It's been a long time since I last updated, and I'm feeling the urge to write lately. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Everly is almost 9 months old and she is nearing her 1st Birthday!!... or the fact that the weather has been so beautiful and I've been really inspired latley. Either way here it goes...

As I'm typing this I can hear her sweet breathing through the monitor.....

The last time I updated this we had just found out that we were having a girl! Oh my gosh that was over a year ago!!! Well yep we had a beautiful little girl name Everly and she has changed our world!! After struggling to become pregnant, I had a very easy pregnancy- only 2 or 3 days with morning sickness and only one early labor/contraction scare at 27 weeks..we have been blessed with a happy, healthy and overall very easy baby!

Everly was born July 8th 2011 via c-section (she was "frank" breech)

It really saddens me to say though, that I am realizing that each day, I'm forgeting more and more our first days together...Although I have recorded all of her milestones so far...I'm struggleing to remember the little things....It' almost feels like she wasn't even in the hospital with me..  :( ... This is one of my biggest negatives of having a c-section. Although I was not put under, I believe that because of all the drugs they had me on I'm not able to remember that time as clearly.

But from the time we got home with our new beautiful bundle, Everly has been such an amazing baby! Tim and I were able to agree on a pretty decent schedule for the 1st week while he was home with us. At 10 o'clock Tim would go to sleep until 2 or 3 the I would get to sleep until 7 or so. Everly was on the typical newborn sleeping/eating schedule.. she would sleep for 3 hours then be awake for 3 hours...this continued for the first 2-3 weeks.... After that we started working on a sleep routine, and as I remember we would put her in her bassinet around 9 pm and she would wake up around 2 am, then 4 am then up for the morning around 6 am....During this time I was still pumping every 2-3 hrs...needless to say I got almost no sleep. After 1 month of pumping, and rarley being able to get Everly to latch on long enough to eat enough...We began supplementing with formula...and to this day it is one of my biggest regrets of my LIFE!!  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against feeding your child formula, but for me I still remember that bond I felt when I was breast feeding her and even when I was pumping, just knowing that I AM THE ONE that is keeping this baby full, growing and healthy was one of the greatest feelings in the world!! And I am still very dissapointed in myself that I let my selfishness of being exhausted end that form of bonding between me and my daughter. It is something I will never get back..I can't have a do over...and I just wish i had realized that then.But I am proud to say that since Everly has started eating baby food, I have made it all myself! And try to be organic as often as I can! This has helped me cope with the fact that I stopped breast feeding so early...This is something that I know is the best option for her and I will do it as long as she is eating baby food.

But back to the sleeping habits: At 8 weeks old I had returned to work part-time and we had tried unsucessfully to transition Everly to her crib. At that time she was in her bassinet but for the most part we were co-sleeping ( i don't want to hear any negatives comments about this, I don't regret that for a second)...But at 10 weeks we decided to give the crib another shot... and from that day on, Everly has been a 10-12 hour night time crib-sleeper!!!! We've had a handful of rough nights in the last 6 months, and 2 of those nights were because of teething.
Around the time when Everly was 6 months old (January) we had a couple of rough nights (2-3 wake ups) it just happens that one of my clients is a pediatrican and she reccomended the book "Healthy Sleep Habits - Happy Child" and that night we began using the cry-out method...we put Everly to be between 6:30 & 7:30 when she starts showing us her "sleep signals" and she fusses/crys for usually 5-10 min, then sleeps until around 5 am...We know that we are so blessed to have such a great sleeper!!

Everly's Milestones: So far I believe Everly has been on  the earlier end of average..not positive though...
First "true" smile: 3 weeks 6days
First Laugh: 8 weeks
First held her head up: 10 weeks
Rolled over: 3 1/2 months
Sat up un-assisted: 5 1/2 months
Held her bottle: 5 1/2 months
Crawled: 5 months
Pulled herself to standing: 7 months
Cruising furniture/pushing walker: 8 months

Her favorite foods are Pears, Yogurt and Puffs.- she also loves to feed the puffs to the dog ;) Every day she does something new and amaze's us all over again and again..And as we begin to plan her 1st Birthday party, I've really enjoyed reflecting on the past (almost) 9 months and can't wait to see her grow, learn and discover everyday!