal and a fruit/veggie at day care for lunch and another round for dinner with me in the evening
• We are slowly phasing out the breast milk and moving her to formula which is going great
• Ally can hold her own bottle but she mostly chooses not to
• She absolutely loves Ella and squeals as soon as she sees her
• Now that the weather is getting warmer Ally has enjoyed taking walks in her stroller without the car seat attached and also in the Bjorn
• She is very good at entertaining herself and will sit on her play mat with toys spread around and occupy herself for 10-15 minutes at a time
• She has figured out how to work her strong little legs and will stand on just about anything and loves to jump in her bouncy seat. She can also stand well on the ground holding just our hands
• She can take off her socks and get her feet in her mouth from sitting or laying down
• She is loud! Ally loves to babble, yell, squeal and make other happy noises
  
• Has had a consistent bed time routine for 2 months and it seems to work very well for all of us
• Wearing cute 6 month clothes (or 6-9 month clothes depending on the brand) and size 2 diapers
• She just started to get up on all fours, she likes to scoot along the floor on her tummy and we expect crawling wont be too far behind
• No teeth yet but we also expect that milestone soon

Some not so fun things thus far:

• Nap time- day care was helping with that and she was a champion napper for a while but now she is getting harder to get down for a nap and likes to scream like a mad woman when she gets tired. Its currently the issue causing the most stress!
• Finger nails- I cut them all the time but she still manages to have cuts all over her forehead all the time. I don't know how she does it!
• Ella- although Ally loves Ella and thinks shes funny, the feelings do not seem to be mutual. Its not that Ella would ever snap at Ally or do anything to hurt her, she just ignores us all and lays on her bed most of the day. She is a very stubborn dog and when we do try to play with her and get everyone outside she definitely knows how to get our attention by doing something she shouldn't.
• Ear infections- Ally has had two rounds of antibiotics since she started day care to clear up a month long battle. They are not fun for Ally or for us, its the only time she is really a struggle to deal with!

Ally has her 6 month appointment with Dr. Ho on Monday so we will have her updated stats then. This month I tried a lot harder to get more photos so here are some of the favorites to enjoy!

March Artwork

The March art features both finger paint and tissue paper. Enjoy "Shamrocks" and "Lucky Leprechauns".

Play Time

Now that Ally can sit up, she has gotten very good at entertaining herself. She loves to sit on her play mat with a whole bunch of toys spread out around her and just move from one toy to the next. Sometimes she sits and sometimes she lays on her tummy in the middle and scoots herself in a circle so she can play with everything. Her current fascinations are the wiggle worm and tags. She has a ton of toys but she usually spends most of her time pulling, chewing and drooling on the tags! Here are some photos I took this morning while I was finishing getting ready:

This is my shocked face! What a silly girl

When she gets bored with her toys, she moves on to her thumb. Too cute!

Baby Talk

On Saturday we were able to go to Indy for a few hours for Paige's 3rd Birthday Party. The house was full of kids and she had a lot of fun playing with Lexi. They are at a really fun age where we can just put them on the floor and they entertain each other. Katie and I were both trying to get a nice picture of them together since we hadn't had a chance to do it since they were a month old. Now they move around way too much for that but the pictures I did get were pretty funny. Here is how I imagine their conversation went:

Lexi: Hey Ally, its my sisters birthday so I get to wear these sweet Mickey ears

Ally: oooo.... those look like fun. Can I see?
Lexi: I'll let you try them on if you want.

Ally: That's so nice of you, hand them over.

Lexi: Well, maybe I'm not ready to share these.
Ally: What do you mean?

Lexi: Let's both take a piece to chew on.
Ally: Hey! What did you do that for?


Ally: Hey Lexi, you better sit up nice. Our moms want to take our picture again. I know we are so cute but don't they have enough pictures of us!
Lexi: This is boring, I want to find something else to play with.

Lexi: How about this pink princess plate?
Ally: Sounds good to me, let me see!

Feeling Lucky?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My mom bought Ally this super cute outfit to wear today so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures this morning before we went to day care. She loves to smile all the time...except for when I want to take her picture!

We have had a lot of luck on our side recently: Karl's new job and we sold our house in a record-setting 24 days. We got an offer on Tuesday (my birthday) and went back and forth a few times and the guy accepted our counter on Sunday. Pending the inspection, we will close on April 30! We are in shock but certainly aren't going to complain. Now its time for new stresses like where to live and when to find time to pack.

March Sadness

Its my favorite time of year, March Madness but because of the sad state of our athletics department I have decided that this year we should call it March SADness. With the women's team not making the NCAA tournament for the first time in 17 years and the men's team decimated by injury, it just doesn't have the same feel. We knew it would be a tough women's basketball season after losing 5 seniors from last years elite eight team but no one saw this change coming for the men. All of the hopes and dreams for a final four appearance seemed to go down the drain with the tearing of Robbie Hummel's ACL. Obviously the NCAA selection committee thought the same since we went from a possible 1 seed all the way to a 4 seed- a 4 seed that not many people are picking to get out of the first round. The attitude around the fan base has drastically changed (especially after Saturdays blow out loss to Minnesota) and the department has pretty much followed. We are still hopeful the team will come out of its shooting slump and get back to the confidence they had earlier in the season. As I watched them at practice today it doesn't seem possible but I can still hope. As for the women, tonight we find out about the NIT which is a whole other kind of disappointing but with a young team, we just need more opportunities to play. I still filled out my bracket and hope to enjoy the next few weeks of games. No traveling with any teams this year for me but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed the men's team will put on a good show in Spokane and surprise us all.

Stresses of Selling a House

Who knew that having a house on the market could be so stressful? I'm sure a lot of people knew this already but for us this is all new so the last 22 days with our house for sale have been busier than we imagined, which is both good and bad. The day after we listed our house we had two showings scheduled which sort of just started us off on the wrong foot. We had done a lot of moving things around and cleaning when our realtor did a walk through and took pictures but it was no where near clean enough for people to start opening closets and cupboards. This put us in a rush even before anything really happened. After the first showings I thought I would have time to get more cleaned up but the fact is that we are now on showing number 6 and not much else has been done. I am certainly not going to complain about the amount of traffic coming through our house because its been great to have so much interest so soon but, having a 5 month old and a dog do not make this easy! Here is what happens when someone wants to see our house:

• Realtor's errand boy calls and asks if its ok if so-and-so realtor shows the house between time A and time B today
• Erin panics but always says yes because in this market, why say no
• Quickly think through the morning routine and figure out what could potentially be on the floors, on the counters, on the kitchen table, etc...
• Make time to get home to pick up said items, throwing baby toys and dog toys in various hidden places and wiping down all exposed surfaces and vacuuming if there is time
• Get Ella into the car and take her over to Karl's parents
• Get back to work and pray that nothing major was left out like bras hanging in the laundry room or dirty diapers near the changing pad
• If its a weekend, just hope that all this can be done and everyone can get out before people are at the door (this Saturday we failed because the people were early...booo)
• After the showing pick up Ella, go home and mess it all up again

I know that a lot of these little things probably aren't going to make or break a deal but I've watched a lot of HGTV over the years and they make a big deal out of everything so it causes me to panic every time. I would like to think someone can get past our dirty carpets and the baby toys that are too large to hide and see the house for what it could be for them. I would also like to think we could be better organized and keep things cleaner so I don't have to go through this routine every time but obviously that's unrealistic.

So far we have gotten good feedback from everyone that has been through it and in all honesty, we didn't think we would have much interest this early on. Our neighborhood was hit hard by foreclosures over the last year so that has hurt resale value a lot and there are also a few other houses for sale in the area. Like I said, I really shouldn't complain because we know several people that have had houses on the market for 9,10, 11 months with no luck. I am praying that we don't have to go through that and with the amount of time I have to spend hiding toys lately, it seems like we may not have to. If we do, posts about our house selling adventures may take a more serious and desperate tone.

New Foods

Who likes squash??

Ally does! Food #2 was a success last night. She is going to be a good eater, I can tell!

5 Months Old

Since there technically isn't a 30th of February, we celebrated Ally's 5 month birthday over the weekend. She is getting so big! Ally has pretty much outgrown all of her 3 month clothes and is working her way into the 6 month stuff. She is sort of in-between sizes so pants and shirts are still a little big but the bigger one piece outfits fit well. She has also worked her way into the size 2 diapers. It has become more obvious that Ally discovered her voice this month and she loves to squeal in delight and babble very loudly. She always greets me with a happy yell when I take her out of her crib in the morning and we decided that her ah-goo sound is definitely "love you". Last week she began to show some signs of teething so that made for a rough week. She had a fever Sunday and Monday, woke up often at night crying, ate less, cried a lot more and was just an unhappy baby for a few days but it seems to have passed for now. I don't feel any teeth coming in yet but maybe soon. Here is what Ally has been up to this month:

• Tried rice cereal for the first time and loved it! She also tried pears over the weekend and enjoyed them as well
• She can stand flat footed in her bouncer and play but she hasn't figured out that it turns yet
• She can sit up well by herself but is still a little top heavy
• Passes toys from one hand to the other
• Likes to play with her paci by taking it in and out of her mouth and turning it around or sucking on the side
• She often has scratches on her forehead because she rubs her face when she gets tired and I cant keep up with her nails
• Discovered her feet and how to take off socks
• Can roll from front to back and back to front but mostly just hangs out on her side
• Loves to stand and sit up to look around
• Enjoyed watching Purdue basketball, tennis and swimming and meeting some new friends
  
• Is very interested in faces and is constantly grabbing cheeks, noses, eyes, hair, etc...
• Discovered that she has a dog and likes to touch her nose or pet her face (if Ella will let her)
• Laughs like crazy when you kiss her cheeks or her neck, or bounce her on your leg

Allyson is a very easy going and happy baby, unless she doesn't feel well, then she lets you know it! She is always smiling and laughing and has really started to develop her own voice and personality. We love all the new things she does and can't believe we will be celebrating six months soon. Here are some photos from the past month to enjoy.