Pumpkin's favorite thing

Ok, this picture doesn't show her favorite thing but I knew you would like more pictures. Anyway, her favorite thing is to stick out her tongue and try to touch her nose with it. She actually can do it! She is also very good at rolling her tongue in various positions. She had been doing this so much that she had irritated the skin between her nose and lips. It made her look like the baby from "The Addams Family".

Christmas pictures

Hey everyone, sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. Getting ready for Christmas about did me in. Here are some of Pumpkin's Christmas pictures. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a great New Year. I know 2010 will be a good year for us. It is hard to believe that Pumpkin is almost 9 months, yikes, the time is going by fast.

Here are some of the highlights of the last month. Pumpkin is crawling!!! She can also get into a sitting position by herself. She still says mainly "dada" and "A" thinks she may actually know what it means now. She doesn't say "mama" a whole lot unless she is crying. She is starting to do that whole "I don't want to be out of mama's sight" attachment thing which is really cute, until I'm trying to do something in the other room and she is screaming at the top of her lungs! Babyproofing is currently under way as she is really quick and she loves to explore. The dog and cat will have to start learning how to get out of her way because she loves them both and wants to "pet" them (which basically means she is pulling out their hair). I think our girl will not be blue-eyed much longer. Grandma wanted a brown eyed grandchild and I think Pumpkin will be it, we'll have to wait and see. Her hair is getting thicker and somewhat darker.

She really is a delight. She loves to smile at people and she is a good baby. We're having some trouble getting her to sleep at naptime and bedtime, she likes to be rocked to sleep and wants to wake up when we put her in the crib. However, when things settle down after New Year, mama will try to get her back on a schedule, fingers crossed

New computer is here

My first post on my new computer. Just learning how to use it but thought I would see if I could download one picture to satisfy your pumpkin craving! Can you guess where we went on our vacation? More pictures to follow.

New computer is on the way, pics to follow soon

Wow, I had quite a few people commenting this weekend that I haven't posted in a long time. We ordered our new computer on Black Friday and it should be here in a couple of days. I will hopefully be posting TONS of pictures soon after that. We have had a busy month of traveling. We've been to our college Homecoming, Thanksgiving and a week long visit with a certain mouse we all know and love. I've never planned a trip that fast, but we got a good deal so we decided at the last minute to go to Florida. It had been two years since we had gotten a vacation and "A" really needed one. Anyway, Pumpkin has had a lot of firsts this month, can't wait to share them with you. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed her first Thanksgiving in spite of Mommy having Bronchitis, a slight case of Mastitis and coughing like her lungs were about to fall out! Thank goodness for antibiotics.

More 6 month pictures

Just thought I'd do a quick post while I'm waiting for little miss to take her morning nap. She was supposed to go to sleep at 9:30 a.m. and it is now 10:30 and no sleeping is taking place. Hmmm, I think I missed the "sleepy" phase and now she is into her "wired" phase. She has been getting up around 12 or 1 a.m. for the past 3 days, don't know what that is all about. I really can't complain because I know a lot of parent's are up 3, 4, 5 + times a night. However, this little girl has been sleeping 10-11 hours straight for almost a month so I don't know what is going on. I have missed her cereal and vegetable feedings this weekend so she may have just been extra hungry.

We had a good Halloween weekend. A's work group came over on Friday night and we had pizza and watched movies. Saturday night Grandpa H and C came over and then our friends M and L dropped by to see Pumpkin. We stayed up way too late Friday and Saturday so by Sunday we were worn out. I went to a baby shower after church and then came home and took a nap. Pumpkin was so tired after church and the baby shower that she fell asleep as soon as she got into her car seat. She looked like a little old man with her head thrown back and her mouth wide open sleeping away. I'm pretty sure I even saw some heavy drooling in the back seat!

Got to go, Pumpkin is asleep, I may get to take a shower!!

Yum Yum Recipe

I just made these muffins and I have to say they are very moist and tasty, very fall-y. I didn't even burn the bottoms of them which is my trademark! I didn't have any allspice so I can't vouch for how they will taste with that added in, but my way is pretty good. Also, I used fresh pumpkin instead of canned, which is really hard to find in grocery stores now anyway.

CHOCOLATE CHIP PUMPKIN MUFFINS (from Taste of Home 2008 Quick Cooking Annual Recipes)
Prep: 15 min. Bake 20 min.
2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Dash ground allspice
1 egg
¾ cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup canned pumpkin
2/3 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Combine the egg, brown sugar, pumpkin, milk, butter and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Stir in chocolate chips.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 375 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pan to a wire rack. Yield: 1 dozen.


Pumpkin and I went to a local pumpkin patch on Monday (I have some really cute pictures of her, will post after we get new computer) with a Mom's group from church and I got a pie pumpkin and several squash and I have been making and freezing baby food. I just gave her squash today (her first vegetable!!) and she seemed to like it. She didn't eat it all, but it was a good start. I did learn that it is better to take off her shirt first. She did fine until I removed the bib and cleaned her up, she was still spitting up squash all over herself for at least half an hour afterwards.

6 month pictures

We went a couple weeks ago to Portrait Innovations and got Pumpkin's 6 month pictures. Here are a few of them, there were a ton of really good ones, I'll post some more later on. We're looking at getting a new computer so I will be able to edit pictures and video because my current computer just won't be able to handle it. It may be a couple weeks before that happens so I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures.

She has started saying Da Da, which is very cute. She has this really soft way of saying it. She gets excited when "A" comes home, she starts waving her arms around. She has also started trying to get up on her knees, she can't do it yet but I can see it is coming in the next couple of weeks. She hasn't cut any teeth yet, but I can imagine that it will be happening soon (although I have been thinking that for a month already). I am almost done with my Italian class which is probably good since she has been pitching a fit the last 2 times I've been gone. "A" says that about 7:10 she will start fussing and then all of a sudden she starts screaming like he has never heard before. She won't even eat, he ends up just putting her to bed around 8 and she goes to sleep pretty quickly. I think she is off her routine and it messes her up, or maybe she is a "momma's girl"!!

6 month update

Pumpkin went to the Pediatrician yesterday. She weighed 16 pounds 13 ounces and was 25 3/4 inches long. Her head was 17 1/4 inches (that is in the 75-90th percentile!!). He said she looked wonderful. She got her normal shots plus her flu shot. The first shot she didn't even react but she started screaming on the 2nd, but she has done really well afterward. She hasn't had any adverse reactions to any of her shots, thank goodness.
She has started on rice and oatmeal cereal, she likes them both. She is so funny because between each bite she has to suck her fingers. She still sucks the 3rd and 4th finger on her left hand. It makes for a messy meal, but I enjoy every minute of it.

A sneak peak at my 1st Halloween costume

I'm dressing up as Tinkerbell, Momma is just wearing a dress.
I love my new outfit!

Look how far I can stick out my tongue.

With my wand, I can command Daddy and Momma to hold and snuggle me. Oh wait, they do that anytime I want now.

I can fly, I can fly, I can fly.

Pumpkin's baby dedication

Here are some pictures from Pumpkin's August baby dedication. Our church has the parents get up on stage and pledge to raise their child in a Christian home, attend a Bible-teaching church, and re-dedicate themselves to God. Then the church body pledges to support us as we raise her. It's a nice way to present your child to the church and, especially for us, to thank God for the miracle He has given.
Our pastor and his wonderful wife.

Our pastor and Pumpkin (she didn't even cry!)

He said that she was holding his hand as he was praying. He gave her back quickly when she started pulling on his microphone.

One of the pastor's wives took all these pictures for us, she's a photographer so she can do all kinds of fun stuff with pictures.

Love the bow. Pastor called it a garter.

Everyone who came up for the dedication, we took up several rows. Thank you to everyone who came, it really meant a lot to us.

Pumpkin and the cloth diaper

Here is a couple of pictures of Pumpkin in her Fuzzibunz cloth diaper. I have only had one blow-out and two leaked diapers since I have started putting her in cloth. However, I believe all of those have been due to operator error, they weren't the diapers fault.

She looks pretty happy, doesn't she?

If you are at all interested in cloth diapering, I would highly recommend a cloth diaper trial, especially through Diaperdaisy (www.diaperdaisy.com). There are several websites that offer cloth diaper trials, but diaperdaisy is the only one I found that is customizable. Sara at Diaperdaisy has been wonderful, I emailed a question and she emailed me back that day. When I ordered my diapers, she was on her way out of town to a wedding for the weekend but she made sure my order went out before she left! She also sent me some cloth diaper friendly detergent to try which really came in handy. I really can't recommend Diaperdaisy enough. It is so nice to try all these diapers out because some of the ones I thought I would like best, I'm not really keen on after trying them out. This has saved me quite a bit of money.

I've got a bunch of pictures from this weekend, but I don't have any more memory on my computer (or some error like that) so I'll have to post more later. Granddad and Grandma came up and we took Pumpkin to the Renaissance Festival where she saw her first parade, first elephant and camel and first joust!

Got my cloth diapers

Got a package on Friday and opened it up and here is what was in it. I got part of my diapers! My washing detergent finally came on Saturday. I've got more diapers coming hopefully next week because they were out of what I wanted.

So here is what I got. Top right hand corner (going clockwise) are traditional prefolds. These would be what we all probably wore as babies (well, if you are as old as me). But, no pins, you attach it with the purple snappie which hooks on the left and right side and in between the legs.

The yellow diaper is a Fuzzibunz size medium which will probably take her up to 25-30 pounds (I forget right now). The blue one is a Fuzzibunz one size which will go from newborn to toddler. The inside of these have the softest flannel material, feels very comfy.

The off-white is the gro-baby I have already blogged about.

The pink is a Bumgenius 3.0 which is one size and goes from 8-35 pounds. She wore that last night overnight and did not leak out, she slept 10 hours.

The white is a Bumgenius organic one-size all-in-one. All the others (except the prefolds) are pocket diapers which means you have microfiber inserts that you insert into the diaper. The all-in-ones have an attached insert. If you need more absorbancy, you can lay another insert on top, but otherwise all you have to do is wash and dry. I have heard that all-in-ones take longer to dry, I've got them outside drying now so we'll see. All-in-ones are pretty much fool proof and a lot of people use them if other people will be changing the diapers, like dads, grandparents, day-cares, etc. They're like disposables, but just made out of cloth. I put it on her this morning when she got up and fed her and she had a poopy diaper, and NO BLOWOUTS!! I'm soooooooo happy. I washed it just a little while ago, and there was nothing nasty left in the diaper after I took them out of the washer. I did have a bit of a stain on one of the microfiber inserts but I laid it in the sun and it has already been bleached out. How cool is that?

I took some pictures of Pumpkin last night trying out her new diapers, I'll post more later and also give you my thoughts on how these diapers work. I'm planning on keeping track of all these on my blog so I can decide which ones I want to keep. Hope you don't mind me using my blog as a diaper journal!! If anyone has any questions about cloth diapers, let me know.

Fall is on its way

Love these pictures of Pumpkin. I was getting ready to take her for a walk with Lucy and had to put on this cute hat. She wasn't quite sure about it, then . . . . .
I think I like the hat, Momma!

She is talking all the time now. She says "na na na na". It's just a short way from that to "ma ma ma". I'm ready! As I said before, the drool has really increased. A says he can feel her top teeth. She doesn't seem to be in any pain so she may have any easy teething time (we hope, for her sake and ours), but she has really been eating more the last couple of days. I think she may be ready for solid foods. We'll probably start rice cereal this week. Her pediatrician said she didn't need to start solids till 6 months and her 6 month check-up and shots are on October 13th. She's growing up too fast.

Gotta love this girl

I'm wearing a bow, Momma finally figured out how to make one stick in my hair.

Look, it's a bird, it's a plane, no . . . . . . . it's super baby! Ready to save the world with her superhuman drool power.

Her 1st cloth diaper

I went to the local (well, 50 minutes away) cloth diaper store and bought Pumpkin her first cloth diaper. It is a Gro*Baby diaper. It is made to go from around 8 pounds to 35 pounds, by using the snaps in the front to adjust the rise. It has this really cool soaker pad that you snap to the inside (see 2nd picture) and you just snap it out when it gets dirty and wet and theoretically you can just snap in another soaker pad and keep using the outer shell for more than one diaper change (unless it gets dirty, obviously). Anyway, I have ordered a bunch of other diapers on my clo*th di*aper tr*ial that should be here in a couple of days. I'm waiting for some new laundry detergent and once everything gets here I can start Pumpkin off in cloth diapers!! I'm very excited. Once it gets here I'll tell you about the company I ordered them from, they were awesome to work with (but more of that later). Can't wait to see Pumpkin in her new pants.

New camera, new pictures

Ok, so I finally got my new software downloaded. Here Pumpkin is chilling, she is starting to get a little more cuddly, which Momma loves.
Daddy and Pumpkin having a good time. She is showing her support for the St. Louis Cardinals! Daddy finally got over his cold/flu (whatever it was) so he wanted to hold his girl alllllll weekend. He is very good about staying away from her when he is under the weather.

On Sunday we had some special visitors. Great Uncle H and Aunt C came to visit, she hadn't seen them since she was a tiny baby (she was a week or two old).

I've got a lot of video but I haven't figured out how to edit them yet. Believe me, they need editing! Hopefully I'll get it figured out in the next week or two.

Quick update

I know, I know, there are no new pictures!! I still haven't downloaded the software that came with my new camera. However, once I do, I have just seen the download video button on Blogger which looks super easy so that will be one of the first things I do. Anyway, Pumpkin is 16 pounds and I think she may be teething, there is a whole lot of drool at our house. She is laying on the floor right now sucking on a frog chime thing and looking at herself in a mirror. Well, she does that until either the cat or dog walk by and then she watches them until she can't see them anymore. She has really started to notice them. She slept 7 hours straight last night and I had to wake her up to feed her. Woo hoo!

I am taking an Italian class from our local school district extension office and it meets twice a week for 2 hours, meaning I miss her last feeding of the day. I went on Monday for the 1st class and A was going to feed her a bottle and then I would pump when I got home. Our first and second class got cancelled (I start next week) and it was a good thing because when I got home, A was trying to feed her and she was throwing a royal fit! She refused the bottle from him and me. She was screaming and choking (and not because she was getting too much milk, because she was mad). I ended up just breastfeeding her. I quickly emailed my breastfeeding support group ladies for advice and they recommended trying several different kind of bottles and nipples. I've been doing that and I think I found a winner today, I'll have A try it tonight or this weekend to see how she does with it for him. I was really stressing about it. I should have been doing this earlier, I know, but breastfeeding is just so much easier than doing bottles.

Anyway, I'm thinking about going to cloth diapers. I have the time for the extra laundry and I just hate throwing all those diapers away into the landfill. There is a cloth diaper store about 40 minutes away from our house and I went last weekend and it was really cool. These are not your mother's cloth diapers! Yes, she will have a slightly larger tush but there are so many cute diapers out with so many great options, I'm really excited about it. I've found some internet cloth diaper sites that will basically rent you a bunch of diapers for 14-21 days and then you send back what you don't want (or all of them if you hate it) and it only costs $10 (plus the cost of the diapers you keep). There are so many choices of diapers out there that there is no way I could just start buying them. Anyway, you just google "cloth diaper trial" and it will bring up a bunch of websites that do this (like Jillian's Drawers, Diaperdaisy, etc.). I'll keep you updated. Got to go, Pumpkin is getting squirmy.

Party at my crib

Pumpkin almost has enough hair to keep a bow in. We were getting ready to go get her picture taken at JcPenneys on Saturday and she completely blew out her clothes (thankfully she was not in her picture clothes). I was trying out the bow but decided that she didn't have enough hair yet. Maybe next month.

I just put her in her crib for the night and she promptly flipped over onto her stomach. I rolled her back onto her back and then she re-flipped onto her stomach again. I moved her back onto her back and if she ends up on her stomach, so be it. She must be ready for stomach sleeping! Anyway, we just bought a camera that can take video so I will hopefully be learning how to post videos of her soon. We've already taken a test video of her laughing and giggling, it turned out pretty well. For a camera, it takes really good video.

We hope everyone has a nice Labor Day!

Look what I can do

I like to sit on Daddy's shoulders and PULL HIS HAIR! Don't I look like I'm having a great time? Daddy, on the other hand, looks like he is a little afraid of me.

Wow, that flash is really bright!

Daddy and I watching tv.

See how good I am at pushing up with my arms. I like tummy time now. Yesterday at the breastfeeding support group all the other mommies were impressed at how well I did tummy time. Those other babies are cute, but they just aren't as accomplished as me. Who cares if most of them are only a couple of weeks old. Guess what, I'm 15 pounds, 10 ounces.

And finally, a picture of me sleeping, aren't I a princess? Mommy color coordinated my outfit with the swing! Got to go, I'm having way too much fun kicking Mommy as she types this.