A walking machine!

We are doing well out here in sunny Colorado and enjoying nature at its best. We took a hike last weekend and saw some sure signs that fall is on it's way: yellow aspens! Yep, the leaves are changing and will prob be in peak season either this weekend or next.

Bella and Titan love to take hikes. This is what Titan lives for!haha. He has a pretty boring day with mommy and Bella, but when Daddy comes home watch out! It's time for a W-A-L-K! haha. Titan associates "fun" with Kieran and, well, "boredom" with me! haha.

DEVELOPMENTS:
Bella is the walking machineeee!! It's amazing how much has happened since she took her first two steps back around Aug.5. Now, you can't keep her from walking! She does 180's too!haha. One month ago she took four steps and now it just goes on and on. She also started to stand up from a bent over position at the end of August. Then, around the middle of this month, Bella just became extrememly confident in walking. She would crawl a little her and there, but for the last I'd say couple of weeks she is mainly walking. It was like overnight I swear. It's amazing to say the least.

As of Sept. 12, Bella weighs 18# 6. 5 oz and probably weighs about 18# 10 oz or so. We still have her in an infant car seat, but are now in the market for a convertible car seat due to her length. She's past 29 inches, so now it's time to shop around for a new one. We'll still keep her facing backwards until she reaches 20 pounds, as is recommended.

Bella can also say "hi" and "bye" as of Sept. 15 ish and started to give the "milk" sign around then too. That means she wants to nurse and now I'm trying to wean her. We are down to two nursings from her regular four. The 2 during the day were easy to eliminate as I could easily distract her with food, toys, a walk, snacks, milk, etc. I tried to wean the bedtime feeding and the morning one last night and this morning to no avail. She did take some sips out of the sippy and with a straw, but then flat out refused them! She was crying a lot for a min or so when I tried to put her down and leave the room, so I just knew it wasn't the right time. So, I ended up nursing her and she only stayed on for about ten minutes. I feel that it's more of a comfort thing that hunger and I don't mind it. It's kind of sad to think of completely weaning her, but then again you can't breastfeed a kindergartner! haha..Well, I guess you coullddddd!


EATING:
Bella will only eat what we eat probably for the last month or so and I would label her as somewhat of a pickey eater. No more pureed yucky baby food for a while now. She loves french toast with some syrup, scrambled eggs and cheese, PB and J (although it's more of licking of the PBJ than anything), Tofu with a bit of soy sauce or mixed in with scrambled eggs, whole grain cheerios with milk, pineapples, bananas, corn, and oatmeal to name a few.

I try to give her about four servings of food, since she doesn't take much milk during the day. I also give her chocalate pediasure during the day since it's high in protein, vitamins and minerals.

SLEEPING:
Recently, Bella has been getting up in the mid of the morning. Actually, she's been back on track for the last five days I'd say. Before that, every now and then she'd get up mid morning and want to stay up or cry her eyes out. One time I gave in and BF her and that didn't even work. We ended up putting her on the floor and she did BF in the end and fell back to sleep about two hours later! Talk about sleep deprivation! I was just exhausted after those nights. And you would think that would cause her to sleep in longer, umm, nope! Thankfully, it seems like she back to her normal wake up call at 5 am and then goes back down b/w 1.5-2.5 hrs, depending on if she has to go #2 or not! haha. That wil definitely get her up.

Bella usually goes to sleep around 7-715 p.m. and likes to sleep with her siberian huskey stuffed animal, her pink bunny and a her new Pottery Barn while teddy. Too cute! She will even cuddle with them.

Well, that's about it for now. We're enjoying our baby, umm, guess I should "toddler" now! EEK! haha. We're looking forward to taking her trick-or-treating this year as she will be walking and will enjoy these much more than she did last year when she was about 10 weekss old! Goshhhh, where did the time go?!



Love,
The Lasaters