Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Ellie Grace: 1 year!


This post is long (about a month) overdue! We had a wonderful time celebrating 1 year of life with our sweet Ellie girl. On her actual birthday we invited friends and family over to our place for a little shindig. We kept it low key with a meal, cupcakes (of course), gift opening, festive decor, and hanging out. It was a beautiful sunny (and warm!) fall day, which was great to be able to have some of our 22 guests spread outside to eat. Family came up from Eugene, and down from Kalama, and we even had Jake's aunt here from Nantucket. Ellie seemed to really enjoy herself. She wasn't too sure about her cake (I made a no sugar banana cake with no sugar cream cheese frosting) at first, but once she got a taste you couldn't stop her from digging in.

Some highlights from the last month include:
-Ellie blows kisses and makes a kiss face with her lips and leans in when you ask for a kiss
-She has discovered her tongue and likes to make LLLLL noises
-Ellie will stroll around the house with a little walker. At first she looked like a little old lady: booty stuck out and slowly taking giant steps.
-One of my new favorites is Ellie holding up her hands with her palms facing her when you say "where is...."
-I love that Ellie will hear the slightest noise in the hallway and know when Jake is home from work. She starts pointing to the door and saying Dadada.
-She had a little cold that lasted about a week.
-She now has 4 teeth: 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top
-She is still breastfeeding 5 times a day and has two naps.
-Ellie is healthy and sweet as ever. She measured 29 3/8" tall and 20 lbs 6 oz at her 1 year check up.
-Now we're gearing up for our trip to Thailand in the beginning of November

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Ellie Grace: 11 months

We are ever too quickly approaching the big 1 year. It blows my mind to think about how quickly time is passing. We have and are still loving every minute we have with our sweet Ellie girl. Here are some highlights of the last month:
-Took a 4 day road trip to North Eastern Oregon. Ellie was a rockstar the whole time-not a single meltdown during all the carseat time she had!
-She has mastered a grumpy frowny face and a fake smarmy laugh
-Ellie learned to climb the stairs- all the way to the top!
-She puts her hand up to blow kisses, raises both her hands up when you say "how big is Ellie?", dances to music
-She says "ava" for avacado, "buh" or "bah" for button, bear, book, ball, bath, baby, baaa, "duck", "neigh neigh", "mmmm" for moo,
-If you ask her where her head or her toes are she'll point to them. We've started giving her directions and she responds to- come here, put your shoe on your foot, give mommy hugs, give daddy kisses, touch daddy's face gently, where's your (...)?, get daddy
-She loves to play peek a boo, round and round the garden, this little piggy, when ducks get up in the morning they always say good day, 6 little ducks that I once knew, play with her activity table, leapfrog animal fridge magnets, cars, books
-Went to Seattle for the weekend for a friends wedding and stayed with Gary & Lisa Halcomb
-Went to her friend Hadley's 1st birthday party
-Went on some bike rides
-Started brushing her teeth
-Ate some beef
-Pulls herself up and cruises around holding onto furniture
 classic grump face
our sweet little one

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Ellie Grace:10 months


Time for another post. The fact that I don't post anything else on here except a once a month update tells you A.) I'm a lazy blogger or B.) Life just flies by. I like to think the latter. Seriously, Jake keeps saying that summer is over and although I like to think that we still have a good month and a half (September in Oregon is pretty darn nice), he's probably right. We haven't floated the river one time this summer (our usual favorite past time), the truth is it's just harder with a baby. But on the flip side, we've had some great times doing other things we didn't do so much before we had our Ellie girl. The past month we:

-went on lots of walks
-went to a wedding
-went to a work family picnic at oaks park (Ellie rode a carousel and went down the giant pink slide)
-went bike riding
-hung out with cousins and aunt and uncle from Yakima
-went to the pool
-went to a church play date at a park splash pad
-hung out with our friends Ashley & June, and Mandy & Hadley
-went yard saling
-visited a new friend, Avery at the hospital after she was born
-went blackberry picking
-went paddle boarding/to the river
-spent a couple days in Eugene with Nonna and Poppa, aunts, uncles, and cousins
-went to some bbq's
-attended Jake's 10 year high school reunion

Ellie is still on pretty much the same sleep schedule- naps at 11-1, 3-5, and bedtime from 8-6. She eats at lunch and dinner time consistently, with some snacks and some breakfast every once in awhile. She tried fresh caught tuna, black beans, brown rice, string cheese, blackberries, plums... and still loves her usual avacado, grapes, mum mumms, puffs, potatoes, squash...She likes drinking water out of her sippy cup and can do it by herself pretty well. She is still nursing 5 times a day-6am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm, and 8pm. She now claps, pulls herself up on everything, will do a funny scrunchy smile, can say poop, bear, buh (book), bye, and tries to repeat a lot of what we say. She learned how to climb our stairs, and it's amazing to see what she grasps (ie-asking her to find her fish, or a ball, or her bear, or a book, and watching her pick them out of her group of toys). She is soooo snuggly at night and naptime (I love it, and at the same time don't want her to become dependent on it). She's starting to act shy when she meets new people (snuggling into my shoulder), and becoming more of a momma's girl when it comes to putting her to bed..but she still adores her daddy and he gets the best giggles out of her. We just booked a family trip to Thailand in a few months, so we are both thrilled and trying to figure out what that will look like with Ellie. We applied for her first passport which is super exciting. We love our little Ellie girl!!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Ellie Grace: 9 months

Ellie girl turned 9 months old last weekend. The past month flew by with a lot of traveling and summer activities. We're narrowing in quickly on a year already! Here are some highlights from the last month:
-Spent a weekend in Yakima celebrating a wedding & hanging with some family
-Went on Ellie's first camping trip to Loon Lake. I wasn't sure what to expect (thinking it could be more work than a vacation), but Ellie was truly a happy camper. She loved the water and sand, playing with her cousins, snuggling with aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and slept pretty well in the tent.
-She got her first two teeth while at Loon Lake (7/4 -7/9).
-Visited Jake's parents in Kalama for a weekend where we paddleboarded the river, had bonfires, ate delicious food, and did some archery. Aunt Whit and Uncle Matt joined us for the weekend to complete time as a family.
-Went to another wedding, a family picnic for Jake's work, the pool (a lot!), on lots of walks, worked in the yard, garage saling, story time at the library...
-Went berry picking 3 times
-We got a seat & helmet for Ellie and took her on her first bike ride-she loved it.

Ellie has her moments, but overall she is the sweetest little one! She is so laid back, sleeps well (despite all the trips out of town), and has recently started eating more. We finally figured out that she just isn't into purees. In just the past couple days she has started to really get into the swing of eating. Some of her favorites are avacado, potato, nectarine, blueberries, raspberries, banana, mum mums, puffs, carrot, squash, and blackberries. We have randomly given her some super hard fruits and veggies and she liked to gnaw on those (raw carrots, apple, peas). Her current schedule is: feed at 6am/9am/1pm/5pm/8pm with naps from (roughly) 11am-1pm & 3pm-5pm, and going to bed right after her 8pm feeding.

At her 9 month check up she weighed in at 19 lbs, 13 oz and is 2 feet 3.25 inches tall. She cruises all over by crawling and will now pull her self up to stand or kneel. She likes to say Mamama more frequently, and delight in hearing her response to "what's a dog say?"-to which she says "ffffffff'". Ellie loves people and likes to wave hello and goodbye (when she feels like it). Jake and I are constantly saying to one another how blessed we are to have her!!!


-

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Ellie Grace: 8 months

                                                     
Our little nugget is 8 months old today. Some of the highlights from the past month have been:
-going on walks & to library time with our friends Ashley and June.
-going to First Thursday downtown, & First Friday in Newberg
-going yard saling every Friday with friends
-A trip to Eugene to hang with family
-A trip to Bend over Memorial day weekend to visit Jake's grandparents
-going on a hike in the gorge (Angel's Rest) for father's day.
Despite our consistent efforts each evening to get Ellie to eat solids, she still would shut her mouth and refuse. We tried bananas (5/20), green beans (5/27), sweet potatoes (5/29), mum mums (6/9), carrots (6/10), and mangoes (6/17). With no progress, we decided to take a break for about a week in hopes that her interest in eating would grow. Eating after the break has changed slightly in that she will now eat a mum mum (that we dip in some of her food) and maybe take a couple bites if we're lucky. We will just have to keep at it I guess (can't wait for solids to be consistent in her diet so she stops having blowouts all the time!). In the last month we introduced water from a sippy cup, and she also takes great delight in drinking it from a straw.
As far as sleep is concerned, she had a rough patch that started during our trip to Bend over memorial day weekend. She would wake up multiple times a night. Even if we rocked her back to sleep and tried to lay her gently in her crib, she would spring back awake as soon as her head hit the mattress. It made for a tired mommy and daddy for a couple weeks. I am happy to report that she has again fallen back into her "norm" of sleeping through the night from about 8:30pm-6am. She's still on the 4ish hour schedule during the day, eating again at 9 am, 1 pm, 5pm, and 8 pm. Naps are usually from 11-1, and 3-5.
It's been a joy to continue to see her personality develop. She gets super excited when we go in to get her after her naps, and she loves music, songs, and sound. Some of my favorite times with her are right after her 6 am feeding when she falls right to sleep afterward on my shoulder and I get to rock and snuggle her until I feel like putting her back down in her crib (I usually have to force myself). Little things I love are the way she turns her binky round and round as she nods off to sleep, how she rubs her eyes when shes getting tired, the way she'll be playing and all of a sudden just look up and smile at Jake or I, how she kicks her legs like crazy when she gets excited about something,  and the fact that her hair is finally getting long enough to have a little "bedhead" when she gets up from her naps.
A huge milestone for Ellie was when she started crawling (6/11). She had been rocking on her knees for a couple weeks, and then just started slowly moving forward one hand/knee at a time. By 6/14 she was crawling across the room with no breaks.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Ellie Grace: 7 months

7 Months! We're on the upswing to a year already. I swear I blinked and this last month flew by. It has been a sweet month of spending time as a family and watching Ellie learn as she discovers her surroundings. There are more nights than not that we hold our sweet sleeping little girl in our arms and say "When did she get so big?" She's become a pro at sitting up and playing for extended periods of time, and rolls and scootches around (often needing to be rescued from under a coffee table or chair). She started eating solids (5/4), rode in a shopping cart (4/30), sleeping in her crib at night (4/29), went swimming at the pool (4/30), and "waves" (probably just opening and closing her hand to her, but it's still cute). One morning (5/6) she started babbling noises that we hadn't heard before and they sounded an awful lot like mamamamama. I took a quick video on my shoddy phone, and Jake confirmed it. Just a couple days ago (5/19) we heard her start saying dadddaada. We thought her giggles were awesome, but that almost took the cake. We went to storytime at the library, on lots of walks, to First Thursday in downtown Portland, First Friday in Newberg, to the zoo with her cousins, aunt & nonna, to Eugene, yardsaling, and celebrated mother's day by driving to the beach for the day as a family. When we started solids, I started giving it to her in between her 5:00 and 8:00 feeding (at kind of dinner time). Ellie slurped down rice cereal when we first gave it to her, but trying peas (mixed with rice cereal and breastmilk-5/15) and even applesauce (mixed in with the peas, rice cereal and breastmilk-5/18) has been a different story. She keeps her lips pursed and we can barely sneak in any bites. As soon as it's in she makes horrible gagging faces and spits it out. She's having no issues with growing (we're talking belly & leg rolls for miles) so we're not worried about it. Sleep wise she was sleeping through the night from about 8:00ish to 6:30ish, then eating and going back to sleep until 9 for the longest time. During our visit to Eugene a couple days ago she started waking up at midnight and 4 and a few times in between and not settling back in unless I fed her (usually at the 4:00 wake up). We're hoping now that we're back home she'll fall back into her old routine. She's still on a 4 hour routine as far as eating goes- she eats, is awake for 2 hours, sleeps for (roughly) 2 hours, then repeats. It's been working out great for us! We love our little girl and look forward to another great month with her!

Saturday, May 04, 2013

A Week of Firsts

This week we had the joy of watching Ellie as she experienced a few things for the first time. On Monday night (4/29) she slept in her crib during the night for the first time. She had been sleeping in there for naps for quite awhile, but was still in our room in the pack'n'play (for convenience sake and so we didn't have to heat two rooms through the night) during the night. She started sleeping in her crib a few nights earlier but Jake wasn't quite ready to have her so far away so we camped out on her floor. She's made the transition pretty easily although right now she's in the habit of waking up at midnight & wanting her binky, and then waking up again at 5:30am to be fed.  Not terrible, but not ideal either. (snuggling with me in the morning)

Tuesday (4/30) she rode in the seat part of the shopping cart for the first time. Aside from her trying to suck on the nasty red strap, she seemed pretty stable.

Today (5/4) was super sunny- we're talking like 82 degrees so we took Ellie to take a little dip in our friends' pool. It wasn't much different than taking a bath (she loved it), but a fun introduction if only because of a cute swimsuit and sunhat nonetheless.

Today we also introduced solids into Ellie's diet. I whipped her up some organic brown rice cereal in our vitamix (mixed with some breast milk), and she seemed to really enjoy it. We offered it to her in the evening, between her normal feedings and she slurped up spoonful after spoonful.
 On top of all this, she's been rolling around like crazy and sitting like a pro these days. Even though I get a little sentimental with each milestone, knowing my tiny baby is turning into a little kid, what a joy it is to watch her as she grows!




Sunday, April 28, 2013

Ellie Grace: 6 months

Holy smokes! 6 months seems like a big milestone, but at the same time it feels like Ellie's been a part of our family for forever. We (probably as most parents do) think she is the cutest, smartest, sweetest baby ever. She weighs 17 lbs and is 2 ft 2.5 in tall, her eyes are still a greyish blue, and her hair is finally starting to grow in a little. Some of our favorite times are Saturday mornings- just hanging out as a family. Jake put it best by saying "I used to always try to find something to be entertained by. Now, I will just be playing with Ellie and before I know it like 4 hours have passed. I just love being with you guys." That's kind of our life these days. We spend a lot of time just doing normal family stuff around the house- going on walks, working in the yard, snuggling, making meals together, working on little projects. But we also do a pretty good job of getting out as much as we did pre-baby and taking her with us- hanging out with friends, going to church, having people over, going out to eat... Her temperament is still really easy going, although we have started to see glimpses of her little will popping up (arching her back when she's mad, expressively frowning when she's upset, waving her arms all over and swatting the binky away if we try to give it to her when she doesn't want it). Ellie has started sitting up on her own for short periods of time & she now loves to spend some time in her exersaucer. We have stopped swaddling her. Her sleep routine has thankfully taken a turn for the better and she's back to sleeping through the night (her last feeding is usually between 8:30 and 9:00pm  and she'll sleep until 6am. Then she'll eat, and go right back to sleep until about 9:30. Yahoo!!!). Ellie fought off another little cold this month, celebrated Easter in Eugene with her cousins and nonna and poppa, and went to the beach for the first time. It is so fun to see her little personality starting to shine through, and watch her learn and think through new things. Jake is the best at getting giggles out of her by shaking his nose in her armpit or under her chin.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Ellie Grace: 5 months



Our little Ellie girl turned 5 months old this month and it has been so fun to see her learn and grow in various ways. Giggles are more common now, and she is still talking up a storm. Her nicknames have become Ell Bell, Ellie Girl, Little Nug (short for nugget), and Elbert (Jake started calling her this awhile ago when her bozo strip reminded her of an old man). She loves to grab her feet, grab toys and suck on them, suck on her fist, drool, smile, sit in her bumbo, and snuggle. I had been trying a couple times a day to get her to take a bottle only to have her turn her head and keep her mouth absolutely shut. However, on March 2nd I had a wedding and left Jake to try to give her one and he had success! She held it herself and downed it (and looked super cute doing it). She has officially grown out of the 0-3 month size and is just about through 3 month clothing as well. We are so thankful for each moment we get with her!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Tickety Tock

Time is passing so quickly these days. I wanted to start documenting Ellie's "schedule" so that when (Lord willing) we have more kiddos I can look back at what worked and what didn't before. Here's a quick recap and our current schedule as well.

Birth- 1 Month:
-Feeding about every 3 hours
-After two weeks, trying to start establishing a little wake time after feeding

2 Months - 3 Months: 
-Feeding every 3 - 3 1/2 hours, 6 feedings a day
-Established a first feeding time (7 am (give or take a 1/2 hour))
-Get into routine of Feed, Wake Time, Sleep
-Put right to bed after last feeding (10 pm) of the day and let her sleep as long as she would go. Started sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks and continued to do so for about a month
-At about 3 months started to wake up for a 4:30 am feeding we kept it as long as she still woke up for her 7 am feeding. But once I started waking her up for the 7 am feeding, we dropped the 4:30 feeding again)

4 Months:
-Feeding every 3 1/2-4 hours
-First feeding starting at 7 am
-Started moving back the last feeding time to 9-9:30
-Increased wake time to 1 1/2-2 hours

Tomorrow Ellie will be 5 months old. This is currently Ellie's (rough) schedule for the day:

6 am feed, goes right back to sleep
9 am feed, awake until 10:30, nap until 1
1 pm feed, awake until 3, nap until 5
5 pm feed, awake until 7, nap until 9
9 pm feed, put down to sleep for the night


Other current tidbits:
-She has started waking up at 3 am, but most nights will sqwak a little and put herself back to sleep (sometimes only after we give her her binky)
-Lately she has been waking up a little after 5 and we tide her over (plug her binky, let her sqwak...) until close to 6, wondering if she is going through another growth spurt and maybe I will start feeding her at 3 again.
-Ellie has been breaking out of her swaddle for a couple months. I gathered it was time to stop swaddling her and started the transition by leaving one arm out of the swaddle (with the intention to transition to leaving both out), but she didn't nap as well when I did this (woke up more often). So as of now we still swaddle her  before we put her down to sleep (even though she always gets both hands out shortly after). Still trying to figure this out.





Tuesday, March 05, 2013

This Christmas

Our Christmas Card:


For Christmas this year, we stuck with our usual routine of spending Christmas Eve with the Peterson's and Christmas day with the Hayes'. Christmas eve we hosted Jake's family (his parents, sister and brother in law, and aunt sue) all day for dinner, gifts, dessert, church service, and christmas light show at one of the houses in our neighborhood. We got up early Christmas morning and celebrated just the three of us, and then drove on to Eugene and hung out with my family for a few days. Ellie was completely unaware of all the gifts and hoopla, but enjoyed the extra snuggle time with gramma and grampa, nonna and poppa, and aunts and uncles.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Ahhh! Immunizations!

I knew that there would be decisions that came up in raising Ellie that we would really have to pray/think through to make a choice that we felt was best for her. And I knew there would be parents on polar opposite sides of the issue trying to tell me that their way was the ONLY way to go. What I didn't know was just how hard it would be to make those decisions for our family and feel solid about them. A lot of them aren't just black and white. With Ellie's 4 month check up coming up, the topic of immunizations lurks around the corner once again. I had a 100% natural childbirth after thorough research about the issue. We felt that we didn't want to pump all the junk into my system (and thus into Ellie's), if it wasn't necessary to do so. Why put a bunch of synthetic drugs into our bodies that actually increase difficulties in the long run if we could let everything naturally take it's course the way the Lord designed things to happen? We opted not to have the eye ointment (an antibiotic that is to protect Ellie from sexually transmitted diseases), but did have the Hep B vaccine when she was born. Our thoughts on this were that we knew for a fact we didn't have any STD's, but we thought Hep B was easily passed from someone who had it and thought there was no way to know for sure that everyone she was going to come in contact with couldn't pass it on to her (nurses, doctors, family, friends...). At her 2 month check up, I feel like we didn't do as much research as we could have but had come to the decision to get all the recommended vaccinations. The doctors & handouts make the diseases they vaccinate against seem so scary and imminent, and yet make the possible side effects appear so unassuming. Right after getting her the vaccines we did a little more research and had a pit in our stomachs the next few days. Having learned that pharmaceutical companies add mercury to vaccinations that some say leads to autism, and reading the ingredients in some of the vaccines (ie monkey kidneys!?!) we weren't so sure about the decision we had made the day before. We continued to wrestle with it, research, and talk to family and friends who we trusted. Upon finding out that the vaccines Ellie got didn't have the mercury in them, and not seeing Ellie react adversely our minds were put a little more at ease. Jake and I arrived at the conclusion that maybe we would space future vaccinations out a little instead of giving her 6 all at once, and make sure ahead of time that they didn't contain mercury. We (thought) we had come to the conclusion that it's kind of a lose/lose situation, but choosing to vaccinate was the better one for us. On one hand, if we immunize her there could be crazy side effects and we were introducing foreign crazy products into her pure little body. And on the other hand if we didn't immunize her, she could A.) contract a deadly disease or B.) be a threat to other little ones (herd immunity). We felt that the best of the two was to immunize her because as much as we would hate for her to have adverse side effects, having her die of polio was even worse to us. Now that it's "time" according the the doctor's schedule to get the next round of immunizations, we still aren't fully confident in that previous conclusion. How likely (a lower %) is it that she will get these diseases vs. how likely (a higher %) the side affects are? Is it worth the risk not to vaccinate? Is it a responsibility to the public? We are weighing out the pros and cons, and trying to make the best decision for this sweet little life we've been entrusted with. Lord give us wisdom!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Ellie Grace: 4 months

Our Ellie girl turned 4 months old today! We had a great last month with her. She rolled over 2 times (but hasn't done it again yet). We went on a little overnight getaway to the Oregon Garden Resort to celebrate my birthday, went to her first Blazer game, went to bullwinkles & the children's museum when her cousins came to visit for the weekend, and got dedicated at our church (Athey Creek Christian Fellowship) on  February 17th. It's so fun to see her continually developing. She has really started to reach for toys dangled above her, is noticing her feet (and grabbing them), and likes sitting in her bumbo and standing on her strong little legs. It warms my heart to see her instant smiles when I sing her a good morning song when she wakes up for the day. Her awesome routine of sleeping through the night has completely done a 180. She started waking up again for a 4:30am feeding, and I thought it was just a growth spurt until it lasted the whole month. We are now trying to get her to wait until 6:30 or 7 like she used to for her first feeding, but it's resulted in a restless nights sleep for all of us. She doesn't scream all night or anything, but just stirs and sqwaks and wants her binky oh about every hour or so. We're hoping she'll grow out of this soon. :) Ellie started taking naps in her own crib (instead of all over the house or in her pack n play in our room), and has transitioned to sleeping there for naps flawlessly. We also have mostly dropped her late night (10:30 pm) feeding which is nice. She talks up a storm, and has added a (louder) excited squeal to her repetoire. There are so many little things that I want to remember like the way she holds up her shirt for us when we change her diaper, or how snuggly she is when she first wakes up from naps.

* UPDATE:  We took Ellie in for her 4 month check up the day after I posted this. We were still undecided about immunizations, so we decided to wait and are doing more research to try to come to the best (informed) decision we can. We simply were asking questions about them, and it quickly became really awkward. Our pediatrician got physically flustered (shaking, quivering, quick talking) and super defensive about the whole topic without really giving us any solid answers. Anywho, Ellie is healthy as can be weighing in at 14 lbs, 15 oz and measuring 2' 0.5" long. That is 50th percentile for height and 63rd percentile for weight. So glad to have a healthy growing little baby, but also already missing that teeny tiny little girl she was when we first brought her home.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Ellie Grace: 3 months

Our Ellie girl had her 2 month check up at about 10 weeks old. She weighed in at 12 lbs, 5 oz, and was 23 1/4 inches long. That's about the 50th percentile in both categories. She fought her first cold- a snuffly nose, cough, and congested throat. For New Years Eve she went with us to the prophecy update at church until 12:30 am, and shortly after went to her first Winterhawks hockey game (complete with a good brawl). Her spitting up has decreased substantially, although blowouts are still commonplace (she seems to especially pull them out whenever we are out and about). Bath time is one of her favorite times of the day. She has learned to grab her ball, and likes to sit up and stand up with a little support. We've started dropping her off in the nursery at church, and she's done great. It was a joy to hear her first giggle! Although it doesn't happen that often, we still get lots of smiles and talking from Ellie. We are constantly stopped whenever we are out in public for strangers to tell us what a beautiful baby we have.

Friday, January 04, 2013

Ellie Grace: 2 months

2 months came and went so quickly with our little girl. We are so thankful for every moment we get with her- she is a JOY to our family! She loves to smile, look at mom & dad, eat, talk (lots of cooing), watch her bear mobile, stretch, blow bubbles, suck on her binky, and cuddle. Starting on December 22nd (2 days after her two month mark), she started sleeping through the night. She went 9 1/2 hours that night. Every once in awhile she'll still want to feed once at about 4:30 AM, but the majority of the time sleeping through the night has become the norm.  Her clogged tear duct has cleared up, she still spits up pretty often, and she has mastered blowing out her diapers. Ellie is super alert & attentive and has a really strong neck. We have taken her everywhere we go- she's so easy to take places.