The Ginger{bred} House: 2013

I'll probably say this every month, but this month has been so amazing! Watching her grow & learn something new everyday is so much fun. Her big thing this month was learning to sit on her own. I had been putting her in the sitting position for a couple months now, holding her so she wouldn't fall over or putting the boppy behind her. But one day this month, I sat her down & she just stayed. The day before, she couldn't sit up by herself. It amazes me what she can learn in a days time.

We had a lot to celebrate this month. Nick's birthday, my birthday and Thanksgiving. It was a great month and we feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family.

I can not believe she is half way to celebrating her 1st birthday! Time is flying!! I am trying to enjoy each & every moment I have with her. I love my weekends with her. She's at daycare during the week more than she is with us, so I want to spend as much time as possible with her on the weekends!

Weight: 17 pounds 10.5 ounces {75.20%}

Height: 26 inches {54.01%}

Diaper Size: Size 3. Moved up to size 3 on November 29.

Clothing Size: 6-9 month. We started switching out her 3-6 month clothes to 6-9 month clothes on November 11. I swear she had a grown spurt the week of November 4. Clothes that fit her at the beginning of that week were way too tight by that weekend! And once again, as I started buying clothes in her new size, I went overboard on the amount of clothes I bought! For some reason, when I start transitioning her to a bigger size I think I need to purchase all outfits she'll wear the entire time she fits into a size. Which I know is not true because I buy something for her every time I go shopping! She already has SO many outfits and I know she won't be able to wear them all. One day I'll learn.

Sleeping: Sleep continues to be the same - we have good nights & we have bad nights. We have established a routine at night. Nurse at 7:00, eat cereal, veggie and fruit, bath, read a book and go to bed. She's usually in bed between 8-8:30. Some nights she'll sleep until 5:00-6:00am. Other nights she's up 1-2 times and we'll put the paci in her mouth and she'll fall right back to sleep. Other nights, we're not so lucky. She'll wake up and no matter how many times we try to give her the paci or comfort her, she won't go back to sleep in her crib. We've tried to let her cry herself back to sleep. Rocking her. Putting her in the RNP. None of those work. There are only 2 things that do work - putting her in her swing or in bed with us. We usually pick the swing. We really don't want her to get used to sleeping with us and have to break that habit when she's older. But some nights when we've tried everything else & we've been up for 2+ hours...she ends up in our bed!

Honestly, it's funny how fast you forget the rough nights though. {I do anyways}. We might have 3 hard nights in a row & then she sleeps thru the night a couple nights and I've already forgotten about the lack of sleep. Plus, when she wakes up in the morning she always has a huge smile on her face! So that makes up for the not sleeping at night!!

Kimber takes 3 naps day. She doesn't normally sleep on the way to & from daycare anymore. She takes 2 short naps in the morning and one long nap in the afternoon {from 1:30-4:00}. When I pick her up from daycare, she is awake the rest of the night until we put her down for bed.

Two things we've already figured out about Kimber's sleeping habits: 1. She's a really light sleeper. If I walk into her room to check on her, she'll wake up. Even if I don't touch her, turn on the light or say a word. She'll just wake up. Which I don't quite understand because she'll sleep at daycare when the other kids are making all kinds of noise! 2. This girl can fight sleep for HOURS! Some nights it takes 1+ hours to get her to sleep. Just when you think she's out - she'll wake up and thrust around. And basically both of these issues are just like me - I am a really light sleeper and {before baby & lack of sleep} it took me hours to fall asleep at night. Guess she got her mama's sleeping habits.

Food: I hit my goal of 6 months of breastfeeding!! And since it's going so well...we're trying for another 6 months! There are some days that I want to quit pumping. Especially when I go out of town for a girls weekend and I'm stuck in the car pumping while everyone else is shopping or having a drink. Or the amount of bottles & pump pieces we have to wash every night!! Nick & I are both SO over that!! But in the end, we know it's the best thing for Kimber so we'll continue to do it as long as I can.

After being on rice cereal for 2 weeks, we introduced food on November 11. She's had green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples and peaches. So far, she's done a great job and has liked all the veggies we've given her. She's not a huge fan of the fruit.

She's still taking a 5oz bottle every 3 hours at daycare, plus she's starting to eat a meal at lunch.

Health: The ear infections continue. Remember how I said she didn't have a full fledged ear infection? But she's had some fluid in her ears since her 4 month appointment, so we decided to give her amoxicillin so it didn't get worse. We gave her that gross medicine {that smelled like bubble gum} twice a day for 10 days and went back for a follow up appointment. That's when we found out that she now had an ear infection - red ears & inflammed. So apparently, amoxicillin does nothing for her. So we got a prescription for omnicef. This time we only had to give it to her once a day and it didn't stink like bubblegum - so it was much better in my book! After taking her round of medicine, we went back for a follow up appointment. Good news: the ear infection was gone. Bad news: she still has fluid in her ears.

The doctor wanted to wait until her 6 month appointment {in 2 weeks} to check them again. If she still has fluid - we'll figure out the next steps. We had her 6 month appointment on November 29 and the ear infection is back. This time they put her on augmentin. If it doesn't clear up this time, she'll probably have to get tubes in her ears since she's had the fluid for so long. We made an appointment with the ENT doctor for December 20 just incase.

All these ear infections might explain why she hasn't been sleeping very well?

Nicknames: Kimbee Cole. Kimber Sue. Sissy {by mom}, Monkey {by dad},

Likes: {new} Sitting up. Vtech music toy.

{same as last month}: Swing. TV. Ziggy. Playing with her feet. Jumperoo. Baby Bjorn. Sitting up. Crab Apple.

Last month, we were practicing sitting up. Now she sits up all by herself and plays, plays plays! She can sit as long as she wants now - until she gets bored & wants to move onto the next toy.

I'm beginning to realize that Kimber doesn't have many toys for 6+ months. Most of her toys are more for the 0-6 month range. Before I had Kimber, I picked up a couple music type toys at a garage sale and they are the toys she's really liking these days. Her favorite is this toy by vetch. Good thing Christmas is coming up so she can get some more toys!!

Disikes: Going #2.
With starting solids, comes different types of bowel movements. Prior to starting solids, she was loosey goosey. There was no pushing needed. But now that she's eating food, she's having to push and she's not used to it. So every time she has to go, she cries because she's not used to having to push.

Things to note:
Kimber has been the blow out queen since she's been born. There have been times when she'd go thru 3 outfits a day! As we've introduced solids, she hasn't had as many blowouts but now that she's on antibiotics again - the blowouts have started again!!

She has also spit up since she was born. Not a ton, but just enough that we kept a bib on her for the first couple months of her life! It seemed like every time we put her in the car seat, she'd spit up. And she would do it other random times throughout the day. Luckily, this has really slowed down!!

I went on the annual girls trip with my aunts & cousins to Mall of America. I had to be away from Kimber for 2 nights. I had a great time, but was definitely ready to come home & see my baby girl on Sunday!! While I was gone, Kimber stayed at Gramma's house {since Nick was in the fields} and she had so much fun playing with cousin Chloe, going shopping with the girls and hanging out with Gramma & Papa!

I am so happy that harvest is over! Three months of taking care of Kimber on my own is draining! It seems like I wasn't able to get anything else done. During the week, I'd pick her up from daycare, play with her, feed her, give her a bath, read to her and put her to bed. After I put her to bed, I'd have to freeze my milk, do dishes and get things ready for the next day. I didn't have time to fit in any fun extras like crafting! I'm excited for lazy winter days at home to get some projects done!

Most of the time, Kimber looks like she's just been to battle with all the scratches on her face! We cut her nails 1-2 times a week and she still seems to scratch herself. Most of the time it happens at night when she's fighting sleep and rubbing her eyes.

I've decided that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love being surrounded by family. Eating tons of food. Watching football. Not being stressed about buying Christmas gifts.

This Thanksgiving had it's ups & down.
UP: Most of my siblings were able to come to my house to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day.
DOWN: Myparents weren't able to make it because my Grandpa was in the hospital.

UP: We felt so blessed to have Kimber with us this Thanksgiving.
DOWN: We missed Blakey so much.

UP: We traveled back to my hometown on Saturday to have Thanksgiving with my extended family.
DOWN: Grandma & Grandpa Schuler were suppose to be at the Thanksgiving celebration, but weren't able to attend due to health reasons.

I was able to spend an entire Saturday with Kimber and I loved it! It seems like we always have something to do or somewhere to go, so I don't get quality one on one time with her on the weekends! And secretly, I'm excited about the weather forecast for this weekend coming up. Cold & Snowy = all three of us snuggled up on the couch in our pajamas!! What could be better?? And maybe I'll sneak into town during her long afternoon nap for a mani/pedi!

Friday:

Friday was an emotional day for me. After the story about Batboy came out all I could do was think about Blake and how much I miss him. It made me think about Thanksgiving and how hard it is going to be this year without him. On Wednesday night, my parents & brother come up to my house and we do food prep for the next day. He was always in the kitchen with us wanting to help. I'm going to miss his laugh. His fun spunky attitude. And his snuggles when he got tired.

It was also my brother's birthday on Friday. How ironic that the Batboy event took place on his birthday. If you know Blake...you know his LOVE for Batman!

Nick is still in the fields, but got home at a decent time on Friday night. So he was able to feed Kimber & give her a bath. After she went to bed, we hang out on the couch. It's just what I needed after such an emotional day.

She looks so cute snuggled into her car seat. I still think she looks adorable in this owl hat!

On Friday night after work, we hung out in her room for awhile and played. I still can't get over how well she's sitting these days! And those baby blue eyes - adorable!

Saturday:

We were up bright & early on Saturday. Kimber is used to getting up between 5:30-6:00am during the week and that's the same time she gets up on the weekends. Nick was out of the house by 6:30 to go to the farm, so it was a 'Mommy & Mini' day.

We played. She napped. I cleaned. We ran errands. She napped again. I cleaned some more. We played. I wrote {long overdue} thank yous.

That night we had a 30th birthday party to go to. Funny how much parties have changed since all of Nick's friends have little kids/babies. There were just as many babies at the party as adults and most of the crowd left by 10:00pm!

She LOVED these shoes! I was trying to get a picture of her in her new outfit & all she could do was look at her shoes!

The dreaded thank yous. I'm still working on them. And have yet to finish her baptism thank yous. Did I mention she was baptized in July? I NEED to get them done!

This was my first time at Hobby Lobby in MONTHS! I was so excited to walk thru the aisles and think of crafting projects to work on this winter!

Play time after she got up from her afternoon nap. She's doing so good playing by herself these days! I was able to get stuff done around the house while she hung out in the living room.

Sunday:

We were up bright & early on Sunday. {see a theme here?}

We went to church and had Sunday dinner with the Hickethier side to celebrate all the fall birthdays. Nick's uncle is moving to Europe in December, so we made sure to take family pictures together.