Sprunger Grandparent Visit

For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to paint our kitchen cabinets this week when Grandpa and Mimi came to visit. It has been great to have child care when we work, but it also meant that the kitchen is out of commission and all the stuff from our cabinets had to go somewhere. So our dining room is overflowing and we hardly have a place to eat. Below Mimi is feeding Adde a meal in the midst of the mess. We also have to leave this mess for the entire week as the primer is supposed to cure for 72 hours. This project will never end!

You can see behind Grandpa and Adde that the cabinets are primed. More pictures will be coming as the project progresses.

7 Months

We celebrated 7 months this past Sunday. Here are some things that our little 7 month old is doing...

-Eating 3 meals of solids a day - large quantities according to mommy.
-Rolls from side to side to reach for items and can scoot around on her back for objects. Still refusing to roll to the belly.
-Can sleep for 11 hours at night, but often thinks she "needs" an early morning snack.
-Sits up for long periods of time to play.
-Loves to watch you make funny sounds with your lips and laughs hysterically.
-Is very alert to noises in her world. She stops nursing in the morning when she hears daddy turn water on, walk by, brush teeth, etc.
-Knows exactly what she wants and knows how to "ask" for it!
-Giggles and squeals at her puppy.

After more thought, here's a few more things to add to the list
-Talks all the time.
-Turns off light switches.
-Pull her socks off and chews on them quite frequently.
-Likes to sleep on her side, but turns herself around during the night to face the other end of the crib.
-Weighs 15 lbs. 4 oz. and is 26 inches long.
-Enjoys Baby Einstein when nothing else will work.

We love her to pieces!

Buddies

At least until Will wises up and realizes that Adde is a bully! Yes, it's true. Liz was concerned about putting Will in the stroller with Adde for fear that he might hurt her. I thought she'd be fine so we put them in together. Please note in the picture that Adde has her bird, rings, and nuk attached to her so she can access them at any time to be entertained. Also note that Will has his book nicely tucked away in the side storage pouch beside him. We start on the walk and hear no complaints from either of the kiddos and assume all is going well. We looked in and somehow Adde has stollen Will's book and is chewing on it. Poor Will has no toys, but does not complain about it one bit. We stopped later and I gave the book back to Will since Adde was well equipped with toys. A few minutes later, Adde is chewing on the book again. I really wish I could have seen how she repeatedly stole a book from a kid who is one year older than her.

Needless to say, the kids and moms had fun on our walk and played at the park too. After spending time with Will, Adde took a two hour and fifteen minute nap. At that point I was ready to volunteer to watch Will every morning for an hour or so in attempts to get a really long nap out of her. That offer is no longer on the table as Adde decided she was only going to sleep until 3 am this morning. I really don't think it was the long nap earlier in the day. I attribute it to the fact that it was so hot in our house because it was 85 degrees here yesterday. Mark didn't think it was worth turning on the air conditioner for one day, but as Grandpa Sprunger pointed out, it would have been worth it.

One more funny story about the 3 am wake time. We are still in bed trying to ignore the screaming baby. She had just been fed and should be back asleep. At 4 am, Mark decided to go put the nuk in which only makes her scream louder. On his way back to bed, our neighbor's dog is trying to escape from their backyard, which is right beside our open window. The dog is very loudly trying to rip his way out of their chain link fence. Mark yells at their dog to stop, which causes Titus to start barking. So at 4 am, we were serenaded by a screaming baby, escaping dog, barking dog, and my laughter at the entire situation.

Bananas

Is it normal for a 6 month old to eat an entire banana in one sitting? Well, ours did in addition to a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning. Apparently bananas are a hit. Addelynn is also starting to be more involved in the eating process. She wants to get her hands involved - maybe a good thing, or maybe not. But for now I'm letting her be involved in hopes that she is "learning" to feed herself. What she enjoys doing is grabbing the spoon, putting her hands in her mouth, mashing food chunks on the tray, and pulling her bib up to her face to lick off the food scraps. Today she started banging her hand on the tray as well. You will see all these things in the video. Mind you, she had already been in the high chair for 25 minutes before I even started filming. Eating time is a positive experience for her most times (at least until the wet cloth comes for cleaning her mouth). The video is quite lengthy, but I thought you might want to see what feeding time is like in our family now.



After eating an entire banana, I believe the little lady had a bit of a sugar high. She was going crazy laughing at her puppy. I have honestly never seen her that animated before. The video is toward the end of her "crazy spell" so she is much calmer than she was at the beginning.

Progress

Just an update to "brag" about our baby. Mark and I had a long date night on Friday night to go see a Sugarland concert. Adde had her first paid babysitter and did FABULOUS! The babysitter had her for about an hour before putting her to bed and she said she wasn't bad at all and went down great for bed. We were so proud. Apparently I need to take lessons from the babysitter as she put Adde down at 7:30 and we didn't hear a peep out of her until 6:30 the next morning.

As I am typing this Adde is in the midst of a long nap...right now it's been one hour and forty minutes. That is another sign of progress. We are finally starting to have some type of schedule again. Up between 6-7am (would love to push that back, but she's proven to be an early riser), first nap between 8:30-9 lasting 45 minutes, 2nd nap around 12 noon lasting at least 1 hour and 15 minutes (or longer), 3rd catnap around 4-5, and to bed around 7:30pm. That's our day.

Now I hear some squawking. An hour and 45 isn't too bad.

Capris

We are loving the weather here this week. Every day has been in the upper 60s and I think even hit 70 today. Adde had to sport her capris for the first time this season. We have been outside 2-3 times each day - in the swing, going to the park, or taking a walk/jog. I discovered that Adde actually enjoys one piece of playground equipment at the park. She is getting to be such a big baby. When we came in from our jog yesterday, I got a drink, Titus got a drink, and Adde wanted to join in too. She took multiple sucks from her sippy cup. I thought it was adorable that she needed to rehydrate as well. Getting pushed in the stroller is apparently hard work.

Easter

Yes, a few days late, but I finally got around to taking some pictures with Easter eggs and her basket. Actually I did not buy her basket until last night since Easter things were on clearance. I think we're all ready for next year. These pictures are not exactly my best work. The camera was not cooperating with me and the memory card filled up in the middle of taking pictures. Adde was not exactly patient during that delay. I was too lazy to go in the crawl space and get out the normal white backdrop. The towels I used instead show a big line between the two...oops. And as always, we had a breakdown during the pictures when she fell over, pulled the basket with her, and ended up tangled in the basket. What an adventure.

Adde spent her first Easter up north in Mora, Minnesota. She got an Easter basket from our good friends' parents and grandparents on Easter morning. She just wanted to eat the books inside the basket. She also got to take a really long ride in her backpack that day and squealed with delight the majority of the walk.

Swinging

Can you tell she loves her outdoor swing? This was the first day I've put her in it. The weather today is gorgeous and we are hoping that the cold weather is now over for the season. I think she will love being outside this spring. Yes, you might be wondering why she has a hat on and no socks. Well, we lost her socks while getting the mail and I did not notice until she was back in the swing. I found them out by the mailbox.

Perhaps I should have sanitized? Nah...it only makes her tougher.

Thankful

Mama is thankful for Baby Einstein videos, socks, lion toys in the exersaucer, and dogs - all of which provide great entertainment for the baby. And she's thankful for her milk chocolate M&Ms too. She bought these for monster cookies, but they won't make it into the cookies.


Yes, she did laugh and squeal through the entire 30 minute movie.


Wished I would have caught her earlier because she was laughing much harder at Titus. We were in the kitchen making baby food and I didn't have the camera. She has already eaten all the food I made when the Rohrers were out two weeks ago.

The movie is over. Can we play it again??? Surely we need to watch all the credits.

What We've Been Up To

First of all, sorry that there is no picture to post. I don't think I've even taken a picture this week. Soon I will need to shoot some video as Adde is doing two "noteworthy" things - almost rolling over (she is soooo close and flops all over the place) and making the pooping face. Here are a few other things that she's been doing this week...

• Went out for her first stroller ride while jogging. She seems to really like this stroller because Titus runs right beside her and at her level. I can hear her laughing randomly as we go about the neighborhood.
• She is crazy about her daddy right now. As soon as he comes in the door from work and she hears his voice, she starts looking around until she finds him. She also screams when he leaves the room and has screamed on occasion when Mark has passed her off to me.
  
• Adde is on a new sleeping regimen. I was getting tired of the short naps and waking up several times at night. After discussing our game plan on Sunday, Adde had a fabulous day on Monday...pretty much by the books. I thought it was just because she was afraid of my "threats" of leaving her in her crib to cry it out. I thought the new plan was going very well until today (which is just day 2 :)) when she had another crazy sleeping day. The good news though is that she can put herself back down in the middle of the night without any parental intervention and can fall asleep after losing her nuk without screaming for hours. Progress, progress.
• She still laughs at Titus more than anything else in the house. She has started to pet him, but ends up with handfuls of fur because she likes to grab. Let's just say we wash her hands more often now.
• She's been eating like a champ/Rohrer/Sprunger. She eats "solids" at three meals. Today she had cereal and pears at the first meal, sweet potatoes and peas at the second meal, and cereal and squash at the third meal. And these are not small quantities either. I'm not sure where it all goes.
• The stand up toy is a big hit. She can hold herself up for a good minute (sometimes more) if she wants to.