nine months

My brain is a bit fried because our nine month old has been quite sick. She has had a temperature somewhere between 103.5 and 101 for the past three days. We took her to the doctor, but they could not find any signs of an infection. So we just wait and hope that this passes. She has had to sleep on us every night this week because she will not stay asleep longer than an hour on her own. But here is what she has been doing this past month: 

- She is a definitely mobile. I thought that she would begin to use her knees more when she crawls, but she still does the arm pull with her legs dragging behind her. She has figured out how to move from room to room, but is not incredibly interested in touring the house. I think that once she figures out how to actually crawl, she will be getting around more. 

- She has pulled up to stand several times. She reaches to pull up on nearly everything, but still struggles to find the strength. 

- She is content to just sit next to me and crawl all over me in bed in the mornings. She just really enjoys being close to us. 

- She still curls her nose up and snorts when she gets excited. Its just like a cute, kind of creepy, little piglet. It makes us laugh every time. 

- She is clapping. I love to watch her try and get her hands to meet. She usually claps when appropriate too. She gets excited watching other children and when we are eating. 

- She is a really great waver which usually leads to her clapping. 

- She is understanding everything we say. She has gotten her feelings hurt when I ask her to stop pulling my hair, she breaks out in a big, dramatic cry. She also understands when we ask her to share whatever she has in her hands. She shoves whatever it is in our mouth. 

- She is still not the greatest sleeper, but we were getting enough to function. However, after this sickness, I have a feeling she will totally forget how to sleep on her own. I am kind of dreading it. 

- She is mimicking all our noises. Her and Madison seem to communicate in their own language. Its fun to banter with her in gibberish. 

- She and Madison are playing a lot more together. Madison will sit with Eliza in her room and "read" her books for twenty minutes at a time. Madison describes all the pages to her and Eliza just sits there and chews on a toy. It is quite heart melting. 

We love our little Eliza Lynn, I can not imagine life with out her. I am excited for what these next few months hold for her. She is going to be figuring out so much more about life. 

Here is a glimpse into how our photo shoot went today...

And Eliza says, "that's all, folks!"

another milestone

I have a working computer again, which is great. I am a little bothered I have not had the time to blog as much as I would like, but life is pretty all-consuming right now. Between graduate school, a phone that stopped streaming photos, and a non-working computer, life updates became hard to come by. 

Will and I decided that it would be best if I took off this next session of classes. So I am currently not taking a class and will resume this summer. It has been a nice mental break to not have to constantly worry about assignments I should be doing. We are hoping to take this time to regroup and then I can better handle school in the coming months. 

We have had quite the busy social calendar, which is something I am still getting used to. After being wanderers for five years, we are finally meeting people who genuinely care about us and want to be apart of our lives. I am incredibly grateful for the friendships that are forming and the community we are building here. 

This weekend was a warm one and we tried to take advantage of the weather. We took the girls on a quick bike ride. It was Eliza's first time in the bike trailer and they both did great. It makes us excited for the summer and all the future rides we can go on. 

The other big adventure we did this past weekend was buy a car. We decided against the Subaru, so we bucked that trend, and went with a Mazda CX-5. We traded in the Jeep, so we will still only have one car. I still can not believe that we were able to pull off buying a new car. I was also a bit sad to say goodbye to the Jeep. However, based on the errands I have run with the Mazda, I feel I will barely miss the Jeep. This car will get amazing gas mileage and is all-wheel drive. I am anxious to see how it drives in the snow without sliding all of the street and we will only have to fill up with gas half  the amount we did with the Jeep. Overall, I feel really great about getting this new car, I just struggle with being such a typical American buying an unused, extremely nice car. 

We attempted to take some pictures before we said farewell to the Jeep, but miss Madison was not in a picture taking mood. Oh well, we got to work with what we are given, ha. 

the rest of february

The weekend after Will's birthday, so Valentine's weekend we went to Salida, where there are hot springs, for a getaway. We went here when I was pregnant with Eliza and we love it. We just went for one night, which was a good amount of time. Madison really enjoyed being able to swim on her own. The floats helped her to go on her belly so she could kick and move her arms to get around the pool. Eliza was content just to snuggle on me. It was interesting to all stay in the same hotel room, we pretty much all just went to bed at eight. I am hoping that this will the first of many trips we take this year.

Then last week our table that Will build was finally completely finished. At the first of the year, I decided to sell our table to motivate Will to build us a new one.  The result was that we ate on the floor for about three weeks. When Will had finally finished the table, it was too cold to stain and seal, so we had to be incredibly careful not to spill on it. Then last week, it warmed up enough for us to complete the project. I love how it turned out. It is made with beetle kill pine that Will had to cut all himself. We are planning on making  a matching bench, but that might not be finished until the summer.

On a more personal note, I discovered a thing called toe cleavage. I feel a bit silly even talking about it because is is actually quite silly. I recently have become a bit too into buying Madewell and Free People clothing on eBay.  I like name brand clothing, but refuse to pay the full price and I also really value the idea of buying items second hand. So I decided I needed a pair of leopard flats and this pair from Madewell was just what I wanted. Once they came, I tried them on with much anticipation only to see that my toes stuck out a bit. I have never had a pair of flats before, so I was not sure if this was acceptable. After much googling of toe cleavage images, I concluded it was acceptable, especially for people with long toes. So I kept them and have enjoyed breaking them in. I keep trying to find ways to make my mom outfits a little more put together and leopard print is just the thing. In case you find yourself in this same predicament, may I suggest not discussing it with your significant other, they might not find it as important as you do and this could result in some tension.

I was also faced with my reoccurring hair cutting dilemma. I was this close to cutting a long bob, but decided to go with a really good trim instead. I splurged and got my hair cut at an actual salon instead of Great Clips. What a world of difference! She cut nearly three inches off, but because my hair had gotten so long I can hardly tell. I am thankful I held off on the bob, I have all of my thirties to have a short do.

In other news, we might become the proud owners of a Subaru. I know, I know, so typical. We will be trading in our trusty jeep. I have had my Liberty since I was a Senior in high school. I try not to attach too much sentimental value on objects, but this car has seen me through every major life event. I will be thankful to have a car that keeps us safe in the winter, does not chug gas, and does not sound like you are in a wind tunnel, but I think I will miss it a bit. If owning a Subaru is anything like the Subaru commercials, then we will fill this next car with just as many memories.

I think that is just about updates one can handle for right now. I am off to keep two children entertained on this snow day.

eight months

Well, Eliza is eight months old. I have gotten even farther behind on my blog posts because of a broken computer. I am blogging from Will's Mac and so its quite a new experience for me. This month has been a pretty filled month, so hopefully I can play a little catch up, as usual. 

At eight months:

-Eliza is just adorable. I love this age so very much. She is not as fragile and she is finally able to get her body to do the things she wants to do. 

-She can wave "hi." She makes the cutest humming noise when she waves. I love how she starts waving and then catches a glimpse of her hand and gets distracted staring at it in wonder. 

-She is "crawling." I use this term loosely because it is more of a arm pull. She stretches her arms out and then pulls her body behind her. Those legs of hers are just along for the ride. She has figured out how to move from room to room and to wherever Madison is at. This has presented some problems in Madison's world, but we are working through them.

-She is eating nearly everything. Well, everything that we have given her. She enjoys feeding herself and does not mind too much when we feed her. It is nice to have Madison share food with her when she is fussy. When we were running the other day, Eliza was really not happy. Madison kept giving her cheerios and helped to ease the crying, it was wonderful. 

-She is sleeping a bit better. She still wakes up quite a bit at night, but we just let her cry until she falls back asleep. I am still not sure why she can not figure out how to just keep sleeping, but oh well. 

-She still hates the car. We took a little road trip two weeks ago and she cried nearly the entire time we were in the car. 

-She still loves to be held. She has also started crying whenever she sees me and dare I say, prefers me. Madison always preferred Will, so it is kind of nice to be the favorite. 

- She is starting to babble. I love all the bababas, dadadas, and so on. She is very much a screecher. I think it is so funny when Madison starts mimicking her noises and they go back and forth with the screeches.

-She can sit up all on her own and really loves to flip from her stomach back to sitting.