"Deck the Halls"

Each time I sing this song, I think of our days in Madrigal, when our choir teacher would yell, "It's deck the HALL" each time we would add an "s."  I guess it interrupted the flow of the song.  Anyway...most of the world sings it with "Halls" as a plural word, so I will follow suite.

The Christmas tree is UP!  It was so fun putting it up with Carly crawling around it, picking ornaments off, feeling the tree and being mezmorized by the lights.  We put ornaments she could play with at the bottom and each day she takes them all off!  It's her first Christmas and it will surely be a delightful one!  I remember thinking last year when I was uncomfortable, ugly and very pregnant that I just couldn't imagine what life was going to look like one year later.  Let me tell you...life looks amazing.

Carly and I had the Josh Groban Christmas CD playing and little smokies cooking on the stove top when Brian arrived home from work.  We had plugged in a scented air freshener and Christmas spirit was all around us.  We put up the tree, strung the lights, ate dinner and then hung the ornaments.  It was really fun and I know it's only going to get more exciting these next few years.  What a blessing children are always, but especially during the holidays. 

Here is our little miss crawling around in the lights:

Of course she looked so precious I had to put her in her Christmas dress and pose her for a photo shoot.  Unfortunately my skills are not refined enough on my camera to take a cool picture with bright lights while also being able to see her face.  I need to google a tutorial on that particular skill.  Oh well, here is my best effort.

And some pictures of her, looking sweet as always:

She looks like a total Stubbs in this picture

As you can see, there are no little pearly's poking through those gums yet.  I wonder if this girl will ever get teeth!?

At some point we will get a shot of all of us under the tree, but here is miss Carly showing off her work!

I am also on the hunt to find the same stockings I got for Brian and I 3-4 years ago.  Why didn't I buy six or seven of them just to cover my basis?  So for now this pretty white stocking is a stand in for C.

MERRY CHIRSTMAS!!!  Wish we could see you all for the holidays!  It's not too late to hop on a plane and come see us. ;)

"Give Thanks to the Lord..."

This week has flown by!  Between the Thanksgiving celebrations and no sleep we've been running in circles all week long. Praise God for a very chill Monday!  So far Carly and I have slept in (I'll get to that), played, had a heaping bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, mailed our Christmas cards, went shopping and read books.  When she wakes up from her nap we will go for a run and play outside.  My kind of day!!

We have much to be thankful for this year.  I've actually been posting something to Facebook everyday.  Reminding myself of how much we've been given lifts my spirits when I'm down, and especially sleep deprived.  So it's been a good excersise.  But more on that later.

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice this past week.  First, we had a potluck with a group from church.  We had loads and loads of incredibly delicious foods all on the patio of one of our friend's clubhouse in their neighborhood.  It was a little chilly but not bad.  I did end up finding 17 misquito bites on my arms from my short sleeve t-shirt though!  Yikes!  I didn't take any pictures so I don't have any to share except for one that Karalea took.  Carly LOVED crawling around the table and as we all went around and shared what we were most thankful for, she would crawl to whomever was speaking.  Pretty sweet.

Thursday morning I went to work and gave everyone I saw a hug and thanked them for working!  A co-worker had made pancakes so we feasted on those and then DTD had a lovely Thanksgiving meal for everyone who was working, so I helped serve food as well.  Three Thanksgivings ago when I worked my first major holiday I was in tears, but this year I was in high spirits and full of hugs.  I think I'll be the same way when I get up at 5am to head to work Christmas morning. 

After work I met Brian and Carly at our "soon-to-be-hope-to-be" new house!  I actually haven't announced this on the blog yet, or told many friends for that matter, but it was part of the day so I'm including a photo.  I will explain why it's a "soon-to-be-hope-to-be" house another time. :)

After taking photos of the house, we had a lovely meal at Todd & Brenna's.  Our story with the Nelson's goes back to our first year at Iowa State when Brenna was a grad assistant in New Student Programs and then she performed in the Music Man with us.  She was the one who convinced us to move to Florida and her and Todd literally welcomed us with open arms and started us on the right foot.  Truth be told we would have never gotten into management so quickly without her networking advice.  I thank God for the Nelson's all the time!  They even let us move in with them for 2 weeks when we were homeless because we hadn't closed on our house yet.  So...this was our third annual Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time catching up with them! 

Oh what a week it's been!  Carly has been waking up at all hours of the night all week long and we've tried everything to get her to go back to sleep but she just wants to be awake and playing!  It's funny, because here is one of the messages from Baby Center this week: "Don't be surprised if your sound sleeper suddenly becomes a night owl or has a hard time falling asleep at this age.  Why?  Sleep disturbances often go hand-in-hand with reaching major milestones in cognitive and motor development and with separation anxiety.  Because your baby is refining and expanding on these skills, your baby may wake up at night to practice or be too excited to fall asleep.  If you baby can't self soothe back to sleep, she will end up crying for you."  This is exactly what's happening with Carly.  So when she actually slept a normal night last night for the first time in a week, and slept until 8am instead of 6am without wanting to play in the night, her daddy and mommy woke up thankful!  :)  Baby Center also mentions separation anxiety and goes into detail about it and they hit that one on the nose, too.  I'll talk about that tomorrow, though.

Lastly, Brenna took some family photos of us on Thanksgiving and they turned out alright.  So I thought I'd share those, too.

Happy Thanksgiving (four days late) and I hope you are all in Christmas mode like the Weiss trio is!

"I Can See the Fingerprints of God When I Look at You" {9 Months}

Carly has officially been outside of my tummy longer than she has been inside!  It's strange to think that I've known about and loved her for a year and a half already.  The second leg of the 18 months has been one thousand times better than the first! ;)  She is a miracle and a blessing...definitely Heaven sent and I don't think Brian and I could love her more.  She's, according to the doctor, "practically perfect in every way."  It's so neat to think that my body has sustained her life for so long, and even more amazing to know that God has knit her from something too tiny to be seen by the human eye to the beautiful little girl she is becoming right before our eyes. 

Let me show you a glimpse of what Carly is up to these days.

• She's always, always loved playing in the mirror, but this month she has figured out that she's not just looking at another baby, but that she's looking herself!  She likes to wave her arms, give herself a "kiss," smile and even cry while looking in the mirror.  Sometimes we will think she is upset and she will turn around and essentially, say, "I'm fine" and then look back into the mirror and flash a sad face.  I think she is just experimenting.  We moved my $10 Target mirror from our bedroom into the living room that she always has a mirror to play with!
• She LOVES being mobile!  This month as really been the best as far as her being happy goes.  She will play for a good half hour, sometimes longer, all by herself!  She likes to know we are in the room, and preferrably on the floor, but she often times doesn't interact with us a whole lot.  Of course we do plenty of playing together, but it's so wonderful that she can finally be content on her own!
• Her new favorite food as become cheerios and she can down a quarter cup in no time at all.  She only eats a few foods pureed these days and often times feeds herself.  She can essentially eat anything but nuts and honey at this point.  Oh, and of course no straight cow's milk yet, either, although she has had a spoon of cereal a few times when Brian or I is eating one.  
• She touches and explore everything.
• She can play the piano by herself and often asks to be placed on the bench.
• She enjoys playing in the bathroom and will crawl to one of the two bathrooms often throughout the day and bang on the door (since we have them closed to protect her).
• We decided not to do sign language with her expect when asking for more food.  She took the "more" sign as clapping, so now she will clap for more food; which is better than the banging on her tray which she was previously doing.
• She says "mama" and "dada" all day long without really attaching meaning to it.  When asked where one of us is, she can answer the question by looking at us.
• She understands A LOT of what we say.  An example is that every morning I ask her to crawl over to my night stand and bring me my glasses.  She does just that and will bring them over to me and drop them on my chest.  I shower her with thanksgiving and she gives me the biggest smile!  She is SO proud of herself that it's become a game throughout the day.  She will take my glasses off, wait for me to ask for them back, and deliberately drop them in my lap and wait with anticipation for me to put them back on my face and thank her for being so kind!  It's pretty sweet!
• She responds so well to positive encouragement, and I could give you many examples of her not wanting to do something, finally giving in and because I praise her for it will continue to do it.  She loves the term, "big girl!"  
• She is in the beginning stages of feeding herself with a spoon.  I often give her the spoon and help guide it to her mouth.  Oh my it makes her so happy!
• She is on the verge of standing up all by herself and frequently has both hands and feet flat on the floor, but doesn't have the balance to come up to the standing position quite yet.
• Plus she can do any and all things previously mentioned in past posts.  There's really too much to tell!

Carly has fallen into an overall child-directed schedule, which as many of you know, was not my plan until I threw my hands in the air about 3 months ago and gave up the parent-directed scheduling.  She thrives on deciding when she will eat and nap and although the times vary each day, it is relatively consistent.  I can't believe it's taken 9 months to get on a good schedule and truth be told its still not predictable. About 3-4 times per week she will actually take a nap longer than a half hour (YIPEE), but the other 3-4 days she just takes two, half hour naps.  Here is the rough outline of her day-to-day:

5-6am: Wake up,nurse & come and sleep with mommy
7-8am: Wake up for the day (since the sun comes up earlier, she tends to wake up closer to 7)
9am: Breakfast (oatmeal, cream of wheat, pumpkin, cheerios, etc)
11-11:30am: Nap
12ish: Nurse
2ish: Lunch (too many options to mention, but often still pureed veggies like sweet potatoes or peas)
3:30-4ish: Nap
430-5: Nurse
5:30: Snack (cheerios, cheese, puffs, bread...)
6:30: Dinner (she eats what we are eating most nights)
8: Get ready for bed
8:30-Sleeping

Pretty good if you ask me!  I am so thankful for the days she spends an hour napping...in part because it allows me to get stuff done but also because she's just happier!  In that schedule is also a nice mix of playing, reading, cooking, errands, play dates, walks, jogs, music time, and snuggling!

We have once again gone to the doctor for a wellness check up and one shot (which she did very well with).  Hold onto your pants...because Carly weighs a whopping.........15 pounds, 10 ounces!!! *note the sarcasm*  She is the daintiest baby between the history of both of our families, but she checked out wonderfully.  The doctor said she had the prettiest blue eyes he'd every seen and the nurse chimed in saying, yes, she is a photographers dream come true!  So funny!  They both affirmed that it's good to be dainty as a girl, and said she remains in that 20th percentile.  She has also grown to 27 inches from head to toe.  Long and lean...I hope she gets to be long and lean for the rest of her life! Statistics predict she will be 5'6'' as an adult...but we all know those are often times a bunch of bologna.

I love that we've been able to take such great photos of her month to month.  This month shows that not only does she refuse to lay on her back, but she also won't lay on her tummy!  I tried setting her down and she immediately wanted to crawl right off! Good thing daddy was home to help me with the pics this month!

Carly, you are the most amazing and beautiful person I have ever laid eyes on!  Thank you for loving us so much and letting us love on you!

"Just Another Day in Paradise"

Have I mentioned before that I LOVE being Carly's mommy?  We have the best time together and I am absolutely delighting in watching her explore our home from a new point of view.  Her favorite place is the piano, and as you can guess Brian and I are thrilled with that! :)  I've been able to practice a little bit of parenting with her as there is a lamp plugged in right next to the piano that she likes to touch. I very gently explain to her that she cannot touch it.  I try to reserve the word "no" for very important situations, so I keep telling her that it's dangerous and when she takes her hand off of if I praise the heck out of her.  I also explain that if she touches it one more time that I am going to come over there and take her away from the piano.  She thinks its a game.... But anyway, look what she figured out she can do all by herself! Makes my heart SMILE!

She can also be found singing just about anytime music is played (car rides are super fun these days).  Not a week goes by at church that someone doesn't comment on her jubilant dancing during the worship.  She loves it so much that it has become my ritual to take her to the nursery after worship is over, and pick her up after communion, so she can worship with us at the end, too.  One of the many things I enjoy about our church...they are not judgmental at all and it makes no difference to anyone if I am coming and going as I please.

My favorite part of the day remains when my little girl wakes up and we get some snuggle time in bed.  Every now and then she will sleep for 10-11 hours, and of course then she is up for the day, but 6 days out of 7, she wakes up after sleeping 8.5-9 hours (about 5:30am) and she falls asleep while nursing, allowing for some snuggle time until she wakes up a couple of hours later.  Speaking of which, she adores nursing.  Sometimes, she hangs out for a half an hour, long after her food is gone, just because she enjoys the snuggle time.  Many nine month old babies show disinterest in it, but not this little dear.  I think it might be my favorite 4 times of the day.  Besides nursing, she also loves to eat...especially when she is in her highchair feeding herself! 

Last week I could barely keep up with her food needs, but this week she hasn't eaten near as much.  Last night, though, for the first time, she ate the same meal we had!  Chicken salsa and black bean tortillas with rice and cheese!  Yum yum!

Besides eating, Carly can frequently be found in her stroller while we go for a jog and then she loves to crawl around the driveway chasing the ants once we are done.  Her hand/eye coordination is very good these days...she's picked up/killed quite a few little ants!  She also likes to pull the weeds in the cracks of the driveway.  When she puts those in her mouth I gently swat her hand away and explain that it's "icky" but of course she also thinks that is a fun game.  Makes me giggle.

Notice her stocking cap (68 degrees)

 I'll also add a photo of what I get to see each time she wakes up from a nap.  The first time this happened it melted my heart:

There is so much I could write about, but I will save it for next week when I write her 9-month post.  She's quite the gal.  I really do love being with her and cherish nearly every moment.  The first few months of her life were really tough on me, and I continued to struggle with being content (as I have mentioned in previous posts) but that has gone away now.  It's interesting to me, because nothing has changed, yet I'm so much happier.  I suppose she you could say she is much easier, which certainly helps.  You could also argue that because I only close about twice a month vs. three times per week has helped my sanity...I was exhausted to the point of being irrational many weeks.  You could also say that I feel a lot better about how I look, fitting into nearly all of my pre-pregnancy clothes, which helps my self esteem.  But I think it boils down to maybe I actually had some postpartum stuff going on.  I was really unhappy for a while, and although I was enthralled with my beloved little girl, I never felt content.  After a very stressful trip to Iowa two months ago, I broke down and finally confessed to Brian my feelings of hopelessness and discontent...and from that MOMENT on I began feeling much happier.  Maybe I just needed my prayer warrior of a husband to be seeking God's comfort right a long with me.  And since that day, it's truly been paradise for me in this stage of life.  I really couldn't be loving it or her more! 

"Happy Birthday to You"

Happy Birthday to Brian!  He is now a quarter of a century old.  I came home from work late on Saturday night to the birthday boy sleeping on the couch and when he woke up the first thing he said was ,"I feel old!"  Haha...we're really very young, I wonder how he'll react when he's not in his twenties anymore...

We've had a nice time celebrating Brian this week...in fact, I'd say we've spolied him rotten!  Because we knew we wouldn't see each other on his birthday, the celebrating began last Wednesday (I love birthdays!).  Carly and I decided to surprise daddy with a family golfing trip!  It was quite windy out, but overall a lovely day.  We all hopped in the golf cart and cheered daddy on for...wait for it...18 HOLES!  That's right, Carly and I stuck it out for his entire round.  Combine golf and Brian's two favorite girls, and he is pretty much in paradise.  I think the smile on his face says it all!

Carly also enjoyed the soft green grass of the putting greens.  Nearly each hole she would crawl to the hole and wait for Brian to putt the ball to her.  It was pretty sweet.

After golf, we met up with some friends at EPCOT to enjoy the Food & Wine Festival before it ended.  It was a lot of fun!  Our favorite country is Canada, but we also really enjoyed Japan this year.  The Belgium waffle is always a must-get, and the ravioli in Italy is pretty tasty, too.  I think Brian really enjoyed his Polish Sausage as well.  I even stopped in Germany for a bag of Werther's Caramel Popcorn (not part of the festival, but absolutely delicious!).  We didn't make it past Germany because it got too late and we had to get Carly home for bed. We keep meeting other people with babies under a year...so we had three babies in the group!  It's pretty fun. :)

Brian was also spoiled this week because I encouraged him to eat out every night that I was at work (I put no budget on him, but we have mutually agreed that we only eat out once or twice a month).  He chose to have Chinese (twice), Subway and a pizza (I guess that makes 4 times...plus F&W is 5...sheesh!).  I don't eat any of those things with any regularity (I've disliked Subway since I was 14...I have to be in the right mood to eat it...Chinese is more sodium than one needs to consume in a week, and pizza is delicious but highly caloric) so it's a treat for him to get to eat like "crap." 

Last night after Brian got off work, we concluded his birthday celebration by going to Magic Kingdom to see the lights on the castle.  So. Beautiful. 

Carly also enjoyed the "Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It" parade!  I couldn't believe how THRILLED she was to be dancing with Donald Duck.  These photos are priceless!  She doesn't even know who he is yet...but he was certainly giving her all the attention because she was waving her arms and legs and just shrieking with excitement!

We also got a super cute picture of us in our matching outfits. :)

Well that concludes this year's birthday celebration for Brian.  Happy 25th! 

"The Flag Still Stands for Freedom"

It's Election Day! I keep telling Carly she is witnessing history in the making, but she doesn't seem too enthused.  She does like to look at that TV, though!  It's not usually on during the day, but I figured I keep it on today just because it's fun to see all the commotion!  Anyway, I woke up this morning being grateful that I was born in America.  If you've been to a third world country and experienced orphan after orphan begging you to take them to the United States, then you understand the extent of gratefulness I speak of.  Obviously, I want Mitt Romney to win tonight, but even if he doesn't, I can be fairly confident that our freedom and prosperity (I know it's rough in the United States, but it doesn't compare most of the 20 countries I've visited) will remain intact no matter what president we have in office. I'm incredibly thankful for that.

Anyway, our little girl is on the move!  I am just delighting in watching her gallivant around the house.  I still can't believe she's crawling.  Completely on track developmentally, but it still amazes me.  So, I thought I would share a few videos with you!  The first one is a short video I took this morning of her crawling from her bedroom to the living room.  If she is wearing shorts, she prefers crawling on the tile, and if she has pants on, its easier to crawl on the rugs.  She is so stinking precious! :)

And...if the election doesn't go your way this evening, then hopefully this will put a smile on your face.  These were taken one following the next (I can only upload a video if its 50 seconds or less from my iPod, otherwise they would be one long video)...she was playing along the bar stools while I was watching the ISU game on Saturday and I cheered at one point for them and she started "fake" laughing.  It's pretty hilarious...but that's the context if you're wondering why I shout, "Go Cyclones."  We really can't figure out if this is just how she laughs or if she's pretending.  Anyway, enjoy!

 I also wanted to share a photo I snapped of Carly and Brian.  Remember this precious photo I posted of me and Carly when she was 4 months old?

Well...now her and Brian have an almost identical photo 4 months later!  We'll have to frame them side by side. :)

Happy Election Day, everyone!

"Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke HOI HOI HOI!"

For those of you who have been to any Oktoberfest or Disney's Biergarten Restaurant at EPCOT, you are probably quite familiar with this song.  For those of you who haven't heard it, my understanding is that it's a German beer song...but I'm not real sure what it means...and Google wasn't extremely helpful.  At any rate, they chant it frequently throughout the meal at the Biergarten.  Well...the reason it's the title of this blog is because that's where we dined on Tuesday evening!  Brian's dad has been in town all week (left yesterday), and as a true German, he enjoys eating at the Biergarten!  Brian and I also love the atmosphere and the food. In fact, I think we have dined there more than any other restaurant on property!  It never lets us down and even had options for Carly!  She had her first taste of a pretzel roll while we were there! :)

Each of us also had a turn dancing with Carly while the music played.  She was the center of attention on the dance floor...surrounded by children who gave her hugs and kisses.  It was pretty sweet.

Before dinner, Rich was kind enough to snap a family photo of us.  I've tried to get one each month and so far have been successful!

And...after all the excitement of dinner, our little peanut was worn out and very peacefully fell asleep in Grandpa's arms while he carried her at least a mile and a half back to the car. :)

We had a really nice time with Rich here.  He worked with Carly on crawling and everyday she gets a little better.  She can essentially get anywhere she wants to these days (she found some dust underneath the piano a few days ago...yuck!).  She was a happy girl while he was here!  Tuesday he met Carly and I at Celebration and played at the splash pad, toured a daycare facility with us, and took us to dinner, Wednesday he helped Brian with some projects around the house and Thursday they came to visit me at Downtown Disney for Earl of Sandwich and my favorite ice cream sundae at Ghiradelli! It was fabulous that they came...and being that it was my mid shift for the week, it made me feel like I actually got to see my girl that day.

I'd say that pretty much wraps up a very fun week!  Happy November, everyone!