You know your baby isn't sleeping through the night when...

You fall asleep on the display couch at Target

(he really did fall asleep for a good 20-30 minutes)

Ever since Kensie was born getting adequate sleep has been nearly impossible. She has not been a good sleeper since day one. The first two weeks she had her days and nights mixed up and was waking every 1-3 hours. Once we got that taken care of she started waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and wouldn't go back to sleep for an hour or two. Then at about two months she reverted to waking every 1-3 hours at night. Over Christmas break, she started sleeping for six hour stretches! I thought we were through the worst of it. But the last three nights she has woken up every 1-3 hours. The all familiar cycle. Just when I think things are getting better she reverts to her crazy sleep habits.

I know that not getting much sleep comes with the first couple months of parenting but it is really frustrating when I talk to people who have babies Kensie's age who are already sleeping through the night. Not to mention I'm tired of being tired.

We don't ever let her sleep in our bed. I don't nurse her to sleep. Rarely do I rock her. But here are our problems.

She has slept in her bouncer since she was a month old because she wouldn't stay asleep lying flat. Now I can't get her to transition to the crib. Our other problem is the binky. At once it was our best friend and suddenly it is our enemy. She can't go to sleep without it and wakes when it falls out. You would think I could have foreseen this problem right? It hasn't been a problem until recently. Until now, she would fall asleep with the binky and once she was asleep she would spit it out. Our other problem: crying it out. It has been hard to stay consistent with crying it out because she gets really gassy. When she is gassy she cries indefinitely. So...how can you overcome crying it out if you can only be consistent when her tummy isn't hurting, she isn't sick, you're not on vacation, etc.?

I thought this would all be a lot easier trying to get an infant to have good sleep habits. It sounds a lot easier in the books. Turns out it is much harder than I thought.

Needles to say...I'm hoping for better sleep in 2011.

Merry Christmas

Here is our Christmas card a few days late. I'm not quite ready for Christmas to be over so this is an attempt to drag it out a little longer.

We just returned from our trip to Washington for Christmas! We had an extra special Christmas this year since we were able to spend it with our newest addition, Kensie. We hope you had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a Happy New Year!

Little Miss Niel

I mentioned before that the first thing our doctor said when she delivered Kensie was, "She looks just like her dad!" Babies change so much as they grow, but Kensie still looks a lot like her dad. People tell us that all the time. We were going through pictures and found a picture of Niel at two months old.

Kensie and Niel both at 2 months old

Ummm...Yeah. I'm pretty sure Niel is her father.

Two Months

Yet again, one month behind schedule...don't judge.

Two month stats:

21 1/2 inches long (10-25th percentile)

10 lbs. 9 oz. (25-50th percentile)

37 1/2 inches head circumference (10-25th percentile)

She started smiling and cooing more often

She developed a double chin and chubbier cheeks

Her eyes appear to be turning blue

Her hair is wavy!

She is cooperative with wearing bows now:)

Around seven weeks she got over the colic stage. HOORAY!!!

She loves to be held...ALL the time

She wore newborn clothes until seven weeks

She LOVES baths

At her two month doctor appointment, my doctor scolded me (in a nice way). He told me my baby is parenting me and that I need to start parenting my baby. He told me I need to let her cry more and let her cry herself to sleep.

During and right after her shots she cried really hard. She wanted to be held all afternoon and would do little whimpers that were actually pretty adorable. She slept great the rest the day and was more mellow than usual. Overall the two month shots went a lot better than I thought they would.

"Koala-ty" Award

One Friday afternoon we were getting ready to do the usual furniture shopping trip (see post below). Niel was assigned the duty of getting Kensie in the car seat. When I sat down next to her in the backseat I beheld the cutest thing. First of all she had this little koala bear stuffed animal I had never seen before perched on her lap. But even cuter, she had her hand rested on it like it was her little buddy! She kept her hand on the koala the whole car ride!

I asked Niel where the bear came from. He responded briefly, "Work." I had to prod him a little bit more to find out why he got a stuffed animal from work. He told me he won the "Koala-ty" award. I chuckled. It wasn't until later that I found out why he received the award. Apparently a patient wrote a letter to the orthopaedic group praising Niel. He didn't seem to stoked about the stuffed animal but at least Kensie liked it:)

Furniture Shopping

Moving from a one bedroom, 800 square foot apartment, to a 2,600 square foot home has required us to do a lot of furniture shopping. By 'a lot' I mean basically every piece of furniture one would need for a house. Our place looked bare and we were anticipating about twelve people coming to stay with us for the baby blessing. We felt an urgency to get furniture; especially a couch and a dining table. Once Kensie was three weeks old we started our journey of furniture shopping. Our Friday nights, Saturdays, and sometimes weeknights were consumed by shopping in an attempt to get a table and couch by the time our company came.

Furniture shopping (or shopping in general) wouldn't be so complicated if I didn't have some very annoying shopping quirks. I drive myself crazy (and my husband) for the following reasons:

1) I hate paying full price.
2) I like to see all of my options before I make my final decision.
3) I tend to be very indecisive
4) I frequently experience buyer's remorse and return things

5) I am very picky

We have been to about fifteen different furniture stores all around the city of Las Vegas (reference point #2). Some of which we have been to multiple times (point #3). We returned our couch and re-bought it (reference #4). I wished we hadn't re-bought the couch after returning it (reference #3) We bought and returned two area rugs (point #4). And we currently have an entertainment center that we have paid for but have delayed delivery because I am not sure if I want to keep looking or not (point #1 ,#3, & #4)

As if my pickiness and indecisiveness doesn't make furniture shopping hard enough, we have done all of this with little baby Kensie. I have nursed and changed diapers in furniture showrooms numerous times. Below is a story about just one of the many furniture shopping adventures I have had with Kensie.

One day imparticular I decided to brave furniture shopping on my own while Niel was at work. Kensie was about five weeks old. I packed a lunch, armed myself with a fully loaded diaper bag and headed across town. After one store I had to feed Kensie in the car and change her diaper. After being inside the second store no more than fifteen minutes I had a crying baby and had to leave. Since I was already on the complete opposite side of town I was determined to hit up the RC Willey outlet while I was there. After that stop Kensie and I were exhausted. I put her in the car and hoped she would be able to make the 35 minute drive home before having to eat again. Five minutes into the car ride she was screaming at the top of her lungs. I knew I couldn't take that for another half hour so I pulled over to feed her. Just as I was about to put her back in the car seat to head home, she pooped her pants. The thought of doing another diaper change in the car didn't sound too appealing. Especially since she has a tendency to cry, pee, and poop as soon as I open her diaper. I was anticipating her cry as I laid her down awkwardly on the seat of the car and started to change her diaper. I was pleasantly surprised when instead of crying she looked happy that I was changing her diaper! It was a warm, sunny day in Vegas with a breeze and I had the door open. I guess she liked getting her diaper changed in the open air. I was so shocked by her pleasant response to the diaper change I had to take a picture. After returning home from that five hour shopping trip, I vowed to never go furniture shopping again by myself and the baby.

So...did we ever get a dining room table and couch in time for our visitors? Yes and no. We finally picked out a dining table and went to order it. We were informed that the table we wanted was on back order for another two months. The couch we bought was supposed to arrive the day before all of our company arrived. And it didn't come. So there we were. After a month of religiously furniture shopping with our newborn baby in an attempt to get a dining room table and couch for our guests we were unsuccessful. Instead, our guests enjoyed eating at a fold-up table and sitting on folding chairs. It didn't end up being all that bad in the end. In fact, it probably ended up being better that we didn't have brand new furniture since we had about ten of our nieces and nephews here.

Lesson learned from this experience: Haste makes waste when furniture shopping.

Auntie Kristin

Niel's cousin Kristin came to visit shortly after we moved into our new house for a week. She was our first visitor! Kensie loved all the attention she received from her. I had lots of things to take care of with my swimsuit business while she was here that involved going downtown to the ghetto part of Las Vegas. I'm so glad I didn't have to take my baby with me to all of the germ-infested city buildings by freemont street. I have been so blessed with all of the help I have received from family since the birth of Kensie. It isn't easy living in a different state from the rest of our whole family. I couldn't have imagined doing everything without the help I have received from family as a new mom AND moving.