Almost Christmas!

I know I said my next post was going to be of Christmas, but there were too many non-Christmas pictures that I wanted to include. I just have too much fun taking pictures of Sadie Beth. In fact, I tend to take the same picture over and over again trying to get smiles on camera that very soon I am going to have to go through our picture files and erase a lot of the repeat pictures.
Sadie Beth sometimes hangs out in the pack-n-play while I am getting ready in the mornings or trying to accomplish some task or another. Around the time these were taken she had just figured out that she REALLY liked the mobile. Unfortunately, it isn't battery powered so I just walk by regularly and spin it for her. She would get SO excited about it!
"This...is...really...interesting..." says Sadie Beth. :)
Note the mysterious white tongue is still sticking around....it comes and goes now. Weird huh?
We have frequent play dates at the Mullin's. I look forward to them each week. I think it's safe to say the moms definitely have more fun than the babies! She doesn't have her daddy wrapped at all, does she?

Giving the sleep sacks a try during nap time.
So, the story goes like this. One Saturday I leave for a little while to go shopping at Kohls. I come home and here is how I find Sadie Beth...wearing only a diaper and chilling out in her car seat watching the 1/2 decorated Christmas tree. I don't fully remember why she was naked or why David put her in the car seat like this, but they had fun...that's what matters.
Sadie Beth sleeps through her last feeding of the night. I wake her around 10:30pm to feed and she is always so sweet the whole time. Since I spend like half my day feeding her in our rocking chair (or so it seems...but no worries, I love it), I insisted that our Christmas tree be placed where I could see it while I nurse. It adds such a nice touch to the room...I pretty much just LOVE all things Christmas tree related. A HUGE thanks to mom for letting us borrow her pre-lit tree...it was SO much easier than my usual Christmas tree process, which in the past has taken about 30 hours each year. My trees are beautiful, have at least 200 lights, and are a true work of art, but not really possible with a new baby! Mom's tree is really pretty too, as you can see in the picture below.
Happy baby girl!

Here are a couple of "stunned" faces.
I love Sadie Beth's big bright blue eyes. I think she is going to have her Grandpa Terrell's blue eyes. Then again, David and I both have blue eyes too. Lauren came over to visit one afternoon. Sadie Beth likes Lauren a lot!
Hanging out with mommy. Sadie Beth is just now starting to like tummy-time. She used to get so fussy afterwards.
This is Elijah Grissom, born 9/9/07. Heather brings him over occasionally and we have fun during our visits. This picture is a bit blurry, but Elijah's smile was so fun I had to include it

Here is try #23 to get a good picture of Sadie Beth for the Christmas cards. You have to understand, my baby smiles pretty much all day long. Lauren came over to take some pictures of her in her Christmas dress for me to put in Christmas cards. Lauren tried for an hour and we couldn't get a SINGLE smile. Granted, she wasn't feeling well, but oh the irony!
Poor thing will not be very happy with me about this when she is 12, but isn't she adorable? :)
Not sure if you can see this or not, but note the yellow goo dribbled all over her mouth. Those are her vitamins. Bless her heart, they smell HORRIBLE! She use to throw them up every time I gave them too her. We've gotten past that, definitely it's not her favorite activity. Sadie Beth loves her hands! Oh, they are so exciting...its funny watching her because she discovers them anew at least 5 times each day. It's like you can see her thinking, "wow, what are these? These are great!"

Sadie Beth is lots of fun!

...so much fun that I have been a total slacker when it comes to posting on a regular basis. I have lots to put up from Christmas, but I thought I'd do an "interim" post with some pictures from the last month or so. Sadie Beth is 3 months old now...14 week actually. She has changed so much over the last month, her sweet personality showing more each day. I guess we should label the next few pictures, "Sadie Beth chilling out..."

Hanging out one Sunday before church. Sunday mornings are usually an adventure for us...we can't ever make it to church on time. It seems that Sadie Beth thinks it's the perfect time for messes. :)
Trying to wake up from naptime...aww...:)
Big smiles from the swaddled baby! We are slowly trying to move away from using the SwaddleMe blanket. It has been great to help Sadie Beth to sleep, but now she doesn't like it as much and tries to fight it sometimes. Right now she sleeps with one arm in and one arm out. Occasionally she will nap with both arms out, but they aren't usually good naps.

We still wake Sadie Beth up at 10:30 to feed her. She's always really cute because rarely does she wake up, but sleeps through the entire feeding. I don't care for this picture of me, but she is adorable...a little buddha baby.


Another buddha baby pose!
I walked out of the room for a minute and this is how she was when I retured. It didn't seem to bother her at all, which I thought was funny.

I loved this little outfit. Now she has outgrown it...amazing how fast that happens. We've put away almost all the 0-3 mos. outfits.
Here is Sadie Beth in her first pair of blue jeans that my friend Erica got for her. She acts like she's not real sure what to think about them when she wears them.
We get so many smiles from her...I love it! I try endlessly to capture them on camera. Sometimes I have more success than others. We have so many pictures of the same thing from where I am trying to get smiles. David says I have to erase some of them!
Her first spa treatment! Not really...just kidding. She has had some cradle cap and I read online the olive oil helped. So, here she is with her head smothered with olive oil. She looked at me like she thought I was crazy...though for awhile she did that during every bath. Now she loves them.

Daddy time...he sure loves his girl. And I think the feeling is mutual! Sadie Beth's new trick is that she has figured out how to scoot off her body when I lay her down on it like this. She gets a kick out of it. I will walk out of the room and she will be laying on the floor when I get back with a huge smile like, "Look what I can do!"

She's starting to get into toys a little bit more. It's fun to watch her check them out.
Hopefully more will come very soon. I have so much I would like to put up, but don't ever take the time to do it. I'm very impressed with those who have multiple children and post regularly.

New Friends!

I plan to do a longer post soon, but for now I have to share this too cute picture. One neat part of the last week is that Sadie Beth is beginning to be more intrigued by toys, especially ones hanging suspended in the air. She enjoys staring at them. We have a mobile in the pack-n-play that she really likes, especially when I make it move (it's not automated). When I spin it around, she smiles and dances a bit with her arms and legs. Today we were at Abby's house and she sat in their swing, which has rotating fish...she was mesmorized...seriously did not take her eyes off of it for 10 minutes...she had no idea the rest of the world existed. However, this past weekend weekend we got out her new car seat toys that we got at our Oregon shower, and I think the Blue Elephant is Sadie Beth's new best friend. She gazes lovingly at him for extended periods of time, as seen in the picture above. She enjoys the yellow lion too, but boy there seems to be a real special connection with the elephant. It's fun to watch her start to enjoy these things. Sadie Beth is definitely interested in learning about the world around her!
p.s. - isn't she cute in her new sleeper? We hit up the after Thanksgiving sale at Kohl's for size 3-6 mos pjs, as she outgrew all her 0-3 mos. She was too long for the smaller ones.

So blessed!

Happy Thanksgiving! We used to sing a song at church that says, "So blessed, I can't contain it!" That is truly how David and I feel right now. We are so blessed in every way. We have an AMAZING baby girl who brightens all of our days with her sweet sweet smiles, who has a wonderful personality and is such a joy. We have incredible support from our families, both here and in Oregon. They take care of us in so many ways. We have great friends who pray for us and encourage us. God has provided for us in every way...we are so thankful for the ways He meets every one of our needs and even gives us so much that we want. We had no idea how we would make ends meet, and yet He takes care of us each day.
Aren't her smiles so much fun?

Our mischievious little "bug!" (buggy-bear, sweet girl bear, Sadie-Bug, baby-bug, etc)

I'm so thankful for my family. We never expected, just over 3 years ago, how God would continue writing the story of our lives, and look where we are now! David is a such an incredible husband and father, always taking such good care of his "girls!" I am so blessed to be married to him. (Church directory picture)

Fall is here!

Yay...it's been less than a month since my last post! Today's will be much shorter, as I am in a race against nap time. I actually can't believe Sadie Beth is still sleeping (but am thankful) because normally she only stays down for about an hour and 15 minutes or so for this nap, but we are almost to 2 hours now! (the intended nap length). Things are great here in Balzer world, and I will probably say this in every post but I can't believe how fast Sadie Beth is growing and changing.
Let's see, what news to share...the biggest excitement I suppose is...drumroll please...Sadie Beth slept through the night for the first time Saturday night and then again Sunday night too!!! (not last night though). Hooray...the schedule is working! (And now everyone can laugh because I'm talking about the schedule again). We are so blessed to have such a good baby who for the most part eats and sleeps as we are trying to direct her. Now, if Mommy can just get over her own sleep issues, then we'll be set. I think I have some sort of nursing insomnia or something...well, not really, but I do believe my biological clock is pretty confused. I wake up sometime between 4-5am, and I am WIDE awake. I don't think I slept from 5:30-7:30am after I fed Sadie Beth and put her back down this morning. I probably should have gotten up, but what was I going to do? I can't make too much noise because I don't want to wake her or David. Maybe my body is FINALLY getting used to less sleep. I've always been one to need 8 hours. Oh well though, because surprisingly I feel fairly energetic.
I exercised for the first time this morning! Last week I had my follow up with the OB who gave me the go-ahead on resuming normal activities, but as eager as I was to start into a workout routine, I was so SICK that I didn't feel like doing anything. I had an awful sinus infection...headaches, mouth pain, and 101 degree fever for 3-4 days! No fun for me. Praise the Lord Sadie Beth didn't get it, but I think all the medicine I was taking messed her up a bit. She was pretty fussy for a day or two, which is not like my sweet baby girl!
Speaking of my sweet baby girl, here she is! Doesn't she look content in this picture? She likes her giraffe, probably because it is so stimulating, and I LOVE her polka-dot sleeper that my friend Erica gave her.

Happy 2nd Anniversary to us! These are some of the beautiful flowers David gave me for our anniversary. Star-gazer lillies are my favorite. Apparently Sadie Beth likes them as well. We celebrated our anniversary with a trip to Los Aztecas, our favorite Mexican restaurant, when David's family was here. It was nice to have some time just us for a bit. I am married to such an amazing man....David is an incredible husband and now a wonderful father too! He takes such wonderful care of us, and is so thoughtful and giving. I'm blessed by him in so many ways.
Play date time! Heather and Elijah came over awhile back and we had a nice little afternoon. Sadie Beth and Elijah had fun getting to know each other too. They are laying on the "puke" blanket. It is David's beloved old comforter that we lay on the floor to protect the carpet from any accidents...it's come in handy more than once.
I can't remember where we went, but it was one of the first cooler days so we had to bundle up!
Sadie Beth is very patient with me. Each time she wears a new outfit, I feel the need to take a picture. Here it looks like she is tolerating me...:)

I LOVE THE HAIR!!! We can't do anything to keep it under control, but boy isn't it fun? I think it says so much about her personality.
I think we were getting ready to go for a walk here and she started making funny faces. We always have to wear bibs in the carseat, because its almost guaranteed that she will spit up.

Happy Halloween!!! My mom's friend gave Sadie Beth this cute little Halloween outfit. Unfortunately, this is one of the days I was sick, so we didn't go anywhere other than the doctor, and later she got it very messy, but we did manage a few shots.

I love the hat...she's pretty funny when she gets to making faces!
And the thrush lives on....actually we don't know if the white stuff all over her tongue is really thrush or not. She has been on one medication or the other since before she was 2 weeks old. We went back to the doctor today, who took a culture that came back negative for thrush...but the doctor still thinks it is. They did a blood test to make sure it wasn't anything real bad, and it's not...so we can be thankful for that. I guess for now we just have an adorable little white tongued baby girl. I wanted to wait for it to go away before getting her pictures taken, but I might go ahead. I guess we will capture the memory of the thrush too!