Arianna {7 months}

This last month has been one of my favourites so far. Which is completely helped by the fact that this little angel is an amazing sleeper now. She's so interactive and fun. I love handing her random objects and watching her play with them.

                   

*is 18.5 lbs
*is about 27 inches tall.
*is freaking adorable (duh)
*laughing and babbling away, which is my favourite
*gets sooo excited when daddy comes home or when he gets her up in the morning
*when she's tired, she runs her fingers through her hair and twirls it
*sleeps 12+ hours a night (usually 6pm-6am) plus 2-3 naps (halle-freaking-luja)
*takes all naps in her crib, aside from her 4pm catnap and special occasions
*since we started sleep training, she hasn't been using a soother at all, so for two months now.
*does an army crawl and she's fast! she's across the living room in a minute!
*can sit pretty well on her own
*no teeth yet
*can pull herself to standing on her activity cube
*we gave up on purees and now she eats little bite size pieces of everything, which is way more fun and easier. We do feed her chicken that has been put through the food processor mixed with apple sauce and greek yogurt with a spoon though.
*feeds herself, as in picks up food off her high chair tray and puts it in her own mouth. The first time she did this it stunned me!
*still in carters 6 months but the 3-6 months isn't fitting anymore, so she's mostly in 6-12 months, loving her summer clothes!
*size 3 diapers
*she's already a music lover and is obsessed with dad's guitar
*loves the jumperoo, activity cube, and this little toy car we borrowed recently from my sister in law. She also equally loves wipe containers, water bottles, baby cracker wrappers, and wooden spoons. Go figure.
*loves throwing things on the ground and banging toys on her high chair
*is obsessed with dogs. When she sees Layla (or Teeka, Daisy or Duke) she smiles and giggles at them.
*she loves sitting in her high chair and eating baby crackers and watching Mama cook!

We are starting to get out and do fun summer stuff and can't wait to make lots of memories for her first summer!

Arianna's First Pitt Meadows Day

Last weekend was so much fun. I am really trying to get out more and do more fun stuff event though it's a lot of work with a baby. I want to make lots of memories and also Arianna seems way happier outside than inside, so we're going to try to have lots of little adventures this summer.

Friday, we met up with my Mom at the park, she had my nephew Oliver with her. Oliver and Arianna played dump trucks together and went on the swings.

Saturday was Pitt Meadows Day! I always loved Pitt Meadows Day as a kid so I was really excited to take Arianna out. Nicky came along with us.

We skipped the parade but went to the park/fair type thing they have set up. We walked around for a bit and then set up shop in the shade and of course had to take some pics!

I haven't posted on here about this yet but Leigh and I are doing a whole30 which means basically 30 days of no junk food. So pretty much everything foodwise at Pitt Meadows day was out, including the THIRTEEN food trucks I counted.

Arianna didn't make it home for her nap, too much excitement and she passed out early.

Sunday was a relaxing day, in the afternoon we went to Nicky's mom's house, she was having a band play and basically a giant picnic!

Arianna got to wear her hawaiian print dress Nicky got for her a few months ago!

Puppy love!

My weekend even extended into Monday. My Mom, Arianna and I went into Bellingham to go to Target, Trader Joes and Costco. We mostly got groceries but it was a fun adventure!

Arianna {6 months}

Arianna turned half a year old on May 3!
First, a note of total honesty. This past month (April) has been HARD. We lost my Grandma in April (exactly two years to the day that my Grandpa had been killed in the car accident) and although it wasn't shocking, we are all sad and miss her and just aren't quite ourselves. I am just so thankful that she got to meet Arianna before she passed.
Also last month, Arianna was just NOT sleeping, period. Thankfully that has improved bucketfuls (see sleep section) so we are doing a lot better.
Also, I must note also that something so wonderful happened in April, April 17th to be exact! My brother and sister in law welcomed their third baby, a GIRL this time. Her name is Emersyn Marion (middle name is my Grandma's first name) and she's so freaking adorable. It's so amazing that Arianna will have a cousin that's the exact same age!

Weight:  17lbs ish.

Height:  I actually have no idea, it's so hard to measure this wiggle worm!

Feeding:  Still breastfeed with a little bit of formula. I tried cutting it out, but I still sort of "ran out" of milk around bedtime and I wanted to make sure her tummy is full because she sleeps for so lo
ng. So we are sticking with the one bottle a day and we are totally okay that.

Solids:

This girl LOVES food! To be honest, I have just been buying organic purees instead of making my own. My focus was sleep this month. So far she has tried sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, peaches, pears, apricots, broccoli, prunes, raspberries, carrots. She has also had whole peas (frozen) and she loves munching on those! She's also had tiny pieces of banana, melon and avocado. It's so adorable watching her chew things without teeth lol

Sleep: After accepting that the 4 month sleep regression was NOT just a phase, and realising that we had created a LOT of sleep associations (pacifier, nursing, swaddling/sleep suit/sleeping with us/sleeping on car rides/walks) we decided we needed professional help. We hired a sleep consultant out of sheer desperation. We finished the two week program and it's going amazing! She goes down around 7, sometimes 6-30, and sleeps until about 6am. Naps were a little harder, but we are finally seeing some improvement,  lately she has been regularly down for two naps without any fuss AND sleeps for at least an hour. I cannot even explain what a relief it is to have this under control.

Milestones: 

*Can sit on her own for a little bit, still kinda wobbly and after a while she will just twist to roll onto her stomach.
*Can stand holding on to something for quite awhile!

*Blows Raspberries
*Babbling away like crazy! I think Dada will be her first word.
*She recognizes words when I say them, the first one I noticed was "puppy". I asked her where her puppy was and she twisted her head around to Layla's regular spot on the couch.
*Drinks of out a sippy cup. She's picky though can only be this "Starbucks" one!
*Not crawling yet but can definitely worm her way around like nobody's business.

Clothes: Barely squeezing into 3-6 months and already fitting into 6-9/6-12 months! Mama needs to go shopping for sleepers soon!

Diapers: Size 3

Likes & Dislikes: You know for most of the month she was a sleep deprived grumpy bear which was heartbreaking to see! She's back to her normal self now, thank God! She loves playing in her jumperoo, loves us and Layla, and FOOD! She loves playing silly games, when I tickle her and blow on her tummy. 
When we started sleep training, she did not like her bedtime routine AT ALL, because she knew it was time to go to bed! Thankfully she loves her bath and bedtime feed and book again!

Baby gear we love: Sophie is getting a lot of use this month! Now that Arianna sleeps in her crib, we are soo happy to have been given a video monitor. I can check (and do a hundred times a night or so haha) that she's doing okay and it's so comforting to see her little chest rise and fall. 

Our friend also lent us a jumperoo which she loves.

Things I don't want to forget:

How freaking cute and fun she is!! She also looks so adorable when she sleeps, even though it freaked me out at first that she just smushes her face into the mattress. I am so loving this age, especially now that we are all well rested!

Looking Forward to:
Enjoying the warm weather with her! I am dying to take her swimming again!

Mommy & Me Styled Photos

Recently Arianna and I got to be models for our very favourite photographer, Carol-Ann! She had a vision for a styled Mommy and Me shoot and I loooooove how they turned out! That girl's got talent! Her mama made the crowns, I believe. I love how the styled ones turned out with the floral crowns but I also love the simple ones in our white dresses. Such a gorgeous backdrop, I wish this was how my bedroom looked!

So, here is Arianna's very first photoshoot! First of many many many!

haha I love this picture her face is hilarious! Would be nice if she was smiling but babies don't behave! :-P

SASSY!

Almost makes me miss my hair a little...but not really!

Ahh I just love them so much. How will I ever choose which ones to put up on my wall?!

Carol-Ann Photography Webpage
Carol-Ann Photography Facebook Page

Mama Makeover

I posted in January about how I was struggling.

I am doing a lot better. Since then I've lost over 10lbs and several inches (3 around my midsection!) and I'm feeling a lot better. I am active every day, especially with living in an apartment with a dog, we go for many walks every day. But I still didn't feel like my old self. That's because I'm not my old self. Parts of me are the same but I feel like a different person. That's not a bad thing, at all, but I didn't really know how to adapt so I felt GOOD about this new person, especially since I felt like I looked like a very tired, old, not the best version of myself. I want to be the best mom and wife and person I can be while feeling good. For me, looking good (healthy, happy, taking care of myself) on the outside = feeling good on the inside. 

My hair has been a DISASTER lately. Let's see, tons falling out (normal postpardom) messy bun every single day, haven't unpacked my hair straightener, tons of split ends, haven't dyed it in over a year, plus Arianna loves to grab it and get it all tangled.  Time for a change for sure.

So this is the start of my mama makeover! 

Of course, thanks to my beautiful sister at Salon Fifty Five, who always makes me look like my best self!

Now I need to learn how to style it haha! The great thing with this cut is that I can straighten it easily or with some level of difficulty, curl it! There's lots of different looks I can try which is fun.

First Weeks In Our New Home

Where to begin?!
I can't even believe it's been almost 3 weeks! We are loving living here so much!

Our favourite hang out

Getting our keys was a super awesome surreal moment. Naturally we invited the whole family to see our place so we had four parents, my sister in law and my nephew running around like he owned the place, plus the little lady of course. My mom came prepared with food so we had a quick bite and headed out, leaving my parents there. My dad painted Arianna's room and my mom scotch-guarded (aka Layla guarded) the carpets and our new rug, and also sealed our kitchen and bathroom grout.

Layla's bedroom ;-)

Moving felt super easy. I am so grateful that we had so much help! I woke up with seriously Wonder Woman energy. I hauled ass the moment we picked up the truck. First we loaded boxes from my mom's garage, which was all our kitchen stuff and also our patio set. Then we took the truck back to my in laws and my father in law and brother in law helped Leigh and I load up the truck while my mother in law watched the baby. We were done loading like two hours early so we headed to our new place even though we didn't have the elevator booked till 5. I had three awesome friends show up as well as my in-laws to help which made it go super super fast. While they unloaded the truck,I put the boxes in stacks in each room. We finished so quickly that my girlfriends were able to help my mom and I unpack the kitchen and the bedroom. By 8pm the apartment looked like a home, seriously! Thank goodness I had help with those two rooms because they are both SO organized!

Patio! I scored this set on a Facebook buy/sell page for $90. I plan on recovering (with my mother in law's help) these cushions as the colours aren't my style but they're fine for now!

This place has some seriously awesome perks such as an ice/water machine in our fridge (so easy to keep refilling my cup so I stay hydrated) as well as something that looks like a wine bottle holder in the fridge. At least that's what I'm using it for. We had Telus previously but this place comes with Shaw included in our strata for 3 years. I was so surprised that they also set up everyone with a PVR. I also signed up for a free trial of shomi which is basically Shaw's version of Netflix. There's so many things I love about our place. It's SOOO BRIGHT. Like crazy bright. I've ordered fabric for room darkening curtains and even though my bedroom curtains block out a lot of light I will probably need blackout curtains in there too. Especially when the sun comes up at like 5 am in the summer! I seriously love my bathroom, it's huge and the bathtub is so deep.

About 1/4 of my dresses, the rest are in storage right now 

I'm probably more organized than I've ever been in my entire life. I know where everything is in my house for once. I've been working on little corners to get them super organized. The other day I color coordinated our closets. Who am I?! It makes it look so much neater this way.

Leigh gets one rack, that's it! Haha

Adjusting to living in an apartment with a dog and baby has actually been surprisingly super easy as well. I pop Arianna in the ergo, and take Layla for a few walks each day, although they have not been long ones because it's literally been pouring for a week! Leigh usually will take her out for the first and last bathroom break of the day. We have been going for family walks every night. Somehow we usually end up at Starbucks which is not good haha.

A peek at Arianna's not finished room

My dad has been working on refinishing my dining room set so I will share that when it's done. He sometimes even lets me and my mom help!

FINALLY being here after 14 months of waiting has actually been so strange in the way that it feels so normal. I feel like we've lived here forever. When I get up in the morning to make coffee, I don't like wander around forgetting where everything is, I just kinda know where to go. It feels so natural to be here. That probably doesn't make any sense. I can't even really explain it. It just feels like home.

Arianna {5 Months}

This little munchkin is just getting cuter and cuter...and sometimes more and more challenging.

Weight:  16.1 lbs!

Height:  Around 25.5 inches (90th percentile for weight and height!)

Feeding:  Still mostly breastfed, some nights she will have 1 bottle of formula. We have also started her on a little bit of cereal and she has had a taste of apples! I will be trying making my own baby food very soon! It is a little bit earlier than they recommend (as they change what they say every 5 minutes) but I felt she was ready and she gobbles it up like crazy.

Sleep: 4 month sleep regression can seriously bite me. Started early and is still going. Her sleep is honestly worse every night, thrown in with a 6 hour stretch every once in awhile just to give me a tiny smidgen of hope. Goes something like this: 630pm: bath, feed, snuggles, singing. Put her down, she cries, eventually she nods off, wakes up like 10 minutes later. Repeat for like 4 hours. Finally get her to sleep. Watch one episode of show, go to bed, she wakes up between 1-2, feed, will not go back to sleep, laughs like she really enjoys my under eye circles, I bring her into bed with us, she passes out until 5-6. Seriously. It's horrible. I know babies can be challenging but I always thought if I worked at it, she could be a great sleeper. She's like "No, thanks, Mom, I'd rather keep you on your toes." 

Milestones: 

*Rolls over from back to front in the blink of an eye. Has no interest in rolling the other way, even though she did it at 11 weeks. 

*Holds toys, grabs EVERYTHING in her reach, hair, clothes, doctor's stethoscope, whatever. 

*Giggles, smiles and laughs are the best. 

*She definitely is starting to recognize faces, she smiles so big when Leigh gets home and loves all her family members.

*She's starting to babble and make different noises, according to my Wonder Weeks app it's because she's using consonants instead of just vowels.
*Is very strong, has such a tight grip. If you try to help her sit up, she will just stand up instead. Not interested in sitting, just standing!

Clothes: Still in 3-6 months thankfully, I hope that will last awhile! She still has a bunch of cute outfits she hasn't gotten to wear yet since we were so busy with the move.

Diapers: Just bought a box of size 3.

Likes: She's generally a very happy girl. 

*She absolutely adores Layla, she smiles so big around her and Layla will come up and give her little tiny kisses. 

*She loves going for walks, whether in the ergo or stroller. Any books or toys that are bright colours. 

*She absolutely loves having baths, I put her little whale tub in the big tub and sit there for 10 minutes just pouring water over her belly and she is so happy. 

*She loves music, especially wheels on the bus. I also sing to her (even though I suck) every night before bed, I wanted to have one bedtime song so I sing "A Dream is A Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella every night before bed. Usually like a hundred times.

Dislikes: Sleep.

Baby gear we love: I'm still using the magic sleep suit, and it definitely helps keep her snug and cozy. We are loving having her room all set up and can't wait to finish it off with her curtains and some shelves. Also we are using our Ergo TONS! It's so perfect for quick little walks to take Layla out. Also sometimes if I really can't get her to nap, I pop her in and she's usually asleep within minutes.

Things I don't want to forget:

In the middle of the night when I crack and bring her into bed with us, she gets so happy. I never wanted to co-sleep but when she is nestled in between us (not the recommended co-sleeping position but it works best for us) she sleeps with one hand reached out touching Leigh basically the entire night. Melt. It's not what I want to do long term, but I can't say I even remotely mind waking up with my whole family in my bed (Layla included). 

Looking Forward to:
We are just enjoying being in our own little pad, even if our little princess is giving us a serious run for our money in the sleep department. The weather has been nicer the last few days which makes me look forward to summer of course!