Even bigger news!

LACEY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! Yayy!!!

...and she walked about 5 feet!!!!

Tonight is her first night in her new room (photos coming soon). She took two good naps today in it so I have good vibes about the move... might this be a breakthrough???

Big News!

Lacey is finally sleeping someone consistently! Yay!

No, that doesn't mean she's not sleeping through the night... but it does mean that we have completely night weaned and she usually wakes up once and just needs her binkie!

Everyone is feeling fabulous around the Blamire household!

I think this is due to the fact that Lacey is again eating from a spoon and therefore eating alot more solids. She has significantly decreased her milk intake and isn't hungry in the middle of the night! Hooray!

House projects!

Although this is going to be photo-less, I thought I'd do a quick post to let you know all about what we are doing around our house!

It's been a quite 10 months around the house, mostly because Lacey doesn't sleep and we are exhausted new parents! Prior to the baby we were always on the go on the weekends doing this and that and pulling apart rooms... now we run errands on Saturdays and Sundays are usually proclaimed "pj's and sleep as much as possible" days. Ahhhhh... parenthood :)

Good news is that we are starting back up! Our current project list includes:

Basement: ripping everything out (to the studs done), expanding the prior "finished" part and expanding it a tad to make me a new, permanent home office plus family room/bar. Yes, I said bar and it will be approximately 10 feet away from my desk, LOL.

Re-wiring: sine the basement ceiling and walls will be out, we are going to be re-wrining the entire downstairs and basement. Last year we did put in a new electric box and re-wired the upstairs. Now, it's the downstairs turn!

Kitchen: the kitchen has been mid-project for over a year now, because in order to do some of our other projects (such as re-wiring the upstairs, overhaul of the plumbing & venting, etc.) we've had to make some holes in the kitchen walls. The kitchen will probably remain mid-project for at least another year because it will be our last completed project. While it's ugly half-done, we really can't finish it until we finish everything else. Plus, it's still functional!

My office/Lacey's room: since sweet little Lacey is such a light sleeper and we have tried everything else, we are going to move her bedroom to my current office room (the back and farthest bedroom). The problem is that this isn't easy because my office is also my sewing room and I have more crap in it than you can possibly believe. My goal for Monday is to clear out the room/closet and get everything stored somewhere (no basement storage right now!) I'll then be moving Lacey into this room and moving my office into her Safari-themed bedroom until my new office is ready. The room has no theme right now (neutral walls) but I am thinking of doing a pink/green theme. She'll be moving into it without any cute decor/colors because the key is getting her into the quieter bedroom. The cuteness will just have to come later! I am loving this though because when we did our other nursery we made it neutral since we didn't know Lacey's gender... I am LOVING all the cute girly bedroom decor!

Misc. projects: Re-do Lacey's new bedroom walk-in closet, buy/hang all new closet doors throughout the house, hopefully get new living room furniture as well as furniture for the new basement, lots of repainting due to all the moving and dinged walls.

That's it... we have lots to keep us busy in 2010!!!

Happy 10 months Lacey!

Wow, only two more months till the big 1!!! It's amazing how much she has grown!

At 10 months Lacey...

• Is back to being on exclusive breastmilk, however I am done pumping/BFing!!! That's right folks, we are now living off of the 1400+ ounces that were stockpiled in the deep freezer! It is so nice to see be able to be done yet still reap the rewards!! Formula was ok for the trip, but it gave Lacey bad gas and extra stinky poops! (Also - formula does nothing to help her sleep better so we are done with that theory as well!)
• Speaking of sleep... we were consistently waking up only 1x per night until we went on the trip... she's a bit out of routine again and waking up more. It's been a rough week but I'm sure we'll get back in the swing of things!
• We've decided to move her back to her crib. After a month or so in the pack and play tonight is the first night we are putting her back in her crib to sleep... hopefully it will go well!
• Is eating all sorts of foods... there are only a few things she is not eating. Some of her favorites include banana, cheerios, goldfish, Go-gurt and french toast! It's really wonderful to have her be able to eat what we are eating and have her sit with us as a family and eat!
• Is just under 20lbs... she only gained about a 1/2 lb. this month. We have started to put her into some 18 month clothes because the girl has got a BOOTY (and the cloth diaper doesn't help!)
• Is walking, walking, walking... whether it be on furniture, with her walker or with us holding her hands, she loves to walk!
• Is standing for short periods without holding on (record is around 30 seconds).
• We've found a cup she likes! Just today she started drinking with a straw sippy cup!

Traveling with Baby Part III - Top 5 "I wish I hads"

OK - last part for this topic!

Top 5 things I wish I had...

1. More wipes - at home we use cloth wipes and I didn't realize HOW MANY disposal wipes it takes to clean a dirty bum that it does cloth wipes! We had to go to the Dominican version of Wal-Mart for more!!

2. More Cheerios/Puffs - crabby baby loves these... plus they are great if you can't get regular food right away. We should have brought a whole box!

3. Clothes for the ride home - yes, I forgot clothes for the way home. I had no long sleeves or warm things and we went from 85 degrees to 0! I ended up spending $30 on PJs in the airport!

4. A day/evening flight rather than early morning - for our trip down we had to wake up at 3:30 am... this majorly screwed up Lacey (she never went back to sleep till nearly 10am and was miserable all day). It was much easier to have her up later and fall asleep on the way home than it was to wake her up early.

5. Laundry detergent - luckily my mom brought a little bit... we were able to wash Lacey's diaper covers in the bathtub along with other small items rather than paying for laundry services.

Traveling with Baby Part II - Top 5 Packs (but didn't need)

Top 5 things we packed and never used...

1. Clothes, clothes, clothes... we just packed way to many clothes and really she just ended up being in her diaper and a top most of the time!

2. Diapers... we packed too many! I had nearly 20 extra (but we left them for the maids to take to their families).

3. Fruit cups & other misc. food - we didn't know what type of food the resort would have so we brought a bunch of fruit cups and baby good. Well, she ended up preferring the fresh buffet fruit and foods. We also donated our leftovers to the maids since Lacey didn't eat it.

4. Changing supplies - I packed a diaper bag and travel changing pad/case thing... too many unneeded accessories. We really just needed the diapers and wipes!

5. Burp clothes & bibs - I don't think we used them once. It was so warm we just let Lacey eat topless (!) and wiped her down afterwords!

Traveling with Baby Part I - Top 10 Favorites!

Since we just got back from our first major trip with Lacey, I thought I'd do a post on "traveling with baby" and how we managed and what we brought along that we needed and didn't need.

(FYI - Lacey was just shy of 10 months old for this trip).

Here is my top 10 favorite things we packed for the baby:

1. TWO sets of Grandparents! (He he he...)

2. Graco metro light stroller... we went back and forth multiple times on whether or not to bring this (our big stroller) versus and umbrella stroller. Ultimately we went with the bigger stroller and are SOOOO glad we did. It really makes traveling through the airport so much easier (you can put all of your luggage on it!) as well as it creates a great napping place for the baby (the back reclines flat).

3. Babyhawk Mae Tai - this is my new favorite carrier! Lacey has just gotten too big for the Moby Wrap so we've upgraded. We used the wrap to go through airport security (remember all of our luggage was on the stroller!) for the airplane (she napped in it for almost 2 hours while I sat hands free), around the resort, on the beach... everywhere!

4. Eddie Bauer Booster seat - I purchased this the day before we left because I found it for $20 at BJ's and figured "what the heck". Well it was awesome! We never found a chair that it didn't work with and Lacey loved being able to sit at a real table. It's very small and easy to wipe clean!

5. Pack and play - we were able to fold up and put our pack and play inside our largest suitcase so that we wouldn't have to check it and pay extra money. We loved having the pack and play because it ensured us that Lacey would have a safe sleeping and play place. At night she slept great in it (maybe because she sleeps in it at home though?) and we also brought it by the pool and on the beach!

6. Flip Diapers and disposable inserts - I'll post more about these another time, but they were are diaper of choice. It made my happy to still partially cloth diaper while on vacation and keep our baby free of chemicals and bad things for the earth! I LOVE, love, love the covers... the inserts... egh... they are just OK.

7. Medela steam bags - it's a good thing that I packed a few of these because it ended up being the only way to clean my bottles and pump parts! The tap water was not suitable for drinking, much less cleaning bottles and it would be a pain to use the filtered water (plus it wasn't hot). These saved the day!

8. Puffs and Cheerios - these are our solution to a crabby baby! It was too bad that we ran out with two days left!

9. Snuggles - we brought along Lacey's blanket, bear lovey and glow worm (the things she sleeps with at home). They seemed to really help her settled down on the plane and at nap time.

10. PJs - perfect for traveling! Lacey wore PJs on the way there and on the way home. Even though we were going to a warm place, the plane and airport were cold. Who wouldn't want to be comfy in the plane?

Winter Break!

This past week we went on a nice little family getaway to Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic!

First off, we spent most of our time right at this pool. In fact, we had one of those rooms you can see in the back of the pic. We literally walked 20 feet outside our patio to the pool... it was heaven!

Lacey was a little fish! She LOVED swimming in the pool and splashing!

Since we had TWO sets of grandparents come with us on the trip, we did get a little time to ourselves... it was nice.

Three generations! I wish Lacey would have looked at the camera instead of playing with my necklace :p

On the trip, Lacey learned what CHEESE means... probably because I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of her!!!

I have more photos on Facebook and even more on my hard drive :)

Overall the trip was very relaxing. We did a whole lot of sitting by the pool - Lacey was an angel and was content with either napping, floating in the pool or playing in her pack 'n play next to the pool. We only have a few rough moments!

Unfortunately the 2nd last day we were there Lacey got some sort of allergic reaction. She got a huge rash, her eyes were all swollen and she got a cough. She is doing better but still has some side effects. The Dr. checked her out today and said it definitely looked like an allergy to something, but that she is doing ok.

We did take a few hours to go on a town tour and visit a rum factory. It made me sad to see the living conditions in this country... and worse yet that right next door they are even worse. At the end of the trip we donated all of our remaining $, diapers and toiletries to the people working at the resort.

Our resort was the Occidental Playa Dorada... it was ok. Since we got an amazing deal I really can't complain! We liked the all inclusive because there were no hidden costs (ok, except in all the jewelry I bought from vendors on the beach) however we did not find the service and food to be as great as on a cruise. I think Brian and I both agreed that our next vacation (January 2012?) will probably be back to a cruise!