Food and sleep, what else?!?

Dear Life,

It's been awhile. I know. I have just been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Seriously. Why do I do this? It's summer. Summer is meant for sipping a lemonade sitting by the lake with your feet in the water and a floppy hat on your head. Right?? Emberly's got the idea... since coming home from Colorado last week, we spent the day in Jamestown with Jordan's family at the lake AND a day at the lake with some fantastic friends of ours.

Well... like I said, since updating last, Emberly and I went to Colorado. Again. This time for a family reunion in Breckenridge. It was all kinds of fun with my 24 family members in one house. Emberly wasn't quite as willing of a passenger on the airplane this time. She just has this little movement bug that gets her going all.the.time. She cannot stop. But on the way home there was a saint of a lady sitting behind us that played peek-a-boo with E for more than half of the flight, I kid you not. People - if there is an unwilling baby-passenger on a plane and you are near them, take note from this lady and be awesome. The mother will love you forever.

So anywho - we spent most of our time in Breckenridge at the cabin we were staying at and let others do the outings like climb a 14,000 ft mountain. Yeah... E and I sat that one out. We did go on a nice little 3-4ish mile hike one day though and I considered that a fantastic accomplishment.

Now we are home again and I am absolutely loving the fact that we are finding our "normal" again. The nap schedule has been seriously lacking and that makes for a very tired mama and a very tired E. Do you have any suggestions for making a child take longer naps?? E is really good at 30-45 minute naps and she is absolutely beat by the end of the day. I have recently figured out that naps need to be at the same time every.single.day for little E's mind, body, and soul... and that seems to be helping. I also just let her cry for a good 7ish minutes when she woke up too early from a nap and we are now going on an hour and a half which is all kinds of amazing. Maybe I need to do that more. Other suggestions and advice are always welcome. {Have you noticed that 93% of my blog posts are about sleep and food for my small child?? I have yet to figure out why children don't come with manuals. I will ask God about that when I get to heaven.}

Speaking of food... E is over baby food. She is onto table food 100%. The only problem is that she has a terrible gag reflex and often forgets she's eating and lets the food just sit in the back of her mouth...

I won't go into the rest of the details. You probably get the picture.

But let me just say that it's kinda frustrating to feed your child little tiny bits of watermelon for 35 minutes while saying "chew, chew, chew" to have them take one more bite, gag a little, tip their tummy... and it's all in vain. Ei!

So since I'm in the buisness of asking for advice, if you had any solutions for me for that, that'd be kinda awesome. I cut the food very small, give her one piece at a time, wait until it is chewed and supposedly swallowed, have her take a drink between bites if at all possible...

I'm at a loss. Tell me good baby finger healthy foods too while you're at it. (Please. I don't mean to be bossy.)

Ok I think that's all for now. I have 10 month pictures floating around my camera somewhere... but she'll be 11 months in a week. Call me lazy, but I'll probably just post them both together.

That's all!

Molly

P.S. All of the pictures below were from our trip to Colorado and were taken by my amazing cousin, Lydia of Lydia Thomas Photography. :)

Double Chocolate Chunk Granola

Dear Life,

It's 8:39pm and here I sit at my computer, musing over the day instead of picking up and putting away (that might be an understatement of what needs to be done... but you can't see my house so I guess I have the right to stretch the truth just a little). I am eating this divine double chocolate chunk granola {why have I never discovered this before??} that probably negates the run I just did in the million degree heat that is still outside at 7:00pm. (OK it's probably not a million degrees... but I guess I'm into exaggeration tonight.) And I guess since I'm confessing my exaggerations, I should admit that my "run" is actually more of a "jog" at best... Jordan and I are doing this program called Couch to 5k where we do increments of jogging and walking and it gets harder each week and then at the end of 9 weeks or something like that you can magically run a 5k without wanting to fall over dead. We are on week 4. I'm not convinced that I won't fall over dead at the end... but I'm giving it my best shot anyway. My lack of physical exercise, other than carrying around a 22 pound baby all day of course, is slightly embarrasing to me... and something needs to be done about it. There. I said it. (And it feels kinda safe to admit considering I haven't quit yet and we are on week 4. Maybe I'll actually finish it.)

Do you feel like I'm rambling? I guess I am. Did I mention that this double chocolate chunk granola is sooo good? It is.

Anyway. I have a 10 month old now. I haven't taken her 10 month pictures yet, because, well... I can't find the month stickers. You see, Mr. Wonderful and I have decided to pack everything we possibly can into the month of July (and June... and August for that matter) and we've hardly been home. While we are home, we've decided we'd like to carpet our bedrooms upstairs. (By "we" I really mean Jordan... but I try to look helpful.) So our house is in total shambles, but we have one room done! Our bedroom has the most glorious fluffy carpet in it and I am in.love. Does that seem old-ish? To be excited about carpet? Probably. But I'm embracing it. We had laminate flooring in every bedroom upstairs and it was just so cold. And un-bedroom-like. And Jordan and I like projects. So he watched some you-tube videos on carpet installation... rented some tools from Rent-all, and went at it. Isn't that awesome?? I think so. (Especially because it looks really good.)

Want to know my favorite part of today? This morning Emberly got up at 7:00. She was super tired and ready for a nap by 8:45. I crawled back into bed for "5 minutes" and woke up at 10:15 when she did. That is amazing for two reasons. 1) Emberly does not take hour and a half naps. 2) I don't either. But it gets better. Jordan went in and snagged Emberly after her nap and took her to Lowes with him. Cute daddy/daughter date, right? They were gone until 12:30, which means I got to shower, get dressed, fix my hair, clean the bathroom sink and tub, wash last night's dishes, put away some laundry, AND water my flowers. Uninterrupted. I even shaved my legs. Bam.

So Emberly climbs stairs now. Wanna know how I discovered that little trick? Well... I was throwing some laundry in the washer and set her down by the stairs. Wrong move mama! Came back and she was three stairs up. So the rest of the day we climbed stairs for exercise. I'm not kidding. I think we climbed up them 15 times yesterday. Never got old to that sweet child of mine.

Emberly also has developed this sweet little desire to crawl away from us as fast as she can in hopes that we'll chase her. She giggles and laughs and face-plants into the floor because she is so excited and her adrenaline is pumping so fast. Yesterday when I scooped her up after hitting the floor with my hands behind her and saying "I'm gonna get you! I'm gonna get you!" her little heart was pounding so fast and she was just squealing with delight. Have I mentioned that I just love her?

But seriously... isn't she too young to throw things on the floor when she decides she doesn't want to eat them or when she's done with something? She does this all the time. Intentionally. And then looks down at the floor to see what she's dropped and says "oh-oh." Yeah. Oh-oh is right.

Speaking of eating... today we made some progress. She isn't much into table food, but will now eat most baby food I feed her. She loves yo-baby yogurt. Loves. She'll also occasionally eat some toast or bread, and she really likes crackers (puffs, goldfish, graham crackers). Today she ate part of a cooked carrot, a bite of a piece of potato, and half of a raspberry. Moving up in the world! She won't put most foods in her mouth, but she is speedy quick to put carpet remnants, grass, paper, dirt, and anything else she shouldn't in her mouth. Makes sense, right?

Ok I know this is getting really long, but I have two more things to tell you. Jordan and I have been reading this fantastic book on parenting given to me by my lovely sister-in-law for one of Emberly's showers. It is absolutely just rocking my world, and it is not even in an all-parenting way. The book is called Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick. It is just absolutely God's perfect timing that we've started reading this now, because He has been preparing my heart and mind through our sermon series on Colossians at River City and through my time in the word and through a million other conversations too. I am just sooo completely blown away by the newness of the Gospel. In a deeply sinful way, it just became kind of "old hat" to me and I started thinking "yup, heard that before." But the thing is, that Christ DIED for me, because I needed a Savior. A rescuing Savior because I cannot.do.it.on.my.own. I am NOT good. I try really hard and I start to think that I have things all sorted out... but I don't. I never will. And the thing is, that I need to start thinking about everything in light of the gospel. Parenting. My marriage. What I eat. How I spend my time. All that. I like to think that another to-do list and more rules will help me just do better. Without Jesus it is not possible. Without Jesus it is like living under the law, not in the freedom I've been promised. Anywho - it is just blowing my mind. I'm sure I will have more on that another time. Just wanted you to know.


Ok last but not least, here are a few pictures completely unrelated to this post. Emberly swam at the lake for the first time this last week on our little family vacation...

Sincerely Yours,
Molly

P.S. Do you think there are bad consequences for eating too much double chocolate chunk granola?? Hmm...