Six Months

On Christmas Eve Melana turned six months old. I can't believe it's been six months! In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday and in others it feels like she's always been a part of our family. I weighed her on Christmas Day and she is already 20 pounds! She goes next week for her six month checkup and we'll see how long she is getting. I think she is very tall for six months, but we'll see. I decided to update about how she's been progressing, but there have been so many changes and new things that I'll just put it into list form. Besides, I'm a sucker for a good list. :)

New Activities
-sits by herself for several minutes
-scoots herself around on the floor while on her back
-rolls from back to tummy (just three days ago for the first time!)
-very verbal: Favorite word "Eeeeee" and it's said a lot
-jumps up and down in her exersaucer
-slept in her own room for the first time this week

Likes

-eating cereal, squash, carrots and peas
-bathtime
-loves to stand any chance she gets
-her toes, still
-her exersaucer, pink ball, books, lullaby puppy "Violet", purple bunny "FooFoo", yellow stuffed puppy, and LINKS (the links are our best investment as far as toys, she loves them)
-loves to be sung to
-likes when I sing "I I I I I LOVE you!" she laughs and laughs
-watching the dogs
-bouncing in her exersaucer
-peek a boo
-holding our finger or thumb while eating her bottle and moving them back and forth (she's done this since she could grab it, we don't know why)
-likes to watch TV although we try not to let her, whenever it's on, she is watching and seems particularly drawn to football (thanks Aunt Michele!) :)

Favorite People

-Mommy and Daddy
-Grandmas and Grandpa
-Auntie cousin Emilee
-and her little cousin Jenna who calls her My Laney or My Lana :)

Dislikes

-carseat
-sometimes naps
-green beans, sweet potatoes, bananas
-her face washed
-getting dressed

Melana likes Duck Farts

Post Holiday Update

It's been way too long since I've updated this blog and I am at a loss of really where to begin. *Sigh* So here goes. Since my last entry in November, Darian and I celebrated 11 years of being married by taking Melana and our niece, Emilee on a road trip to Philly to visit our best friends Adrian and Kristie. Romantic, I know. I worked on Thanksgiving but we celebrated the Saturday following with my parents, aunt and uncle and my grandpa. Here we are celebrating Melana's first Thanksgiving.
We had alot of fun getting ready for and celebrating Melana's first Christmas as well. In early December we drove to Plain City, OH for Christmas with the Hostetler's, my mother-in-law's family. Melana got passed around from various aunts, uncles and cousins and got a little overstimulated but it was fun. It is always good to catch up with our Ohio relatives and this year we got an extra day of visiting due to bad weather. Thanks for putting us up, Aunt Alma! Our holiday celebrations continued the weekend before Christmas when we spent Saturday with Darian's family at his parent's house where Melana experienced her first taste of gift opening. She was scared of the wrapping paper tearing sound, but fascinated with the tissue paper. She also enjoyed all the goodies she got from Grandma and Grandpa Miller as well Uncle Loren and Aunt Trudy and Aunt Sheryl and Auntie Cousin Emilee. She LOVES "auntie Em".

On Sunday we had dinner at my Aunt Sue's house for Christmas with my dad's family. It was great to see everyone and Melana again was the belle of the ball and got lots of attention from my relatives.
Just before Christmas my brother, Jason and his wife Rachael and their family as well as my sister Michele and her husband Paul flew up from Texas to spend Christmas in the great white north. We enjoyed six days of pure fun and chaos as we all invaded my parent's home. 8 adults, 2 kids, and 2 babies!!!! We took this rare opportunity of us all being together to get a family potrait done. (can't wait to see them!) Here is Melana in her holiday finery with my sister Michele.
We spent Christmas Eve at my Uncle Lee and Aunt Karen's house and my niece Jordyn, 7, made her first snowman. We took turns riding the four wheeler and petting my aunt's horse, Rose. Darian took his turn as a horse himself for my nieces who named him "Rodie".

On Christmas Day we had a wonderful brunch and enjoyed opening gifts together. The girls were such a joy to watch and Melana was spoiled by her aunts, uncles and my parents. Her favorite gifts seem to be a pink ball from my parents and a puppy named "Violet" who sings lullabies from Uncle Jason and Aunt Rachael. One of my faves for her is this awesome alphabet art of Melana's name that was photographed and framed by my sister Michele.


Overall our favorite part of the holidays was enjoying the company of family and hanging out with our Texas family. We spent hours doing crafts with our nieces Jordyn,7 and Jenna, 3 and snuggling and playing with sweet Juliette, 4 months. We shared stories and laughs and eating and talking about "snow bundles", right Rach? ;)
We thought it was especially cute that our niece Jenna seemed especially taken by Melana. She would come up to her face and smile or touch her cheeks and say "Oh, MY-lana, you're so cute!" Pretty soon I found myself called her MY lana. Too cute.
The few days after Christmas was spent at the mall, the movies and just being lazy and visiting.
Here are cousins Juliette and Melana in their cute matching outfits. So cute.
Grandma and Grandpa loved having all the kids and grandkids together and I'm afraid they may still be in shock.
Unfortunately all fun must end, so we are back to our old routine. But we have sweet memories of a wonderful, fun filled Christmas and are so blessed to have spent all that time with our loved ones.

I don't want to forget.......

Time to catch up. I don't want to forget anything from this season of life!! I also am finding it difficult to tear myself away from my little darlin' long enough to blog about her. So, I'll be backing up a bit and posting about what she's been up to for the last month.
She is now 4 1/2 months old. At her four month checkup she weighed 15 pounds and 7 ounces and was 25 inches long! Unfortunately, the week before then she had a virus that involved sniffling, runny nose, and a dry cough followed by a rash. At first I thought it was teething related, but no it was a virus. Then a week later after her well baby check it came back only this time with a moist, persistent cough that had me worried. I took her back in and sure enough she had bronchiolitis. Within twelve hours of starting antibiotics she was showing signs of improvement and better yet her smile was back!! :)
In actuality, her smile is never far away at all. She is the sweetest and smileyest (is that a word) baby I know. In the morning when she sees us standing above her, she pulls her chubby little fists to her chest and shrugs up her shoulders and just gives us this HUGE, open mouthed, toothless, excited grin and giggle. I LOVE it!! She also has a new hobby.... making silly faces. My parents, bless their little hearts, taught her how to make pffft!! noises, although it comes out more like bubbles and spitting. Thanks Mom and Dad!! :) She also has started sticking her tongue in and out very quickly and giggles like crazy when we do it back to her. This last week I was lying in bed in the morning half awake when I heard "smack smack" followed by giggles. She had learned how to smack her lips together and hasn't really stopped since then. She sucks in her upper lip and then "Smack" and "hee hee hee". At least she can amuse herself. Speaking of amusement, she has also found her toes. She loves them. She is constantly kicking her feet into the air to look at them and then grabbing her toes and pulling on them. It's SO cute!

Her other favorite thing is to grab our fingers and pull herself up into a sitting position. Then she tries and sometimes succeeds to pull herself into a standing position. At this point we say "Big girl!" and she giggles. We've really tried to get her onto the floor more, but I hate to do it when the dogs are in the house so I wait till they are outside. She is staying on her belly more now, but still not rolling over from her back to her belly. Grandma and Grandpa Ives bought her an exersaucer as an early Christmas gift and she likes to play with all the attachments. I've noticed her movements becoming more deliberate and her motor skills becoming more finite. I think she also likes the exersaucer because it puts her in a better place for doggie viewing. She watches Junie and Spanky walk by, sometimes gets a lick on the head or the face, and then watches their tails as they walk away.

She likes to play with her rattles and really loves books. We like Goodnight Moon, Dr. Suess' Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and There's a Wocket In My Pocket, as well as her Baby's First Bible. I've realized we don't have as many books as I'd like and am asking for books for her Christmas gifts from family.


She has fallen into a new eating/napping routine and usually takes three-four naps a day. One short one in the morning, a long one in early afternoon and one or two short ones later in the afternoon. Sometimes she doesn't necessarily sleep but just spends some time in her pack and play talking to her toys or toes and listening to music.
Yesterday we tried cereal for the first time. She didn't act as though she didn't like it, just smiled and spit it out. Today went better and I was able to get her to take about half the recommended amount with only a small amount ending up on her face.
She had another first these last couple of weeks other than sickness and cereal. She went to her first harvest party at our church. Here she is all bundled up.

I can't believe how big she is getting. Everyone says "it goes by so fast" and so far it's true. I sometimes want to stop the clock and hold onto each of these stages a little longer. I don't want her to stop growing but if she could just slow down.... And here's one of her and her daddy..... she likes to lay on his chest and talk and play with his beard. These are my two favorite people ever and I love watching them together.

Kitchen Adventures-Pumpkin Bread

With the cooler weather upon us and the fall parade of colors in full swing, I've begun my annual ritual of baking fall goodies. I don't know what it is about this time of year that makes me want to get in the kitchen and whip up cookies, pies, breads applesauce, etc. Maybe it's the rapidly approaching holiday season (yikes! lets not go there yet!) or maybe I'm trying to store up the extra poundage for hibernation, er, winter. I just don't think the Harvest time of year can be properly celebrated without a baked good or two full of pumpkin. Now my favorite pumpkin dessert of all time is my mother's pumpkin roll. Nothin' says lovin' like Momma's pumpkin rolls from the oven! Second would be just a classic pumpkin pie (I have a great no fail recipe that I use for Thanksgiving) and I also enjoy the seasonal delight Pumpkin Cheesecake from Olive Garden. Yum! Yum! Of course with a new baby we haven't been out much so I haven't had that guilty pleasure yet this season, but I found a similar recipe on All Recipes.com that I can't wait to try. I also found a recipe for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls that I'm planning to try soon. I'll let you know how that goes.
So, I decided to make my own delish pumpkin delight here at home. Several weeks ago I had the most scrumptious piece of pumpkin bread while visiting my parents. My mom had just bought it at a bake sale that was being held at our old church back home, Firm Foundation Ministries. It turns out my friend Lynette had made the yummy bread so I emailed her on FB (where else?) and I learned the recipe came from the 2000 Lake Area Christian School cookbook. I got to looking deep in my cupboards and found that I actually had the cookbook from my alma mater and set out to make the moist, spice filled bread. Here is the recipe and some pics of the progress.

Pumpkin Bread

2 C. canned pumpkin 2 tsp. baking soda
3 C. sugar 2 tsp. cinnamon
1 C. water 1 tsp. salt
1 C. vegetable oil 1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3 1/3 C. all-purpose flour 3/4 tsp. ground cloves

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, sugar, water, vegetable oil, and eggs. Beat until well mixed. Measure the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and ground cloves into a separate bowl and stir until combined. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, beating until smooth. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans and dust them with flour. Evenly divide the batter between them. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 10-15 minutes then remove from pans onto cooling rack.

Love that golden color!

And how else should one enjoy a nice warm slice of pumpkin bread but with a warm cup of joe in my favorite mug (courtesy of the NBC store, thanks Michele and Paul)!!

P.S.- Since enjoying my first slice, I've also eaten this bread warmed with vanilla ice cream on top and sprinkled with a dusting of Pumpkin Pie Spice. I HIGHLY recommend it! Yum!

Kitchen Adventures- in Pie Making

We visited Darian's great aunt Martha a few weekends ago for a Sunday evening supper and a visit with her and Darian's second cousin Nick and his family. It was great to see them all again and to introduce Melana. But one of the highlights of the evening was the DELISH Apple Cream Pie that Aunt Martha served. I was able to snag the recipe from her but somewhere between there and here I lost it. Boo! So I wrote down what I could remember of the recipe and then looked for similar recipes on one of my fave websites All Recipes.com So, being the smarty pants that I am, I thought that I had it figured out so I set out to make this oh-so-amazing pie. First I got these beautiful, organic Honeycrisp apples. Aren't they purty?
Then I broke out the trusty Pillsbury Pie Crust. (Love them!) I mixed the sugar and cinnamon and placed it in the bottom of the pie crust. Then I mixed more cinnamon and sugar along with some lemon juice and flour and folded the apples into the mixture and then arranged the apples in thin slices in the pie pan. I covered the apples with a mixture of cream and vanilla and topped the whole thing off with more cinnamon and sugar. It was the most beautiful uncooked pie I'd ever seen. sniff sniff
After baking it still looked just as wonderful, although I did notice that some of the apples on the top layer didn't look as though they had cooked through all the way. Well, a half baked apple with cinnamon and sugar is just as tasty as one that's cooked right? So I let the pie cool a bit and then cut into it with fingers crossed for my first slice of homemade goodness. The crust was perfect (thanks doughboy), the apples under the first layer were perfectly cooked but, wait a minute!

Oy, what a mess!

Unfortunately, I must have missed something or mixed the cream mixture wrong because the apple juices had mixed with the cream and had made a liquid mess where my pie should have been. Of course, I had to give it a taste because even messy foods can be good. Ex: sloppy joes, ribs, corn on the cob etc... But it didn't taste much better than it looked and I had to dispose of my mega pie fail. Ah well. Maybe next time. Guess I probably should have called up Aunt Martha to begin with.

Our Growing Girl-17weeks

Wow, I really need to catch up on here. Melana is growing and changing every day and I don't want to forget any of it. She's now going on 17 weeks but, in some ways, it seems like she has been a part of our little family forever and, in other ways, it seems like she was born just a few days ago. The teething seems to have gotten a little better. The drooling and finger gnawing continues, but she seems to be in less pain. Thank goodness. The teeth haven't come through yet, but at least she's getting a little break. She still smiles all the time. She is such a joy and can always put me in a good mood, even in the mornings, which is quite a feat! She sticks her tongue out all the time, as I so wisely taught her, and she loves it when we stick out tongue out at her, it makes her giddy. She gabs and jabbers all the time and LOVES when people talk to her and play with her. She is still playing with her floor gym and in her bouncy seat, but I think she is starting to get bored with these at times so I'm thinking of getting her an exersaucer. I think she wants to be upright more so she can see what's going on around here. I set her on the counter in her bouncy seat when I'm working in the kitchen and she likes to watch me. During those times we often listen to music. Either Lullabies or Children's songs for her or Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Johnny Cash etc. I'm trying to introduce her to the "good" music. :) She likes to be read to. Our favorite book continues to be "Goodnight Moon" but she likes a new one I've been reading about farm babies. She still likes her baths and has started to be more "active" while bathing. She kicks her feet and splashes her hands in the water. She likes to look in the mirror and has started to look at herself and not just at me holding her. She turns her head when she hears me or Darian talking in the room and she gets excited to see us and kicks and waves her arms, even first thing in the morning. She has really started to watch the dogs too. When she is laying on the ottoman playing, I've noticed she turns her head all around to see where they are and to track them. They still pretty much ignore her. She attended her first and second bonfires the last few weeks and seemed to do well. We have been having a problem with her screaming when putting her down at night though and I'm not sure what that is about. We've always been able to put her to bed awake and then we can hear her on the monitor playing and cooing for a while before going to sleep. Now she screams as soon as we put her down and cries and screams on and off for about an hour. We've gone up to change her, burp her, rock her and even tried feeding her a little more and nothing seems to work until she tires herself out. I blame the teething thing. Last night was a little better and she fussed for a few minutes and then fell asleep. Hopefully that was just a short phase.

Melana continues to be our joy and we are so thankful and blessed to have her. We are still waiting for the adoption to be final. After speaking with our attorney this week, it looks like it might still be closer to the end of the year. I'm praying for before Christmas, but I guess it doesn't matter when as long as it's done. She is our beautiful angel or, as Darian likes to call her, our "Melana cookie". (for anyone who knows him, you know how much he likes cookies) :)

I took her monthly pic posing with her teddy bear that my dad bought her in the hospital. I take her pic every month with the bear so we can see how much she has grown in comparison to the bear. I love that smile!!! I think I need to enter her in a beautiful baby contest.

If that wasn't proof enough, check out this sweetie pie...

Look at those blueberry eyes! She's so sweet! Darian, of course, hates the bow. Mom and I found cute little bands and a cute hat and flowers to put on them at Hobby Lobby and when we got to the car and showed Darian and Dad, they both rolled their eyes in disgust. I think it's a guy thing.