In denial

It's not true! Our little baby turned 1 the other day. She's supposed to be my baby forever and ever, right? Who gave her permission to grow up right in front of me? Here are some things she's been doing without my permission and some other things that happened to her as well. 

She's a great walker. It looks so silly because she looks like a 9 or 10 month old. She barely weighs as much as E did at 6 months.

She's got 10 teeth. (well, 9½ since she slipped in the tub and chipped her tooth. I've been walking around since then singing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth", probably out of tune since I don't know the tune. I youtubed it but then I forgot it again.)

She laughs really hard when E blows her kisses. It sounds like this "hihihihhihhihihihihihihihihihihihhihihihihihi"!

She loves her food. And she REALLY loves our food. She just loves to eat. Did I mention she looks like a 9 month old? (We actually hung out with some friends who have a 7½ month old and they were about the same size.) I feel like I have a dog. If I sit down to eat she will walk up to me and start grunting, begging for food. And if I drop it she's right there to pick it up and put it in her mouth.

She loves to dance. As soon as she hears music, or even if someone claps their hands, anything with a beat I guess, she starts bopping her li'l body and her head starts moving too. Very cute! 

I'm still nursing her. After her check up next week I'll start to wean her. Bittersweet! Bitter b/c she's my last one and I'll be done nursing forever and it's just another reminder that we're about to leave the baby stage. Sweet b/c she's so rough. Pulling and sucking and squeezing... (and I can never keep up with her growing nails). 

Don't you just love to come over here and hear all about my nipple pain. TMI what is that?

Here's a sad fact. She spent her birthday with a fever. A high one. 103.6! Found out later that it was b/c of Roseola (Tredagarsfeber for all you Swedish peeps out there, even though she had a temperature for at least fyra dagar.)

Good thing she gets a do over when we're throwing her a birthday party next month. 

Except for right now, being extremely irritable due to the roseola, she's still such a content baby. She loves to play with E, she smiles SO big when daddy walks through the door and she loves me the most. j/k, but I am her favorite person right now. 

She really enjoys toys with buttons to push. She pushes them with her thumb. And she loves to rip everything she can reach off of the refrigerator and then toss it on the floor. Do I pick it up, over and over AND over again, or do I just give up and leave it there and then walk on it and get hurt?

Her favorite thing is still tags. Every time I put her to bed she looks for the tag on the blanket. I have to make sure the blanket is turned the right way.

You know how she sucks two of her fingers, and how she so cutely puts her pointer finger next to her nose? Well, that pointer finger now goes in her nostril. Kind of gross!

She still gives open mouth kisses - LOOOOOOVE them!

May 26th so far

We had so much fun outside today, E and I. We played with her water table and got soaked. It started out with us spraying water at each other, but the new water guns sucked! So then we started throwing water at each other and it ended with me putting her in the water table. She loved it! She called it "a great, little pool". I can't wait for C to open up the real pool.
We try to get out during H's first nap since it's a long one and it's not too hot out yet. Yesterday we swept the car port, drew with chalk and made a new hopscotch. Yesterday's snack was watermelon and today we made a fruit salad of apples, pears, mandarin oranges, raisins and craisins.

E had pb&j for lunch today, with green beans. I made myself a Wasa cracker with hummus and put Kalles Kaviar on another cracker. I boiled an egg to slice and put on top of that cracker. But before the egg was done my helpful little E put the two crackers together and made me a sandwich. If you don't know what Kalles kaviar is I'll tell you, it's a salty pastelike spread made from fish eggs and it comes in a tube. I use it instead of salt on eggs. Not the best thing to combine with hummus.

We are on our third day without daddy. We miss him and can't wait for him to get back in a couple of days but so far we're doing great. I would have to say that the hardest thing is bedtime. And not the kids bedtime, but mine. It's so hard to go to bed alone!

Last night E woke up a few times. I think she was hot. We have to put in her a/c soon. Then she woke up at 6:30. Way too early even if she sleeps great. She came into the bedroom, grabbed my robe, put it on the floor and fell asleep on top of it and slept there for over an hour.

H is doing great. We're trying to move her to a 3 naps a day instead of 4 and we're starting to get there. Her morning nap is longer which is great for when we're home playing outside. We can just bring the monitor with us and stay outside a little bit longer. It's a bit more challenging on days we have to leave the house. Her second nap is usually the shortest one and the third one is pretty long.

One more thing before I sign out... Grattis på födelsedagen, Östen!

Happy Birthday E!

I couldn't go back to sleep after C's alarm went off this morning so instead of tossing and turning I decided to get up and enjoy the peace and quiet. It's Christmas eve today and back home everyone is celebrating Christmas. We will be celebrating E's birthday today. She's turning three. Such a big girl. I love her so much! C is working until lunch today and then he'll be home and she gets to open up her gifts. I doubt there will be a nap today. "Here are your gifts, now go to sleep." Somehow I don't think that's going to fly. I finished her cake yesterday. It's a toffee ice-cream cake. I hope she'll like it.

Lately, when E picks out her bedtime story it's the same book every night. "Flip and Flop". They play this game called Boomba and she really likes it. But yesterday she picked a book called "I know it's autumn". Not the book for this season, but it was what she wanted me to read and anything but Boomba sounded great to me =). The book talked about different things that happens during fall and when we got to the apple picking page she started describing exactly what she wore this year when we went. How does she remember? Well, I guess she's seen the pics from it a few times. I still thought it was pretty funny.

Oh, shoot, I just remembered one gift I forgot to wrap... got to go!!!!!!

miscellaneous dots again

• The big girl bed thing is definitely a battle every day. E keeps climbing out. It takes about an hour for her to settle in and go to sleep, both at naptime and at bedtime. Some nights she sleeps in her bed all night without waking up, some nights we wake up from her trying to squeeze in between us.
  
• It's Monday today, the only day of the week when I actually feel like cleaning. So except for the counter top in the kitchen my house is sparkling clean.
• E and I made some gingerbread cookies today. Yum! And a lot of fun!
• My lower back is killing me from scrubbing the tub.
• I found some Christmas cards in my purse today that I thought I had put in the mail. Oops! They might show up a little late.
• It's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday!
  
• Tomorrows plans include grocery shopping and making Swedish meatballs.
  
• Wednesday we'll make some Christmas candy.
• Thursday is E's birthday.
• Friday is CHRISTmas!
  

Seven

• We had a birthday party for E two days ago. She was so excited and she had so much fun. I didn't want to do a Christmas themed birthday. I figured just b/c she is a Christmas kid doesn't mean she can't have a backyard party. So we decorated the church café with flowers, butterflies and other bugs and brought in backyard equipment (houses, slides and a climber) for the kids to play on. We also had a craft corner and dad did some face painting.
  As we were leaving it had started to snow and E ran around trying to catch snow flakes on her tongue. A perfect ending! Well, E crashing in her crib when we got home was pretty perfect too. =)
• All the preparing and the party itself made me really sore. I didn't get to take as many breaks during the day as my body requires right now and so I was in a lot of pain all Saturday night. But it was all worth is, seeing E have so much fun. And the pain is mostly gone by now.
• Yesterday we got to see baby BAM. Congrats to the M's! E got to hold him. Well, I helped her hold him while she was sitting down. When we got home she kept bringing me baby dolls to hold, but she had to help me hold them. I think she will be quite possessive of baby H when she arrives.
• Today is cleaning day and the vacuuming, sweeping and mopping is done. I will dust later. Yes, I know, dusting should be done before vacuuming and mopping, but I didn't feel like it. Cleaning is a lot more fun when you don't have rules to follow.
  
• C went away on a business trip yesterday. I don't like it when he's away. First of all I miss him. And so does E. It also means less breaks for me. And harder to leave the couch to go to bed. And harder to fall asleep. But we're blessed that he has a job and this means some overtime, which is great right before Christmas.
  
• I'm 34 weeks pregnant right now. I had E at 35 weeks. Hopefully baby H will let us celebrate Christmas before she shows up. I would really like to make it to January and then she can come whenever she wants to. C is hoping for end of December. Tax return, ya know!
• It's time for lunch. There is plenty of leftover pizza from the party so that's what we'll have today.
  

Birthday

Grattis på födelsedagen, pappa!

Birthday

Happy Birthday E!

Birthday

Grattis på födelsedagen lillebror!

Happy Birthday, babe! I love you!!!!!!!!!!

October 26th

Grattis på födelsedagen, lillebror!

October 13th

Grattis på födelsedagen, lillebror!

new boots

I found another pair of boots for E for Halloween. They're not brown (my favorite color) like the ones I bought yesterday. They're beige, but they are still very cute, and they cost less than half of what I spent on the brown ones.

The dress is dark brown, but the thing that goes over it is beige so the new boots will be perfect.

..............................................................................
Grattis på födelsedagen mamma!