'Tis the season to be merry!!!

David's parents came up and visited us last weekend from College Station, TX. We had a wonderful time! We ate brunch at 501 Cafe, which is one of our favorites. Then we went to the mall for some Christmas shopping. Then during Paige's nap, we opened presents and drank wine and just really enjoyed their company. We then went with my mom to Red Rock on Saturday night. My dad is still recovering from shoulder surgery, so he had to stay home.
David's sister, Carolyn, also came!
Paige and some of my workout friends took our babies to meet Santa!!! I was so worried that Paige was going to cry through the whole thing! But she didn't : ) She was FASCINATED with him though, and never looked at the camera.

David and I feel very blessed this year. Paige is a gift from heaven and has brought us a kind of joy that we never knew was possible. I hope all my blog friends have a wonderful holiday season with the ones that you love : )

My busy bee

Just hanging with my bug on a Tuesday! Tuesday nights are girls night in. David is in grad school and is gone until 10:30 every Tuesday. Stinks big time!!! We were going to head to a party tonight, but little miss is still pretty snotty and I just didn't want to get her out in the cold.

Not much to say about Paige except that she is into anything and everything! She hasn't met a remote/iphone/blackberry/digital camera/set of keys that she doesn't need. Right now. When I am in Target, it is so much easier to just hand her my keys and let her suck on them. I'm sure you are thinking...GROSS!!! But it is better than a screaming baby : )

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. It is coooool here in the 405! Bundle up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In her Thanksgiving dress.
Loving the grass!
It is getting so hard to get good pictures of her! She is never wanting to sit still!

LOL - perfect example of trying to get a good picture of her!
Our stockings!! From Pottery Barn Kids. I love them so much!
Our holiday set-up : ) We have never decorated for Christmas before. We always went out of town. But we are staying here this year and decided to get a real tree! It smells amazing. I am so thankful to have a daughter to celebrate with this year.
Speaking of...our little bug

Hoping Santa brings us some good stuff this year!

We had a nice Thanksgiving with my family. A great start to the holiday season! I have been working on addressing my cards and hope to get them out next week. I need to get a jump on shopping too. I need ideas on things to get my bug! I am thinking a play kitchen from Pottery Barn Kids. I know she won't be into it now, but by this spring she'd love it!

Fall in pictures

My girl loves the swings. She just loves having the wind in her face and likes me to push her pretty high!
Fall family photo shoot

I love her so much

My precious girl
With my cute husband
Silly bug playing in the leaves
Beautiful girl
I love her sweet face and her big beautiful lips. I am so very blessed!!

Long over due update

As you can see, I have opened up my blog again. I had a hard time there for a while deciding what to do with it. When I first started this, it was an infertility blog. That is all I knew. Then it was a pregnancy after infertility blog. Then a parenting after pregnancy after infertility blog. And it had started to morph into a thinking about being pregnant again after parenting after pregnancy after infertility blog. So you can see where I was having a little confusion : )

I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). It is a disease of the ovaries that, among other things, keeps you from ovulating - thus making pregnancy impossible without intervention. And intervene we did. Paige Madeline was conceived via In-Vitro Fertilization, after many failed cycles of clomid and injectables. Some people say that pregnancy can re-set your body in a way. After I stopped nursing Paige, something happened to me. I started cycling on my own, which I had never done before. I had some 33, 34 ish day cycles. It was incredible! So we decided to try on our own. It hasn't worked, and although it has only been 3 cycles, I find myself getting upset about it. I realize that Paige is only 7 months old and I am crazy for even thinking about another right now - but this is just how my mind has been trained. It has become obvious to David and I that this isn't going to happen for us. My cycles have stopped again (or so it appears). I called my OB and asked for a prescription for birth control. Why? Because I am sick of thinking about it. I just want to enjoy my daughter and not obsess. Uggggh. I filled the prescription and it is sitting un-opened in my bathroom. It could sit there until May when we go back to our RE to try IVF again. Or I could open it tomorrow.

Enough about me!! Paige is doing so well. Eating well, although we aren't doing solids. She hates purees so much, I think we are going to skip them all together. My pediatrician was fine with this, as her third child didn't eat purees. When Paige gets teeth, we will do some table foods. She is sitting on her own, and getting so so close to crawling. She can move all the way across the room, but it is more dragging her body by her arms than crawling. We guessed by Thanksgiving she would be full-out crawling, so she only has a few more days! Ha! She sleeps all night in her crib, with a few exceptions. When she cries more than 10 minutes or so, I bring her to bed with us. That has only happened a few times in the last month. We made the big transition to her crib at 6 months. It was time.

If you know me in real life, you will be getting our Christmas card soon! I used tinyprints.com, and they turned out lovely. David and Paige make me look good.

Missed all my blogging friends!! But I'll be back now for good : )

Fall is here!

Crazy little girl who is now using her play mat as a jungle gym! Seriously! She tries to climb all over the bars. She is rolling so much, if I leave the room, she is never in the same place that I left her! Madness, I tell you!

She is so wonderful, in every way. She loves her momma, which is great, but not so great in the fact that it prevents others from taking care of her. She has stranger anxiety. The only thing I can think to do is put her in mother's day out one day a week. So in November, we will start! Tuesdays, miss Paige will let someone else take care of her! My sister-in-law works there and takes my niece, Ava. It makes me feel better knowing Hayley will be there looking out for Paige. It is at a nice church in town, so I feel pretty good about this. I know I'll freak when she gets sick for the first time, but it is good for them, right? Builds immunity? Hmmm...not sure if I buy into all that stuff, but that is what I have been told. We'll see.

We are getting up early in the morning to Race for the Cure! I lost my grandmother to breast cancer, so this is a cause close to my heart. It is going to be cold, so Paige and I are going to bundle up. We are going straight from there to the OU game, so it is going to be a long day!

Have a great weekend!!

Bad blogger!

Goodness! For a lady with no job and very little chores to do, I feel like I have no time! Paige is napping right now and I just ate lunch, so I will give a little update!

I got my period! Finally! I had a 39 day cycle, which for anyone familiar with PCOS, this is nothing short of a miracle.  Of course this is all putting me in strange place.  I want another baby, but not right now.  I want a free baby, seeing as I don't have 25K laying around and the bank of mom and dad (who funded Paige) has eluded to the fact that they were paying for the first, and the rest is on us.  What if I am missing my opportunity to have a free baby?  What if I am passing up my chance to have a baby without putting my body and mind through the hell of IVF?  I just wish I knew how long these semi-normal cycles were going to stick around!  If I KNEW that I would be able to get pregnant...wait, scratch that...if I knew I would have a chance to get pregnant next year on my own, then I would want to wait now.  But I don't know.  I hate infertility.  This is so unfair.  I am so jealous of those who can plan their families how they want.  Not jealous in a bitter way...just wishing it was that easy for us.  So I am in limbo right now.  

Now an update on the most wonderful thing that has happened to me:  they opened a bagel shop by my house! : )

Okay, well maybe not the most wonderful, but it is pretty great.  

As for Paige - she is such an angel.  Eating cereal, rolling all over the place, laughing when tickled...such a big girl! I think we are going to wait until 6 months to do anything other than cereal.  If introducing fruits and vegetables go as smoothly as cereal, then we should have no problems!

Labor Day Weekend

Paige is just now really noticing the dogs. 
She likes Beefy better, I think.  He is small and very timid, where as Spike is not shy at all and will run right up to you and lick you to death.  But of course, Spike is way more interested in her than Beefy is.  Poor Spike!
We tried rice cereal the other day!
It was not a success! Ha! She didn't like it at all.  I think we will wait a few weeks than try again.  My pedi just said we should start sometime before six months, so I have some time.
She did look cute and tiny in her big chair! My baby is getting so big!
I finally found some pictures from our white party! Here are some of the cute girls looking good in their white!  My sister-in-law is the one on the right, with the grey top.
Here, with the girls! I am on the bottom left (with extensions in!) I am trying to grow my hair out that long, but it is taking some time.  I started right around when I found out I was pregnant, so it has been a year, and not too much to show for it.
We went to Dallas for Labor Day.  Here I am with Brooke and David.  We tailgated all day, so of course I felt like crap during the game.  Brooke and I drank two bottles of cheap champagne, and when that was finished we moved on to beer and trash can punch from the people next to us.  OU lost anyway, so it just really wasn't that great of a game! But I had a blast before!! : )

I thought this was funny.  It looks like we are letting Paige drive.  

Big news! Paige sleeps in her crib all night now! David has been wanting to get our bedroom back to ourselves for a while now, but I have resisted.  Finally I said we could give it a try, and we have had three successful nights there.  I cried the first time.  It just felt so wrong to me, but it was nice to just talk in bed and not have to worry about waking her.  And Paige did great! I think this new arrangement is good for everyone involved.  She is back to her good-sleeping self.  I guess that 4 month growth period of whatever is done.  Thank goodness!

So, our fall is off on the wrong foot, seeing as OU has already lost.  We were pretty bummed, but life does go on.  I guess.

4 month wakeful period?

Dear Lord, this is killing me! I KNOW that many new mommas want to slap me for complaining, since all in all, Paige is an excellent sleeper.  However, when your baby starts sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, then suddenly at 4 months she decides she doesn't want to do that anymore, it wears on you!  Then last night, she was up at 2 AM (usual for the last week), and decided it wasn't time to go to sleep again until 4.  David and I were exhausted and at our wits end! Now before you say anything - remember that we really haven't had to deal with this before! With the exception of a few nights in the first weeks, we have had no issues getting her down to sleep and having her stay asleep.  

Then once you have been up for two hours, you are just kind of up, so it was hard for us to fall back asleep.  The song from her exersaucer was in David's head and wouldn't stop singing it..."Red, Yellow, and Bluuuuue." So that had me laughing at 4 AM.  

We had our four month appointment today, and all is well.  13.5 pounds, 25 inches...so growing just fine, despite her small appetite.  We did get the go ahead to start solids.  We will start with cereal, but I think we are going to wait until closer to five months. 

We are headed to Dallas this weekend for OU/BYU and are very excited! Paige will be staying at the hotel with mom, so a big thanks to grandma for doing that! I wasn't comfortable leaving her with a teenage sitter that I didn't know and whose parents weren't even in town.  

Happy labor day to everyone!!

Wow - 4 moths old?

Happy girl!
We had some family portraits done in College Station with David's family.  This is the one we picked to purchase.  I liked it better than the one below because Paige is smiling.  But it wad down to these two.
Cute that she is looking at the camera, but I am a sucker for her sweet smile.  That won out in the end.


Goofy girl!

We had a white themed party at our house last weekend.  It was a blast! Speaking of that - Paige spent the night at her grandparents that night!!! It went very well.  I was upset when my dad drove her away, but champagne and club specials helped me out there and I ended up having a great night! We picked her up bright and early and I got plenty of snuggles in.
Fascinated with her hands.  They are always in her mouth.
Watching Entourage with daddy.  I hate that show.
Daycare center Michelle and I set up! Ha! We got to lay out and watch BH 90210 (the original - re runs on soap.net) outside while the babies played in their little stations we set up!
Napping babies at the pool

I love this girl.
My doll baby

I have a full-fledged four month old baby.  How is this possible?  She is still without a doubt the light of my life.  She constantly amazes me.  Here are the things my four month old is doing:

Rolling over both ways

Smiling and laughing non-stop

Putting everything - hands, feet, toys, her shirt - in her mouth

Speaking of feet, she just discovered them! Yesterday in fact! She likes to grab them and explore

She is doing much better with eating too.  She is now eating around 26-28 ounces a day, which is a drastic improvement from just a week ago.  I give her Mylecon at almost every feeding and I think that helps her.  I also have just accepted the fact that she is on her own schedule.  She absolutely will only eat when she wants to.  If that means she has 11 ounces during the day, then from the hours of 5-10:30, she wants to chug every 30 minutes, so be it.  I tried desperately to get her on that elusive 3 hours schedule like other babies, but it just isn't what Paige wants to do.  

We have had many more fun play dates with Ethan.  Ethan sets the bar for me on what Paige will be doing in 5 weeks.  He is a rolling machine! It makes me nervous that Paige will be doing that in the not-so-distant future.  We are entering the days of "wow - you really have to keep your eyes on them AT ALL TIMES!!"

We had dinner at Gerod and Callie's last night.  So much fun! Gerod is such a great dad and had Paige just cracking up.  It was so cute to watch.  Their 2 year old Gibson is so funny too.  At 8:30 on the dot, Gerod said, "night nigh!" And Gibson took of for his room and crawled in his little toddler bed and went right to sleep.  I'm not even kidding.  David and I talked about that the whole way home.  We were like - we have got to get Paige to do that! Ha!

We are about to enter football season, which I have mixed feelings about.  I love OU football, but I'm not sure I am ready to lose my husband every Saturday to drunken tailgate parties.  But I certainly don't have a choice in the matter, so I guess I need to just deal with it now so it doesn't ruin my fall.  Boomer!!!