One year

My sweet baby will be one year old on Saturday.  It's so strange for me to feel the same weather, smell the same flowers, and even wear some of the same clothes I wore a year ago.  It remind me of a time when Liza wasn't quite here yet, and for some reason that plays tricks on my mind, like it didn't really happen.

I remember getting home from work and making spring rolls to eat on the porch while I did my charting.  I remember all my patients asking about my due date.  I remember that rolling over in bed required a warm-up and a cool-down.

Sometimes I look back at labor and the birth and think if I had to do it over I would change a few things.  It's easy to say "oh I would have gotten in the birthing tub, I would have walked the halls, I would have done even more skin-to-skin.  I wouldn't have gone into the hospital for another couple hours."  But truthfully, everyone does the best they can and thats all you get.  I was blessed with a health baby at the end of it all.  I was one of the lucky ones who had a supportive mother of her own to come and stay and help when I was more than clueless.

The first few weeks were so hard for Ryan and I.  But after the first month things got better and better.  Liza's personality came out when we was about 5 weeks old.  She was smiling and kicking her legs like crazy in Ocean City, her first little trip.

Fast forward to today.  Liza is sleeping still (yay!) after getting up once last night, fighting sleep again on being put back down.  We have music class at 9:30 where she will crawl all around the room and shake her little instruments.  We might walk on City Island later with a group called Hike It Baby. We have mom groups and play dates, library story time, swim lessons.  All sorts of activities with a new group of great friends.  Its been a transformational year and I am so happy I'm fortunate enough to stay home and be with Liza as she grows and learns.

Our family is a family now.  We became a family of 3, and for lack of a better word, its perfect.

April Fools!

Has she tricked me by sleeping through the night last night :)

Our little one has been quite busy since my last post.  Not only is she crawling but she's standing up (pulling up) on anything and everything, and loves climbing the stairs.

We had a great time in Florida.  There was a long delay on our outbound flight and Liza took it really well.  We arrived in the middle of the night, and we were dead tired the next day, but soon we were back to normal and enjoying Florida.

My mom and Greg met us in Tarpon Springs for lunch, then came back to the house for the night.  This gave Ryan and I a chance to go out to breakfast and have a little 1 on 1 time.  When my parents moved on south we went to Myakka State park and saw some gators along the water.  We walked Celery Fields each morning, visited Caspersen Beach (our favorite!) and Bradenton beach.  We had some really good food, my favorite being a seafood lunch at The Seafood Shack in Cortez.

Each night we watched the Westminster dog show and had key lime pie!  Liza had a great time crawling all around the house and seeing palm trees and ocean for the first time.  We can't wait to go back again.

March flew by!  We had some nice days and Liza and I took advantage and walked out side a lot.  We are part of a group called "Hike it Baby" and April starts a challenge to log 30 miles in 30 days.  If it doesn't rain today we will get started!

Our second session of Music Together has started, and our friends Shannon and Tyler are in class with us.  They are also in our storytime group with our other friends Angela and David.  We scored another Spanish childrens' book at the end of the last session.  Liza has been really loving being read to lately, and I even catch her "reading" by herself.  Its so cute!

We've been hanging out with our other friends from Mom Group - Beth and her baby Thea.  We walked with them yesterday and enjoyed the fresh air.  However, I did come home with a few mosquito bites - of course!

We have a big consignment sale coming up in a couple weeks, and I'm selling a bunch of stuff that Liza has outgrown.  I'm excited to get her some nice new things at great prices.  My mom will be coming down to help me get all my stuff to the sale and shop.  She'll be able to make it to the library with us too!

We had a great Easter, although it went fast.  We were able to go to Canfield and enjoy brunch with the Pannunzio's and visit with Baba too.

Someone is awake - gotta run!

And she's off

How did this happen?  Since Thanksgiving Liza has been toying with the idea of crawling.  She started by just laying on her belly and waving her arms and legs in a "swimming frog" motion.  Then she would push up on her arms.  Eventually she got on all fours and rocked back and forth for a while before going back onto her belly.  Finally, she mastered the skill of putting herself into a sitting position, and going from sitting to all fours and back again.

Last Saturday, after being able to somewhat scoot for very short distances, she actually crawled!  It was so cute!  She keeps one leg straight out to the side a lot of the time like spiderman.  Last Saturday my mom was here visiting and I'm so happy she was able to see Liza crawl.  They were sitting on the runner in our hallway, and Liza was scooting and sitting.  Ryan said "Ok, we are going to try this." and took a toy and placed it about 4 or 5 feet away.  And she went for it!  She crawled over and got it!

Now she crawls all the time.  At the library on Tuesday she crawled over to the middle of the room when they put the toys out.

Another adorable thing happening is that she "feeds" her baby dolls with the play food she has, and also gives them her binky.  She will give Ryan and I her binky too and smile and its the cutest thing ever!  My mom taught her this too.  I have to admit I was doubtful when I heard them playing, that my 8 month old would be able to give her binky to a doll and to me, but she does!  Right to the mouth!

She's consistently giving is about 4 nights a week of sleeping all the way through to the 7 o'clock hour.  With the other 3 nights getting up to eat around 3:30-4:30am, but then going back to bed til 7:30ish.  I do have to put the binky back in a time or two most nights, but over all she is sleeping well and I can't complain.

We've been enjoying our Music Together classes, our library story time, our mom group, and our swim lessons.  She is adorable in her little sailboat and lobster swim suit.  She likes the water and splashes her hands around as soon as we get in.  Last week she did fuss for a few minutes in the middle of the lesson, but that was out of character, and I think maybe she was getting cold.  I just held her pretty close for the rest of the lesson and she was fine.

We've been enjoying some play dates with our friends.  We go over to Shannon and her 14th month old son's house about once a week to hang out and play, and we had a couple moms over after the snow storm a couple weeks ago.

Liza has really expanded my social life.  I went from having 0.0 friends here in Harrisburg to having several moms that I consider to be my friends.  I'm excited to watch our babies grow up and become friends too.

I've been following a few couponing pages on Facebook, and found us a code for Redbox, so we watched "Hotel Transylvania last night.  I liked it!  It was hard trying to keep Liza from watching, as we dont want her watching TV until she's older.  We draped a blanket over the rails of her playyard, which worked for a while.

We are going to Florida in about 5 days. I'm a little nervous to fly and travel with Liza.  I'm sure its going to be fine, we have a direct flight and a great place to stay, so I know theres really nothing to worry about.  I can't wait for her to see the beach and ocean for the first time!  Last summer she didn't see the ocean in New Jersey, she was asleep in the stroller.

Adding some color

I've been loving my new coloring books from my mom and Ryan!

A Merry Little Christmas

A quick recap -
We had an awesome holiday at home in Canfield.  Unfortunately, Ryan was down and out with a nasty cold, but we did our best to enjoy the time off.  Liza had a ball playing with Grandma and her new toys.  We got to see Baba a couple times and Grandma and Grandpa Pannunzio.

On Christmas Eve Liza was kind of a mess when the whole family showed up, but she warmed up to everyone by the time the gift exchange was going on.  She got some sweet ornaments for her first Christmas and some cute toys and outfits!

On Christmas morning we opened gifts and exchanged with my mom and Greg.  I am excited to schedule a massage with my gift card, for our Music Together class, and to color in my new coloring books!

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed.  Ryan got some meds at Urgent Care and was feeling better by the time we left.

A short week later and we enjoyed our first New Years as a family.  It was so fun!  Ryan built a wood fire in our fire place.  We had a relaxing morning with panettone and pour over coffee, we had mimosas and exchanged our gifts for each other.  I colored in my new books while Ryan read out loud to Liza.  We even went for a family jog!  The whole weekend was great, especially the pork and kraut we made in the slow cooker.

Liza is almost crawling now, and making lots of noises.  She's luke warm about her baby food, but we are getting there.  Here's to a great 2016, 2015 left big shoes to fill!

Big thanks to our parents for the wonderful presents and giving Liza so much love.

Happy Holidays!

Liza has become a pro at sitting up on her own, and standing while holding on.  She showed off these skills on Thanksgiving in Gates-Mills to our parents and great grandma Shelly.  She also fell in love with her new favorite toy - a stainless steel colander! Good thing we have one at home for her to play with.

We've been enjoying Born to Read, and just picked up two awesome books for Liza. One is phrases in English and Spanish, and the other is "Press Here" a New York Times bestselling children's book.

We've also been having fun play dates with other moms, enjoying mom group, and even took a "Music Together" preview class (we still have the songs stuck in our heads).  We've gone running a few times with my friend Shannon and her 1 year old son Tyler/

Liza laughed for the first time a few weeks ago and it was such an emotional beautiful and joyful moment!  She was laying in our bed while Ryan changed out of his work clothes and she was doing her "Baby Thor," where she slams her legs down.  Ryan walked over and slammed his arms on the bed to imitate her and she cracked up!  We got it on video and she laughed for a long time!  Just last night she laughed for the second time (she took a long time to find humor again!).  When the rice boiled over and started hissing on the stove she giggled a bit, I was able to keep her laughing by imitating the hissing sound.

She also started solids as she is now 6 months old!  She is doing pretty well and has had baby oatmeal and sweet potatoes so far.  She likes the sweet potatoes best.  Im working on teacher her how to drink from a water bottle, cup, and straw.

I had my first craft show and sold a bib and a cloth maze.  A school teacher later ordered 10 mazes, and several mom friends bought bibs and blankets.  I have my second show on Saturday - when grandma and grandpa will be in town visiting.

My friend Angela took some family pics for us, Liza was pretty good for the photo shoot but got a little hangry by the end.

Jump around!

Liza officially has a favorite toy- her jumper!  I bought it at the huge consignment sale back in August, and just this week she's really gotten to love it.  I put her in it a few weeks ago and she clearly wasn't ready - she just sort of dangled there.  But now - She LOVES it...she bounces and bounces and gets really excited.

We've also gotten a few giggles out of her.  I had barely gotten a peep until a few days ago, but now she will give us a giggle maybe a couple times a day if we blow "raspberries" on her belly or feet.  Its really the cutest thing!

She's going through a developmental leap right now according to "the wonder weeks" and we are in the fussy period.  She's a little more needy the past few days. And her sleeping...well lets not even go there.  Last night though, she sleeps from about 11  to 5 (in bed with me) and then 6 to 8:30, so that wasn't too bad.  Ryan volunteered to sleep in the guest room, we all need a good nights sleep.

Cant believe we have a 5 month old!!!

Happy Fall!

WOW I am so overdue on blogging, and I can't believe Liza is almost 21 weeks!  I feel like so much has been happening!

Liza rolls now, belly to back and back to belly, she's been doing this for about a month now.  She also reaches for things and grabs them with her hands and studies them, often trying to put them in her mouth.

She was baptized on 8/15 with Jen and Billy as Godparents.  She slept through the whole ceremony!

We've had 2 "play dates" although they were more like mom dates, with 3 moms from the mom group.  We've also started the "Born to Read program at the library and we love it!

My mom watched Liza for a whole week while Ryan and I went to Utah - we had a great time and Liza and grandma had a great week!  She is 13 lbs now and I will weight her again on Monday.

I brought her into Dr Seto a few weeks ago because I thought she had thrush - she didn't!

We visited with Ryan's side of the family a few times, most recently to remember Nana Williams who passed away in September, she held Liza several times and took several pictures with her before she passed away.  We are so thankful for that.

Liza was giving Aunt Nicole huge smiles this weekend while she was in for the funeral.

We don't use the swing much anymore, and Liza loves spending time in the "exersaucer" that my mom got for her.  She sleeps in her crib at night now, but often moves to our bed in the early morning for a while.

Ive been wearing her a lot and so has Ryan.  Most recently the Moby Wrap has been a favorite.    I gotta go, we have to run to target!

I'm absolutely loving being with my baby every day!