Sweet Dreams

Last night Eva slept through the night!!! Unless you have had a baby and can relate to getting up in the middle of the night to take care of them every night for 2 months straight, you have no idea how happy this made me. We put her down around 11 PM and she slept until just after 7 AM! That is a whole 8 hours! Of course I still woke up a few times out of habit but I was mostly able to roll over and keep sleeping. There were a few, "Is she still alive????" moments, but I decided to trust that she was rather than disturb her wonderful slumber. I don't expect it to happen again tonight, but at least it shows me that one day it will probably happen again. I was so happy to see her this morning that I gave her a million hug and kisses and told her what a wonderful baby she is (okay, I do this every morning, but I was really, really happy). Sweet dreams.

2 Months Old

Dear Eva Kate,

You are 2 months old today! I'm pretty sure that you grew over night in your crib when we weren't looking. Each day with you is SO.MUCH.FUN. Here are some of the fun things you've done this past month:

* You smile!!! I love your cute baby smile. You definitely recognize Daddy and me. You always smile the most in the morning after you eat. You are also starting to make some baby giggles too. Today I was playing with you and I made a joke about something ridiculous and you laughed. I know it wasn't in response to my joke but it was so funny.
* You kick your feet to make splashes in the bathtub. It makes tub time more messy but more fun!
* You can roll from your back to your side, usually your left side. We are going to have to be careful where we put you now.
* You are learning to push your head up more during tummy time. You still don't like being on your tummy very much unless you are laying on us.
* You sleep in your crib most of the time. Ever since we started putting you there after your 1 month check up it seems to be the place you sleep the longest. I miss having you in our bedroom at night but everybody sleeps better this way and thankfully your room isn't far from ours.
* You usually only wake up one time during the night to eat. I will enjoy sleeping through the night one day but I don't mind spending time with you at 4am. Or 2am. Or 5:30am. Whenever.
* When we put you in your swing you either fall asleep or laugh. We're not sure what you're laughing at. There is a little green and white stuffed bug that hangs from your swing. We call him Mr. Wiggle Worm...maybe he makes you smile.
* You eat every 3 hours during the day - still nursing :)
* You recently found your ear and hold onto it often. At first I thought you might have an ear infection but you don't cry or seem to be bothered by it. I think you just like having something to hold on to.

We don't know your height and weight yet, but we will be going to the doctor next Monday for your check up and to find out how you've grown. We love you, sweet baby!

love, Mama

Family Day: Picnic

Today for our family day we decided to take Eva on a picnic to the park by our house. I love our family days and it is important for us to find an inexpensive way to get out of the house together. Since I stay home with her and Ryan does about 50% of his job from home (planning, studying, administrative tasks, etc.) we like to find something out and about to do even if its just walking around somewhere. Isn't it interesting the difference between spending time around someone and spending time with someone? Even though we are all together often it is different to be doing something together. We made a Walmart run before hand to pick up a few picnic essentials (sandwich for Ryan, salad for me) and right as we were walking back to our car it began to rain. Thankfully it was just a few sprinkles and we were able to sit under the covered area and enjoy our lunch together. I love my family!

Eva and her bear this morning. I love her smile!

Saturday Morning Flashback: Getting bundled up to walk over to Chick-fil-a breakfast at our apartment clubhouse. Her sweatshirt was still pretty huge but super cute.

Thankful for... November!!!

November. It is a fabulous month that bridges the gap between the newness of fall and the merriment of the Christmas season. Here is my list of things I am looking forward to the month.

1. Eva Kate will be two months old on Tuesday! She gets more fun every day and is full of smiles and almost giggles right now. I want her to stay little but I am thankful that we've had a healthy baby for almost two whole months!

2. Only two weeks until my November 19th - my 28th birthday! Time to get my dancing shoes on and get ready to celebrate.

3. The Elf watching season officially kicked off on November 1st. Eva and I watched it for the first time of the season yesterday morning when I woke up and saw that it was 35 degrees outside. Elf is one of the few movies that I can quote and when I watch it I just smile the whole time. "I love smiling. Smiling is my favorite." - Elf

4. The Christmas tree goes up. Our wonderful huge tree will be staying in storage at my mom's house again this year, but our smaller tree is a perfect fit for our apartment. I have already put up the small tree with lights because I enjoy the warm glow of the lights on cold evenings. We officially decorate it for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

5. Christmas music. You have to ease into this one. If you start off listening to it all day, every day, you will be exhausted by Christmas. However, there is no reason to withhold on listening to these joyful melodies. It gets me in the holiday mood, and Thanksgiving is a holiday.

6. Thanksgiving. I love being thankful. I love being with family. I love hand turkeys. It's such a good holiday that we actually celebrate twice.

7. Pumpkin pie. My mom makes the best pumpkin pie in the whole entire world. Really. You should come to our Thanksgiving to experience it.

8. Zucchini. Or rather, zucchini squares, which are sort of like zucchini bread but better. I use my grandmother's recipe and serving them to family reminds me of her. I still love and miss my Grammy and I'm thankful to continue this tradition from her kitchen.

9. Black Friday. I have actually done the whole 3 am craziness once before. I'm not sure if I'll be up for it this year although if I'm up feeding Eva I may just embrace it and lace up my shoes to stand in line. Or I might just take advantage of the early Black Friday deals for my shopping needs. I also enjoy reading the Black Friday ads and seeing all of the great deals even if its for things that I know that I will never buy.

10. Happy Anniversary, Cosby! November 27th will mark 6 years together since that rainy night he was rescued for the rough streets of Denton. I still love my puppy.

Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween! We had a fun family night with our little zebra. Of course she didn't start out as a zebra. I honestly hadn't planned on dressing her up at all. I don't know why, but I just hadn't thought much about it. I figured she was too little to care. I haven't dressed up in many years. Plus I am way too practical and didn't want to buy a costume for her to wear just around the apartment since our complex doesn't even have Trick or Treaters. This all changed around 5pm tonight. I saw a couple of other costumes that friends had put their babies in and all of the sudden I felt convicted. This was her first holiday. How could I not embrace it and dress her up in some silly costume? I asked Ryan why we hadn't gotten her a cute costume like all of the other "cool parents" and he reiterated that I am very, very practical. He also agreed that we should dress her up so that we had a cute photo for her baby book.

So at 5:30pm on Halloween we were cruising down the aisle at Walmart looking for a tiny costume. The leftover picks were strange and huge so I convinced him to make another stop at Babies R Us. We lucked out and they had one zebra costume left in size 0-3 months....for 75% off!!! It pays to be a last minute Halloween shopper. I also like that the costume is basically just a cozy, striped sleeper that she can wear again on cool fall days and not just tonight (oops...there is that practical side of me). We changed her in the store and headed to dinner.

We went to eat at Benihana's so we could use the awesome birthday coupon they sent Ryan before it expired. Did you know they have a birthday club you can join and get a free meal the month of your birthday? At another table there was a cute baby girl that was only 5 weeks old and dressed like a candy corn. Glad we dressed up our baby and didn't look like lame-o parents in public :) Also we would like to apologize to the other restaurant patrons that had to listen to our hungry baby cry while we tried to heat up a bottle in a cup of hot water. I'm sure that wasn't the kind of scary they were looking for tonight.

Time for this sleepy zebra to go to bed. Hope everyone enjoys some candy tonight!

Awkward Encounters

Don't you love running into people that you know out in public? I do.... Last night Ryan and I were at the Barnes and Noble in Southlake. We were casually browsing around when I saw Dr. Kindrick, my doctor that delivered Eva. There she was. Just out in public. Not wearing her scrubs. And on an escalator! I realized that she was quickly rising above us and luckily caught her eye just in time. I shouted out, "Dr. Kindrick!!! Hi!!!" She appears to recognize me. Then I added this clever line, "We have our baby with us!" In our stroller, covered in blankets. Smooth. She is friendly and responds, "It looks like you are all doing well," before disappearing into the oblivion of the 2nd floor. We have our baby with us. Why did I say that????? We were standing over the stroller - of course we had our baby with us. And it wasn't like she could see her and tell us how cute she was. I was just so excited to see this wonderful woman who helped me and brought my child into the world that I completely forgot to not be awkward. Ryan laughed at me and said that a better line would have been, "We don't know where out baby is!!!" just to see what her response would have been. So if you ever see me out in public and I make an awkward comment to say hello, please just smile back and know that I was overly excited to see you. Thanks.

Eva bundled up in her sweater to stay warm yesterday. I think she kind of looks like an old man sleeping in this position with her little sweater on.

Oh, precious baby. I hope I don't embarrass you too much as you get older :)

Mr. & Mrs. Bradley Go to the Dentist

I do not like going to the dentist. Yet to the dentist I went. My appointment was today and Ryan went yesterday. I had to get a filling redone from when I was much younger. I've actually had this same filling redone before. If I could go back and tell the 10 year old me to eat less candy to avoid going through this discomfort 3 times and spending my grown up money on it I would. I hate the awkwardness of the dentist. The scraping of your teeth. The smell of whatever it is dentists use. The way they inevitably ask you questions like, "So what is your life story?" while they are working in your mouth and couldn't possibly answer them. One day when Eva has to go to the dentist I don't know how I'll be able to make up a story that it is fun. Maybe I'll just promise her a reward if she agrees to be brave and not bite the dentist. After experiencing both, I can honestly say that I would rather go through childbirth again than get another filling. At least with childbirth you get a cute little baby. All the dentists gives is a free toothbrush.

Dislikes aside, I will say that our new dentist office is really great. That sounds ironic... I guess it's that I hate the procedure but the staff is awesome. When I went in today they were so friendly and talked to me all about my husband. Apparently he was quite the hit yesterday. They told me how funny he was (I know - that's why I married him). They told me the story of how we met on a mission trip and how much he liked me (yes, I was there and I remember it). They told me how happy he is to be a father and how he was looking forward to his daddy-daughter time with Eva while I had my appointment today. I'm not sure how Ryan had so much time to tell the dentist his life story, but I'm proud that he made such an impression. I'm proud that out of all their clients yesterday they knew and remembered so much about my family (they asked, "How is baby Eva today?") all because of Ryan's fun personality. Hearing about how great he was made me relax a little bit and it made my heart so happy. I'll probably even go back in 6 months for my next check-up.