Spreading the Happiness

Possibly one of my favorite things about parenting is the opportunities it gives me to make people smile.
I love going grocery shopping with her and having people stop me in order to smile at Papillon in the sling.
I love holding her during worship at church as she looks over my shoulder, knowing that the people behind me are making fun faces at her.
We have one friend, an older fellow, who loves playing with Papillon so much that if you let him hold her, he tears up with happiness. Literally. Its fantastic.

Recently, Papillon and I were able to get out and spread some happiness.
We visited Great-Nannie, which I think Great Nannie enjoyed very much.

Clearly Papillon also enjoyed herself.
She is usually quite the cooperative happiness-spreader.
Though from time to time, a grumpy face comes out:

Fortunately, even Papillon's grumpy faces have a knack for making people smile.

Spitting

This is Papillon's latest trick.

Sometimes when she wakes up from her naps, this is how she entertains herself until I come to get her up. Just spitting and spitting.

We are doing our best not to encourage it too much (lest it continue beyond the "oh that's so cute" phase), but it really is adorably hilarious!

Baby Love

Some times, at silly times, unexpected, totally unprompted times, it hits me.
It hits me like a ton of bricks. Only more pleasant.

I love this baby.

And when it hits me I feel overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed with love.
I didn't know it was possible to love this much.

And then I think, is this what God means when He says He loves us like we are His kids?
Cause that would be intense love, like whoa.
Cause I love Papillon with a love that fills my little, imperfect heart up to the almost exploding point.
Imagine a love that fills up a perfect, God-size heart to the point of almost exploding.
Like I said. Whoa. Intense Love.

In conclusion:
I love my baby.
I love that my baby is teaching me about God's love. It's cool how that works.

Llamas and Polka Dotted Hats

On a recent trip to visit my parents, we decided to take Papillon to visit the llamas at a local garden center. (Don't ask me why the garden center has llamas...it seems odd to me, but they do, and it works for us.)

They actually have quite a few llamas, 20 or 30 ish I think.
Llamas are rather funny looking.

Papillon was not terribly amused. They don't move much, so she wasn't sure what the big deal was.

The chickens on the other hand, moved a LOT. And Papillon loved them. They were almost as entertaining as Marge is.

On a side note, do you like her purple polka dotted hat?
I made that one. It is one of two of her polka dotted hats.

The other is this one which she got for Christmas from her Grandma.

Papillon loves hats. Or at least, I love Papillon in hats, which is pretty much the same thing.
Papillon also loves her Moby Wrap (in the picture above) which we can now do in a forward-facing-wrap so she can see the world as we go walking. She loves it. And I love how only her little hatted-head sticks out of the wrap. Super cute!

Fun with Family

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago I believe, but too cute note to post.

Here is Papillon in her "I heart My Auntie" shirt, which she loves, clearly.

Doing some tickle-crunches with her Uncle.

Making a tower with Nannie.

And possibly the most fun, cartoons with Grandpa. See how excited she is.

And then she yawns. Grandpa's napping skills are contagious.

Fun in the Snow

Last week we had another little bit of a snow around here and I decided it was time to finally get Papillon out in the white stuff and see what she thought of it.

Here she is getting bundled up:

Yeah. Not a huge fan. I like to think its because she didn't have a cute snow suit with ears like she (ok, maybe "I" is more like it) always wanted. But its probably because she is trying to tell me that her toes are going to be cold with only one pair of socks on. I didn't listen. Her toes got cold. Oops. Sorry, Papillon! (They recovered)

Papillon's reaction to the snow:

Pretty calm. She reacts quite calmly to most new situations. She likes to study it before forming any opinions.

Marge thought it was pretty sweet.

Subtly begging me to get her cold feet out of the wet snow.

It was short lived fun, but I think on the whole, she liked it.

Done!

On Sunday, Mon Amour officially graduated.
Complete with the 30 seconds of fame that comes with graduating as you walk across the stage and shake hands with some deans and such.
It was a momentous occasion.

Perhaps more momentous was the ordeal of trying to get out of the parking garage. Every friend and family member at graduation parked in one parking garage - and wouldn't you know it, the exit gates broke and would not let anyone out. The day was saved though when my mom and one or two other proactive individuals took charge and held open the gates to let people out. After an hour of sitting in the garage not moving, we all got out...and the poor garage lost a ton of money. Poor them. They willingly admitted fault though, saying they forgot to schedule staff because they thought graduation was next week. Ooops.

Anyway...

I am very glad Mon Amour has his masters; it was a good life decision I feel. But I am super excited that he is done!!

By the time we tried to get a picture of Mon Amour and Papillon, Papillon was quite worn out from the festivities. She really was more excited for the occasion than this picture suggests. (note the "I love daddy" shirt she wore for the occasion!)

Good work, Mon Amour!

Wardrobe Adventure: New Sweaters

I think I am a little behind on this wardrobe stuff, I do have some new additions to mention!

Over Christmas, I got a fitted fleece - $13.78 at Old Navy, woohoo! I now bum around the house looking slightly less like an oversized blue fleecey blob. I have yet to take a picture of said fleece...maybe someday.

Over Christmas, Mon Amour also got a pair of jeans. He was in desperate need of a new pair, and, after sales and coupons, they cost us $5.24. A steal for sure.

And he got a new pair of shoes for work - let's say they cost $59.36. Technically that purchase also included a christmas present or two, but we are going to throw all of that into the wardrobe budget, just for fun. (and cause I was totally expecting to spend way more than that on his shoes, so its still a deal!)

More recently (and better documented) I got these three tops:

The black and white ones are long - to be worn with leggings. And the other is just a dark green turtle neck sweater, nothing special, but a nice way to round out my winter tops.

Total Kohls cost: $39.84


The Cumulative Stats:
Total Spent to date: $301.65
Total # of items so far: 29
Average Cost Per Item Overall: $10.40
Total Left to Spent: $189.35

I know its past Christmas, when I hoped to be done with this wardrobe adventure, but we are close! Still looking for a few good deals, but thus far, very pleased with my new attire.

6 months

Look who's 6 months old! (yesterday)

We had our 6 month check up this morning, and her official stats are:

14lbs 7 ounces. 25 percentile
26 inches tall. 90 percentile.
Long and lean!

And happy, as evidenced by this picture with Snoopy.

Our 6 month check up was uneventful (unless you count the ridiculous number of vaccines eventful). Papillon was given a clean bill of health. The doctor was not worried that she was not rolling over; in his mind she just doesn't feel she has any place to go and she is totally sitting up, so she is fine.

The doctor did all kinds of tricks and dances for Papillon in an attempts to get her to react (gotta test those social skills!) but Papillon pulled out her best stoic face and was 100% unphased by everything he did. She wouldn't even take the toys that he offered her. The doctor told me that if ever he took up stand up comedy, Papillon was not allowed in the audience; she is a tough crowd.

Her right tear duct is still clogged, he is still not worried about that. Hopefully it will clear up soon so we don't have to have surgery to open it up. That would be unfun; but then again, all these eye goopies are also unfun.


At 6 months, Papillon....

....goes to bed between 730pm and 8pm and gets up around 7:30am. And no more midnight snacks!! That's right, Papillon is officially a 12-hours-through-the-night-sleeper! After Christmas we decided it was time to start encouraging less midnight snacks, so I fed her when she work up a first time at night, but we started to let her self-soothe if she got up a 2nd time. She took to it quite well, for about a week she would wake up that 2nd time and fuss for a bit (the longest was maybe 20 minutes, and it was never really hard-core crying, just sad fussing). Then, without any prompting from us, she suddenly cut out both midnight snacks! Last Tuesday night, she made small sounds at midnight, but before I could get up to feed her, she fell back to sleep, and I didn't hear from her again until 7:45am! And so far, no relapses! I loved our midnight snuggle times, and will cherish all 6 months of them forever, but a full nights rest is also wonderful!

....takes 3 naps. She is still a short napper. But, we've made it work, and at this point, if she does nap for a long time, it tends to mess up my schedule! Haha.


...sucks her thumb. Like whoa. All the time. She loves it. I think its adorable. And the thumb sucking and the 11-12 hour nights kind of happened at the same time, so, in case there is a correlation, I am not going to mess with the thumb sucking for now.

...eats every 3-5 hours. Still 100% nursing, since the few mouthfuls of "solids" we have tried to give her have definitely not gotten anywhere close to her stomach.

....wears mostly 3-6 month clothes, though starting to do more and more 6-9 months.

...is a bundle of fun. She loves her toys, loves to sit up like all the time. Likes to touch peoples faces, and wants to play with whatever you are holding. The camera, for example...

6 months, also a super fun age.

Marge and Papillon...a blossoming friendship

This first photo cracks me up. I dont know why, but I love it

Marge and Papillon hang out a lot.

They share some of the same interests (in this case looking out the window)

And they both love to be close to Mon Amour

They are going to be good friends

Friends

This past week we had the chance to visit with some friends of ours, and much to Papillon's delight, there was also a friend for her to visit with.

This little guy is as cute as ever! And super mobile! Crawling and cruising all over!

He was not sure what to think of Mon Amour. He grimaced (adorably) every time Mon Amour looked at him.

Papillon wanted to play, but couldn't quite keep up.

It was good times all around!

Studying and Sleeping

There are lots of new things starting up this week, and so, while we are figuring out this new routing, blog posts will be almost 100% pictures. Sorry to bore you if you are looking for words, but, if, like most of my readers (aka Papillon's grandparents), are just looking for pictures of Papillon, enjoy!


Papillon is enjoying studying at her desk (which is also her high chair, its a wonderfully multifunctional piece of furniture).

After a long day of studying, Papillon sleeps quite soundly at night....thumb in her mouth. Yes folks, its official, she is a thumb sucker. One day (like the day that she needs braces) we may regret it, but for now, its adorable.

"Solid" Foods

Last week we embarked on the great parenting adventure known as "solid foods".
Papillon is just a week shy of 6 months at this point, so we felt it was time to get started.

We donned a bib and got super excited!

Our first "solid food" was mostly breastmilk on a spoon. The recommended rice cereal to milk ratio for the first meal was 4 tablespoons milk to 1 Tablespoon cereal. It looked like milk.

Papillon seemed to know exactly what to do with the spoon. She would open her mouth... and close it around the spoon...

....make a funny face and drool it all down her front.

While I doubt she swallowed much of anything, I would consider her first meal a success.
Hopefully soon she will figure out that swallowing thing.