Eleven Months

I've been told she looks like ME here, YAY! 

Feeding: I'm still breastfeeding Veda, but I'm planning to wean right at one year.  I won't mind if she still nurses morning and night, but the daytime pumping at work has to go!  I'm a little nervous about how she will react to cow's milk because I recently gave her yogurt (with whole milk) and she had a major blow out and serious butt rash.  I can tell it hurt so bad, she was not happy! Hopefully it was a coincidence... I'm planning to let the rash completely resolve and then try the yogurt again.  

She's discovered she likes chicken, still loves her fruit and will now tolerated most veggies.  Thank goodness!  I was getting worried that she would only eat fruit forever!! She still needs her food pretty smoothly pureed because she gags on anything slightly chunky.  I'll keep trying and eventually I'm sure she'll get it.  

I haven't introduced a lot of 'snack' foods to her, just these disolving cracker things that she is less than impressed with :)  

Just drinking my milk!

Not so sure about beets, mom!

What is this?!

Sleeping:  No issues with sleep over here, but I'm noticing that she's fighting her last nap of the day.  That's ok because she still gets two one hour (at least) naps a day + sleeps through the night.  She's dropping her evening nap, which makes her really ready for bed.  

All this playing is hard work!

Stats:  I weighed her at our mommy & me class the other day, and with clothes and diaper she weighed almost 18.5 pounds.  She's slowly growing.    

Milestones:  Veda still scoots, no real crawling.  Still can't figure out how to keep her head and butt in the air simulaneously, haha! She's really not that interested in being super mobile, which I'm pretty ok with.  She'll walk if you hold her hands and she'll stand for long periods of time against furniture, but does not pull herself up.  

She has six teeth now.  The top two have taken a while to descend, but they're almost there.  They look gigantic! 

She's almsot got her clap down and sometimes tries to wave 'hi!'  It sometimes sounds like she's saying hi, but she may just be mimicking us a little bit.  She says dada, but we're not sure if she knows that's Brett.  She laughs every time I say Mama :( Little stinker!

When she's in her exersaucer and we tell her to jump or bounce, she does.  I also tell her, "arms up" when I put her tray on her high chair and she will lift her arms.  She does seem to understand some words and I'm trying to incorporate a little sign language, time to watch our mouths (Daddy!)!

Likes/Dislikes:  She loves scooting around the room and is really attracted to shoes and the wheels on her stroller(s).  Of course, the dirtiest things in our place.  Yuck! She is still putting everything in her mouth.  She's got some toy balls that she really likes and loves to read books! She also still loves bath time and has become a master splasher!

Loves bathtime!

Just reading my books!

She is such a smiley little child!

Oh, and did I mention I love swinging?!

She still doesn't like her diaper changed or her nose messed with.  She whimpers if you even touch it, let alone wipe it or pick it! She also doesn't like her face cleaned after eating.  She whines a little when she's done eating, too, like she wants more, so we've been giving her more and more and more. 

Swinging with Henry

Adventures: We flew back to Kansas for a weekend and stayed with her Grandad.  Brett had shows in his hometown and we hadn't seen Grandad for a while so we all headed back and had a good time.  She got three teeth that weekend so it was an adventure for sure!

We also hosted Thanksgiving for our friends and their little dude.  It was my first time ever making a turkey and I think it turned out pretty good, no one complained anyway!  

Me & Henry on Thanksgiving

We had our first non-family babysitter this month! We all survived.  Veda was well behaved as usual and went to bed with no real issues.  Mommy & Daddy got to do some wine tasting, it was fun!

Me & My Granddad 

Me & my new friend!

Struggles: We may or may not be on the verge of being sick.  Brett had a cold and locked himself in the bedroom for a couple of days.  I noticed Veda had a runny nose (for like an hour) but it was also the same day I gave her the yogurt.  She's been sneezy but doesn't appear to be ill.  I, however, have a had a sore throat for the last few days so I'm really hoping she doesn't get it.  Fingers crossed because we've been so lucky with her being so healthy.  

This picture cracks me up.  My mom made that outfit for me when I was a baby.
Side by side of Veda & Me, her at 10 months, me at 2 months - same outfit.  

Looking forward to:  

LASIK eye surgery this week! Woot woot! We're also heading back to the Midwest for a few days during the holidays.  We're excited to see everyone and we know they all want to see Veda so badly, I am not at all looking forward to the frigid temperatures and snow.  I hope they get some crazy heat wave! Why again do we not celebrate Christmas in Cali? 

Peace out glasses!

Sometimes my daddy dresses me and he forgets we live in Sunny SoCal!

And here is our monthly photo in our 12 month old outfit, it's going to fit soon :(

It's safe to say she is no longer a fan of these photos!

Ten Months

I've been too lazy to add photos to these because we have so many pictures and I didn't feel like going through them all.... Then our computer charger broke and we had to get a new one, so I'm a bit behind. And now that I've waited so long, I'm likely putting the wrong photos on the wrong month... it is what it is! It's hard to be full time mommy, full time nurse and master historian!

One of my Favorite photos!

Ten months! Oh no! Now we're counting down to one year.  I'm happy-sad about this milestone.  It is flying by.  Oh my little baby is growing ...

Feeding: Well, I've created a fruit monster! She was doing 'well' on vegetables but having a lot of irregularity issues, so I started giving her oatmeal with fruit for brunch every morning.  When I tried to give her veggies again, she was super dramatic and gagged a bunch.  It's a work in progress.  She's still getting breastmilk only, with a tiny bit of water when she will drink it.  I hope she opens her mind soon, because I plan to be done breastfeeding when she's a year.  At least during the day because I'm pretty much over pumping at work.  I won't mind morning and night, especially since its part of her bedtime routine.  Not sure how to overcome that change.  

Sleeping:  She's still a great sleeper.  She's also a still a little thrown off by the whole day light savings thing.  A lot of times when I come home from work, she's already asleep.  Since she hasn't eaten since 6ish, I wake her up, feed her, and put her back down.  (Not really sure if that's a great plan, but I want to see her and I'm afraid she will wake up at 2am!)  She wakes up between 4-6am, comes into our bed to eat and now prefers to go back to her bed to sleep until 7 or 8.  She sweats like crazy in our bed and I'm not sure why, but is fine in her crib.  

She still naps three times a day, usually 1-2 hours.  This week she did one nap for more than 3 hours, but she got up early that day.  She also naps in her crib.  She's such a big girl! We did have to drop the crib mattress because she was starting to pull herself up using her bumper pads.  Now she just tries to eat them ;)

Stats:  Brett and I just weighed her last night, she's still about 17.5lbs.  She's a little peanut.  At her nine month check up, her weight was 35th percentile, height was 25th, and head was 90TH.  Yes, you read that right.  It's a Riley thing.  The doctor said she's been growing at the same rate since birth, so he's not concerned with her noggin being so big, LOL! Looking back at her baby pictures, I now see her head was pretty big for her body then, too.    

Milestones:  Veda is so manipulative! She has her daddy wrapped, I'm telling you! Maybe me a little, too, but definitely daddy! She can scoot all across the room, but if she's feeling lazy she'll whine until you either bring her what she wants, or pick her up.  It's out of control! She can't crawl on all fours yet, once her butt is in the air, her head falls down! She's just a scooter.  I was a little concerned since she's already ten months, but I called my mother-in-law and it turns out Brett crawled (a real crawl) at 10.5 months, the day before he walked.  So, once again, she is her father! My mother-in-law also asked me, "How do you expect her to crawl with such a big head?!" Haha, good point!

She can pretty much pull herself up onto furniture but doesn't really know she can.  She has no idea her mobility possibilities, for which I'm grateful!  She is attracted to cords though, so more baby proofing must be done!

She got 3 new teeth this month, bringing her to 5! She got two uppers and another left lower.  She still has yet to bite me, thank God!

Likes/Dislikes:  She likes to play and play! Daddy is her jungle-gym! She chews on anything she can get ahold of.  She really like remote controls and cell phones.

She rolls all around during diaper change and really hates to have her diaper changed at all.  (She had her first diaper rash this month.)  She doesn't like to be alone in a room, unless there's a cute little girl in the mirror to keep her company.

Pebbles & Bam Bam (Veda & Henry)

Last Minute costumes for Mommy & Daddy
"Modern Day Flintstones"

Adventures: We attempted to go to an Oktoberfest in downtown Burbank, but it was a major bust.  So we went to dinner with a friend instead.  

Veda was in her first short film, "Life Grows On."  You can look it up on Facebook for now, it's not finished with production yet, but that's so exciting!! Daddy even had to fill out SAG info for her!

Uncle Matt came to visit for a week! Veda loves him and can't wait to see him again :)

Mommy got some adult time with a friend and went to the Hollywood Bowl to see the Zack Brown Band! The next day we went to a Flea Market in downtown LA and scored some fun finds, even a Christmas present!

I'm sure we did more, but I'm still suffering from baby brain. 

Me & my super white baby ;)

Dinner at the Yard House after the Flea Market

Looking forward to:  

Mommy is going to get her vision back! I booked my appointment for LASIK! YES!!! I've been waiting for this for years and am so, so, SO excited!!!

And here is our monthly photo in our 12 month old outfit, it's going to fit one of these days :(

8 Months

My baby is growing way to fast :( I am so sad about it, but it does just keep getting better.  I just really try to soak it all in every day, because time flies and she changes so fast, I want to remember every little thing about her. She has such a happy personality.  She is very interactive with people, smiling and 'talking.'  She is just a little charmer.  I could not love her more!

I've decided to stop posting about her schedule, since we all know it hasn't changed :) Same thing everyday, in three hour increments!

Feeding: We put solids on hold for awhile since Veda had an ELEVEN day bout of constipation.  Seriously! She was still all smiles and happy, but we were very concerned to say the least.  Thankfully, I've trained her well, and she had her explosion on daddy's watch ;) 

So basically no solids for a couple of weeks,  actually I just restarted them this week.  She gets one ounce of food, around lunch time, on the days that I'm off work.  Brett isn't ready for her to grow up yet, so he doesn't really have interest in giving her solids.  When I work, she gets 3 or 4 five ounce bottles and then I breast feed her before & after work.  I don't think I produce five ounces for every feeding she gets with me on days off, so therefore I give her some solids.  I have not introduced rice cereal, I probably won't, thoughts?   

Sleeping:  She is finally back to sleeping through the night, hooray! We put her to bed, awake but slightly drowsy, every night at 8:30.  She looks at her mobile for awhile, sometimes talks a little and then rolls onto her side and goes to sleep until anywhere between 4:30-5:30.  Then she comes to our bed to eat and sleep until 8-9.  She had one night this week that she woke up at 10:00, 2:30 and 4.  She had a little tiny bottom tooth break through this week, so I think that may have had something to do with it.   

She's a much better napper than she's been in the past.  She takes three naps a day.  Late morning is usually the best, up to 2 hours! The two afternoon naps are usually an hour but sometimes only 30 minutes.  She is still napping in our bed most of the time because she won't just go to sleep in her crib. She'll want to be bounced/swayed to sleep and then its impossible to put  her down.  So what we'll do when she can crawl potentially fall out of bed, I do not know.   

Always wakes up with a smile :) And crazy hair!

Stats:  I went to our local hospital's breastfeeding support group this last week, which is basically a bunch of moms feeding and weighing their babies, but mostly chatting about our little ones and maybe a little talk about our spouses! Veda weighed in at 16 pounds, 10 ounces.  She's growing strong :)  Our next doctor appointment is in October for her 9 month check up.   

Milestones:  Veda now sits up completely independently, I still put the boppy behind her, just in case ;) When she does fall back on to her boppy, she tries to do a sit up to get back into sitting position but she's not even close to there yet! She can roll both ways but likes to pretend she can't roll from tummy to back, she'll whine until you come help her or pick her up.  I know she can still do it because last night I heard some chaos in her room after I put her to bed, she was on her belly staring at the camera and then rolled back to go to sleep.  Sneaky girl!  She constantly hits her hands on everything, the table, her knee, daddy's face, etc. She's been babbling more and more, and for some reason prefers her lower register now and sounds like she's growling a lot ;) She has no signs of separation anxiety yet, and will gladly let anyone hold her.  She can stand up holding on to a table, only for a couple of seconds independently, but for quite a while with minimal assistance.  And, as I mentioned earlier, she has a tooth!

Love Hanging out with my Daddy!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Likes/Dislikes:  She likes to play peek-a-boo, listen to kids songs (like "If You're Happy and You Know it"), look in the mirror, splash in the bath, chew on anything and everything, watch football on TV (or anything with a lot of action).  

She has the same dislikes: changing her diaper on an empty stomach and getting her boogies cleaned out of her nose!

Still love my walks!

And I look cool while I stroll, too!

Adventures: I think we had a busy month this month.  We took a six hour road trip to Sacramento for daddy to work, with the Boeh family.  We spent time in Old Town and also in Napa Valley.  By the way, I was not that impressed with Napa, I actually prefer the Santa Ynez Valley and Paso Robles to Napa.  To be fair, we only went to tasting in the downtown area of Napa, so I'll have to go back and do it right and go to Sonoma :) Darn!
Brett went to Atlanta to tape for BET's Comic View (YAY!), so Veda and I had some mommy and me bonding time. We went to visit my friend Alisa and play in her pool!
A travel nurse that I used to work with moved back home to Florida, so we went to dinner at Golden Road Brewery with some of my work friends.
We took Veda to Long Beach, to the Aquarium of the Pacific.  It was fun but so, SO busy.  I think next time we'll go on a week day, not in the summer! The very next day, daddy took her to the zoo with friends.  She learned a lot about animals that weekend!
Our good friends who live in Nashville, were in California, so we got to celebrate their handsome little man's first birthday!  That was so fun, we got to go swimming and then we stayed around a little longer to hang out with them and their family.  It would be safe to say I'm ready for them to move back any day now.
This last week, Brett's aunt Glenda had an almost 24 hour layover at LAX (she lives in Tawian and was heading back to Kansas for a couple of months) so we went and picked her up so she could get rest and then meet Veda :) We'll get to see her again in October on her way back to Tawian.  

A little trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific

Wine Tasting in Napa with the Boeh family

Looking forward to:  

Grammy Rhonda is coming on Friday for a week!  Woo Hoo!!

And here is our monthly photo in our 12 month old outfit, it's going to fit one of these days :(

9 Months

9 Months!

Feeding: We're still going strong in the breastfeeding department and thankfully I've yet to be bitten! I'm so scared of that happening... I've cut down her bottles the Brett feeds her the days that I work to whatever I produced the day before (at work).   This way we're not having to take from our freezer stash.  She AGAIN had a long bout of constipation so we stopped solids for a couple of weeks and have now started again.  We're giving her oatmeal with fruit in the am (and when I say "we," I mean me, and when I say in the am, I mean once so far - LOL!).  

Sleeping:  Veda has been sleeping really well this last month.  Always in bed by 8:30 and usually awake around 5:30 now.  A couple of days she has slept in until 6, which makes my morning routine on work days really unpredictable and a lot of times rushed, but it's all good.  It sometimes seems that she knows when I have to work the next day and she'll wake up at 11PM and stay awake for a good hour because she wants to be swayed, not just laid down.  Those nights also seem to correlate with the nights Brett has gigs and isn't home.  

So she has major poopy blowouts on daddy's shifts and sometimes won't sleep on mommy's shifts, so I think that's ok ;)  

Stats:   We didn't make it anywhere with a scale this month, so I'm not exactly sure of her weight these days.  She's just a little peanut!

Milestones:  We've got a scooter! Veda is starting to navigate around the floor a little bit, if we move her toys she can get to them.  We're pretty sure she could crawl, she just doesn't know it yet.  She sits up very well, but can't get into sitting position from laying down.  She has two bottom teeth.  She looks like she's trying to wave, but it could just be her same instinct to hit everything... it looks the same! She is also starting to have some separation anxiety.  She gets real mad when we leave her in the room alone and is more hesitant to let others hold her.  She warms up pretty quickly, though, and still smiles at anyone who tells her she's pretty!

Likes/Dislikes:  I feel like not a lot has changed, from last month: She likes to play peek-a-boo, listen to kids songs (like "If You're Happy and You Know it"), look in the mirror, splash in the bath, chew on anything and everything, watch football on TV (or anything with a lot of action).  She does like to be held and she loves it when daddy tickles her :)

She has the same dislikes: changing her diaper on an empty stomach and getting her boogies cleaned out of her nose! 

My friend Henry, Daddy & Me

Adventures: I never think we've done anything, until I go through my photos! 

One thing I didn't mention last month, because I didn't think we were allowed yet, but we found out Veda is going to be a BIG cousin!! Woot Woot!! Not sister, cousin!  Brett's little sister and her husband are expecting a March Madness baby!! We could not be happier!

Our finished products: Fireflies. 

My mom came to town for a week and we went on all kinds of adventures.  Brett took Grandma Rhonda & Veda to Malibu one day (I had to work) and to Lake Hollywood to take in the sites and get some close ups with the Hollywood sign.  Then all of us went to Santa Barbara for the day, a Tuesday, which was brilliant because that's also the day of their Farmer's Market! Yummy!! We visited the pier, drank some wine, checked out the local shops and the Farmer's Market, had dinner and then headed back to LA.  Us girls went to the Commerce Outlet Mall another day and Veda scored a bunch of clothes and Grandma got a start on her Christmas shopping.  My mom and I had a night out to an event called, "Paint Nite."  It was hosted by a local bar and grille.  We drank drinks and painted, it was a blast! 

Veda also had her first kiss this month, hahahaha!

Daddy is taking some MAJOR strides in his career, we could not be more proud of him! xo

Looking forward to:  

Fall and cooler temps!

And here is our monthly photo in our 12 month old outfit, it's going to fit one of these days :(  As you can see, she's really starting to enjoy these monthly photo shoots! LOL!