Mobile

Wanna see what I made? It's a mobile for Allie's crib. I got the idea here from Five Real Moms. Perhaps the season is not quite right anymore, but I love it too much to take it down, and Allie really likes it too, because the leaves flutter when the heat turns on. I just found a branch outside and hung silk leaves with string. I was originally going to do real autumn leaves, but I was afraid they would crumble into her crib and she'd somehow choke on them. You know how our mom imaginations work.

Getting rid of a neck

I've had success breastfeeding all of my babies, but only until they were about 6 months old. Then the milk dries up and I have to switch to formula. Which is fine with me, I'm not a huge fan of breastfeeding anyway--obviously it's the best thing for babies, but it gets really annoying. So I was getting pretty nervous when Allie got close to 6 months old because she would not take a bottle. In October we left her with my mom while we went to dinner and a movie and Allie totally refused to have anything to do with that bottle. In fact, she got really mad every time my mom tried to give it to her. But for a the past few weeks I've been really worried, especially since it was obvious she was not satisfied after each feeding. Then I was pretty sure she was not gaining as much weight as she should be. I kept trying to give her a bottle, she kept refusing. So I took her to the doctor, and unfortunately all my fears were confirmed. Here's what her growth chart looks like.
In the past 2 months her weigh gain has dropped dramatically.

He said she looks healthy, though, she doesn't look sick, but when he looks at her he notices she has a neck. Most babies don't have necks, just rolls of fat and double chins. He wrote "Failure to Thrive" on her file. Isn't it aweful?? He said, "I know it sounds terrible, all it means is she doesn't weigh as much as we want her to."

Plan A was to get her to east solids. So I went home and desperately tried to spoon feed her bananas, rice cereal, green beans, anything. She mostly just spits it out, though. And I was determined that I wasn't going to spoon feed her, I want to do Baby-led Weaning like my sister did with her baby. But that's a different blog post. I was so worried about her. So we decided to tackle the bottle issue. It only took one hour of crying, then she downed it! She was such a sad baby! Even after she drank it, for the rest of the day she was still a little heartbroken. But now she is eating like a champion. I think she's trying to make up for lost time, because she just keeps eating and eating. And her diapers! They are so soggy--she soaks through them in no time, she poops all day long, and she has a raging diaper rash. And I am so happy my baby is no longer wasting away.

We will get rid of that neck yet!

Christmas

I look so awesome. Allie got finger puppets. They're from Ikea, and the tags are bigger that the puppets, which Joey thinks is funny.

The ecstasy of opening presents!

The boys got the Legos they wanted, and loads of candy. Clark Griswald got his bonus check, Ralphie got his Red Ryder BB gun, the Grinch stole Christmas, then gave it back. And now it's all over for another year.

Some of my Christmas creations

This year for Christmas I got creative. It was exhausting, but fun. Next year I'll just start earlier, then I won't be up till 2 am every day for a week before Christmas. I got all the ideas from Pinterest, except for the bunkbed tent, but I just copied the pictures, so unfortunately I can't give credit to the creators. I was so excited to discover Pinterest just when I needed it!

Jason made this for Tyler. Very simple and easy, just magnets with paper glued to the tops, put in a metal gift card tin. The original used an Altoids tin. Joey made Jason this Angry Birds game. The blocks are cardboard taped together. They would have been way better looking covered in colored paper, but I was too tired. The pigs and birds are pompoms with paper faces, and the sling shot is popsicle sticks and a rubber band.

This is a Guess Who? game. We've had the original game for a long time, but the kids lost all the cards. On Pinterest I saw the idea done with presidents of the United States. Then I thought of using family members. You have to know the people to play, though. Like "Does he live in Idaho?" or "Does she have kids?" It's fun.

I loved this idea for headbands! Unfortunately I'm running out of space already.

This is the piece de resistance. The idea for the bottom I got from Sharon at This Thrifty House only I used a flat twin sheet from Walmart ($5). The idea for the top was from Ikea. They sell these, but it will only fit one kind of bed. So I made my own. Luckily my friend Darla had a crib tent that her kids destroyed (unlucky for her) so I used the poles and velcro from it. The boys love it!

Merry Christmas!

After a marathon of making presents for my kids, Christmas is finally here. I'll have to post my creations and the events of the day later, because everyone is still asleep. Santa has been here; I can see full stockings and Lego sets in the livingroom (not to mention Allie's extremely pitiful stocking. Jared's mom is making us new stockings, so you can understand why I was not motivated to make Allie one).

For quite a few years now I have made my mom a calendar with pictures of the kids. It's a fun gift that she enjoys. Because of budget cuts and lack of time due to having a new baby (can I still call her new after 6 months? Well it still feels new. And time-consuming) the calendar didn't happen. But I had a different idea. Hopefully a better idea. Because she loves my blog, and I feel bad that I don't post stuff more often for her.

So Mom, for Christmas this year I am giving you 100 Days of Blogging. From now until sometime in April you'll get something on my blog EVERY DAY.

For today I will leave you with a picture of your youngest grandchild finally wearing the dress that was supposed to be her blessing gown.I thought it looked cute with this red sweater Auntie Betty sent. And this smaller headband.

Merry Christmas!! I love you!

Tutu

For my mom, who loves naked babies in tutus. And this naked baby loves her tutu.

Six Months

Allie is 6 months old today! I can hardly believe it. Especially since she's still only 10 lbs. 3 oz. Someone I know just had a baby that was 10 lbs 4 oz. She is finally starting to grow out of a lot of her newborn clothes.
She is a very smiley baby. All you have to do is smile at her, and you get this adorable grin in return.She is getting happier, too. She was kind of cranky newborn. She has always been unpredictable; she doesn't sleep at consistent times, which annoys me. It used to drive me insane, now it's just irritating. She sometimes sleeps 12 hours straight at night, other times she wakes up a couple times. You just never know. Surprises around every corner!She can grab things and play with toys now, though she needs a blanket behind her in the exersaucer because it's way too big for her. She tolerates tummy time pretty well. She is not sitting or rolling over, and I don't see that happening any time soon.She likes the bumbo for about 5 minutes, then she tries to squirm out and gets herself into interesting positions. Her favorite thing of all is to stand. Her legs are really strong. We are working at getting her to relax and bend, because she likes to stay straight and stiff all the time. Joey was the same way, and he never crawled. And we don't want her to skip crawling like he did.

She's by far the most popular one in the house. We just adore her. And who can blame us?

Before Halloween late post

I know this post is a little late, but we had such fun times I wanted to do it anyway. This fall we went to our favorite pumpkin patch. When we first started going it was just pumpkins you could go pick yourself, and each year they add something better; hay mazes, a petting zoo, and this year a bunch of corn to play in. Too bad the pumpkins were really crummy and we didn't actually buy any. We got them from WalMart.

This little kangaroo or wallaby, we don't know which, came up to Joey and started licking his sleeve. A bunch of hay to climb on

The kids had so much fun playing in the corn. A week before Halloween my mom, my sister and my little neice, Catie came to visit. It was so awesome! They were here for a week, and we packed in a lot of fun. We made another trip to the pumpkin patch.

Catie played with a shoe she found in the corn. The corn gets everywhere! This is what Joey's shoes looked like when he took them off at home. I was vacuuming up corn for days after.

We got some dry ice so we could make a "witches brew" with kool-aid. Then we had so much ice left we threw it in the bathtub, which was really cool.

We had a full week. My mom took each of the boys to the toy store to get legos, we went to the nickel arcade, shopping, went to Cars 2 in 3D (where we discovered Allie and Catie are too young for movies), we ate lots of pumkin waffles with buttermilk syrup and made a couple trips to Cafe Rio. Jared and I went on a date to the Pizza factory and to the new Harry Potter movie. While we were gone my mom found out that Allie HATES bottles, and gets really angry if you try to get her to take one.

We just had the best time. Curse you, Idaho and Montana for coming between us!

Happy Hallowen

Jason was a ninja, which we borrowed from a friend, and would have been cooler if he hadn't lost his ninja swords, which we specifically bought for him for this costume. We were a little annoyed, if you can't tell. Joey was Darth Maul. His costume was kind of a fiasco, as it arrived just a few days before halloween ripped, with a broken mask, and 2 sizes too small. I taped the mask together and he wore black clothes, so it all worked out. I made Tyler's. He originally wanted to be "Dunkin" which is Grandma Moore's cat, but really I don't think you can buy just plain cat material. So he settled for being a "Wepard." He also requested that Allie be a baby kitty. Isn't she the cutest baby leapard? My sister added whiskers. Adorable!

Love the tail on the ruffle bum.

They had a great halloween, tons of loot, and the weather was perfect.

Moody?

The best picture I've ever taken

I have this friend named Katie, whom I love for so many reasons. One is that she posts on my blog, which makes me feel that someone (besides my mom) cares about it. Another is that she takes beautiful pictures of my family. This is a big deal to me. And she lent me a book called "How to Photograph Your Baby" and after 1 day I took this picture. I am so thrilled, I just had to share.

This is the original. All I did was put her in natural bright light, then take loads of pictures close up.

Then I used picnik.com to add effects. What do you think?

Sweater Dress

With the weather getting colder, I started checking out how to make Baby Legs. I met with success, maybe I'll post a picture later, right now the star of this show is taking a nap. In my internet searching I came across this sweater dress at Make It and Love It, which is basically the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I loved the tights! And had to have some, so I made a trip to Old Navy, and got the 0-6 month size. I want to know why they think that size makes sense. A newborn and a 6 month old are nothing the same. This is how they fit Allie. She's basically a newborn size.
Of course that wouldn't do. I had a brainwave--why can't I make my own "tights"? I made these babies out of women's knee sock. I can't get enough of them!! I'm the only one around here that appreciates them, though. The boys in this house think they're rather tacky. What do they know?

They were so easy to make. If anyone is interested, I'll post a little tutorial, just leave a comment.

She's worn them every day since I made them. After a really obnoxious trip to the thrift store, which I won't get into, I found a couple of sweaters. This is my first one. I haven't made the second, but it's going to have long sleeves like the one my sister made, also inspired by Make it and Love it. Having a girl is SO MUCH FUN

I made it a little too long. But it should fit her for a long time, I suppose.

Also, It's really hard to take a picture like this by yourself. Enough pictures, mom! I want a nap!!