Month 8

Hello, friends!

We are in Olivia's 8th month of life and there is no way I could have every imagined our lives in this very moment.
Olivia is walking with her toys, scales the coffee table, can crawl to anything in 5 seconds flat, claps, raises her arms and babbles "so big" (I just know it), laughs on purpose and because her parents are funny, taps everything together, feeds herself, holds her own bottle, stands up using anything she can get her little hands on, and much much more. She's so grown up. It's crazy to think she went from this:

To this:



In 8 short months!

She has two teeth now. Her two front bottom teeth. Super cute! She knows to chew with them too. I gave her cheese for the 1st time tonight. She was like a little mouse chewing the pieces with her front teeth haha.
I'm just so proud of my little girl. I never knew it would be this amazing :).

I believe when I wrote last we were just about to take off for the beach. Here are a few shots from Olivia's first vacation and first trip to the beach. Yes, I know I know. I live exactly 7 minutes from the beach and my daughters first experience with the sand between her toes was in Litchfield, South Carolina!! I'm awful, lol.

"Mom, what were you waiting for?! I love it!"

 

 

 

Livy loved the water! Both the ocean and the pool. She liked jumping the waves with me and splashing the water with her hands.

 

 

Feeding Update:

 

Olivia continues to enjoy feeding herself. She was really good at trying all of my recipes and liked everything at 1st. She has become a little picky in the last two weeks. Foods she gobbled up the week before she barely touches. We work around it. She is loving feeding herself with finger foods now too! Watermelon is her favorite right now. Although based on tonight, cheese is not far behind.

 

That's all I have for now. I know I was overdue for an update.

 

xoxoNicole



 



 

 

 

 

6 1/2 Month Love

I LOVE this age! Olivia is six months a 3 quarters (hehe). She is so HAPPY all the time! She has always been a pretty happy baby, but her silly, giggly personality is starting to shine through. It is just such an absolute joy to spend all my time with her. She learns something new everyday it seems! She loves laughing. She gets so impressed with herself when she laughs. She tries new laughs out too. So silly. 

We've introduced a few fruits and veggies. She's still getting the hang of eating. She is a little resistant to new foods no matter if she likes the taste or not. I'm not sure if it's a texture thing, or what. She also LOVES her sippy cup! She starts getting really excited when she sees that we're filling it up with water and she makes all kinds of noises and bounces all around until we help her drink from it. She can do it herself every so often, but we still have to help her drink from it quite a bit. 

(are the thighs not killing you right now?! #noclothessunday?? hah)

Happy Father's Day, Bronny!! Olivia and her daddy had a great 1st Father's Day :). Bron woke up to presents, singing (by my mom), and an awesome breakfast (instagram pic). He felt spoiled and now thinks he gets 2 birthdays per year. Mission accomplished :). OH, and you can see him sporting his new Jaguar jersey game 1 of the preseason...

We added a little Livy play area to the dining room this weekend. It looks a lot better than I expected, honestly. I'm not a fan of all this baby and "kid stuff" cluttering up my home however, it seems inevitable. So, I'm going to do my darndest to make it as organized as possible! Here are a few shots of Olivia playing in her "corner" Sunday morning. 

I'll be back to update you soon. Believe it or not, she'll be 7 months next week! I know! We're going on our annual beach trip soon as well, so I'm sure I better have A LOT of pictures to share from the trip!! 

xoxoNicole

Don't Blink

In 6 (short!) months my baby girl has grown so much! It is absolutely fascinating to watch a tiny blob that sleeps all.the.time. grow into a thinker and a doer. She's seriously SO big. It's hard to realize when you're going through it just how far they have come in such a short amount of time. I watched a few videos of her when she was just a month or two old. All she could do was make little purring noises and try her hardest to look at 1 thing more than 2 seconds. Now she's sitting up, crawling, eating, drinking out of a sippy cup, and problem solving. Her personality is starting to come through. Bron and I seriously cannot get enough. We both complain that we don't get enough time with her. Anyway, I grabbed a photo from each month and thought we could look at her physical progression together because I for one, think it's just too cute! :)

Livy's First Flight

Olivia, Aunt Jenny, and I flew to NY at the end of April. The trip was no fun by any stretch of the imagination but I thought I would share a few fun photos from the trip! Having Olivia with me during the hardest time of my life was really the only way I could have gone through it all-and that's that God's honest truth. 

Olivia and her grandfather, one of the last times they met. Dad made it down for the birth of Olivia (11/25) and Lincoln (11/26). Here they are in the hospital...I think Dad was getting over a cold and didn't want to give it to Livy. 

*****

I sent Bron picture updates between flights so he knew we were safe (6 flights total, 3 there 3 back) - I'm not sure why a few of my photos loaded this way. 

She was really good in her carrier for the most part. 

We had to have Aunt Jen in one! ;)

Meeting Great Nana for the 1st time. 

My view from my hotel room was really awesome. It helped.

Smiles to send Daddy!

Walked to a local cafe for lunch while we waited on my mom to arrive. (I just realized we both look less than impressed. But the food was awesome!)

She really started sitting on her own on this trip. 

Aunt Peggy gave us the idea to give Livy a lemon rind at dinner.

The pack-n-play was a no-go...Livy got to sleep with Mommy on the trip ;)

Going through Detroit

Bron sure did miss his girl! And Bentley missed her too...we think. 

 

Feeding the Baby

Did you know that there are different ways to feed your baby? And I don't mean food or no food - I mean there are different techniques for giving your baby his 1st experience of food. Maybe you did. I didn't learn this until after I had Olivia. I also never knew deciding which way I was going to feed my child and how to do it, would be such a stressful decision. I mean, food is our source of survival if I eff this up...she's screwed! ;) There is no perfect answer in the world of being a parent. This is a major complication in all my parenting decisions-lol! 

I heard of Baby Led Weaning through my Mom page on Facebook. (To refresh your memory, this is the group I have been a part of since I was about 8 weeks pregnant. We all joined this secret group around the same time, all are 1st time Moms, and all were due in December '12. It consists of 77 women and now 81 babies.) I did a few Google searches on BLW to check it out. I liked it and decided to start the BLW way. Well, it wasn't the right choice for us. I really loved the way she explored foods and she really liked feeding herself too-I could tell. But I knew it wasn't something I could keep doing long-term. I read up on pureeing my own baby food and got super excited about making Olivia's baby food (there are so many awesome recipes out there!). So I have decided to give her purees and still give her the occasional pieces of food, like banana, until we reach finger foods. 

The 1st food I made was sweet potatoes and that was tonight. They were a hit! I can't wait to try a new food in a few days...hmmm what should it be? 

Olivia's 1st go at BLW with avocado. It was a win and a fail. Win on O's part and fail on our part. She loved it and fed herself really well. However, the avocado was not ripe!! HAH! So she really didn't ingest any avocado, but sucked on it for taste. 

We also introduced the sippy cup last weekend at my mom's house. She LOVED drinking the water and was SO exited about the sippy cup. I was quite surprised. Here are a few pics of her enjoying her water. 

Happy 6 Months, My Sweet Love!

(Saturday, May 25th, 2013)

Livy Loo,

You are 6 months old today. Exactly 6 months ago I was holding you in my arms with pure joy and your daddy and I were just in awe. We couldn't believe you were ours, and ours to take home and keep. You took the fast track and are sitting up, saying da-da, rolling all around, and even starting to crawl. You're up on all fours and make a little progress forward each time. We couldn't be more proud or in love. You're a happy little thing! Rarely fuss or put up a fight unless you're tired or hungry (like your mama). You love your sock monkey lovie and hanging out with babies and other kids. We're in GA this weekend for your 1st trip to GrandMoms house. You were so inquisitive when we got here, looking all around wondering where we brought you. After a day filled with shopping you has your 1st taste of baby food, peas! Not so sure you liked the taste but you loved eating!
We love you to the moon and back, Olivia Jane, and watching you grow is the best thing that has ever happened to your dad and I!



-15 pounds 2 ounces
-26.2 inches

Aaand...she's back!

Hello, friends!

I've decided to start blogging again. It's been a few weeks. I took a break to move my blogging to a password protected site, for security reasons with little O. However, I never kept up with it and I miss blogging. So, I've decided to come back to the ol' abitofeverythingbutrimas! I took a look back over my pregnancy via this blog and realized what a great thing this is going to be for Olivia one day. I didn't purchase a baby book for her, which I still really should, but I think this is going to be more special since it will cover day-to-day action of her life with my raw emotion included. So, welcome back friends, I've missed you!

Well, I have already started two posts  but I spent all my time reformatting. So stay tuned for..."Feeding the Baby" and "Happy 6 Months, My Sweet Love".

xoxoNicole