The past couple months have flown by – we have been very busy in the Seidel House!
I started back at work full time a little over a month ago and we have been super busy managing day care schedules, work, family time, swim classes for both girls, getting ready for the holidays, etc. The week I went back to work full time, a proto type project that Bob was in charge of started up and he was incredibly busy working long hours and weekends. It was a rough couple of weeks for all of us while we got adjusted to our new schedule, but I am happy to say that things are much smoother now. Bob’s project was a success and he was told last week that he had earned himself a very awesome promotion!! We are so proud of him as he has been very dedicated to his job and to us and I know just how hard he works! We had so much fun celebrating his success last weekend J
Anna has adjusted from 2 days/week to full time and absolutely loves going to school, playing with her friends, and learning. Through day care she had been taking swim classes at the YWCA. That ended for the winter and will start back up in spring when it is warm enough again for the kids to walk across the street to get to the Y. Bob and I had talked it over and both agreed we should keep her in the class over the winter. We signed her up for Toddler 1 on Saturday mornings and it has become our new weekend routine to go to swim class on Saturdays. She is doing great in class. When you watch her work with the teacher you can see just how determined she is and we are very proud of her.
Everly as well has fallen into a good routine at day care. The baby place is split into two rooms, one room for the babies until they are 1 and another room for the toddlers ages 1-2. After day 1, the teachers did what Bob and I thought would happen and moved Everly over to the big kid side early. Everly is a very busy little girl and it certainly seems like she fits better with the “big” kids. They have a wooden play structure with a few steps, a tunnel and a slide and after day 2 Everly had mastered it. When we get to school she gets so excited she actually squeals some mornings and when I pick her up at night she is absolutely exhausted so I think it is safe to say Everly loves going to day care J I am doing a Baby and Me swim class with Everly on Tuesday evenings after work. She and I both love the class. We signed up through the city of De Pere and the class is at Syble Hopp school using their rehab pool which is literally like 90 degrees. It is so warm and fun and Everly absolutely loves the water. I really enjoy our extra one on one time together. It is so hard to believe in a month she will already be a 1 year old. I’m pretty sure I will still be calling her my “baby girl” when she is well into her 30’s J.
So at 11 months Everly –
FINALLY sleeps through the night!!!!!! YAHOO!!!! When we brought Everly home from the hospital, she was a fairly easy going newborn and did really well at night. Once we got the go ahead to not feed her every 3 hours at night and let her wake to feed she would typically get up to eat 1-2 times a night. Slowly it dropped to once/night and at that point I thought we would very easily drop that last feeding by 4 months or so and be good to go. Everly however had different plans. Since 4 months old Everly has, without fail, woken every night between 3-4 to eat a bottle and would go back down until 6 or 7. Her schedule wasn’t THAT bad, especially considering some nights she would go down around 6 or even earlier, but it did start to take its toll on us. She has never had a pacifier and it always seemed that the bottle was the one thing that would soothe her. I was starting to get concerned as they typically tell you to take the bottle away starting around one year and that is just around the corner. I thought maybe once we started day care she would just be so exhausted she wouldn’t wake up but I was wrong - she is completely exhausted, but still would wake up to eat every night. Then about two weeks ago Bob and I woke up and in the morning (feeling quite refreshed I might add) and quickly asked each other, “did you get up last night?” Neither one of us had. Same thing happened the next night and then we agreed we were officially done with a bottle at night. She has slept through the night basically ever since. There have been a few nights where we would have to go in and rub her back to put her back to sleep, but I can say that we are very much enjoying this recent change to our schedule – thank you baby girl!!!
Evie is a very happy, babbly little girl. Her favorite words are “da-da”, “uh-oh”, and “thank you”. I catch a “ma-ma” in there every now and then and sometimes even an “Anna”. Love to hear her cute little voice babble away. She also loves to “sing” in the car. Normally on my way to and from day care/work I call Michele. With the bluetooth in the car Everly chooses to participate in the conversation pretty much all the time. It’s fun that Michele gets to hear her chat, but not as fun when I am calling somewhere to make an appointment or trying to talk to my boss J
Ever since starting day care Everly has really gotten into eating her solids. Much more than Anna did at this age. Some of her favorites include bananas, cottage cheese, cheese slices, yogurt, eggs, toast, noodles, bread, and mandarin oranges. She is also drinking milk out of a cup very well at meal time, so hopefully the transition from her bottle to a cup won’t be too bad when it comes time to do it.
Everly is extremely active. When we first started day care and really to this day, every time I pick her up they can’t stop telling me how busy she was that day. On the weekends at home she can take up to 4 hour naps if it is quiet, but only sleeps for about an hour max at school. She is pulling herself up on EVERYTHING and just this past week started to stand up with no assistance without hanging onto anything. Part of me hopes she starts to walk soon, as she is into everything already, but I also know once they start to walk it doesn’t get any easier. We are really enjoying watching her learn how to be steady on her feet and can’t wait until she takes those first stepsJ
The Seidels are really enjoying getting ready for the Christmas holiday. We have so much to be thankful for and are so blessed to have each other. We cannot wait to celebrate Christmas with our family and friends and our first Christmas as a family of four. Michele and Mike are coming for a week at Christmas with little Mr. Teddy and Liz and Brett just welcomed their first little boy today, so it certainly will be a full house at the Willis residence and we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT WAIT!
