Bubbles

We've had a fun couple of weeks. Lizzy is now a champion roll-over roller. Every time I put her on the floor on her back, she starts to roll over. Yesterday she rolled from back to front to back again. Soon she'll figure out that she can roll all over the house. Then I really will need to vacuum every day.

The cloth diapers we have are called one-size as they grow with baby. Lizzy is now on the biggest size. I hope she can stay in them until she potty trains, but I seriously doubt it. I can dream though, can't I? She's doing great in her diapers though. No blow-outs in the cloth as all!

I've stopped using the blue bath tub for her baths now. She's also too big for me to have her in our shower with me. If our shower was bigger it wouldn't be so hard, but our shower is so tiny. So now we use our garden tub. As you can see from the picture, she just loves her baths.

Speaking of, we now have a definite schedule again. I KNOW you want to know:

8 AM - Get up, diaper change, eat, play
10 AM - Nap
11 AM - Get up, diaper change, eat, play
2 PM - Nap
4 PM - Get up, diaper change, eat, play
7:30 PM - Bath, pajamas, play
8 PM - Eat
8:30 PM - Bedtime

Now there's some more eating and diaper changing in there, but that changes every day depending on how hungry she is during the day. She's started to soothe herself to sleep now, so I try to get her into her crib by 9 PM at the latest. Most nights she's asleep by 9:30 PM, sometimes earlier and sometimes later. Still, I think our schedule is pretty good.

Lizzy has also found her thumb. Yes it could lead to all sorts of mouth problems and blah blah blah, but she puts herself to sleep with it in her mouth and doesn't need to fall asleep while feeding now. So I say for her to go for the thumb and we'll deal with it later.

Well, now I must clean stuff up as she's taking a nap right now.

Labor Day and 4 months

Labor Day Weekend was a fun one for us. Thursday we traveled to Houston to break up the time in the car. We stayed the night in Houston and spent half of Friday with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa were going on a 5 day cruise the next day, so they wouldn't be in Galveston while we were there, and Lizzy needed to get in time with her grandparents.

We left Houston around 2 PM and hung out at the beach house in Galveston for the rest of the day. Lizzy got to lay on a pallet and play, sleep in a swing, and go downstairs to watch her puppies run after a ball. At 9 PM Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Greg, Sydney, and Parker showed up. Sydney was asleep already, but Parker decided it was time to play. By then it was time for Lizzy to start to head to bed. Since we were traveling Lizzy didn't sleep as well as she normally does. The night before she had gotten up at 1 AM, 6 AM, and 8 AM. That night she woke up at 3 AM, 6 AM, and 7:30 AM.

Saturday was a fun day. I made breakfast (with help from Aunt Jennifer) and then we spent most of the day downstairs watching Sydney and Parker swim in the blowup pool, and watching the dogs run after balls and frizbees. We brought the swing downstairs and whenever Lizzy was tired, I would set her in it and she would go right to sleep. There was a nice breeze all day that kept the mosquitoes away. In the middle of the day everyone decided to take a nap, but Lizzy and Sydney weren't tired, so I stayed awake to watch them. We went downstairs to have some fun with the dogs and so that we wouldn't wake up everyone upstairs. After a while, Greg came down because he heard the ice cream man and thought Sydney was downstairs by herself. We got ice cream though, so no nap wasn't so bad. That night Lizzy woke up at 2:30 AM and 6 AM.

Steve decided to wake up with Lizzy to let me sleep until 8 AM on Sunday. Aunt Shirley showed up around 8:30 AM and played with Lizzy while we all ate breakfast. After eating it was time to head to the beach. I didn't have a swim diaper, but Lizzy swim suit has a built in one, so we just used that. I needn't have worried though, as she didn't potty until we got back to the house and in the bath. At the beach I held her in the shallow water while Aunt Jennifer got some pictures. After being in the water I wrapped a towel around her and she passed out. Water always relaxes her. Back at the house we both rinsed off to get the salt water off of us. Then we all headed over to Aunt Shirley and Uncle William's beach house. Kevin and his family, William and his family, and Aunt Shirley and Uncle William were all down for the day. It was getting late after a while, so Daddy, Lizzy, and I went back to our beach house to finish packing. We left around 8 PM.

That night Lizzy slept from 11 PM to 7 AM with no waking inbetween. I have a feeling she was just as exhausted as Daddy and I were. We left Houston around 11 AM and got back home at 3 PM. It was actually a really good car ride.

That Monday Lizzy turned 4 months old as well. We had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday for her 4 month well check. Here are her stats:

Weight: 16.06 lbs (97th percentile)
Length: 24.25 inches (50th percentile)
Head circumference: 16.5 inches
All developments on track

I thought maybe she had an ear infection because her right ear smelled a little yeasty Monday night after her bath, but the doctor checked both ears and they're both perfect. Aside from thinking that, everything is great with her. The doctor was happy that I only had that one question. He asked if she was on any solids yet and I said no. He said that at her next well check we would talk about solids since she'll be 6 months by then. Oh my baby is growing up!

Speaking of growing up, guess what she JUST did?!?!?! She rolled over from back to front! Now she can roll over both ways! Oh, it's so exciting. I got a short video of her doing it too, I need to upload it and show everyone!

Time to get back to playing with Lizzy...

Parties and playdates

Oh man I did it again. It's been a long time. Seems like I'll be doing this every two weeks instead of every one, haha. Run down on what's been happening...got DirecTV (wooooo satellite), Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, we took a road trip to Victoria to see Daddy's friends as well as Koko and Pop Pop, cousin Sydney had a birthday (5 years!), and we had a playdate hosted at our house that included going to the pool.

8/14 We had the DirecTV guy come to set up satellite for us. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to visit that weekend so I checked to see if they could come by noon that day to help with the set up. Daddy decided to take a half day at work, so I ended up not needing my parents there, but it was great that they were just the same. Grandma loved seeing her little Lizzy! Plus we finally got great TV to watch!

8/15 Grandma and Grandpa watched Lizzy while Daddy and I cleaned the house. Or, we tried to clean the whole house. We only got the main living areas (cat room, den, study, kitchen, laundry room, Lizzy's room) done as we were having cousin Ramona, Scott, Jenny, and Jeff over for dinner. Had a fun time with everyone, we even got to play Mexican Train.

8/16 Grandma wasn't feeling too well so they only stayed until noon. We all went out to eat for breakfast at IHOP. Been a while since Daddy and I went out to eat for breakfast. Then we went to Target where Daddy got a new universal remote to play with once we got home. Grandma and Grandpa left soon after getting back to our house.

8/21 We left early to head to Victoria. The trip wasn't too bad. Lizzy slept until we got to Cameron. Then we stopped to have a bite to eat and kept her out of the car seat for about 30 minutes. Then we drove until we needed gas and kept her out of the car seat for another 30 minutes or so. The whole trip to Victoria ended up taking about 7 hours. Once there we hung out with Koko (formerly Gigi) and Pop Pop. Koko even had a shirt made by Aunt Rosanna that had a picture of Lizzy's hand in her hand. It was very cute.

8/22 Koko and Pop Pop went to Houston to visit Aunt Emily and Uncle Vlad while we stayed in Victoria. We ended up heading out to shop for a bit until it was time to head over to Daddy's friend's house for their party. We bought a swing so that Lizzy could nap during the day without having to be in my and Daddy's arms. It was one of the best things we have ever bought. Then it was party time! Lizzy got to meet most of Daddy's friends, though not all of them could make it. Stayed there for a while until it was close to bedtime, then it was back to Koko and Pop Pop's house.

8/23 We hung out with Koko and Pop Pop all day except during lunchtime when we went out to eat with Daddy's friends. Daddy and I went for a walk with the dogs (as we didn't have a stroller) and left Lizzy with Koko. Lizzy didn't like that at all and cried most of the time we were gone. Once we got back, we got her shower going and that calmed her down quite a bit. She was mostly tired.

8/24 We headed back home to Little Elm. The trip was the best one we've had as of yet. Lizzy slept until we got to Cameron. Then we stopped to eat again and kept her out of the car seat for another 30 minutes. After we got back on the road, she fell asleep again. When we stopped for gas, she was still sleeping so we went ahead and just got gas and headed on. She slept the whole trip except when we stopped to eat. It was AWESOME.

8/25 I called Sydney as it was her 5th birthday. Her party is set for 9/12, but we won't be able to go. We'll see her for Labor Day weekend though!

8/29 We hosted our 3rd play date. Only 2 moms could make it. Once everyone got here we all packed up and headed to our neighborhood pool. It was great. Lizzy got to swim with Daddy and me and she had her new swimsuit on along with a hat that matched. Swimming really took it out of her because as soon as we took her out of the water and put a towel around her she was out cold. I got a cute picture with my camera phone that it at the top of this entry. Then we took Rascal to the vet to learn that he needs his food changed. So we all went to PETCO after to get new food. While at the vet, I weighed Lizzy and found that she weighs 16 lbs now! She's getting so big!

Well, coming up in the next 2 weeks we have Labor Day Weekend coming (which we will spend in Galveston), Lizzy's 4 month check up at the doctor, and Lizzy's going to be 4 months old on the 7th! Lots to talk about next time.

I hear her starting to fuss, time to go feed my hungry girl!

Two weeks to catch up

Wow, sorry for taking so long to post again. We seem to have been really busy for the last 2 weeks. Let's see if I can remember everything that happened.

07/24/09 we headed to Houston when Daddy got home from work. Let me just say that traveling at night with Lizzy is not the smartest thing for us to do. She was cranky whenever she wasn't sleeping. I ended up having to stay in the backseat with her for the last leg of the trip. When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's she was NOT a happy girl. She wanted her shower, to be fed, and to pass out. And that's exactly what we did. I got into the shower and had Steve give her to me. Then I fed her, and as she was feeding she passed out cold. Grandma and Grandpa had set up my old crib, so that's what she got to sleep in all weekend.

07-25-09 was Astros game day for Daddy and me. Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Greg, Sydney, and Parker all came to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch and a visit. We all had a good time. Even some family friends showed up. Then Daddy and I headed out to Minute Maid Park while Grandma babysat. Astros lost, but we had a good time anyway. Plus Grandma got to give Lizzy a bath and try and get her to bed before we got home. Lizzy woke up once we got home, though, so I went ahead and fed her to which she decided to pass out again.

07-26-09 we headed over to Aunt Emily and Uncle Vlad's to have lunch before we set off for home. Before we left Grandma and Grandpa's, we got a call from Aunt Jennifer. She needed Daddy to come look at their computer, so we decided to head there after seeing Aunt Emily and Uncle Vlad. Uncle Vlad got to meet Lizzy for the first time. She was such a good girl too. She liked using Uncle Vlad as a slide. We had some great burgers for lunch. Then we headed over to Aunt Jennifer's where Daddy looked at their computer. Turns out that the hard drive or motherboard or SOMETHING wasn't working right which meant that they needed to get a new one of what wasn't working. Then Aunt Jennifer gave me some great advice...Don't stop until Lizzy wakes up on her own. See, the whole reason we would stop every two hours would be to feed and change Lizzy because the pediatrician had said to make sure she didn't get dehydrated on the trip. Well the ride home was much smoother with the advice from my sister. Thank you Aunt Jennifer!

07-28-09 we got some pictures in the mail from Gigi. They were of Daddy when he was a baby. Lizzy looks JUST LIKE HIM. So now I need to scan those into our computer and take some "look alike" pictures of Lizzy. Once that is done, I'll be sending out an email with each picture in a side-by-side view for everyone to see.

08-01-09 I got to go to a friend's baby shower while Daddy babysat Lizzy. He seemed to have a good time with his lovely daughter. I missed her and so did everyone at the shower. They all wanted to know where she was.

08-07-09 Lizzy turned 3 months! We also had a playdate to go to that day. It was at Chuck E Cheese since most of the mommies in the group have at least one kid that is 2+ years. I had an okay time, but I think I'll skip out on those playdates that are held there until Lizzy is a little older. I did get our picture taken by one of those machines that makes the picture look like it's drawn with pencil. I still need to scan that one as well.

So that catches everyone up on what's been happening the last 2 weeks. Now we'll get to look forward to getting a satellite dish with DirecTV, having Ramona and Jenny babysit so Daddy and I can clean the house, and heading to Victoria, TX to see friends for the next 2 weeks. Hopefully I can keep up with this every week again though.

As for new things Lizzy can do, she still rolls over quite a bit from front to back, she LOVES to talk and coo, she scoots on the floor whether on her belly or back (scoots forward when on her belly, in a circle when on her back), and loves playing in her activity centers.

For pictures, just head here.

Something interesting

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know

And for the link phobic:

"There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.

That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …

Audio-Visual Entertainment

1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to today’s teenager.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax tapes.
11. MiniDisc.
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio b0rk this concept.)
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’

Computers and Videogaming

18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.

The Internet

36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.

Gadgets

57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.

Everything Else

70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil to break off the first finger
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine
99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

My thanks go out to all of my fellow GeekDads for their contributions to this list."

Baptism

Lizzy's baptism went great! Family started showing up around noon on Saturday. We had a good time together grilling burgers and hotdogs then going swimming at the pool. Lizzy stayed home from swimming because she was taking a nap. Half the family stayed with her.

Sunday was the big day. We all got to the church a little early to make sure we knew what to do. Once there we learned that there were only going to be 3 baptisms that day including Lizzy's. She was mostly good throughout the ceremony, but I had to keep walking with her in my arms to keep her from fussing. She was very tired, but overstimulated from everything so wouldn't fall asleep. She still smells like the oil that the deacon put on her head, although it's definitely lighter in intensity.

Sunday evening Gigi, Pop Pop, Daddy, Lizzy, and I all went to Blue Mesa for dinner. Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Jennifer, Sydney, and Parker had to head home to Houston as Sydney had camp the next day. Blue Mesa was wonderful! I love their sweet potato chips.

Tuesday I decided to take the money that Lizzy received for baptism and open up a savings account in her name (and mine since she's a minor). So now she has a savings account I can put any money into that she gets from holidays or for whatever. It'll be good to have for her so young so that when she grows up she can use it later on in life.

This week Lizzy has started to coo a lot more. She will sit for hours with me or Daddy and we will coo back and forth to each other. Monday night she wanted to talk so much that she stayed up later than usual just talking away. She tried to do it last night, but I told her that it was bedtime and that she needed to sleep. She took the hint when I lay with her to nurse her one last time for the night.

She also smiles all the time now. She just has the cutest smile and voice. I love being able to spend my days playing with her. We read books, look in the mirror, watch game shows (she loves all the colors and lights), smile at each other, and talk to each other whenever she's not eating or sleeping. She also loves when she has her diaper off. Whenever she's crying and won't stop, she immediately calms down on her changing table because she knows she will soon be without anything on her bottom. Even when she doesn't have a dirty diaper, she loves being changed. Haha, the things she'll hear about when she's older.

She has rolled over a total of 4 times now. About 2-3 weeks ago she rolled from front to back 2 times in a row. I thought it was a fluke since she should be too young to do it or know that she was doing it. Then last weekend she rolled over 2 times again from front to back. I think she's starting to figure it all out now. When she gets tired of tummy time, but doesn't want to only be on her back I will roll her from front to back and back to front a couple times in a row. She loves it.

She's taking a nap right now, so I should get back to doing chores.

Weddings and Baptisms

I've finally noticed Lizzy's sleep schedule. She sleeps about 8 hours at night, takes a 2 hour nap in the morning, a one hour nap in the afternoon, and a 2 hour nap in the evening. If she doesn't get those naps during the day she ends up being very fussy at night.

We went to our first big event with Lizzy last Saturday night. Steve's co-worker got married and invited us to the reception. She did really well, not getting fussy until right before we left. She was really tired, but the music was really loud therefore overstimulating her. We had to leave early so we could get her home and to bed.

Sunday we went to a nice dinner while Lizzy stayed home with Ramona. It was our first babysitter that wasn't grandma. Steve and I actually got to go shopping and to dinner without having to worry about getting out a stroller or if Lizzy would get fussy while we ate. It was so fun! Don't get me wrong, I love my little girl to pieces, but sometimes I do need a bit of a break. I have a feeling Ramona had as much fun as we did because she said to call her any time to babysit again.

Today we're going to Steve's work to have lunch with him before I go to a doctor's appointment for myself. All of Steve's co-workers love Lizzy, especially Jenn. Jenn and I have become somewhat friendly (probably more so once she has her little boy in October) so we get to sit and gossip when Lizzy and I come to visit.

Sunday Lizzy is getting baptized! Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Jennifer, Gigi, Pop Pop, Sydney, and Parker will all be here to celebrate with us. I think Ramona, Scott, Jenny, and Jeffery are going to come as well. Saturday night we'll actually have the celebration dinner since everyone needs to leave Sunday afternoon/night. I plan on baking some cupcakes and decorating them myself for the dessert. Hopefully they'll turn out okay.

Time to finish some chores while Lizzy is taking her morning nap.