7 Months!

Finally starting to catch up! I’m so glad that I kept up with Olivia’s baby book and monthly updates so that I am able to write these!

Weight: 18lbs, 0 oz – She seems to be gaining about a pound a month now! She’s in the 70th percentile for weight!

Height: 27 2/3 inches – She’s in the 88th percentile for height! We have one tall girl!

Milestones: She crawls backwards now, but still can’t quite seem to propel herself forwards and crawl in the traditional sense. She loves to scooch around on her bum now and will roll herself if needed, but she is getting so quick at just scooching along on her tush! She started giggling even more too! She loves to play peek-a-boo and turned into a little octopus. Anything within arms reach is automatically in her hand. We’ve had to do some major baby proofing! She loves to splash now and loves the pool! She starts swimming lessons next month and I’m so excited to take her every week! She’s been chewing on everything in sight, but we still don’t see any teeth!

Here are some pictures from our seven month photo session! She’s sporting one of her new headbands and I love it on her so much! She doesn’t leave it on for long though, lol.

Seven months old! Still loves her feet!

Our beauty bug!

She is so mischievious!

I just had to post this one because she looks SO much like me in this one. I wish I had some of my own baby pictures here so that I could post a comparison. Maybe I’ll grab one the next time I’m at my parents’ house!

 

 

 

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Six Months!

Oh my Lord, I am so far behind on these posts! Livi will be ONE in 3 weeks!! I feel horrible that I’m so far behind, but I’ve been spending all my time with Livi, so it was for a noble cause. I promise to catch up in the next few weeks.

Weight: 17lbs, 0 oz

Height: 27 inches

Milestones: Livi is SO CLOSE to crawling. She rolls onto her stomach and pushes off with her feet, but she just can’t quite get her arms in the right position. She loves to scooch around by putting her face on the ground and using it to push off, lol. She loves to blow raspberries and even does it in her sleep. She still hates to nap, but her sleeping has gotten a little bit better. She is also giggling like crazy! Everything is so funny to her. She LOVES Kirby so freaking much, but he is still terrified of her! He runs away from her as soon as she gets close. She still loves her feet and chews on her toes every chance she gets. Still no teeth though! She loves the bath tub and loves playing with Daddy when he squirts ducks at her. She’s also learned to sit up on her own. She learned it so fast too! One day she couldn’t do it and the next she was sitting there by herself for minutes at a time! She also loves to scooch around on her bum! She uses her arms to pull herself forward. She’s not very fast yet, but she can at least get around.

Here are some pictures from our six month photo session! She is getting to be so big and so smart! She has such a great sense of humour and a great laugh!

Big smiles!

Livi Baby!

Trying to escape Mommy’s camera!

Sitting like a big girl!

Five Months!

Bah! Of course I’m super behind on these posts again. Livi will be SIX months on Saturday. Where did that time go? She is getting to be such a big girl. She’s going to be on the move any day now and she’ll need me less and less from there on out.

Weight: 15 lbs, 10 oz

Height: 26 and 1/4 inches

Milestones: Rolling ALL OVER THE PLACE! I can’t get her to stay in one place. She is also SO CLOSE to crawling. When we put her on her back, she immediately rolls to her stomach and starts kicking her legs. She wants to go so badly. She smiles ALL THE TIME now, but is still very selective with her giggles. The one surefire thing that makes her laugh is throwing her in the air (not high at all and always over the bed). She plays with her feet the second you take her socks or her sleeper off and loves to chew on her hands. We think she is teething, but no teeth have popped through yet. I think it will happen any day now though. Her cheeks are rosy, she’s really fussy (especially at night), and she chews on EVERYTHING. She is getting so much better at sleeping now too. Half the time she sleeps through the night from 10 to 7 with no wake-ups. The other nights, she wakes up around 4 or so for a bum change, but goes back down fairly quickly.

Here are some pictures from our five month photo session! She is getting so big and beautiful!

Livi’s First Baby Food

Livi’s been having rice cereal for almost a month now, but we gave her actual baby food for the first time last night. She wasn’t a huge fan, but it was the first thing that she’s ever really had with any taste. She’s only ever had rice cereal and breast milk. The faces she made while eating the sweet potatoes were priceless!

Not a fan!

Still adorable, even with yams all over her nose!

My little cutie pie!

Livi’s Online Shopping Spree!

Old Navy had an online sale last week, so Livi and I went a bit crazy! We got a whole bunch of onesies and a bathing suit for her (finally!). We got mostly 6-12 month stuff since she’s almost out of 3 month stuff and most of it is to be worn in the summer (which I am SO EXCITED for!). I can’t wait to put her in them!

New sandals for the guppy pool!

Finally found a one piece bathing suit!

A couple t-shirts!

A new cardigan! Seriously, is there anything cuter than a baby in a cardigan?

Daddy’s Little Cupcake!

I love my Mommy!

World’s Best Baby!

I love my Doggy! Olivia is seriously in love with Kirby. He’s not so fond of her (she pulls his hair because she doesn’t know better yet and he runs away from her, lol).

Headband Crazy!

After Livi went to bed last night, I might have gone a little bit headband crazy on etsy. My current favourite shop is SnuggleBugsBowtique and I ordered five headbands for Olivia. As you can tell, I have a huge affinity for the three little roses headbands at the moment.

Olivia isn’t really big on headbands right now, but hopefully she will be this summer since I just bought her all of these. I can’t wait for them to arrive!

Pink and White

Love these colours together!

Blue, Pink, and Yellow

Blue Roses

Aqua Hydrangea – So Beautiful!!

2013 Reads

I decided to set a more realistic goal for myself this year in terms of my reading. Last year, I set the goal of reading 36 books – basically 3 a month. What I didn’t account for though was being pregnant (and thus, completely exhausted) or getting a promotion that changed my hours and took away a lot of my reading time. In 2011, I set the goal of reading 20 books and completely blew it out of the water, so I thought I would increase it to 3 a month for 2012. I didn’t even come close, lol. Not a big deal, but a bit disappointing when I saw it in writing on my goodreads account (Feel free to add me if you also have an account!). Reading is still definitely one of my favourite things to do, but I find myself reading a lot more children’s books these days (our current favourites are “Not a Box” and “Counting Kisses”).

For 2013, I plan to attempt to read 1 book a month. If I can surpass this, that would be awesome, but I’m not going to commit to something that I don’t think I can fulfill. Livi is such an active and alert baby that she doesn’t leave much time for reading until she’s in bed and that’s when I clean!

I have a whole bunch of books that I’ve purchased, but haven’t read yet and Tyler also bought me a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas that I’ve been reading a bit on every night.

So far on my list, I have the following books:

The Essence by Kimberly Derting (ALREADY DONE! YAY!)

Boundless by Cynthia Hand (Started and close to finishing!)

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Maze Runner by James Dasher

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Dead Silence by Kimberly Derting

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Divergent #3 by Veronica Roth

I also plan to finish the Baby Center book I’ve been going through as Livi develops and hits different milestones, as well as the Good Night, Sleep Tight book I’ve been reading about sleeping routines.

As you can see, I have a wide variety of interests when it comes to reading. I like teen fiction, biographies, and historical fiction. I’m also a big fan of mysteries and dystopian novels.

What books do you plan to read in 2013?

Introducing Baby Ryan!

There has been another addition to my family! My sister Rachel gave birth to a gorgeous little boy last night!

Ryan James Robert Murrell was born February 18th, 2013 (ironically, this is the same birthday as his sister Jennifer and his Aunt Kelly) at 11:28pm. He weighs 8lbs, 13oz and is 21 inches long! He has dark blue eyes and a full head of brown hair. He has the squishiest little face! I just love him to pieces. Livi kept staring at him and didn’t seem to know what to do with him, lol. She is officially not the smallest baby in the family anymore!

I can’t wait to see him again and snuggle him in. He is so tiny! I love him!

Ryan James Robert Murrell

Don’t Blink

My little girl is already five months old… Where did that time go? Didn’t I just find out that I was pregnant? Where is my little newborn who was so helpless and immobile? Where is my little snuggler that used to fall asleep in my arms just sitting with me? Where is the little girl that I used to try to coax into smiling for the first time? Where did that time go?

I can no longer blink. I feel like I’ll close my eyes for a second and my little girl will be 12 months and learning to walk and talk. 2 years and riding a tricycle. 4 and starting school. 13 and going to high school. 15 and going on her first date. 16 and learning to drive. 18 and going off to University. 25 and getting married.

I swear that I was just 16 years old myself. Where did the last 10 years go? Wasn’t I just starting University? Didn’t I just get married?

I am so afraid that I’m going to close my eyes and wake up one morning and my little girl is going to be moving away from home.

I know that the best way to make sure this doesn’t happen (or at least I don’t feel like I blinked and missed everything) is to live life to the fullest and do as much with my little girl as possible, but it’s still scary.

Does anyone else feel like this or am I totally off my nut?

Saving for Olivia’s Future

There’s been a lot of things going around lately (especially on Pinterest) for ways to build up your savings. Now that we have Olivia, saving for her education is at the forefront of my mind. She already has about $700 saved up, but I want to make sure that we can save as much as possible for her.

Recent studies have predicted that the average semester of University will cost around $12000 in 2030. Seriously??? That is so beyond ridiculous!! And that includes Olivia living at home. It’s predicted that a 4-year program will cost around $95000 if she lives at home and $150000 if she goes away for school (I already told her that she had to go to school wherever we live because she’s never allowed to move away from me – she smiled, so I took that as a “yes,” lol).

The Canadian Government currently gives us $100 to assist with childcare, but we won’t need it for that purpose so we’ve been putting it away for her every month. She also has some money that she got from the baby shower my work threw for me and that some relatives gave in lieu of gifts at the baby shower.

I’ve been trying to find some sort of plan that works for us. So far, I’ve found two, but I’m not sure about the first one. I don’t pay with cash all that often, so I don’t know if it will be as effective as the second plan. I think that I will do the second plan electronically if we choose that one. I’ve already opened up a savings account for Olivia that is attached to my account so that I can just transfer the $100 in each month.

Olivia also has an overabundance of toys and clothes (we even have clothes up to size 4 that we got from a very generous co-worker that are like new), so we will be asking family to contribute to her college fund at Christmas and birthdays instead of getting her gifts.

Every time you get a $5 bill, you put it away in the jar. Once you have $50 or $100, you take it to the bank and put it in your savings account.

Pretty self-explanatory. I may do this in reverse or start it now so that it’s not $50 a week in November and December when we’re going crazy with Christmas shopping.

Has anyone tried either of these? Any other recommendations or savings ideas?