I know most of you knew my grandfather has been ill for a while now. He passed away today. He was a month shy of 92 (the picture was taken on his 91st birthday) and pretty darn healthy considering. He decided last night he was ready and went peacefully this afternoon without pain. My grandma, mom, uncle, grandpa's sister in law, Jamie and I were all there so he was surrounded by family. I hope that we all can be so fortunate when it is our time.

Thanks for your prayers.

A few weeks ago we had to stop our afternoon walks. Kacey was melting down during them and would become inconsolable. We stopped the walks and found that she just needed an earlier bedtime. We were keeping her up! So that means that for the past 4ish weeks I have done absolutely nothing in the world of exercise, unless lifting all the leftover cupcakes and candy corn from the Haloween party to my mouth counts....

So on Sunday I resolved to change. My mom has continued to walk but has switched back to mornings and has reduced it to 30 minutes so she can take advantage of the light. Something about not wanting to get mugged or eaten by a coyote in the wee hours of morning darkness. I told her I would join her as of Monday. And join her I did. And so did Jamie. And so did Kacey. The cat stayed at home.

Kacey Loved it, with a capital L. She sat up in her backpack carrier and just looked around in fascination in between smiling and giggling at us. We went up a smallish hill and my thighs got that tingly feeling of blood actually moving through the cellulite. It felt very good. Jamie suggested he wanted a longer walk today to try to get ready for our Thanksgiving trip since he plans on lots of hiking. My mom loved the idea so we decided to meet 15 minutes earlier. That means we met at 6:45.

Last night was a hard night with Kacey so I got about 5 hours of sleep total. When Jamie woke me up at 6:40, I wanted to lay in bed and let the cupcakes and candy corn congeal on my thighs. But I got up. WOuld you like to know my motivation? All the working mom blogs. If all you working moms can get up and go to work, I sure as hell can get up and take a 45 minute walk. So thank you for inspiring my lazy butt. I may be ready to start walking but I am not ready to give up the candy corn (the cupcakes are all gone now) so this is a nice balance. :)

Sunday we went to the Pumpkin Festival at Descanso Gardens with Taline, Alex and Garo. They had all sorts of cute areas set up for pictures. We liked the one at the front the best!

Her is Miss Jo all by herself, enjoying the pumpkins.

Such a sweet pic of Kacey and her daddy. This one melts my heart. :)

Afterwards, we went to lunch and Kacey sat on the table. Sitting is not her favorite thing so she doesn't do it very often. She usually arches her back and leans backwards, not very good for sitting! I guess she just liked being on the table though because she was sitting like a champ!

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Back in Week 15, we went to Alex's house for a BBQ. Her aunt was there and took some pics of us. Here is my favorite! (If you want to see the others, click on the Week 15 pics as I have added them to that album.)

Kacey hosted her very first Halloween party. It was such a success, we may do it every year! We invited all the mommies from our mommy and me groups as well as some of my friends that have little ones (they are the older kids in the pictures!)

It was a pot luck of sorts where people just brought an appetizer, dessert or drink with a Halloween theme. I made rice krispie treats with chocolate spider webs and ones shaped like pumpkins, they were a hit!

The best part of the party was when we had all the babies in their costumes and we put them on a blanket in the backyard. Jamie got up on a ladder and took some pictures. So much fun!!! We also had a contest for best costume and Kacey's best friend Taline won. She was a beautiful flower, I think the pot is what really cinched the prize!

Side story about the Orange Kitty costume. The party was scheduled from 3-5. Wouldn't you know it that Kacey started melting down at 3:45. We hid out in the nursery and I fed her. I told her she had 15 minutes to eat and then we had to get her costume on! Hostesses do not hide out in nurseries and fall asleep! Well she tried to ignore me and fell asleep while eating. 4pm came around and I pulled her off, woke her up and put her on the changing table. She started to scream. I changed her diaper and she kept on howling. I grabbed the costume and showed it to her. She immediately stopped crying and smiled. I gave her the hood and she promptly shoved it in her mouth and started to giggle. We got all dressed and she was full of smiles and laughs. YAY for the Orange Kitty costume!

Here are some of my favorite pics:

Check out the new Orange Kitty we got! Thanks to aunt Sue for making it! She's the cutest kitty I have ever seen!

We went to visit Miss Alexis Rose yesterday and it was so odd to think that only 5 months ago, Kacey was that small!!! I know everyone hears this all the time but it goes soooo fast! She is just getting so big now. She is starting to drink a tiny bit of water from a sippy cup, she has gotten the hang of the jumperoo, she is throwing tantrums and banging her fists on my chest, she is learning and growing every day! Where has my baby gone? Oh my!

The best part of all of this is how fulfilled I feel. I really did feel an emptiness before Kacey was here. I had a wonderful life, full of family and friends with an amazing husband and a happy home. There was always something missing though. There isn't now. I really mean it when I say that I am ok with just one baby. If we only have Kacey I really think she is all I desire. My heart is so full right now, as Jamie says "I am so happy my heart hurts when I look at her."

Speaking of little miss, here is her 21 week picture before she ate the sign:



and here she is listening very intently to great grandpa:



And here she is with her best friend Taline and grandma Pat at our weekly class:



and speaking of that jumperoo and getting the hang of it....

She was born on Tuesday at 4:47pm. 5 pounds, 15.5 ounces and 19 inches long. Isn't she beautiful???

My mom and I decided to give Kacey a bath in the sink last night. We put a towel under her and three little duckies that her Grandma Marie gave her and she had a blast! She kept grabbing the towel and trying to grab the duckies. It was kind of like bobbing for apples. She would grab at them and the would pop under the water. She was so focused the entire time and didn't really laugh or smile, just stayed really concentrated. She splashed all over the place and got grandma and me all wet!

In the past few years, I would very longingly admire moms that brought their babies into work to visit daddy. I would see them in our offices or in the cafeteria and I would be soooo full of envy. I wanted to bring a baby to see daddy someday.

Well that day was yesterday!!! Kacey and I visited Jamie and his co-workers. When we got there, Kacey was all full of smiles and the center of attention. Jamie kept trying to introduce me to people but they were too caught up in Kacey to know I was there. :) Jamie works on the H.BO show B.ig L.ove so we got to walk around on the sets and took pictures of Kacey in the houses and in front of the pool! So cool to see a pool on a set in a warehouse! Not sure if I can post those pics yet, Jamie is checking into it. But here are a couple in Jamie's office. I think Kacey wants to be an editor someday!





Kacey has her angry face on and so does Aaron!



Kacey with Byron



and with mommy taking a lunch break!



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Over the weekend we went to Taline's house. Her mommy and daddy had us over for a BBQ and invited Dashell and his mommy and daddy too! (Gwynn and Dave)

Last night Kacey woke up at 1:30 for her nighttime feeding. When she was done eating she was wide awake. This is really rare, she usually goes right back to sleep. So we were up until 3am. Needless to say I was tired in the morning. I got up to feed her around 6:30 and then went back to bed while Jamie took care of her. During the next hour I had a dream. Anyone watch Intervention? In my dream my mom was taking me to my own intervention. I guess everyone thought I wasn't eating enough and not sleeping enough. On the show, people usually get upset at their intervention and deny having a problem. Not me!! When they told me this I agreed and said, please take me to rehab! I do need more sleep and more to eat!! That is fine with me. But they kept arguing! They said I gave in too quickly so I must not really understand. I kept telling them I did and please take me to rehab so I can sleep, please!!! I finally woke up, very, very tired. :)

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Here is Kacey's 20 week pic. When I put her in the chair, she immediately smiled and started to laugh and then attacked the bear.





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She is so rarely on her back now and just loves being on her tummy. Almost always if you lay her down on her back, she immediately flips over. We were doing some nekk.id baby time outside and she will lay on her back to look at the trees and kick her legs. Today she flipped after about 20 minutes and started doing this. She loves hamming it up for the camera!! This one is for the grandparents!

Here are a few things that are working really well for us that I thought would be good to pass along. If you have a blog and are reading this, post some of your own so we can get ideas from each other!!

1. I keep a travel neck pillow next to the rocking chair. At 3 am when I am feeding Kacey, it is wonderful to use that pillow and take a bit of a snooze with her!

2. About 2 weeks ago Kacey started to get really fussy in the car seat. She has always been really good about it before so this was odd. I mentioned it to the nurse that leads our mommy group and she suggested Kacey might be getting bored. She is old enough now to know there is more to see than the back seat! She suggested removing the head wrap thing that comes in the car seat as it blocks some of her view (it doesn't offer any protection it just kind of holds baby's head in place a bit.), put down the shade so she can see out the window and put a picture of me on the seat directly in front of her. She said the picture helps her see me and not get lonely. Well I did all 3 of these things and it made a huge difference! She hardly ever fusses and usually smiles at the picture when I first put her in the seat! I watch her int he rear view mirror (I have always had a baby mirror so I can see her) and she is constantly looking to one side or the other out the window. She talks to herself more and I keep catching her smiling at herself!

3. I don't think the safety books recommend this but it is working for me. When Kacey falls asleep for a nap I am putting her in the crib on her tummy immediately. I wiggle her butt for a second and she goes right back to sleep. This tummy thing is working wonders!!! Of course I only started doing this since she started rolling over on her own. She almost always ends up on her tummy so I figured why not start her out there?

Thanks so much for the comments wishing us well with the fires! WOW! We lucked out with the winds actually. Since they were really blowing west and the fire was to the west we never even smelled smoke! I was really surprised by that. We did see the smoke and tons of it. It is just the beginning of fire and Santa Ana wind season so lots more fun to come!

About that nap yesterday, I actually had to wake Kacey up!!! At 10:15 I woke her so that we could leave. We had plans to meet other moms at the mommy movie and I was not going to miss it. Why so important? Well is was Body of Lies! Leo, Leo, Leo!!! Although Kacey's sleep is very important, Leo will trump it every time :)

Jamie put her down around 8am yesterday and she slept for 1.5 hours. I put her down around 8:20 am today and it is now 9:47 and she is still asleep. I think we might be on to something!!!! Oh please, oh please, oh please!!!

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Most of you know I live about 15 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. Since that puts us in Southern California, that means we are subjected to a nasty little weather thing called Santa Ana winds. I hate them, loathe them and dread them. We have had them the last 2 nights and our backyard now looks like a tornado went through it (looks like I will be drying diapers in the dryer today!) There is also a massive fire raging about 10 minutes west of us right near where we got married. Before Jamie left for work he videoed our belongings and we briefly chatted about what to take if we need to evacuate. So very unlikely but you just never know. Hopefully these stupid winds die down soon. The only good thing, they are normally paired up with excessive heat but it is actually pretty cold right now (for us anyways..) about 55 degrees.

First here is Kacey's pic for this week. I realized after the fact that she is wearing the same outfit as last week! It was also pointed out to me that I had the wrong date on last weeks sign! Crazy brain, I have no excuse!



Here is a cute video I took the same day. Kacey has really taken notice of the bear featured in her weekly picture. Sorry it's so shaky, for future reference I should not hold the video camera and shake something at Kacey at the same time!



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So the first week or really trying to get naps going had some successes and some misses. The best nap of the week was Thursday. My mom came over in the morning to watch Kacey while I went to a doctor appointment. I laid her down asleep and let my mom know what to do if she woke up. I guess she woke up twice int he first 30 minutes and mom got her right back to sleep. Once she was asleep she slept for 1.5 hours. Way to go grandma!!!!

Jacques the Peacock has stopped breathing!!! Who will save him????

KACEY JO to the rescue!!!!!

I woke up with a mission. I went to bed at 8pm last night and slept until 6:30 (woke up once to feed Kacey) I was well rested and ready for a challenge. My intention was to feed Kacey at 8am and put her in the crib by 8:30. I was then going to leave her in the crib until 9:30. I planned to go in after 5 minutes of crying and pat her back, whisper to her etc, but not pick her up. If by 9:30 she still hadn't slept I would get her up and try again this afternoon. So what happened?

At 8:10 I started feeding her and as she started to fall asleep I would wake her to keep eating. I wanted her full! By 8:30 she was clearly done eating so I rocked her for a few minutes and told her it was sleepy time and sang her a quiet song. I had her white noise of rain in the background going. She was wide awake and acting like she wanted to play but before I had started to feed her she was rubbing her eyes and looking very tired so I knew she needed her nap! I laid her in the crib told her to go night night, gave her a kiss, said "I love you" and walked out shutting the door behind me.

She was fairly quiet for about 10 minutes and then started crying at 8:40. Jamie asked if he could go in around 8:45 so I said yes but don't pick her up! He went in and calmed her and came back out. Crying again. I waited 10 minutes and at 8:55 calmed her and she started smiling and giggling. I went back out. She cried for 5 more minutes and then silence. As I am finishing typing this I hear her waking up. It has been one hour!!!!!

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When I went in there, she was on her tummy! Don't know if that is what woke her up or not but who cares, she napped for an hour, I am ecstatic!!!

that's how long it lasted. Oh well better than nothing. It's now 5:17 and those were the only naps of the day. "The Bugala's" I was not able to email you, can you please leave a comment about cluster feeding? How does it work?

Kacey rolled from her back to her tummy today. TWICE! I didn't see it :( She did it for Grandma Pat. She had been trying for the last week but just couldn't get that arm out from under her but today she did. My big girl is growing up!

So she started screaming... I waited a few minutes but that kind of cry can only go on so long. I checked the time and realized she hadn't eaten in a couple of hours and might actually be hungry. Bad mom. I got her up and fed her and she ate like she was starving. After 10 minutes she popped off and looked at me smiling. She was wide awake.

We did a couple of house errands and then we left and did some outside errands. She started to yawn, we hightailed it home and she almost fell asleep in the car. We ran inside and I put her on the boob, she lasted about five minutes. I laid her in the crib, she looked at me and then twisted to her new favorite position (see below) She has been sleeping for 10 minutes now, please dear God I implore you, one hour is all I ask!!

OK, the nap thing. Are you tired of hearing me rattle on about sleep yet? I never thought in the 18 months of trying to get pregnant that once I had a baby I would spend so much time trying to get her to sleep!!! And I know I am one of the lucky ones in that she sleeps very well during the night 98% of the time.

Anyways, I loved your comments, thank you. Yesterday was another trying experience... short version I tried getting her to nap from 9am - 10:30. I finally gave up, put her in the bouncy chair and took a shower. I told her she could cry all she wants but I needed a shower! I took a long one, shaved my legs, washed my hair, the full treatment! By the end of my shower guess who was passed out? Yeah about 11am she was done. She slept until 1:30. We had a great afternoon, she was happy and alert and in a great mood. Naps work wonders I tell ya.

My friend Stacie was over last night and we were discussing naps. Her daughter is a bit over a year and she remembers 4 months as the hardest time. When I told her that I was trying to put Kacey down around 9 she told me Ella used to go down around 8, about 1.5 hours after waking. Well Kacey wakes around 6-6:30 too. So this morning she started yawning around 7:30 so I fed her and put her down around 8. We tried and tried, rocking etc and she would not sleep. I tried a shower... didn't work today. Around 9am I rocked her for 10 minutes until she was almost asleep and laid her in the crib a tiny bit awake. I walked out and all was quite until 9:36!!! I know it's only 36 minutes but it's something!! I sat here on the computer and looked at the clock... 9:37 still crying.... 9:38 wimpering.... 9:39 quiet. Hmmm... where's that wood????


OK, it's 9:46 and she is whining... not crying, not talking but whining. I think I will let her keep going until she starts really crying or if she keeps talking for 30 minutes. Wish me luck. With each day I am getting more and more tempted to do cry it out.

First off, I was asked if I would recommend Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child..... yes and no. It has some great points about sleep being important and how to pick up n sleepy cues. It also talks about trying to get baby to sleep at optimal times. If you do read it you will have to pick and choose the advice though. For example, it recommends letting baby cry for one full hour to try to get them to nap at 4 months old. I don't know about you but I can't purposefully let Kacey scream for one hour and you know how bad I want her to nap!!!! So yes it's a good book but I also want to throw it out the window at times but I can't because I borrowed it :) Thanks Gwynn!!!

Now for my question.. Kacey is trying to nap but she spends alot of time "talking". I am ok with leaving her for a while but at what point would you go in and rock her to sleep? Yesterday she actually slept for about 30 minutes and then started talking. I went in after 20 minutes and rocked her back to sleep. As soon as I put her down she woke up. I left the room anyways and she proceeded to talk for 30 minutes. I finally gave up on hoping she would talk herself to sleep and got her up.

Last night she woke up about 2:30 talking. I waited to see if she would cry. Well she kept talking for about 20 minutes. Every now and then her pitch and voice would get higher almost like she was going to cry and then she would go back to just talking. I finally went in there around 2:50, fed her to sleep and laid her down about 3:15. 99% of the time she stays asleep. Last night she didn't, she woke up within a couple of minutes and started talking, again no crying. I waited about 20 minutes and then went in and rocked her back to sleep. About 4am, she was finally asleep and in her crib passed out.

So my question is, how long would you let baby stay in the crib as long as they are not crying? Is it better to get them out and rock them to sleep when you know they are very tired or just leave them hoping the put themselves to sleep. If it were only 5 minutes I would definitely leave her there but 20? 30? 40? minutes? How long?

Thanks so much for all of your help! Your ideas and experiences are always wonderful to hear!

SHE IS NAPPING IN HER CRIB!!!!! OMG!!! WOW!!! For the last few days I have been really focusing on 9am and making sure she is on her way to sleep by 9 (thanks Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) It hasn't completely worked until today. Yesterday I fed and rocked her to sleep and even laid her in the crib asleep but she woke up about 5 minutes later. I tried rocking her again but she was wide awake and laughing. I put her back in the crib figuring rest time was better than nothing and she laid in there talking to herself for 45 minutes.

This morning I fed and rocked her to sleep again and as soon as she hit the mattress she woke up. I gave her her kitty blanket and left to see if she would fall asleep. 5 minutes later her talking was getting much louder. I went in there and she was hugging kitty with one hand and the other had her thumb in her mouth. It was the cutest picture! She removed her thumb and gave me the biggest smile! I picked her up and told her it was sleepy time and went to rock her. She was very wiggly but I just held on tight and rocked and rocked while shhhhing in her ear. She settled within 5 minutes and was limp limbed within 10. I held her an extra 5 for good measure and laid her in the crib. Her eyes popped open and then closed. It's been 20 minutes now!!! I can't write the words of how excited I am!!!

Oh and she did not sleep all night last night but only woke up at 4am. I am totally happy with that!

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Here are the videos I wanted to post yesterday, Kacey sitting and her eating her weekly sign.

Kacey had one of those days.... no napping... lots of crying. She screamed during the entire walk my mom and I took.... it sucked. She was asleep in her crib by 7pm. At 6am I went in to make sure she was still breathing and you will be happy to know she was. She woke up 10 minutes later.... WOW, 11 hours of non stop sleep. I can't even begin to hope that will happen again.

She is having a lot of fun showing off her tooth. She smiles real big after I pull her lip down to show it to someone.

In big milestone news, she sat today without help!! It lasted for more than 5 minutes! She seemed very pleased with herself too. I did get it on video but you.t.ube seems to be down right now. Hopefully I can get it up tomorrow. Until then here is a pic.



Also, here is her 18 week picture. She would not sit still and kept trying to get the paper!