15 Months!

Our little Lexi is 15 months old!

Stats:
I'm happy to say that our doctor was really pleased with Lexi's weight gain!  She said she didn't need to see her back sooner than the normal 4 months!  The last time we came for her 1 year check up she wanted to see her back in 2 months and check her weight.  She weighed 16.14 lbs!  On our at home scale now she weighs around 17.4!  So hopefully she's on a steady weight gain now.

Eating:
She is eating GREAT right now.  The doctor asked how she was eating and if she was eating fruits, veggies, protein, grain and I said I thought she was a little picky with her veggies for a week and that she'd gotten tired of eating veggies so we took a little break.  She asked what she ate and I said broccoli, carrots, peas, cauliflower, green beans... and she was like well if you're getting her to eat that you're doing good!  So what I thought was being a little picky was just getting tired of the same food because she's back to eating everything well.  She likes deli meat- roast beef, chicken, ham.  Pretty much all fruit. Still drinking milk great!

I am no longer nursing.  And it was shockingly easy and quick to drop all feedings!  I think she was ready to give them up and she wasn't really eating much anyway.  Yay for it being easy! Helloooo self tanner for the summer :)

Napping/Sleeping:
She is still on 2 naps a day-for now.  There has been a couple days this week she refused her 2nd nap and just played for a while and fussed for a while.  So, we'll see where we end up with that over the next month.

Clothing:
Still 6-12 months and her summer clothes we bought her based on height and weight (17-22 lbs) is 9 months.  Crazy!

Things she's loving:
-talking to herself... and saying the word "doy doy doy" {China friends think "ok ok ok" haha} who knows what she's really trying to say!
-Mimicking us! Words, things we do, etc. It's precious!
-Walking! And holding one of our hands while walking
-Feeling the rain on her hands and arms- she loves us to stick her out of the back door so she can touch it!
-Taking things in and out of containers/hiding things- she put her milk in a cabinet this month and luckily Marshall saw her do it so he knew it was there! Ha! Recently we've also found paci's in our shoes as well.  It cracks us up!
-Waving to people and telling them "bye" when we're out.  She also waves to herself in the mirror when we're strapping her in the car
-Looking at bellies.  For some reason she has to lift our shirts to find our bellies at random times and she loves it!
-Bath time- FINALLY!  I feel like she really likes it now... we have these letters/numbers to stick on the side of the tub and she really likes playing with those.
-Carrying things around while she walks or crawls.  She's always liked this but it's funny to see this month what she'll carry.  Clothes, the remote, containers of food...

Firsts this month:
-Officially becoming a walker!

Little extras:
-She likes to lay down when she's playing sometimes
-She likes to play with sunglasses
-She loves to answer things as a phone- anything really
-One book she will sit all the way through is the long version of "Go Dog Go"
-She wants to eat what we're eating
-She's started a "whining" phase this month.  If she wants something she goes "Uh Uh Uh Uh"over and over and reaches for what she wants.  We are trying to break her of this and have her try to SAY what she wants.  Oh and she can/will only say one syllable words and the beginning of a long word.

These were all I could get from her on Easter Sunday after church.... Tired+Busy+Toddler=Not looking at the camera

 

14 Months!

Stats:
Lexi doesn't go back to the doctor until April so we will know official stats then.  But our at home scale says around 15.5-16 lbs right now so hopefully she's gained some weight! I think she looks a little chunkier in her thighs, belly and face.

Eating:
I'm happy to say that she has gotten over her picky phase (for the most part!) She's not such a fan of veggies- although she loves her mama's squash, carrots, and peas.  She loves pretty much any fruit, eggs, yogurt, cheese, bread, muffins, pb&j, deli meats- ham, turkey, chicken. I think that her picky phase was a lack of appetite due to teething- she had 3 teeth pop up within a few weeks of each other! She is now drinking milk like a champ and drinks anywhere from 6-10 oz a day.  One day she drank 3 sippy cups of milk- about 15 oz! 

I am still nursing 3-4 times a day- morning, before each nap, and at night.  We have started dropping a feeding before her afternoon nap (we've tried a couple days) and one day she fell asleep on my chest when I was rocking her before her nap and the other day she cried for about 15 min (threw BOTH pacis out- she has to have 2 now in the crib...) so Marshall went in and gave them back and she fell asleep about 5 min later.  We'll see how she does without nursing before her naps.  We've procrastinated dropping them because it's so quick and easy right now and we knew we'd be traveling in March so we waited until after that.  It's a little bittersweet to be dropping them.  In one aspect I feel the freedom in not having to nurse but another part of me knows I will miss those sweet, snuggly moments.  

Napping/Sleeping:
Still on a 2 nap a day schedule.  She naps anywhere from 1-1 hr 45 min. and usually doesn't cry at all going down. Still wakes up around 7-7:45 and goes down each night around 7:30 

Clothing:
Anywhere from 6-12 months fits her pretty well depending on the brand.  We are having to look at height and weight on tags to see what she will wear/grow into this summer.  Most of the summer stuff we've gotten is 9-12 months.  

Things she's loving:
-When we tell her "good job"...she claps 
-dancing
-mimicking us 

Firsts this month:
-Teeth 4 & 5
-Saying papa and grandma (more like Uma), Katie (which she says caca...ha) for some reason she won't say long vowels, dog (daw), duck (duh)
-Actually playing, splashing, and being in the bathtub like a big girl.  We just got a no slip pad for her to have in the tub and she loves being in it!  She now plays a lot with her bath toys!  She HATES having her hair washed though- she cries every time we pour the water to rinse her hair.... we don't know how to do it without her sitting up.  She won't really lean back.  Any other ideas, parents? 
-Taking her first steps alone and standing for long periods of time by herself.  She isn't a "walker" (no, not that walker...The Walking Dead fans) yet but she's really close!  

Little Extras:
-She's getting better picking up one food item at a time.  Not great, she still grabs handfuls of cut up cheese out of containers and stuffs her mouth but sometimes she'll grab 1.  We'll call that progress ;)
-Her fake laugh is still hilarious! 
-She now waves at anyone who will look at her and says "haaaaayyyyy".... She has everyone in Starbucks looking and waving at her every time we go... not that we go often or anything.... I mean they only know our names and drink orders ;) and SIDEBAR we actually went today and the guy says to Marshall- hey I was hoping you'd come in today after that Duke game and our win last night...He's a UNC fan and we all chatted it up last time hahaha
-She is busy ALL the time.  Doing multiple things at once, carrying things with her, having one thing in each hand, putting things on and off the table, in and out of buckets, pulling all the bags of marshmallows, ziplock bags out from the bottom shelf of the pantry etc.  She likes moving! 

*This was written March 22

13 months!

We will probably not be doing a monthly picture each month since she's over a year old...but I will hopefully be taking pictures of her near her monthly update so I will post those with the information.

Stats:
So last month Lexi weighed a whopping 13.9 lbs at the doctor.  I started freaking out a little after we left thinking....she hasn't gained ANY weight in 6 months? Really???  And the doctor said she thought we needed to go to 5 meals a day... so that's what we've done.  About 2 weeks later we weighed her on our at home scale and she weighed 15.6 lbs.  Hopefully she has truly gained almost 2 lbs! I felt a little guilty leaving thinking it was me who for some reason hadn't given her enough food but we truly have been feeding her a lot- what we observed other kids at this age eating.  We just didn't know she needed a lot more calories than them because her doctor thinks she just has a super high metabolism and needs many more calories a day.  Anyway, hopefully she's now on the right track and I'm trying not to punish myself for things I don't know being a first time parent.

Eating:
It's changed a little since last month.  She's not such a good eater anymore.  Even though we are feeding her more meals a day, she has become a picky eater all of a sudden.  We have NO idea where it came from and HOPE it is just a phase.  She will only eat yogurt, grapes, bread, squash, cheese, bananas, sometimes pouches and random fruits at different times.  She is at an I'm-going-to-spit-this-out-if-I-don't-like-it phase.  Is that a thing? Well I just made it one.  We try and try to give her different things but I end up frustrated because I've tried 5 different foods (cut up, steamed, heated whatever) and she will not try it.  I put it in her mouth and she'll spit it out.  I mean I can't force her to eat it so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just a teething or weird texture thing.  She has 4-that's right FOUR- teeth coming in up top... 1 is already through the gums but the other ones are white and haven't come through yet.  WHO KNOWS!

Milk has been a puzzle to figure out as well.  At first she wouldn't drink any milk (we buy the Horizon organic whole milk).  So, I got on google (I'm the google queen) and tried to see what other parents who's kids wouldn't drink milk did.  The first thing I tried was heating it because it was definitely cold coming out of the fridge.  No luck.  Next, I thought adding a little vanilla soy milk to it to sweeten it up might make it more appealing.  Nada.  Then we tried diluting it with half water so it wasn't quite as strong then slowly decreasing the water until it was just milk.  Bingo!  She started drinking the milk.  Her doctor wants her drinking about 2 sippy cups a day and she's definitely not there yet but it's an improvement.  She definitely still prefers water but it's a work in progress.

I am nursing 4 times a day- morning, before each nap, and at night.  This week we are going to try to drop one of the before nap feedings and go from there.  I'm guessing her morning feeding will be last to be dropped (since I can now nurse her and then put her back in her crib to play for about 20 minutes!) but we'll see.  My goal is to be done nursing by the end of April.  The doctor also said she's probably not getting many calories from it but still getting some of the immunities from it.  She really only nurses for a couple minutes each time so I  don't think it will be hard to stop.  She also doesn't get "nursed to sleep" when we lay her in the crib she is fully awake- so I think that will help too.

Napping/Sleeping:
I was a little worried we were about to abandon nap #2 and go to 1 nap a day but we came in and saved it!  We started on a 3 hour schedule to allow her more time to be sleepy and so far it's worked really well.  Our day looks like this:

7-7:30 Wake up
7:30 Nurse and put back in crib until around 7:45ish
8:00 Breakfast (yogurt and fruit)
10:30 Nap #1
12:30 Lunch
2:30 Meal #3/snack
3:00-3:30 Nap (depending on wake up time from Nap #1)
4:45ish- Dinner (Meal #4)
6:00- Meal #5/Snack while we eat
7:30 bedtime

I think I will like looking back on this to see what our schedule was like at this age- so sorry if that was super boring for you :) She is sleeping all night- from 7:30-7:00/7:30 minus about 3 days where she was waking up every hour to every other hour because of teething.  Then that tooth popped out and she's gone back to normal... until the other 3 teeth start coming through...

Clothing:
Obviously she's still in 6-9 month but I've also started putting her in some 6-12 month and they fit pretty good. Yay!

Things she's loving:
-Being outside!  With several warm weather days mama ain't complainin'
-Being chased
-Being surprised
-Walking with us holding her hands
-Still loves reading books

Firsts this month:
-Tooth #3
-Saying night night, nana (for banana), nay-nay for Naomi (we have a picture of her friend that she likes to look at) So now the word total is: dada, mama, bye-bye, ball, hey, night night, nana, nay nay
-She knows where her belly, mouth, nose, ears and feet are and will touch them or show them to you if you ask her where they are.

Little Extras:
-She can understand the majority of what we say.  If we tell her to get something, to go somewhere, etc she will do it (most of the time ;)
-Instead of saying "ball" she says "ba-ba" which is funny that she doesn't just say "ba" but has to say it twice.
-When we're at church she wants to be with Marshall.  I don't know what it is about being there- maybe she knows it's where he works and "his" territory but if she's with me she's looking around saying "dada?" "dada?" trying to find him.
-Marshall taught her how to say "dada" when anyone asks "who's girl are you?" and she gets so excited afterward!

These pictures were taken right after Lexi turned 13 months when the Ferrells and Blalocks were in Sumter for the GIS (Global Impact Sunday) at FBC.  These pictures were taken at Swan Lake then the last few were on Sunday after church in our yard.

My Sweet Little Valentine!

Here are just a few pictures from my sweet little Valentine even though she wasn't feeling great and ended up having a little fever later that afternoon.  She still managed to smile so I could get a few pictures!

ONE.YEAR.OLD

How in the world do I have a 1 year old?!

Stats:

We go to the doctor on February 5, so nothing official until then.  Our at home scale (what we weigh on- not a baby scale) says 14.4 lbs but I've always thought that unreliable.  I'd say she's now over 25 inches- maybe even 26.  I know some of you moms are giggling right now because your 4 or 5 month old is that height. We have a petite girl :) She can shop with her mama in the petite section at The Loft!!! ;)

UPDATE: Lexi's stats at the doctor were 13.9 lbs and 26 1/2 inches tall 

Reflux:

I'll update this after her 1 year appt also and let you know if we are off meds, weaning, etc. 

Eating:

She is still a GREAT eater.  Although I have to say this month she has decided she is a big girl and doesn't need pureed foods anymore. She refused them for about 1.5 weeks and about drove me crazy because I was having a hard time filling that seemingly bottomless belly of hers with finger foods.  But in the past couple weeks she has allowed a jar of pureed food (we do that first so she's not spoiled with her fun finger foods-ha) and then start with the finger foods after she has eaten that first.  We do all kinds of food and there's really nothing she has seemed to HATE.  She has not seemed to care for the TEXTURE of beans (black beans, lima beans, green beans) and corn.  She likes the taste but will spit out the skin as if she doesn't want to chew it or has a weird texture thing.  I blame this on her dad.  He doesn't like beans because it's a "texture thing".  Who doesn't like beans?! Apparently it's genetic ;) jk. 

She LOVES fruit- we feed her: strawberries, bananas, grapes, blueberries, clementines, pears, peaches, pineapple, apples- Basically everything!  For veggies I usually take a frozen bag and measure out a cup and steam it in the microwave and then let it cool while I feed the puree.  We always save whatever she likes the best for last because once she has that she will want more and more of it and eat nothing else.  The veggies she regularly eats are: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green beans (pureed), corn (sometimes), sweet potatoes (not her absolute fav), peas and occasionally zucchini, avocado.  We have also bought some deli meats for her to eat (turkey and ham).  She also LOVES bread.  If we are at a restaurant she will eat all the bread we will give her and at home she loves her whole wheat english muffin.  She thinks it's a TREAT to eat that- haha.  I say she gets that from me :) She eats yogurt every morning because of all the food I would say this is her absolute FAVORITE.  I think she could eat it every meal! She has had all the flavors and we think the banana is her favorite of that.  

So now she's at 3 meals a day breakfast around 9, lunch around 12:30 and her last meal around 4:30 with a snack when we eat dinner around 6.  She is also still nursing 5-6 times a day.  We are thinking of trying to drop the early morning one first.  I'm going to talk to her doctor and see what she says.  If she says she doesn't think it would affect her weight or anything I'm probably going to start trying to drop feedings every month (s.l.o.w.l.y)

Napping/Sleeping:

Oh goodness.  To be honest this has been a little rough this month.  Naps around here have been hit or miss.  She refused her 2nd nap for almost a week straight this month and was driving me insane.  Also she has had days where her naps have been super short- {40 minutes? What?! I juuuusst made my coffee!!!} and I think we *may* fingers crossed have gotten back on to some semblance of a schedule this past week.  We researched the reasons behind what might be happening/what we could do about it and some people suggested stretching the time between the naps so we switched from 2 to 3 hours and that has seemed to help.  I also switched things up started feeding her in her room already in her Zipadeezip for her 2nd nap so it would maybe create a "new routine".  It has seemed to help so that's good!  She still goes to sleep around 7:30 and wakes up around 5:30 or 6 to eat then sleeps anywhere from 7:30-8:30.  

Clothing:

Still in 6-9 month clothing.  She hasn't really gained much weight so these still fit great! Size 2 diapers

Things she's loving:

-The DISHWASHER. Oh my goodness- it's hilarious!  If she HEARS the dishwasher go down she is making a beeline as fast as she can to the kitchen so she can stand up beside it and walk around it- it's the funniest thing.  

-Saying bye bye and waving.  It's high pitched and precious. 

-Her motorcycle she got for Christmas(close to her first birthday)

-books!

-Pushing buttons

Firsts this month:
-shaking her head "no" when we tell her no.  I guess she sees us do this and is mimicking.  I'm fully expecting her to say "no" back to us soon.... uh oh. 

-Walking BEHIND things- holding onto things that roll. 

Little extras:

-She is learning SOOO much now.  I'm surprised weekly at what she understands.  She knows the names of things and if I tell her to get them she does.  Or if I ask her where something/someone is she looks for them.  She knows when I say "do you want to go eat" she starts whining and throws her arms up for me to pick her up so she can go eat (told you she loves her food!).  When we get her up from naps if she's had a good nap we let her play with her animal mobile and we hold her on the edge of the crib so she can grab them and she LOVES it.  When I say "do you want to play with the animals" she starts grunting excitedly and kicking her feet and squealing when I sit her there.  When I say "you want some water?" or "Drink your water" she goes for her cup.  I could go on and on about all the things she knows and is learning!

-She LOVES the Reese Cup commercial that's deja vu.  She stops whatever she's doing to watch it- I think maybe it's the music?  When you see that commercial now you'll think of her :)

-She pats your back when you hug.   We think Marshall started this because whenever she gives him a hug he pats her back.  Now when she hugs you she pats your back.  cutest.thing.ever.

-She is now in a semi-biting phase.  If I'm laying on the floor with her or holding her sometimes she'll just bite my arm or shirt.  Randomly.  It doesn't really hurt that much and it's not daily- maybe once or twice a week but it's still weird. 

-She cries when we tell her no.  I take this as a good thing.  She doesn't need us to pop her hand to understand that we are serious when we say no.  She knows she's not supposed to be doing something. It's not every time but we do remove her from the temptation, distract her or praise her when she stops when we tell her no.  

-She has really liked looking out the window this month.  Some of you may have seen the picture of Lexi looking out the window in our living room.  She likes to stand there and it's the perfect height for her.    

And first of all with these other pictures let me just say how hard it is to get a picture of this wiggly, into-everything, busy little girl!  She's also had a runny nose the past week and a half so I've been waiting until she got over it to get a picture of her for this post.  She also has a little dry skin/irritation on her face most likely from drooling with her paci in at night so we've been trying to put baby Aquaphor on her face to calm it down a little.

This is a new "smile" that she's doing in the past couple days.  To me she looks like a little old grandma.  A-dorable.

Please ignore the shadows.  Marshall had his hand in the wrong spot.

Look at my belly!

Some of our pictures ended like this because she did not want to lay down...

She really likes to show us her belly these days...

  

Lexi's First Birthday Party!!!!

We had Lexi's first birthday on January 18 at the church in the student center.  It was a penguin/winter theme with pink, ice blue, and silver theme colors.  There are A LOT of pictures thanks to Ashley taking them and the church for letting us borrow an SD card since we brought the camera without it- whoops! 

Here was her birthday invitation:

I made the "chalkboard" poster with posterboard and metallic markers.  It turned out SO much better than I was expecting! 

Here is the ADORABLE cake that Rebekah Russell made for her.  Serious talent!

Instagram pictures of Lexi from birth until now! 

A hot chocolate bar... I didn't get a picture of it before the party started because we were late due to Lexi's nap but here are some pics to show what it looked like!

I think Reid was trying to sneak some marshmallows... 

Sweet Abigail!

Lexi's first bite of her cake.  Not sure what to think of her icing...

Here Dada... you taste! 

Me and my cousin Richard

My grandpa even made the trip down! 

Lexi was lovin' being in Papa's arms with him giving her some cheese from the food table! 

Our whole family

My little diva strinking a pose! 

I love this little girl and I'm thankful to everyone who came to help celebrate her first year of life!  We are blessed to have her in ours!