11 Weeks

Alli is 11 weeks. This week she found her hand. She loves sucking on her hands! Forget the pacifier.

Thought this picture was funny where she is sticking out her tongue.

As mentioned before, Mitzi LOVES Alli!

It got a little too cold in the house for Alli. We didn't turn the heat on during the nights it got down to the 40s. So Alli was sporting this beanie.

Thought this was funny too...Her hand is in the pocket...and NO I didn't put it there. haha

Visiting daddy

MMM more good food.

I love love love trying new recipes. I went onto the Kraft website the other day and found that they have made it to where you can make a cook book from your saved recipes in your recipe box on their website. I just thought that was the coolest thing because some of our favorite meals have come from their website. Anyway, as I was going through their recipes to add to my future cookbook, I came upon this recipe and decided to try it out last night. It was pretty yummy. You guys should make it....seriously!

Prep Time:

10 min

Total Time:

45 min

Makes:

4 servings

What You Need!

1 cup KRAFT 2% Milk Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, divided

2 oz. (1/4 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese, softened

1/4 cup finely chopped green peppers

1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.), pounded to 1/4-inch thickness

1 cup spaghetti sauce

Make It!

PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Mix 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese, the Neufchatel, green peppers, oregano and garlic salt until well blended. Shape into 4 logs. Place 1 log on one of the short ends of each chicken breast; press into chicken lightly. Roll up each chicken breast tightly, tucking in ends of chicken around filling to completely enclose filling.

PLACE, seam-sides down, in 13x9-inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Spoon spaghetti sauce evenly over chicken; cover with foil.

BAKE 30 min. or until chicken is cooked through (170°F). Remove foil; sprinkle chicken with remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheese. Bake an additional 3 to 5 min. or until cheese is melted.

10 Weeks

Today Alli will be 10 weeks. There really isn't much new going on since last week. We are continuing to improve in our routine. I still struggle with giving Alli a consistent wake up time. This is my fault but fortunately it doesn't appear to be affecting her right now. She is such a good sleeper that I take advantage of her sleeping in every morning. Her routine right now is going kind of like this:
Wake: between 8-8:30 (feed)
Nap: 9:30
Wake: between 11-11:30 (feed)
Nap: between 12:30-1
Wake: between 2:30-3 (feed)
Nap: 4
Wake: 6 (feed)
Nap: 7
Wake: between 8:30-9 (Bedtime feeding)
Bedtime: between 9:30-10
**Then my sweet Angel sleeps through the NIGHT!!!** She had been getting me up once around 2 for a diaper change and then again sometime around 5 or 6 to be reswaddled, but she always went right back to sleep. Two nights ago though, I woke to her starting to cry. I got up to let Mitzi out to go to the bathroom and by the time we got back upstairs she had fallen back to sleep. She slept completely through the night and less than 10 weeks old. I'm so proud of her. This schedule has really helped her to develop a great sleeping habit. She really doesn't fight sleep. I don't have to rock her to sleep. We can put her in the crib awake, swaddle her and usually she puts herself to sleep without any further assistance. Sometimes she needs to be soothed or given a pacifier. But most times, even if she is over stimulated and needs to cry out some energy, she goes to sleep within 10 min. and we don't hear another peep.

The only downside lately is that she doesn't sleep well in her car seat. This causes problems whenever I need to run errands in town. It inevitably ruins one of her nap periods and she seems to be thrown off the rest of the time we are out. She used to sleep so well during car rides. Now if she wakes up after a brief nap, then she'll sit there in the car seat and just look around.

Her laugh is really starting to develop too. I love her smile and laugh. Actually one of my favorite things lately is to watch and listen when Ben is playing with her. I love to watch them interact. Ben is such a good father and she just adores him!

Working and Playing

The weeks just keep passing so quickly. Alli is 9 weeks old today. I can't believe she is already so big. She is developing such an incredible personality. Natalie came over to visit Sunday and we just laughed over some of Alli's most recent pictures. She has the funniest smirks and expressions. I love walking into her room to wake her or get her up when she's woken from a nap and looking into her crib to see this big smile light up on her face. She is such a joy...even when she's fussy because she didn't nap well. :) I was at Ross's this past week and found a carrier and figured I would try it out. We tried it the other day for the first time. She doesn't like the process of getting in and out of the carrier. Right now she can only face in towards me because of her neck strength. Once her neck is stronger, she can face out and she might like that better. We've tried it twice so far. The first time she was happy in it for about 15 minutes. The other day when I had her in it she didn't like it at all. We'll see. I'd love to take her for some nature walks in the fall...so she needs to start liking it. :)

Work continues as usual. Ben is still out at the airport for those who didn't know which station he was currently at. He is scheduled for quite a few shifts on the ambulance so he is staying very busy. I've also started back to working at the sleep center. I'm currently trying to schedule one night a week. Tonight is my first night as PRN. Marilyn came up to stay with Alli. I think both of them will enjoy the bonding time. Alli loves her Grammie and Nana time. We try to see both at least once a week. Poor grandpa (papa...pappy...whatever the heck he wants to be called) doesn't get to see her much because of all the sick people he is tending to on a daily basis. We just can't take her to the urgent care to see him because it would expose her to all the flu they are treating at the urgent care. Fun stuff. One day we'll make it down on a Saturday and he'll get some time with her!

I'm looking forward to October. Alli will be 3 months old in October and we are hoping to go back to church then. I've felt so inactive. Alli's immune system should be developed enough then to go to church without fear of her catching everything around her. I will still be very cautious as people are too stupid to stay home when they are sick and would rather come to church and expose us all to their germs. I've had to be very careful at work too. A lot of our patients come in for sleep studies while they are sick. We have a pediatric child here tonight who has a croupy cough. I'm not working with him thankfully but you can't be too careful. I'll be changing out of my scrubs when I get home before I go anywhere near Alli! It's inevitible that Alli will get sick....I just don't want her getting RSV or the Flu. Those are both very very scary things for her to get...So I guess this winter I will be the overprotective mother. :)

Makes me smile

I was taking some pictures today of Alli and caught these adorable smiles. They just make me smile every time I see them!

Happy and 7 1/2 weeks

This week I took the opportunity to go see all my friends at work. They've been dying to see Alli. We went before all the patients showed up so that everyone had a chance to play with Alli. She LOVED all the attention.

Forgive the red eye - didn't take time to edit.

So worn out from all the attention - fell asleep like a frog on her surrogate aunt Ashlie!

I'm a happy girl...even at bedtime!

Everyone is doing well this week. Ben returned to work yesterday and is feeling good. He is pulling a 48 today and has been running EMS calls all day. I think he is glad to be back to work. This week we've really worked on Alli's routine. She is doing great. She is getting better and better about going down for naps without crying. I think we're starting to learn each others patterns. I've been meaning to take a video of her for everyone to see how much she's grown and how much she smiles now. I didn't think of doing it until right before bed so she isn't as alert as she normally is but she was still in a fantastic mood. Enjoy!