Piper Willow: Newborn to Two Months

June 11, 2022

Our sweet Piper Willow is two months old! How in the world? We are so incredibly thankful for this little baby, and I’m trying to soak up every little moment — every little squeak, every little suckle, every little cry, every little smile — of sweet Pickle Pie since I know this will be the last time I get to enjoy these tiny newborn moments.

I had a very hard pregnancy with Piper, but she has made up for it tenfold by being the sweetest, easiest and most laid back little baby. Between already being considered high-risk this time around since June Bug was spontaneously pre-term, a velamentous cord insertion, 9 months of extreme HG, Zofran and other anti-nausea meds around the clock until the day Pickles arrived, days spent bent over a toilet (or not when I couldn’t make it there in time), running to the bathroom in the middle of teaching to throw up (beyond thankful to have had a bathroom in my classroom this year), IV fluids multiple times, over 20 weeks of daily progesterone, countless ultrasounds, anatomy scans, growth checks, and cervix length checks, getting COVID (after being fully vaccinated and boostered) and coming down with the stomach flu TWICE within two months — phew — Piper sure did give me a hard time. Not to mention, that the last two weeks of my pregnancy were spent in early labor having steady contractions every 5-20 minutes depending on the day and the need for more stress tests on baby because of how many contractions I was having. YET, I’d do it all over again in the blink of an eye because she is here, safe and healthy and has completed our family! We cannot thank all of my amazing OB’s, urgent care docs, Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialists, delivery doctors and amazing nurses enough! They were truly amazing through this doozy of a pregnancy.

(Photos - 15 Hours Old)

So far everything about Piper has been total opposite of everything we experienced with Juno. Juno came fast and furiously into the world with a strong set of lungs at 36 weeks gestation while I ended up getting induced with Piper at 39 weeks. She was very cozy in my womb (the daily progesterone did it’s job of keeping my cervix closed). Piper came into the world mid-laughter after 4 minutes of pushing and didn’t even cry upon her first breath. My epidural worked well this time around and the anesthesiologist was able to adjust it throughout my labor when the pain would get too intense. My epidural with Juno didn’t end up working after having two anesthesiologists attempt to put it in and continually trying to fix it. Juno is still our extremely loud child. Piper is chill as a cucumber and rarely cries (unless she is starving or when getting her vaccines). Juno had a very hard time feeding as a premie and I was having to triple feed around the clock and syringe colostrum/milk that I had pumped into her mouth before giving her a bottle of donor milk. Piper latched right on 12 minutes after birth and nursed for the next 45 minutes during our golden hour. Juno has never slept well, Piper loves her zzz’s so far (praying this continues). With Juno I was tied to a schedule and attached to a feeding log praying she was gaining weight at every doctor appointment. Piper gained all of her weight back plus an additional pound within the first two weeks. I have absolutely no schedule with Piper, haven’t kept track of any feedings, and am not worried about creating “bad habits” with her. I’m letting her sleep when she wants, eat when she’s hungry, suckle to sleep, and cherishing all the snuggles. Sometimes I hold her all day long. This time around has been SO freeing. I’m not sure if it’s just the fact that I have more experience now, Piper is easier, or if Zoloft is a miracle drug 🤣 but I’ve had virtually no postpartum anxiety this time around. Overall, adjusting to life with two has been pretty easy and wonderful. It’s like Piper was always meant to be apart of our family. She has definitely completed us in the best way possible.

(2 Days Old)

Juno has become the absolute best big sister and she takes her role of big sister very seriously to the umpteenth degree. She is so in love with Piper and is overly possessive of her. She won’t let anyone near her … no one is allowed to hold this baby except for Juno, me, daddy and sometimes Yaya or Auntie KK if I’m not around. While it’s hard at times, I keep trying to tell myself that this is way better than the alternative of her not wanting to have anything to do with little sister. She has been the BEST helper — helping with feedings, diaper changes, constantly holding her, singing to her and reading her books … it is SO sweet. Juno’s transition has been the hardest part of having a second baby but it’s getting easier each day. Everyday when Juno wakes up she immediately asks to “snuggle my Piper” so I have to wake her up and put her straight into big sissy’s arms every morning.

Piper was 6 lbs 14 oz when she was born, left the hospital at 6 lbs 10 oz, was 7 lbs 7 oz at two weeks old and now is 9 lbs 15 oz. We had her two month doctor appointment yesterday and she’s dropped quite a bit in her weight percentile so they’ll keep an eye on her growth curve and check her weight in another month. Our pediatrician isn’t very concerned since we just seem to have little babes, but we don’t want her to fall off her curve any more than she has. Juno was over a pound smaller at 2 months so I’m not worried at all, but Piper went from the 24th percentile at 2 weeks old to the 13th percentile now. We’ll check in a month to see if she’s at at least the 13th percentile or above, and if not, then no more long stretches of sleep without a feeding!

Piper has officially outgrown her newborn clothes and is wearing 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. She was exactly 20 inches long at birth and now is 22 inches … getting so tall!

(1 Week Old)

Piper loves to be held and loves nursing. She prefers to not be put down at all during the day and spends a lot of time in the wrap on my chest. She’s been sleeping great at night. Our sweet neighbors gifted us a Snoo and I’m not sure if it’s magic or if Piper is just a good sleeper so far, but she’s been doing longer stretches at night anywhere from about five hours to seven hours depending on the night … she even did a 9 hour stretch once! Juno comes into our room at some point every night so when we wake up in the morning all four of us are in the same room. My favorite part of my day is putting Piper in bed with us after her early morning feeding and snuggling both my girls for a little while before getting up for the day. There is nothing that brings me more peace than holding both of them as they sleep as the sun starts to peek in through the window. Piper loves when we talk or sing to her and she has started coo-ing and talking back to us. She is the most smiley little thing and her big smile literally rips my heart out. Piper loves her big sister and instantly calms down when Juno holds her. She even loves warm baths and doesn’t care at all when Juno pours water on her face. There really doesn’t seem to be anything that phases her and there isn’t much she doesn’t like.

When Piper was 6 weeks old I went to back to work for the last two weeks of the school year. It felt good to wrap up the school year and be back at work, but now I’m so grateful for summer break. My mom watched both girlies everyday for the ten days I was at work and we cannot thank her enough … I couldn’t have done it without her and the many photos and videos she would send me to help get through the days. It was hard to leave Piper when she was so young but having her with my mom made it so much easier. So for now, I’m trying to get time to slow down so I can cherish every day of summer break. To have this time to spend with my two girls and to soak up allll the newborn snuggles I can get before my sweet Piper isn’t a newborn anymore.

(2 Weeks Old)

(1 Month Old)

(2 Months)

We love you so incredibly much, Piper Willow. Thank you for completing us. We feel like you were meant to be apart of our family forever. Juno is so blessed to have you as her sister. And you are so lucky to have her. There really is no love like sister love. We love your easy going personality, your darling blue eyes and your big smile. You have one little dimple on your right cheek that comes out when you giggle and we could gobble it up along with your little fingers and toes. We can’t wait to watch you grow, sweet pickle pie 🥧

(A million more snapshots taken on our phones from Piper’s first two months of life)

THREE YEARS OLD

December 30, 2021

Holy shmoly — does three just seem SO big to anyone else? Juno Bug is just her own little person now. She has grown so much since six months ago when I wrote her two and a half year update. Since then a lot has happened — she moved up to a new classroom in daycare, became fully potty trained, found out she is going to be a big sister and moved bedrooms!

Juno has so much personality — she cracks us up CONSTANTLY. Everyday we say, “where did we get this girl from?” She recently has started replying with, “from the Remi factory!” (No idea where she got that from). She has a mind of her own and still knows exactly what she wants when she wants it. She is obsessed with baby dolls and she is going to make the very BEST big sister come March or April. She loves Baby Pickles (named after the ridiculous amount of pickles I’ve been eating) in my belly so much already — she wakes baby up every morning by screaming at my belly, “WAKE UP BABY PICKLES!”, and before I leave for work in the mornings, she insists on giving Pickles a hug and a kiss too. She even has her own baby in her belly, didn’t you know? The other day I said to Juno that she needed to get her poop out because her belly was looking really big and she quickly replied, “No mommy, that’s just the baby in my belly!”. Ha! She got a new baby doll (who she named Pie Pie) for her birthday that cries and babbles and sucks on a pacifier and bottle and she is OBSESSED. She takes care of her all day long ever since she got her. She changes her diaper, puts her in the bumbo to feed her while we eat and is even teaching her how to go potty on the toilet. My hope is that once Baby Pickles is here, Juno will just be on full time baby duty — just kidding … but seriously, she is going to be the best little helper with baby!

We recently had her three year check up and she is just growing so much right now. She’s exactly 36 inches tall — seriously how is my baby THREE feet tall — 40th percentile for height. She’s 26 lbs 3 oz and has gone up in her percentile for weight to the 8th percentile which is a huge jump from being in the less than 5th percentile a little while ago. Her BMI is only in the 2nd percentile, but at least she is growing and she’s gone up from less than the 1st in BMI in just a few months! She just outgrew all of her shoes and now is in a toddler size 7! Lots of her 2T pants are getting a bit short on her, but so far, we have yet to find any 3T pants that will stay up on her little waist.

We’ve still been dealing with and managing some tummy issues and since it’s been almost three full years of this we are feeling somewhat defeated. Our lives still just constantly revolve around poop. Before becoming parents we never would have imagined how poop can be your WORLD. Her constipation is just so severe and nothing we do seems to help it. We’ve seen two different Pediatric GI specialists at two different hospitals and have had SO many tests done, all of which come back normal. The only thing they are able to tell us is that she needs daily laxatives. Pooping is still really traumatic and she’ll do anything in her power to hold it on for as long as possible until we are forced to give her a suppository which just starts the cycle all over again. As I write this, we are currently on day EIGHT of no poo. Ugh. As soon as the holidays are over, we are going to do a full elimination diet of the main major allergens, and from there, hopefully we will be able to pinpoint more of what is going on or what the root cause of all of this is. We just feel like that there HAS to be something going on with what she is eating and I’m determined to find the root cause because we can not keep filling her little body with daily chemicals to get her to go, which don’t even help! She’s had to have so many suppositories in her little lifetime that now she gives her babies suppositories when she changes her diapers and will say “it’s okay, baby, it’ll only hurt for a minute and then I’ll hold you. This will help you feel better soon” — literally this breaks our hearts! What two/three year old even knows the word suppository?!

We’ve also been noticing that she’s been having some allergies and asthma over the last six months so we addressed that with her pediatrician as well. When she’s outside running around she will have these coughing and wheezing fits and no matter if she is inside or outside she is always itchy — her nose and eyes are always bothering her to the point where they wake her up throughout the night. Juno’s doctor thinks the two of them might be related so she ran an inhalant panel in which we learned that she is highly allergic to dogs (NOOOO — we have the biggest and hairiest dog of ALL time who is Juno’s VERY best friend) and she is also highly allergic to alternaria alternata (an outdoor mold) and mildly to cats. Because of this we followed up with an allergist and asthma specialist and are putting some new protocols in place to hopefully help Juno sleep, stop itching and all around feel better. We are making a strict no-Remi in Juno’s bedroom rule, putting an air filter in her room plus the main floor of the house, and are starting her on Flonase and Zyrtec daily. Not to mention daily vacuuming and couch-rolling. Allergy shots are likely in her future once she is old enough. Goodness! Anything for our girl though!

We took Juno out of daycare the end of October, and it’s been honestly really nice to have her home and to not be sick for the last couple of months. We were going to pull her out for my maternity leave in the Spring anyway and decided to do it early because she was constantly sick and not feeling like herself. We felt like we were spending so much money on daycare and couldn’t even send her very often because she would come down with weekly colds. She now spends one day with our sweet babysitter, Ms. Jacklyn, who Juno adores, three days with her Yaya which are Juno’s favorite days, and she gets to have Fridays with her daddy for special Juno-Daddy time — they do all the things that I don’t do like eat lunch at In & Out, go to Cabelas to look at the animals and fishing poles, go to Home Depot, and she even takes really good naps for him — what the heck! It’s been working out really well for now! Juno sometimes talks about school and misses her friends and teachers, but for now, this feels like the right thing for her and us. We just signed her up for pre-school and she’ll start preschool in August after my maternity leave is over and then we will also need to start figuring out baby care soon too. Crazy to think we are going to have a pre-schooler AND a baby before we know it!

This summer Juno truly became a fish! She has been taking swim lessons since last January or February and this summer she wanted to go to the pool almost daily. I’d say we went maybe 4-5 times a week throughout the summer. She loved it and became such a good swimmer. She could jump in on her own, touch the bottom and make it back up and hold onto the wall all on her own. She could hold her breath for ten seconds and swim sections of the pool by herself. Every time we were at the pool she would go go go without stopping. She still is so sad the outdoor pools are closed right now, but Yaya takes her to the indoor pool quite a bit and also takes her to her weekly swim lessons on Thursdays while I’m at work. She loves it!

This Fall we tried to do all the Fall festive things we could even though this mama was not feeling well from being pregnant and working full time. We went to the most darling little pumpkin patch on a girl’s outing with mama and Yaya, painted pumpkins, carved pumpkins, did Fall crafts with her cousins and Juno baked a LOT with her Yaya. For Halloween, Juno was Tinkerbell and she wore the exact costume that I wore when I was the same age! My mom used to hand-make and sew all of our Halloween costumes growing up and she kept most of them so she pulled Tinkerbell out, fixed it up and got it all ready for Juno to wear on Halloween. While she was SO stinking cute as a little Tink, Juno really could have done without Halloween this year. We went to a trunk or treat the day before Halloween at a church and an adult was dressed up as a scary wolf with a scary mask on and Juno lost her ever loving mind. She clung to me and made me hold her the whole time — she was SO terrified of the scary wolf. So, when Halloween rolled around she was afraid of the tick-or-treaters and kept saying “no more trick or treaters. No more.” So, we learned that Halloween just really isn’t Juno’s favorite holiday and I am totally okay with that. Who needs to get candy from strangers anyway? She did decide on Halloween evening that she wanted to go to two of our neighbors’ houses so after already having her jammies on, we put back on her Tinkerbell costume and walked next door. As soon as the neighbors opened the door, she walked right into their house. HA! I guess we should have explained that you just stand at the door and don’t just barge in. It’s a good thing we know and love our neighbors! After getting a couple of pieces of candy from them and one other house across the street, she was ALL good to return home and not have to do Halloween “ever again”! She continued to talk about Halloween for weeks afterward and was still scared. Every night while laying in bed she would say, “Halloween’s all over? No more scary wolf? No more trick or treaters, right, mommy?” It was so sad! Next year, we might just skip the whole holiday altogether - ha!

In November and December we tried to take it easy as much as we could since this mama has still been very pregnancy sick, but we also tried to do some holiday things as well. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner at our house with both sets of Juno’s Grandparents. Juno made Thanksgiving placemats, Turkey hats and garland. This month she made a gingerbread house, saw Santa (she asked for a pink watch, a pink bike & a pink iPad case), and baked a lot of cookies! This December it was so much fun to see all of the Christmas magic through her eyes — she was at the best age to really experience Christmas this year! While our Christmas plans didn’t go as expected with Brandon testing positive for COVID right before Christmas Eve, we still tried to make the best of it. So, on Christmas Eve, we baked cookies at home, decorated some for Santa, relaxed and read all the Christmas books before bed. Juno was worried because she didn’t think we had a chimney so I had to carry her outside, show her the actual chimney and explain that the chimney leads to the fireplace in the basement where the stockings were. Juno loved leaving out cookies, milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer and while I was laying with her before bed, she kept shushing me and would say “Mommy, be quiet … Santa isn’t going to come if you’re talking to me!” Ha! On Christmas morning she woke up and screamed, “Did Santa come?! Daddy wake up!” She was so excited! We opened stockings, ate homemade cinnamon rolls that my parents dropped off on the front porch for us the night before (along with Christmas Eve AND Christmas dinner — cannot thank them enough!), opened presents and played with all of Juno’s new toys. She was so funny because she would open one present and play with it for the next 30 minutes before wanting to open another one. Unwrapping gifts took us all the way up till quiet time! We stayed in our Christmas jammies ALL day because we had nowhere to be and mama and Juno took a long nap! It was actually really nice to not be running around on Christmas Day, even though we missed our family like crazy and wished we could have been there. We just get to have multiple Christmases now!

This week we have all still been in quarantine, but we have done a lot of home-organization, taken long naps every day, played outside when we could and watched ENTIRELY too much TV. Not necessarily the winter break I had planned, but we are so thankful to all be feeling good and to have all had very mild cases. I’m also so thankful to have doctors that call and check on me and the family as well!

On Juno’s Third Birthday I asked her some interview questions (these are also on the chalkboard in the photos below but just in case you can’t read them well…). Here’s what she had to say:

What is your favorite thing to do?

“Play with my dolly!”

What makes you happy?

“My paci”

(Please help us — this girl’s love for her pacifier runs deep and we have tried EVERYTHING to get rid of them. And I mean everything! I don’t think anyone truly understands how loud and unceasingly this girl can scream. I’m not kidding when I tell you we have let her scream for FIVE hours before and on a separate occasion strapped her in the car and drove her to the ER because she was screaming so horrifically loud and relentlessly. So, if you have any ideas, I’m all ears! And I’ll also give you a dollar if it’s something we haven’t tried yet).

What makes you sad?

“When mommy leaves”

Who do you like to play with?

“Pie Pie (baby doll), Ellie, Raleigh, Barrett, Adelaide, Micah and Lillian”

If you could go anywhere, where would it be?

“Cabelas!”

What is one thing you are good at?

“Swimming”

What is your favorite memory from this year?

“I had my birthday party!”

If you could spend the day with any person, who would it be?

“Mama! I love you, mommy!”

What do you want to be when you grow up?

“I want to be a doggy!”

What would you buy if you had a million dollars?

“Another Remi dog!”

JUNO’S FAVORITES:

COLOR

Pink!

BOOK

I Am a Juno-Saur-ous! Or Fancy Nancy Christmas

OUTFIT

Anything with a tutu!

SONG

Anything that I can dance to

ANIMAL

A Reindeer

TOY

My baby doll, Pie Pie!

FOOD

"Anything!"

TV SHOW

Fancy Nancy, Paw Patrol & Rainbow Ruby

(Juno wanted to wear her Gryffindor sweater for her 3 year old session — this HP loving mama couldn’t say no (obviously)! What do you think — is she more like a Hermione or a Luna Lovegood?)

(See how much she LOVES her best friend that she is allergic to? Ugh, my heart!)

Juno Elizabeth, we don’t know how you are now THREE! It’s true what they say — the days are long but the years are short. We remember the day you were born like it was yesterday — it was the best day of our lives and each day since then has gotten better and better because of you. Not a day goes by where you don’t make us laugh, smile and feel so loved. We hope we make you feel the same way. We are so proud of the little person you are becoming. It’s been so much fun watching you grow and get bigger this year. Daddy says your twos were the best year so far — you became quite the daddy’s girl and your personality grew threfold— and we cannot wait to see what your next year has in store for you! There is no doubt that you will continue to blow us away. We love you so, so much, June Bug! Happy 3rd Birthday, Beautiful Girl!

Two and a haLf - juno eliZabeth

June 30, 2021

My goodness, our baby girl is two and a half! (She isn’t really a baby anymore — how can that be?) She’s overcame some huge hurdles throughout the last six months and we are just so proud of this resilient girl. (Remember to scroll all the way down if you’re just here for the cute photos!)

Juno is currently doing so, so well and she literally makes us laugh and smile all day every day. She’s currently living her best life with mama on summer break and our days have been consisting of going to the pool or swimming in the blow up pool in our backyard. This girl LOVES to swim, and while we have to watch her closely, she is full on swimming! All the credit goes to swim lessons which she started in February. She started as a level two based on her age and in that level I got in the pool with her during lessons. She immediately loved it and having her Auntie KK and her twin cousin Raleigh in our class made it all the more fun! At the end of last month she passed level two and now is a level three tadpole which means mama doesn’t get it in anymore! I get to watch from behind the glass. We weren’t sure how this would go especially since Raleigh isn’t in her class anymore, but she has done great and is all smiles during her lessons! Getting her there is a bit harder since her cousins aren’t there at the same time anymore, but once she’s there she does really well! Swim lessons have made her SO comfortable in the water which is so wonderful for this summer. She has a couple of private lessons coming up, which I think will be so good for her! We’ve been going to the pool and this little fish won’t get out — she just wants to swim, swim, swim!

Speaking of the water, Juno is finally bathing again! She went through a pretty major bath/shower/potty regression, which all started in mid-February when she had to have a barium enema X-ray done through her colon (un-sedated). Needless to say this was extremely traumatic. The week before this she also came down with a UTI and then had an accident at school where her teachers had to get her cleaned up in the sink in her classroom. Between the three of these things all happening within the same week, our fully-potty-trained, bath-loving girl regressed back into diapers and went on a full-blown bathing hiatus for the next three months. It was terrible and our sweet girl was frantic about having to poop, take a bath or shower, go near the bathroom or really anything that had to do with the potty or bathing what so ever. We worked with our amazing child development specialist who has helped us through other major hurdles in the past and through her help and a LOT of patience, we are finally on the other side and so proud of this brave girl. Through all of this, Juno continued to love swim lessons, which was really a blessing because this all happened the week after her very first swim lesson so we weren’t sure how swimming would go, but somehow she didn’t associate swimming like she did the bath or shower, thank goodness. We were also very thankful for the once a week chlorine baths that she would get during swim lessons during this time. Ha! We potty-trained again at the start of June and Juno is now officially, officially potty-trained. Hooray! We are out of diapers completely except for during night (and she wakes up dry most mornings!)! We even went to the zoo last week and I wasn’t sure how she would do with it being such a long outing, but she went in the restrooms and used the big potties three times while we were there and was dry all day. Way to go, girly! While sometimes Juno still thinks she doesn’t want to take a bath, once she’s in we cannot get her out and she has been loving taking showers again as well. She’s done a complete 180 and we are so relieved! Way to go, June Bug!

What else is new with our bug since she turned two? Let’s see … she has moved through two classes at school. When she turned two she moved to the Big Tods classroom and at the beginning of June she moved to the Get Set classroom which is the pre, pre-school class. I can’t believe it. We are keeping Juno in daycare two days a week throughout the summer so that she has some consistency and so that I can have a couple of days a week to work or have some time for myself. She is loving her new class. She has so many friends that moved up with her at the same time and she loves her new sweet teachers so much! This morning before we left for “school” she said, “I’m going to have the best day with my friends and teachers!” Melt my heart why don’t ya.

Juno has grown so much! She was at the doctors last week and she was JUST about 24 pounds so she has gone up in percentile to the whopping fourth percentile, but when she was in the less than the 1st percentile just a few months ago, I’d say that is a huge improvement. She is almost three feet tall hitting right at 34 and a half inches. She is still in size 2T clothes, but I got out all of her swimsuits and shorts from last summer that were too big for her then and they all fit her now so she technically can still fit in 18 month clothes. So happy I didn’t have to get her new clothes this summer. While at the doctor last week, the doctor didn’t hear her heart murmur so it could be going away on it’s own, which is great! After Juno’s appointment with the pediatric GI in January, we had a few other appointments with a different GI for a second opinion. This is when we then had the barium enema x-ray, abdominal ultrasound and started a new plan. We are continuing to keep her on laxatives for now, but hopefully can try to start weaning her from them within the next few months — although that’ll be a very long process. Right now she’s doing so well so we don’t want to make any changes. She got the all clear to eat dairy again and she is loving it although she doesn’t really care for yogurt and won’t go near cow’s milk. We also have given up on finding a milk alternative for her because honestly she won’t drink anything except water. She doesn’t even like juice! But I think all the cheese she’s been consuming has helped her gain a few LB’s. Now the only thing Juno can’t eat is avocado, but we MIGHT try a tiny bite of avocado at some point this summer and see how it goes or we might wait until she’s 3 — we haven’t decided yet. Juno hasn’t had to go to the doctor since early March and she did SO well last week. I let her have her pacifier under her mask (usually it stays at home and is kept only for sleeping) so she thought that was just the best. She was so brave even though I could tell she was really nervous the whole time. Speaking of the pacifier, I think the Pacifier Fairy is set to come sometime next week. Send us some good vibes because that pacifier has got to go! Juno has a dentist appointment next week and her final two year old molar is currently making it’s way in and I can’t believe that after this tooth fully comes through that teething will be officially over! Hallelujah!

Juno is talking so much and speaking in full sentences. If we ever can’t understand what she is saying she gets real frustrated, but, for the most part, we can understand her and she just talks non-stop. She cracks us up all day long every day by the things she says and she just soaks up everything she sees, hears and learns like a sponge. The other day she said, “This toy is filled with air just my lungs so I can breathe” and just last night she said, “Daddy’s in the bathroom taking out his contacts so he can put on his glasses”. This morning while looking at a book that had a cow in it she said, “That’s the cow’s utters. It’s where her baby cow drinks it’s mommy milk from just like your two boobies mommy!” Ha! (Side note: we just stopped nursing in April and she did really well during the weaning process — phew — I was pretty certain there for a while that I’d still be nursing her while sending her off to kindergarten — haha!). If she is not saying something hysterical she is usually singing at the top of her lungs. Her favorite songs to sing right now are Twinkle Twinkle, Black Sheep Black Sheep, Old McDonald Had a Farm and Little Bunny Foo Foo. When she sings she belts it out in this really DEEP voice and it cracks up us. Juno also loves to dance too. Her favorite song right now is “Better When I’m Dancing” by Meghan Trainor. This song is literally on repeat at our house and if it stops Juno goes, “Alexa, play that song again!”

Some of Juno’s favorite things right now in addition to swimming, dancing and singing are:

-Remington — she LOVES her dog so, so much and Remi is just the BEST with her

-being outside — I swear, Juno and Remi would LIVE outside if we let them

-playing with her cousins (on both sides)

-playing with our sweet neighbor who is a year younger than Juno right next door

-gardening and watering the plants

-painting / play dough / coloring

-reading books

-playing with her kitchen in the basement and cooking for us

-snuggles with mommy

-Yaya days

-the zoo and seeing all the “am-i-nals”

-Target runs — she’ll often say “Mommy, you got this for me at Target?” or “Mommy, we have to buy more at Target?”

-somersaults, “cartwheels”, donkey kicks and doing yoga (we are going to start her in gymnastics here soon — I think she’s going to do a mom & tot class at my old gym with her Yaya once I go back to work this fall! Juno will LOVE it

-swinging on the neighbors swing right next door

And while Juno is usually happy, there are a few things she still doesn’t love. Sleeping and going to bed being one of them. We seem to take two steps forward in the sleep department and then a giant leap backwards. Someday though I know she’ll start sleeping well … I’m not giving up hope yet! Juno moved to a big girl bed in March and this has helped her sleep a lot. She loves her bed and it’s been really great for when I end up in her room (most nights - ha!) — I now can lay down with her instead of spending my nights sitting upright in a rocking chair. Right now we are going through some hard separation anxiety again and I basically have to PEEL her off of me kicking and screaming when I leave her room at bedtime. Sometimes she’ll then settle on her own, but, most of the time, she’ll scream until she’s blue in the face and won’t stop (believe me, we’ve let her scream for five hours before) so I usually go back in and lay with her some more. She likes to fall asleep laying RIGHT on top of me. Her cheek has to literally be smooched into my cheek. Bedtime seems to take us a couple of hours most nights, but I know that someday I’m going to miss her snuggles so much when she gets older so I’m trying to remember that in the midst of our bedtime battles.

Juno loves BIG and she is happiest when she’s surrounded by the people she loves or is outside. She has to constantly be near one of us and loves to play with us. She is the best little helper!

Juno Elizabeth, we love you so much. We can’t wait to see what the second half of your second year bring. We are SO proud of you and everything you’ve overcame since you turned 2!

Photo Notes: I LOVE this first photo SO much because this is how I think of bug. She picks out her own clothes, usually has wild, uncombed hair, walks around barefoot and carries around her OG (Original Giraffe). She had me snap this of her in the studio a few weeks ago when we were out here playing. I love her “cheese” smile in the photos outside and how silly she was being in the studio. The photos below with Remington in the studio are some of my favorite photos of her that I’ve ever taken.

TWO! We officially have a big girl

January 4, 2021

Two! It’s been half a year since my last Juno update — these past six months have been SO busy. Juno turned 2 at the beginning of December so she’s actually 25 months already. I cannot believe it. It’s true what they say … the days are long but the years are short. I feel like two years has flown by. If you want to catch up on any of my prior Juno updates, here you go. Or, if you’re just here to see some cute pictures of a sweet two year old from the past 6 months then scroll all the way down…

A lot has happened since Juno’s 18 month update. I went back to teaching full time in August and Juno started “school” then as well. She is at daycare three days a week and with her Yaya the other two days. It was a big adjustment at first for both of us after having a year off together, but now that we are both more in the swing of things it’s all going well for the most part. Juno loves her teachers and her friends at school so much. We are so blessed that her first experience at school has been a positive one and that her teachers were so kind and caring in her young toddlers class. After winter break, Juno will move to the big toddler class and have two new teachers, but the good thing is she spent a lot of time throughout December in this class and lots of her friends are already in this class. She’s going to do so well! Her days with Yaya are her favorite and she looks forward to her Yaya (and Papa) time all week. We feel so lucky to have grandparents fifteen minutes away who love our baby girl so much!

Juno has started talking up a storm and is saying lots of three or four or more word sentences and phrases now. I can make out what she is saying almost all of the time, but she’s still working on the articulation of many of her words and she gets SO frustrated when I can’t figure out what she is saying or can’t figure out what she wants. This girl still knows how to throw a solid tantrum. Hmmmm, I wonder where she gets that from? Ha! Some of Juno’s favorite phrases right now are: “thank you mommy (or daddy, yaya, kk, whoever!)”, “I love you mommy”, “Mommy help!”, “Excuse me mommy (or daddy, etc.)”, “No no no Remi”, “LEAVE IT Remi!” and “Hiiiiii KK” (Her Aunt KK is her favorite person to ‘call’ and she spends a lot of time every day pretending to be on the phone with her KK. Yesterday morning she said, “Mommy I want to hold the baby giraffe!” A full on sentence clear as day. What?! She also loves to say each member of our family multiple times a day — “Mommy, Daddy, Remi, Yaya, Papa, Pais (my parent’s dog, Paisley), KK, Uncle Cam, Raleigh, LeeLee (Ellie), Grandma, Grandpa, Jeffey, Kate, Micah”. Needless to say, Juno is loved by SO many and she loves her family SO much.

Right now Juno is such a great helper. I think her favorite thing to do is to help us with whatever — the laundry, the dishes (either washing them in the sink or putting the dishes away), throwing trash away, making our coffee, dumping her pee into the toilet from her little potty, whatever! Ask her to do something and she is so eager to help! She’s been helping us cook and bake and I have a feeling she’s going to love helping us in the kitchen for a long time to come. She also LOVES her baby dolls so much right now. She has two that she particularly loves (one was my baby doll when I was little and one her Auntie KK got her when she turned one) and we have been spending all of our winter break taking care of them. Twins are exhausting ya’ll. Kudos to all the twin momma’s out there. Let me tell you —- Juno and I have spent countless hours doing the following on repeat: one baby wakes up, change that baby’s diaper, put that baby on the potty to try to go pee or poop, put a fresh diaper on, put baby in her high chair, cook her [pretend] eggs, feed her the pretend eggs, give her water, change her diaper again, put jammies on, rock baby, read books, put to bed and then guess what?! As SOON as that baby is asleep, the other baby wakes up and we have to do all of these things with baby #2. And then we put that on repeat until she finally decides we can do something different. Phew, it’s hard work! She also loves to color, draw, paint, play with play dough, build with her kinetic sand, and do anything that is hands-on. She’s going to be an artist who loves to do crafts for sure. After finishing any masterpiece, she immediately makes us hang it on the fridge, which of course we are so happy to do. Her daddy thinks she’s going to grow up to be a musician — she loves to play the piano with him and she started singing along to songs and clapping and is always trying to snap her fingers too. Brandon says that she has really good beat and rhythm - haha! She also likes to play her harmonicas, her maracas and her tambourine. She often yells at me to “Sing mommy!” and sing I do. Up On the Housetop, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Black Sheep Black Sheep, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are what she requests the most. Another favorite is reading books — we got so many new books for Christmas that she has quickly fallen in love with and she loves reading so much. She points to letters she knows and often thinks she is reading the books. Her new favorites right now include, Made For Me, If Animals Kissed Goodnight, Santa Mouse, The Itsy Bitsy Reindeer, The Polar Express [she calls it the choo choo train book] (we’ve been reading a lot of Christmas books clearly), and any of the Never Touch A (spider, monster, etc.) books.

We had Juno’s 2 year well check a few weeks ago and sweet girl is healthy and doing well. She’s come SUCH a long way when it comes to going to the doctor and I think a big part of that is how many appointments she’s had lately. I think she’s been to the doctors 8 or 9 times since mid-October and has another appointment tomorrow. She’s becoming a pro. More on that in a moment, but Juno is 22 pounds on the dot and is in the 3rd but almost 4th percentile for weight. She’s hanging onto her growth curve for weight, but just barely, so we are trying to make sure she gets lots of healthy fats everyday. Doctors orders! She is 32 1/2 inches tall and is in the 45th percentile for height — she has been growing like a weed lately! We’ve had to put away all of her 18 months pants and she is officially in 2T clothes because of her height; although many of them don’t fit around the waist yet ... she’ll get there eventually. She would be in size three diapers still, but we just got rid of all of her diapers because this girl is potty trained (or mostly potty trained)! Hooray! Speaking of going potty, we are still figuring out and dealing with Juno’s tummy troubles and trying to figure out what is causing and how to handle her chronic constipation. Things got really bad in October again so we finally saw a pediatric GI doctor at Children’s Hospital in November and we have a follow up appointment with the same doctor tomorrow. The good news is that all of her blood work and labs have come back normal so far. We then spent a long weekend doing a complete colon clean-out which was miserable but so necessary and then we followed up with an abdominal x-ray to make sure that her colon had been cleared and that she didn’t have any other blockages. Since then we have been on maintenance medication daily. She was doing really well for a couple of weeks after the initial clean out, but now she is back to being pretty backed up again and nothing we do is seeming to help. She has been complaining that her “tummy hurts” and she gets so bloated when she hasn’t gone if a few days. It breaks our hearts, but hopefully we are on the path to figuring out how to best help her. She is completely dairy free and has been pretty much her whole life. We may look at going gluten free as well if it comes to it. We will see what happens at her next appointment — we are hoping for more answers and guidance as we feel like our lives fully revolve around poop (or the lack of poop) right now and it’s not very fun. Right before her major clean-out Juno came down with croup, which was the first time she has ever really been sick in her life, and we ended up in urgent care for that. Luckily, she had a pretty mild case and one dose of steroids helped a lot. Then, at her two year check up her pediatrician found a heart murmur so she sent us off to see a pediatric cardiologist adding yet another doctor’s visit to Juno’s schedule. Poor thing couldn’t seem to catch a break this fall! We just saw the cardiologist about two weeks ago, who was beyond amazing, and after a normal EKG and about thirty minutes of listening to Juno’s heart, he declared that her heart is perfect and healthy and that she has an innocent murmur which she may have her whole life or it may go away on it’s own. Thank goodness! Juno did so well at this appointment and the doctor declared, “a two year old should NOT be this good at the doctor”. See what I mean about how far she has come when it comes to going to the doctor? Little lady used to scream bloody murder every time we went for the ENTIRE time we were there and cling to me to the point where I would have nail marks on my arms. Now, she’s TOO good at the doctor! She doesn’t even cry getting shots or blood taken anymore. We play doctor a LOT which has also been really helpful. Hopefully the New Year lends us less trips to the doctor than this fall did. Fingers crossed. Juno also went to the dentist for the first time a couple of months ago and she did great there as well! She wasn’t a fan of having her teeth polished, but the dentist was amazing and got it done. She has all of her teeth except for her four 2 year old molars. She got to pick out a book, a sticker and a rubber duck afterwards which made everything better! She still carries around the duck and says “dentist” “dentist”.

Update on Tues. 1/5 - We had a follow up appointment with the pediatric GI today and the good news is that there are no blockages, Juno isn’t currently backed up and there is no blood in her stool. Hooray! Her colon has some shrinking and healing to do, but we are on the right track. We will remain dairy free for a while and we are going to try a new daily medication to make sure she doesn’t get backed up again. On the other hand, she’s lost a little bit of weight (it could be because she isn’t impacted with poo anymore), but she’s now in the 2nd percentile for weight (21 lbs) and the zero percentile for height to weight (BMI). Because of this we are doing some additional testing and getting her thyroid checked as well. Hopefully this means only more trip to the doctor for some blood work and then we can take a much-needed break from the doctor for a while! Fingers crossed!

Oh goodness, where to begin in the sleep department? In Juno’s 18 month update I hesitantly shared that we finally had a sleeper, but guess what? I spoke too soon, which is why I was hesitant to even share that bit of good news in the first place. This summer Juno was sleeping great! She was consistently sleeping 8-10 hours every night and napping for 2-3 hours every day. It was DREAMY. I was finally starting to feel like a normal person again. But then I went back to work and Juno started daycare and her good sleep completely went out the window. We’ve maybe had three or four nights since August that she’s slept “through the night” up until two weeks ago. By winter break, I was an anxious, exhausted mess. If there is one thing I know about me it’s that sleep can make it or break it for me mentally and physically so my goal for winter break was to try to get back on track with good sleep habits. We are two weeks into re-sleep-training and so far she’s been doing SO much better. She either has one or two quick wake in the night (I’ll be up for 30 minutes or less usually) or NO wake ups! Getting her to sleep is a different story, but at least once she is asleep she has been sleeping pretty well and LOADS better than what we were getting in the fall. Hallelujah. She has been sleeping about 8-9 hours a night this past week and thinking about where she was two weeks ago that is AMAZING. She’s also been napping better during the days and I’ve been able to rest or get some things done which has been really nice. Now we are just praying that this will continue this week and beyond when we both go back to school! Praying, praying, praying. We are so proud of how far she’s come in just a week or two!

We also started potty training over winter break. We figured she’s at the age where it’s easiest to potty train and we both had two weeks off so why not? She was also about 85% potty trained already. Ever since this summer, Juno has been peeing and occasionally pooping on the potty at home and at Yaya’s house so she’s been ready to get rid of diapers for a while now. So far she’s doing great and dare I say that she may be fully potty trained?! She is obsessed with her big girl underwear and loves to go on the potty. She gets very proud of herself when she does. She’s had a few accidents over the first couple of days, but overall she will tell us when she has to go or will go if we tell her it’s time to use the toilet and she’s been staying dry during naps and night too! She hasn’t had an accident in over a week! We will see how it goes once she’s back in school this week. We officially have a big girl on our hands. I am so proud of her, but also want my baby back! Where did my baby go? Another update — Juno went back to school yesterday and she didn’t have any accidents at school either! She peed on the potty all day while there —- wooohoooo!

Some of Juno’s favorite things right now:

Eating - she is the best eater you will ever see (her favorite foods right now are corn, peas, turkey, sausage, noodles, eggs, pears, grapes, peaches … if it doesn’t have dairy and it isn’t an avocado then she probably likes it — we are still holding off on avocados for the time being before we try them again)

Playdough & Kinetic Sand

Painting

Riding her bike outside

Going to the park

Yaya’s house

Remington

Reading Books

“Trash Truck” (the Netflix kid’s show)

Big girl underwear

Exercising — froggy jumps, bear crawls, crab walks, running

Helping with the dishes, cooking and cleaning

Cooking in her play kitchen

Taking care of her babies

Playing outside (especially in the snow!)

Some of Juno’s least favorite things right now:

Bedtime

Pooping

Not getting her way

Brushing her teeth (she used to love brushing her teeth, now it’s hit or miss)

New settings and social situations (sweet pea still takes a while to warm up and feel comfortable around new people or places)

Getting to watch Juno grow another year was definitely the very best thing about 2020 by far. Even amidst the pandemic we wouldn’t change a thing because we got to spend each day with a healthy, spunky, sweet, sassy, hilarious baby girl — oops, I mean big girl — who teaches us so much about life, love and what is really important. And the best thing about having a one year old during a world-wide pandemic was that she didn’t know any different. We may not have gone out to as many places as we usually would have and we went to far less story times, zoo days, museum outings and restaurants than we did during her first trip around the sun and we didn’t travel anywhere at all this whole year, but she doesn’t know that and she thought all this time together was simply the best. We love her more and more everyday and she continually melts our hearts with her big bear hugs, the way she grabs our faces to give us kisses and how she says “I love you, mommy” or “I love you, daddy”. Our year has been made. Can’t wait to see what Juno’s twos hold for her. We are so proud of you and love you more than you will ever know, June Bug.

18 Months Old - June bug update

June 21, 2020

Holy cow … I’m not sure how but our baby is a year and a half old! I simply cannot believe it. If you missed her 15 month update, you can see it here. It was over a year ago that I decided to take a parenting leave and took this past school year off from teaching and now that it’s already June, I cannot believe that my year off will be quickly coming to an end in under two months. Needless to say, I’m trying to soak up every single minute while willing time to just slow down please! (If you’re just here for the cute pics, scroll all the way down!)

Juno had her 18 month well check last week and goodness has she grown! She is 31 & 1/2 inches tall and has grown three inches since December! I’m also excited to report that we now have a twenty pounder on our hands … weighing in at 20.4 lbs (with her clothes, shoes and diapers on because she wouldn’t let us get a naked weight at the doctors — ha)! Sweet pea is in the 4th percentile for weight, the 39th percentile for height (hello growth spurt!) and the 16th percentile for her BMI. Juno gets pretty nervous, scared and shy in certain situations (especially recently) so going to the doctor has been really scary for her, but we practiced so much before this appointment and overall she did so much better than the last time we had to go. We had been playing doctor for weeks, reading books about the doctor, talking about it a lot and her lovie giraffe got to come with this time to have a check up too! Over all our sweet girl did so well getting two shots and getting her blood taken for some blood work. After our last experience at the doctor (around 15 months) I left and told Brandon that I was never going to take her to the doctor by myself again. Well, guess what? Because of COVID they are only allowing one parent to come to appoints so I found myself at the doctor by myself with Juno yet again. But, it went so much better this time around. I’m so proud of this brave girl! We are so blessed and do not take for granted for one second that our girl is healthy and growing and happy.

She is still in size three diapers, but we just moved her up to size four nighttime diapers at night so that she isn’t soaking through her jammies anymore. Juno basically skipped right over 12 months clothes and went straight from 9 months or 6-12 months clothes to 12-18 months or 18 months clothes now. While 9/12 month onesies do fit her, 12 months pants are too short on her after her big growth spurt … she’s just tall and skinny, that beauty of ours. Dresses have become our best friend so far this summer since Juno hates getting changed and dressed so much. With a dress, I can chase her around and quickly slip it over her head and then all we have to worry about are pulling her arms through real quick. No pants, buttons or zippers to deal with! I just bought her a bunch of new dresses since she’s going to be living in them! Juno would still prefer to run around naked with no diaper on and now she knows how to cleverly tell me that she has to go potty, even though it’s all just a ploy to get me to take her diaper off. She actually does like to sit on the potty and has gone a handful of times, but usually she will just sit there for one second and then run around around naked until I can capture her again. June Bug is in size 4 shoes and I think we are going to be in trouble with this one because she LOVES putting on and taking off her shoes all day long. She changes shoes multiple times a day. We may need some bigger closets in our house someday :)

We have a major update to report in the sleep department; although I am scared to even put it down in writing in case I jinx it, but holy moly WE HAVE A SLEEPER!! I know I talked about our progress a few months ago, but goodness within the last month Juno has officially started sleeping. Like I’m talking about napping for 2-3 hours a day and sleeping for ten hours at night. I still can’t believe it. Every morning when I wake up, I can’t believe it’s morning and that she has slept all night. Ha! It has been a L-O-N-G journey, but here we are! (Insert all the praise hands here!) It feels amazing to get a full nights sleep every night. Every once in a while we will have to go in, but I think every time that has happened recently it’s because she has a tooth popping through and then she seems to get right back on track once her little teeth are feeling better. She is even napping so well over at Yaya & Papa’s when she is there multiple a times a week so she finally is letting my sweet mama have a nice break during the day while she is there.

Juno now has 8 teeth and her 9th is ready to come through at any moment. She has four on top, three on the bottom and then her first top molar just came in the other day and I can feel the other top molar on the other side about to come through. Molars are no joke … it’s been a bit of a fussier week, but Juno is a champ! She still loves to eat and is just the best eater you’ll ever see. Her favorite foods right now are eggs, hash browns, noodles and mac n’ cheese, grapes, cherry tomatoes, ranch dressing, cuties or mandarin oranges, asparagus and she will do anything for a fruit snack. We are still staying away from avocado (she has an FPIES allergy to avocado so she throws up pretty bad a few hours after having avocado, but we are hopeful she will grow out of this so we will try this again once she turns 2) and cow’s milk because she does have a mild IgE allergy to dairy, but most dairy she does pretty well so she can have yogurt and most cheeses now. Hooray!

Juno is talking more and more all of the sudden and she continues to learn more signs every day. Her favorite words to say right now are: mom, dada, dog, more, cheese, uh-oh, and she’s really perfecting her “b” words and has started saying bubble, bath, baby, ball, bebo (belly button), and butt. She also just started saying papa and yaya too! She can sign pretty much anything and everything and sometimes I have to go look up what sign she is using because she knows more than I do at this point. Being able to communicate with us through sign language and now that she has started saying more words has helped so much with her strong-willed personality. She knows exactly what she wants at all times and she won’t hesitate to grab your finger and drag you along anywhere and everywhere she wants you to go … that is as long as she knows you well! If she doesn’t know you, then you’ll find her in my arms with a handful of my shirt clenched in her fist and her face snuggled into my neck - oh goodness. It takes quite a while for this little love to warm up, but that’s okay. That’s exactly how I was when I was little too … like mama like daughter I guess!

Some of Juno’s favorite things right now are:

-playing in the water (her water table or splash pad have been big hits)

-gardening and watering the flowers

-sidewalk chalk

-picking and smelling the flowers

-exploring the backyard

-bubbles

-the sandbox at Yaya & Papa’s house

-dogs

-playing with her cousins

-her baby dolls

-dancing

-reading books before bed

Some of Juno’s not so favorite things right now are:

-going to the doctor or anywhere new or unfamiliar

-diaper changes

-baths (these used to be a favorite, but now she wants to get in and out quickly and does not want water to be poured on her head at all)

-teething

-getting ready for bed

-new settings and social situations (sweet pea is so shy until she warms up and feels comfortable)

-not getting her way

We can’t believe our BABY is 18 months old. We love her so stinking much and think she is practically perfect in every way. We thank the Lord for her all day long and we love love love watching her grow and learn every day. Right now I’m looking forward to soaking up all the summer-time, outdoor, family fun while we can. Come August I will be going back to the classroom and Juno will be starting school too! I never thought I’d be returning to work during a pandemic, but that’s what the reality is. While I am excited and ready to go back to work, I know it’s going to be a big adjustment for our family especially while we navigate COVID19 in the midst of all of it. We have Juno signed up for three days of daycare and then my mom will watch her the other two days. I think it will be a great mix of socialization and “school” and special time with her grandma too. I know that the first few weeks of daycare are going to be hard while Juno gets used to it, but I know that she is going to do great and everything will work out. I know that she is going to eventually love going to school and will love being around friends all day. I’m so glad I was able to take this whole year off to be with her — to watch her grow, to spend every day with her, to be more flexible, to be able to be home to put her down for so many of her naps, to spend time with cousins and family on the daily — what a huge blessing it has been. So for now, I’m going to soak up this time with her, enjoy the summer and be present! I wanted to end this post by giving a HUGE thank you to all of my photography family (new and old) because without all of you, taking a year off from teaching wouldn’t have ever been an option! I’m so, so grateful and I’m cherishing every last single second of parenting leave and I’m so grateful for every single session I have had over the past year and that I have scheduled over the next month and half. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Juno is 15 Months Old

March 27, 2020

Well three months have gone by since I wrote Juno’s 12 month update, but I still want to blog about our sweet girl every so often — mostly for myself so I never forget all of the big things she’s doing right now. As I begin this post, Juno is currently nestled on my chest, asleep in my arms as I am reclined in her rocking chair in her room. Clearly nothing much has changed in the past three months. This little one still just prefers to nap on her mama so for now I’m going to cherish every moment because I know I’ll be begging for her cuddles some day not too far away. And plus, most days she really does nap in her crib now…

Overall we have come a LONG way in the sleep department. Right around 13 months old, we started working with a child developmental specialist to get some advice and help with Juno’s sleep. Prior to this, she rarely napped and almost never napped in her crib and our nights were pretty rough with wake ups every 2-3 hours. So when talking with the sleep consultant, I was all ears and we were eager to try anything and everything she advised. Less than two weeks later and Juno made it through her very first night without a feeding and a week after that she made it through her very first night of sleep without a feeding AND without any wake ups! It took just about 14 months, but we were so happy that we knew she could do it now! At first these nights were few and far between but now I ’d say that she sleeps through the night (she’ll do a 9-10 hour stretch) most nights. She still wakes up most nights but she has gotten so much better at self-soothing and going back to sleep on her own. Every so often we will still have to go in and rock her or nurse her, but I’d say the good nights outweigh the bad now and for that I am so grateful! One time she even made it 11 hours! So in the grand scheme of things, we’ve made progress that I never thought would happen and I’m feeling so much better and more rested these days. We are right in the midst of transitioning from two naps to one nap so depending on the day she’ll either take one nap, two naps or no nap. Ha!

Let’s see… what else is new in the last few months? I think she had just taken her first steps when I last wrote and now she is full on running to the point where I have to tell her to slow down often. She is very active and loves to be outside digging in the dirt or running around the yard with Remi. We have been loving the weather lately and have been going on long walks and playing at the park a lot. [Update: no longer playing at the park — when I first started writing this blog post, all was still well in our little world and the Coronavirus restrictions hadn’t hit us yet like they have now]. She points out every airplane in the sky along with every bird, rabbit or squirrel she sees!

Juno is communicating more and more everyday. We love all of the little (and loud) sounds she makes. She can say dog (“d-oo-g”), woof woof, mama and dada and she’s starting to use a lot more sign language as well. She can sign dog, bird, airplane, more, all done, eat, hi and bye and she seems to pick up a new sign everyday! She has been loving watching the Baby Signing Time videos.

Some of Juno’s other favorite things right now include:

-playing the harmonica

-climbing on and patting Remington

-all of her cousins

-Remington and all dogs for that matter (she walks around going “woof woof woof” all the time)

-scribbling and coloring on paper or with sidewalk chalk

-washing her hands (we are thankful for this one amidst the coronavirus pandemic right now)

-bubble baths

-feeding the dog and giving her treats

-eating (this girl can EAT and sit at the table for a long time)

-taking care of her baby doll

-temper tantrums (ha!)

-FaceTime — we are so grateful to have this technology while we are so dearly missing our family while we #stayathome — she loves talking to her Yaya and Papa and their dog Paisley, Grandma and Grandpa, her cousins and even her Great Grandma too!

Juno’s not so favorite things right now include:

-diaper changes and getting dressed — she’d run around naked all day if she could

-when we lay her in her crib and walk out of her bedroom — the separation anxiety is real bad right now

-when we tell her “no” or take away something she wants or do something she doesn’t want to do

-going to the doctor - we had a bit of traumatic experience a few weeks ago when I took her in to get her ears checked. You know it’s bad when you can’t even get her weight because she is clinging to mom so hard and when the doctor comes in to help the nurse because she can hear the screaming throughout the whole office. In Juno’s little mind and heart, this was SO scary for her. This was our first really hard trip to the doctor. Her ears were fine; the doctor diagnosed her with “fussy baby syndrome”. Oh goodness.

Juno weighs about 18 lbs 5 oz and I have no idea how tall she is now, but I’m thinking not much taller than last time since her 6-9 month pants still fit her. Haha! Her 12 month clothes are just barely starting to fit. She’s still in size three diapers but I think she’d prefer to not where a diaper at all if she had her way. She’s gone potty on the toilet three times so far and always likes to sit on the toilet whenever she is in the bathroom.

The debate is still out on what color her hair is (red, brown, strawberry blonde)? It always looks different. It’s growing so long and is almost long enough to put up in a little pony tail on top of her head, although I doubt she will let me do that once it is long enough. She doesn’t like bows or headbands at all right now. Her eyes are still bright blue and just the prettiest eyes we have ever seen. Juno now has 6 teeth (2 on the bottom and 4 on the top that aren’t quite all the way in yet). We love Juno’s big personality and we melt to the floor when she out of nowhere leans over and gives us a kiss.

Juno has been SO happy lately — she loves being independent and she thinks she’s a big kid all of the sudden. She runs around talking and laughing and pointing and clapping. She can go up and down the stairs completely independently and her newest favorite thing is to stand on her “stand-y” at the island and help us cook or bake. She likes to eat her snacks here too.

The past couple of weeks as things have progressed everyday with the coronavirus, I’ve been trying to just soak up my time with her and view the world from her eyes. In her mind, she doesn’t know that the world is facing a crisis and she thinks it’s pretty great that I get to be home with her all day every day. Mom doesn’t have to work anymore? GREAT! Mom gets to play with me around the clock? EVEN BETTER! Juno literally stops and squeals with delight at every bird, airplane, squirrel, pile of mud … you name it and it amazes her. Wouldn’t the world be such a better place even amidst these hard times if we took just a little time each day to view the world from a child’s perspective? I’ve also been trying to intentionally put down my phone, turn off the news and just play with her when she is awake. I know that babies and kids can read us like a book when it comes to our emotions and how we are feeling and the last thing I want is for her to feel even a smidgen of the anxiety, fear or stress I might be feeling so amidst all of this I’m trying to be intentional about counting my blessings and not taking one second of the time I have with my little love and our family for granted.

Juno Elizabeth, you are perfect in every way. We love you so stinking much. You are our girl, forever, and are the biggest blessing!

Raegan Grace: A Ken Caryl Maternity Shoot & Newborn Studio Session

March 12, 2020

My sweet friends, Nicole and Travis, welcomed their second baby girl in November. A few weeks before she entered the world we met in Ken Caryl Ranch to take their maternity photos before they became a family of four. They welcomed Raegan Grace a few weeks later who was 6 lbs 4 oz and such a little peanut. It was so fun to get to meet her and take her newborn photos. Big sister, Abby, was such a good helper and is just the best big sister already. I’m so happy for this sweet family!

Doesn’t this last photo just say it all?!

Fall Favorites (in March)

March 3, 2020

Well it’s officially March — and I here I am finally blogging about Fall — HA! My last post was just after the New Year in which I stated that my goal was to blog twice a month. Here we are almost two months later, BUT better late than never, amiright?!

Fall photos are my absolute favorite. I LOVE the colors, the leaves, the snow, the sun, the families … all of it! Grab a cup of coffee because I have so many photos to share. For all of you that had your family photos done in the Fall, thank you so, so, SO much!

Now bring on Spring, sunshine, warm weather, flowers and more photo shoots — this girl is ready for Spring over here!

Happy New Year - Welcome 2020!

January 14, 2020

Goodness, how we are already 14 days into the new year is beyond me! With a very busy December and start to January, I’m finally getting back into the swing of things and starting to get caught up. With Thanksgiving followed by Juno’s first birthday, then Christmas and New Years, other family member’s birthdays and photographing a winter wedding, we just have been busy over here. But now we are two weeks into the new year and are getting back into our routine. One of my goals for this year is to blog at least once or twice a month. We’ll see how it goes! To kick us off, I always like to take a quick look back on the previous year — it helps me to reflect and start the new year off with a mindset of gratitude. While I normally have this post ready to go by New Years Eve, I’ve learned that things just don’t quite happen like you think they will when you have a little one running around (and by running, I mean literally RUNNING around — right after Christmas June Bug decided she was ready to fully conquer this whole walking thing. Now she barely crawls at all anymore. See the walking video below. My baby is now a toddler — be still my heart!). This past year I’ve learned that work will wait and our to-do lists can grow but these are the moments we don’t want to miss.

Okay, here we go …

2019 was just full of our June Bug. Being that it was Juno’s very first trip around the sun, we experienced a whole lot of firsts, a whole lot of love and a whole lot of smiles. Simply put, this past year was hands down the very best. In 2019, I blogged every month about our growing girl. Here are all the links to look back at each month.

Phew! Now that she’s over a year old, I’ll blog every few months about that sweet girl of ours.

Here are some of our other favorite moments from this past year — I love sharing some of our “everyday” photos (mostly all taken with our iPhones because that’s the camera we have on us everyday). 2019 started with the birth of our sweet nephew, Raleigh, who came just after the New Year one year ago. The year was filled with baby snuggles, lots of cousin time for Juno (she’s so lucky to be surrounded by cousins on both sides) and lots of sister time for me (we both took a leave from teaching this school year), family, camping trips, swimming pools, all of the holidays and so much more. We are truly blessed.

This past year was also full of many, many sweet portrait sessions — new clients, past clients, clients that come back year after year. You guys made our year SO good. We are so grateful for each and every one of you. We hope that your photos were easy breezy and FUN. That’s always our goal. If there is anything we can do better for your next session, we are all ears! We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for letting us capture your memories.

This year we grew a lot as a photography business and it’s been amazing to see how far we’ve come over the past 8 years. This year we photographed families, kids, newborns, weddings, engagements, gender reveals, growing bellies, architecture, senior portraits and headshots. We loved it ALL. This Fall was extremely busy — so much so that blogging went by the wayside (as it seems to always do in the Fall) so my very next blog post will be all of our fun Fall session highlights — if you had photos done in the Fall, don’t worry, we didn’t forget about you! Hopefully this also gave you time to get your holiday cards out without me spoiling your photos beforehand! Here’s just a very quick glimpse of a handful of Fall faves … more to come very soon!

Lastly, in the Fall we broke ground on a photography studio! For those who maybe don’t follow along on social media, we are putting the finishing touches on our very own studio that we built in our backyard. And when I say “we” I really mean Brandon. Brandon built it. From the ground up. Isn’t he amazing? We’ve had a lot of help along the way — my mom who has helped from the start making our vision come to life, my dad who helped stand up the walls and did some heavy lifting, Brandon’s workers who helped with the roof and the drywall — thank you everyone! This has been a dream of mine for many years and I am so happy that’s happening! One day we took a look at our backyard, realized how big it actually is, and decided WHY NOT! We are hoping that we will be open for business come the beginning of the February — stay tuned and we will keep you posted! Our hope is to use our studio for everything from newborns and babies, maternity sessions, themed mini sessions, headshots, kids, and even families! Of course, we will still be booking sessions outside, but we also hope to do some major landscaping this spring and summer and that way clients can have the best of both worlds in one session — a little bit of outdoors and a little studio as well, if wanted! We recently got the floors put in the studio and Juno approves of them! She has so much fun running around the studio while Brandon works.

What a year 2019 was! We can’t wait to see how 2020 unfolds. My hope this year is to stay more present, work hard, live in the moment and cherish every day with our family. Wishing all our clients, family and friends a wonderful New Year!

A Trip Around the Sun: Juno Elizabeth Is One!

December 8, 2019

JUNE BUG IS ONE!

Last week Juno celebrated her first Thanksgiving and then five days later turned ONE. This year has flown by and my heart can hardly handle that my baby is now a toddler. How did this happen? On Sunday we celebrated Juno’s first birthday with our immediate families who came over for tacos, cake and presents. Yaya made Juno the cutest little strawberry bundt cake. Juno wasn’t sure what to think of the cake, but she ate a sprinkle or two and tried the frosting. Juno liked opening her presents and playing with her cousins best of all. Juno got blocks, books, her first baby doll, some puzzles, new sunglasses and a stinking cute snowsuit (see her 12 month photos below). Now for Christmas she needs absolutely nothing, which I think will fly this year, but in the future maybe not so much. Oh, December birthdays! It was the perfect way to celebrate our girl’s first year of life. She brings so much happiness, joy, and LIFE to our lives and, simply put, this has been the absolute best year yet.

On Thursday we had Juno’s one year old well-check with her pediatrician and we are so blessed that our girl is healthy and growing. She weighs 16 pounds 13 ounces and is about 28 inches tall, although she was so wiggly during her height measurement that we didn’t get a super accurate reading. This growing girl has jumped up to the 9th percentile for weight and we are so impressed! She is still wearing size three diapers and fits in clothes anywhere from 3-6 months to 9 months. She’s not quite in 12 month clothes yet and there are some things that still fit her in the 3 month category .. ha! Speaking of growing, we just ordered Juno convertible car seats for both of our cars and we are excited for them to get here! While she would probably still fit in her infant seat for a while longer (our infant seat has a limit of 30 pounds or 30 inches, whichever happens first), we figured she’s getting somewhat close to the height limit and she’s just so dang heavy when we are constantly lifting in and out the infant seat from the car to the house and everywhere we go. Not to mention we took full advantage of the Black Friday car seat deals … I’m excited to see how she likes it once they come!

This month Juno has been practicing her walking. She’s still a bit hesitant when we let go of her hands, but every so often she will take a few steps when I’m holding out my arms ready to catch her. I think she will be full on walking fairly soon. She now can stand for longer periods of time without holding onto anything and she continues to walk along all the furniture and with her walkers, which she loves. Some of Juno’s other favorite things right now are clapping, pointing and doing “somersaults”. She tucks her head and rolls to the side and then gets so darn proud of herself, kicking her legs and waving her arms with a huge grin on her face.

As far as sleep goes, this past month has still been pretty rough (up every two hours or so alllll night long), but I will say she is starting to nap a lot better all of the sudden, which has been SO nice. For the last week or so, she’s been taking two naps a day and one of the two has been in her crib and she’s been staying asleep anywhere from an hour to two hours. And I don’t want to jinx it, but she today she napped for two and a half hours! Say what?! I think she may be getting close to transitioning to one nap a day now that she’s been napping better, but it might be too soon to really tell. It’s been so nice to be able to shower, take care of myself, clean the house, work, edit … all of the things that I usually can never do in a day! As far as night sleep goes, we have just gotten into some bad habits that we need to desperately break. That’s next up on our agenda so that this momma can maybe get longer than a 2-4 hour stretch of sleep at a time. It’s been over a year since I’ve slept all night … I think the absolute longest stretch of sleep that I’ve gotten since Juno’s been born is about 6 hours and that’s been very few and far between, but she is 100% worth it and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The pediatrician says we need to do some tough love because she is big enough and old enough to go at least ten hours at night. 10 HOURS OF SLEEP, I can’t even imagine! Some major catch-up rest is in our near future!

Juno has become such a good eater and one of her favorite things to do is to eat! Stick her in her high chair with some food and she will sit there and eat for up to an hour — it’s great! She now has three meals a day plus a snack or two everyday and while she doesn’t eat a lot in terms of quantity she sure does love it. With all these solids though has come some more tummy troubles. The constipation since solids has been rough and we are still figuring out how to best help her tummy. Between prunes and prune juice, fiber and a probiotic everyday, we still were having to do suppositories more than we wanted to so now we’ve had to start some other tummy medicine. Also, despite Juno’s love for cheese, we have had to completely stop dairy again because not only was it not helping her tummy but we think it was also contributing to her poor sleep over the last couple of months. In terms of actual allergies, Juno now has to stay away from tomatoes in addition to avocados and Parmesan cheese (which is fine since we’ve given up all dairy again). Tomatoes are the newest food she’s tried that cause a red patches and a rash all around her mouth, cheeks and neck. I’m still breastfeeding and want to for a while longer, but I am hoping to start working on weaning her during the days here soon so that I can at least stop pumping. Since I’ve been pumping from literally day one of having Juno since she was early and didn’t know how to suck at first, I’ve been blessed to be able to donate quite a bit of milk to the Mother’s Milk Bank because Juno would never be able to drink all of the milk that continually fills our freezer. It’s been so nice to be able to give back since we used donor milk when Juno was first born while in the hospital. My plan is to slowly wean Juno during her day-time feeds and once that has happened, I’ll make one last donation to MMB. Since we’ve given up dairy, we will be transitioning her to a specific brand of almond milk that is high in fat that our pediatrician would like her on. Hopefully it’ll be a smooth transition and she can eventually have that during the days and then I can still nurse her morning, evening and night. We will see how it goes!

Juno is really getting into the holiday spirit this year. This is technically Juno’s second Christmas but it’s the first Christmas where she has gotten to enjoy all the Christmas things. Last year we didn’t even put up a Christmas tree since we had a newborn. Juno loves all the decorations, lights and ornaments and she loves to dance to the Christmas music too. We are excited for Juno to meet Santa for the first time this year and to start some new traditions this year as well.

We are so in love with Juno Elizabeth. We can’t believe we have a one year old, but I honestly feel like each month gets more and more fun. This age is so stinking cute — her personality has really come out, she is constantly giggling, smiling and making faces and her smile brightens our hearts all day long. We love her snuggles (maybe a little too much — see the section about our terrible sleep habits above) and we think she’s practically perfect in every way. Her hair is coming in thick and full. Her bald spot is completely gone on the back of her head and her hair has gotten so long that it doesn’t stick straight up anymore and is laying flat instead. It’s definitely getting darker but still has hints of red in it, especially when she’s out in the sun. She still only has two teeth, which she loves to brush using her electric toothbrush, and her big blue eyes are as blue as ever. Her eyelashes are still the longest eyelashes you will ever see. Her nose and ears are so cute and little. She’s looking more and more like my baby pictures and she most certainly has similar facial expressions and the same personality as me — we are in trouble, we know). Juno has become such an easy baby. She is so happy and content almost all of the time. She definitely has gotten easier and easier with each month that goes by. She’s letting more people hold her now (she will finally let her Papa hold her … he’s basically had to wait an entire year) and we even took her to Sunday school for the first time a couple of weeks ago and didn’t even have to pick her up early because she was able to calm down after a little while. Her screaming fits have mostly been replaced by the occasional temper tantrum where she throws her had back, screams and kicks her legs, but we will happily take these tantrums over the colicky baby that we had for many months. A couple things still make her really upset — getting changed, when mom leaves the room or has to drop her off somewhere (besides Yaya’s house, which she loves) and waking up from naps. It takes quite a while for this little one to warm up after waking up, which is exactly how her momma feels after naps too. Juno continues to love baths, car rides, walks, music (as soon as a song comes on, you will find her dancing), Remington and reading books.

Goodness, this recap was a long one, but I’m so glad to have 12 months worth of notes about our girl to look back on. Going forward, I'm thinking I’ll write every three to six months or whenever the mood strikes. I’ve been so nostalgic lately as memories from one year ago pop up on my phone so I’ll include some of Juno’s very first photos below along with some photos from her birthday party and her 12 month photos as well.

12 Months of Juno

One Year Ago

First Birthday Party

12 Months Old

(and the cutest snowsuit you will ever see)

Juno, we love you so, so much. We love every single little thing about you. Not a day goes by that we don’t say “I can’t believe the Lord gave you to us”. Before bed every night we say prayers over you and remind you that you are smart, kind, important, loved, strong, beautiful inside and out, worthy, more than enough and created in God’s image to do amazing things. We hope you will never forget any of these things. We will support you always and help guide you the best we can. This has been the best year of our lives and we can’t wait to watch you grow over the years to come. You are our everything. Happy first birthday, sweet June Bug. We love you, baby girl!

June Bug Is 11 Months Old

November 8, 2019

11 months, say what?! There is no way that our baby is going to be one in one month. How did that happen? This past month has been so sweet. Juno makes us laugh and smile all day long. She is funny, strong willed, but also cuddly, loving and just the sweetest thing in the world. This month Juno celebrated her first Halloween — she made the b.e.s.t little old lady there ever was (see pictures below) — painted her first pumpkin, went to Boo at the Zoo and had lots of Yaya and cousin time too!

She is definitely the pack leader when it comes to her and her twin cousin, Raleigh. She steals toys from him, gets him to follow her around the house and gets up to no good while he is just the sweetest thing in the world and gets roped into doing whatever she wants. Ha! Juno is enthralled with her big cousin, Elliette, and laughs at her and stares at her whenever they are together and I am pretty sure she wants to be just like her when she grows up. Ellie always is saying how “chute” (cute) Juno is and is such a great big cousin to her. Ellie is still telling us all about how Juno was “damma” (grandma) for Halloween. Twice a week Juno gets to play all day with her other cuz, Micah, and they have so much fun together. How sweet that she gets to grow up surrounded by cousins? Juno continues to spend three days a week plus weekends when I have shoots with her Yaya and the days she gets to have with her are something special. Juno loves her Yaya so much and I am so thankful to have some time to work on all the photography things sans baby, yet I still am able to spend many days with her and have a flexible schedule too. Parenting leave is so nice.

Juno finally got her first teeth! Her two bottom teeth came in first thing this past month and while her gummy smile may be gone, her two little teeth are just as cute (except for the biting, which she thinks is hysterical). Speaking of teeth, Juno has finally got the hang of eating! After two sessions of feeding therapy, Juno can pretty much eat anything now. She loves, loves, loves to eat, is over any sort of baby food or purée, and just wants to eat whatever we are having. While we are still going slow with introducing new foods to her since she’s had some allergies, she is overall doing great. So far the only things she can’t have are avocados and now parmesan/aged cheeses. We still haven’t done any soy yet [update since writing: we just tried soy for the first time and so far so good. We will see how her tummy does over the next week or so with frequent exposures but fingers crossed!] and so far are trying to limit dairy to help her tummy, but that’s proving to be difficult because her favorite food is by far cheese (minus parmesan which she reacted to) but give her soft shredded cheese, string cheese or baby bell cheese and she is one happy girl. She also loves freeze-dried strawberries, fresh blueberries, French fries (another favorite), Mac N’ Cheese and steamed broccoli. For breakfast she loves toast with either a little peanut butter or a little cream cheese or scrambled eggs with fresh or freeze-dried fruit!

We aren’t quite sure how much Juno weighs right now, but we are hopeful that she’s gained quite a bit with all this new eating that she’s been doing. We are anxious to know how much she weighs at her one year appointment next month. Hopefully she’ll be over 16 pounds. She definitely is feeling heavier and our arms have started to get tired after holding her for a while so that is good! She’s still in size 3 diapers and is mostly in 6 month or 6-9 month clothes.

Our sleep update will be quick this month because sleep has been pretty rough again. I feel like it changes every single month when I write these posts. One month she’ll be sleeping pretty great and the next hardly at all! Who knows, it’s always changing! Right now she’s in a no nap and a wake up every hour or two all night long sleep phase. We failed miserably at our attempt to sleep train a few weeks ago. I’ve now been telling myself that she’ll sleep when she is ready and I’m trying to enjoy all these sweet cuddles. In the meantime, send me all your sleep tips. We have bought sleep plans, read books, done the research, tried multiple methods — nothing so far has gotten this girl to sleep through the night.

Juno continues to crawl all around, pulls herself up on everything and one day she even took a couple of steps although she hasn’t since. She loves to walk along all the furniture, in her walker and while pushing her walker. We have had to majorly babyproof because there is no stopping this little babe. Her newest favorite thing to do is to “somersault” and to imitate me doing yoga. She also loves to wave “bye” when she crawls around. She thinks she’s so funny when she’s booking it to another room but stops to wave to us in the process.

This month we are looking forward to celebrating Juno’s first Thanksgiving and getting in the Holiday spirit with her. Last year this sweet pea made her appearance just after Thanksgiving and I feel like we didn’t do all of the Christmas and holiday things that we normally do because we were soaking up every moment with her as a newborn so this year we are excited to decorate the house, meet Santa for the first time, open presents, look at the lights, and go to all the Christmas things! Until next month when my baby turns ONE … Please, time, slowwwww down. My mama heart can’t take it.

A Sedalia Wedding - Cherokee Ranch & Castle

October 9, 2019

On Friday, September 13th Kristen and Stephen said their vows in front of family and friends on the grounds of an emaculate castle in Sedalia just before the sun went down and the full moon came up. Cherokee Ranch and Castle was the most beautiful spot for this amazing wedding for these two beautiful people. If I had to describe this wedding in one word it would be FUN. Kristen and Stephen radiated happiness and pure joy the whole day and it was such an honor to get to capture their love. They truly had so much fun all day long. The day was filled with lots of laughter, lots of love and lots of FUN. These two know how to throw a celebration and that they did! Their love for one another was so evident from the vows they wrote one another, the way they looked at each other, and the way they were always making each other laugh. Kristen’s bride tribe was a blast to be around and we loved the flare that everyone brought to the day. From Kristen wearing a Storm Trooper’s mask at the first look, to a beautiful sunset, followed by some amazing dinner stations (tacos, flatbreads and sliders) and a donut cake, everything about this day was perfect.

Kristen and Stephen, thank you so much for letting us capture your beautiful day. It was such an honor to get to be able to celebrate you two. We hope you love to look back on your wedding day through our lens as much as we loved being there. We wish you all the best as you embark on this little journey called marriage.

The Creative Team

Wedding Planner: Isabelle Kline Flowers: Castle Rock Florist DJ: Elite Entertainment Dinner & Dessert: Biscuits & Berries Bride’s Hair: Courtney Wolfe Bride’s Gown: The Original Sewing Room Groom’s Suit: Men’s Wearhouse

Juno Elizabeth is 10 Months Old

October 8, 2019

Holy moly — 10 months old —- how HOW is our baby going to be ONE year old is just TWO months? Time is flying by and my heart can barely handle it. This month has been another great month. Juno has continued to turn a corner and is just the happiest, smiliest, most content little thing you ever did see. She is SUCH a good player and as long as she is down on the ground surrounded by toys and things to pull herself up on then she is one independent, happy girl. She is really coming into her own and has the biggest personality - she is constantly making us laugh. This past month Juno went to the zoo for the second time — she loved watching the giraffes and other animals— and to her first pumpkin patch. We also went camping with Brandon’s family and it was so much fun getting to camp one last time this season. We had the best time going out on the lake, playing with Juno’s cousin Micah, spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, watching for moose, and trying mom’s ice cream for the first time.

Juno is still a major momma’s girl and still has some pretty extreme separation anxiety, but if she can see me in her line of sight then all is well in her big world. Sweet thing has a really hard time whenever I leave her with anyone besides her Yaya (thank goodness she is good for her or I don’t know what I would do!) She will scream and scream the e.n.t.i.r.e time I am gone if she is with anyone else (except Brandon, of course) and it just breaks my heart and makes it that much harder for me to be gone. Our hope is this will continue to get better and better. She has started letting others hold her or play with her as long as she can see me so that is a GOOD thing! We will keep working on it.

Juno is officially crawling on all fours. Last month she became mobile and was army crawling on her belly all around and this month she is on her knees and doesn’t even scoot around on her tummy anymore at all. She is fast and speedy and knows where she wants to be going. She also pulls herself up to standing on anything and everything she can and she is walking with the help of a walker that she pushes all around. She is so dang proud of herself too. Watch out world, June Bug is ready for ya!

This month started off a bit rough when Juno got stung by a wasp in between her eyes AND was hit hard with the 9 month sleep regression, but we have ended the month on such a good note! Baby girl was tagging along on a photo shoot with me when we stumbled upon a wasp nest. Both Juno and another young lady that we were photographing got stung. We hadn’t even taken one picture yet, but Juno was a trooper and only screamed for maybe 20-30 seconds and then was a happy baby for the entire rest of the session despite the ever increasing swelling on her nose and under her eyes. We just so happened to be photographing my dermatologist’s family so thank the LORD we were with her or I probably would have rescheduled the shoot and rushed her to urgent care (I’m not even kidding — I was certain the major swelling meant she was having an allergic reaction — ha ha!). However, this sweet lady has the kindest heart of anyone you will ever meet, and throughout her entire family portrait session she continually checked on Juno AND reassured this worried mama that Juno’s reaction was still normal. After the session, we headed home to give Juno some Benadryl and she was fine! She was pretty swollen and red for a few days and looked like she got beaten up with two very red and puffy eyes, but overall she did so well and I won’t complain about the good sleep we all got thanks to the Benadryl for a couple of nights!

Speaking of sleep, as soon as Juno learned to pull herself up to standing, sleep went right out the window. Every one to two hours throughout the night, Juno would wake up and instead of rolling over and falling back to sleep like she had gotten so good at, she would pull herself up to standing in her crib but then not know how to sit back down. She would scream until one of us would go and help her sit back down. We tried letting her cry it out to see if she would figure it out on her own, but after watching her fall straight on her back a couple of times, we realized we couldn’t just let her scream until she learned how to sit back down on her own. So for a couple of weeks, every hour or two one of us would get up and lay her back down. Goodness. It was almost as tiring as having a newborn again when I was triple feeding around the clock (not really, but it sure did feel that way after getting used to some good long stretches). Now within the last week or so we are getting back in the swing of things sleep-wise. After a LOT of practice during the day trying to teach the bug how to sit down once she was standing, she can now do it on her own and will do it during the night too most of the time. I don’t want to jinx it, but she’s been going anywhere between 5-7 hour stretches the last handful of nights with usually only one (sometimes two) nursing sessions in the night. I’ve stopped giving her a dream feed before I go to bed so that I can just go to bed early, and so far it’s been working great. She normally still wakes about the same time each night and I get a couple more hours of sleep.

Juno weighs just under 16 pounds and boy does she all of the sudden feel like she is getting big to me! She is definitely starting to fill out a bit and just feels heavier! Go baby go! It could be because she’s starting to eat a more solids. We have started feeding therapy at Children’s Hospital and she is definitely starting to be more interested in food. We’ve been adding a lot of new foods to her diet recently like raspberries, strawberries, kiwi and wheat and we are starting her on some fiber and probiotics to see if it helps her tummy. Juno is officially wearing size 3 diapers and is wearing size 6 month clothes on average. She still fits into her clothes that are 3-6 months while she is swimming in most of the 9 month clothes we have.

June Bug has the biggest blue eyes with the longest eyelashes, the absolute biggest smile of any baby any where and we just adore every single little thing about her — her double chin, the way her hair sticks up, her little dimple on her left cheek, her tiny toes and fingers, the way she kisses us with a big open mouth and sucks on my chin when she hasn’t seen me all day, the way she touches my face while nursing, goodness, we just love how she melts our hearts all day long with her many faces, BIG personality and the best laugh ever. Brandon asked me when we should celebrate her FIRST birthday. I am NOT ready for that yet … how can she be almost one?! For now we are looking forward to Juno’s first Halloween, first Fall, first Thanksgiving … AND then we will think about her FIRST birthday. Happy 10 months, Baby Girl!

The Lamar Family - Sunset Session at Three Pond

September 23, 2019

I’ve known The Lamar family for many, many years (since the oldest of the 4 kids was probably around 2 years old - he’s now a sophomore in high school!) and over the years they have become such great friends. They’ve known me through many life stages — college, grad school, starting my career as a teacher AND a photographer, marriage and having my first baby — and have supported me through babysitting to being one of my first guinea pig families to practice portraits on to now being one of my longest, always-returning clients for my business. Needless to say, I have been truly blessed by this sweet family.

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful evening for their family photos this year. The weather was perfect and the lighting was gorgeous and they make my job as a photographer so easy. I always love getting to capture these four kids as they grow year after year, and I always love when grandparents tag along and hop in a few photos as well! Molly and Chris, thank you for always entrusting me to capture your beautiful family! You all are the b.e.s.t!

A Sweet Newborn Session: Welcome to the World Baby Nathan

September 17, 2019

Adria and Gavin welcomed their baby boy, Nathan Thomas, into the world on August 12, 2019. This little peanut was such a trooper throughout his whole photo shoot. He stayed asleep through almost all of it and was just so, so sweet. It was such an honor getting to photograph this beautiful baby boy at just 11 days old. There is just something about getting to hold a newborn that does your soul good.

Adria and Gavin, thank you so much for letting me capture your little bundle of joy. I already know that you two will be the most loving parents to your little man. Nathan is so lucky to be yours. Wishing you all the best in the world. Enjoy every moment of this stage — it goes by in the blink of an eye!

9 Months Old: Juno Elizabeth is Growing Up!

September 7, 2019

Another month has f.l.o.w.n by and I think this may have been my absolute favorite month so far! Juno has grown up so much and has really turned a corner in the best way this month. She is simply so much fun right now and cracks us up everyday. She is growing everyday and continues to be the light of our lives.

Juno had her 9 month check up on Monday. We love her pediatrician so that makes going to the doctor so much better, especially since Juno is a screamer (as you know if you’ve read any of her monthly recaps before) and her doctor continues on like she isn’t screaming or pushing her away or putting up a fight in the slightest and continually tells me what a good job I am doing while she is also trying to soothe and calm Juno enough to examine her. Bless her heart. Juno is 15 pounds 3 ounces (finally over 15 pounds, hooray!) and is 26 inches tall. She’s still in the 6th percentile (almost the 7th now!) for weight and is now in the 9th percentile for height. She consistently wears 6 month clothes although her 3 month pants still fit - ha! She has an itty bitty waist and some short legs. Her feet are even smaller (size 0-3 month shoes still) and we could just gobble up her tiny toes. We are finishing up the last few size 2 diapers we have and then we will be moving her up to size 3 diapers! How is our baby girl getting so big? Also at her 9 month check up Juno got her first flu shot (we’ll go back next month for her second dose) and she had to get some blood drawn to check her iron levels. Baby girl was so brave, but those loud squeals and giant alligator tears break my heart every time. Good news is her iron level is normal so we don’t have to supplement at this point - since Juno isn’t eating many solids yet we were worried we would have to start. Juno has come SO far in terms of her tummy troubles and reflux and it’s been so refreshing. A few weeks ago Juno started majorly fighting taking her daily reflux medicine so we decided to follow her lead and see how she would do without it for a bit and she’s done great so we are staying off it for now and hopefully forever! It’s so nice to be able to get up and nurse her right away in the mornings instead of having to give her her medicine and wait 30 minutes before feeding her. Each morning when she wakes up, Brandon goes and gets her, changes her and then brings her into our bed for our daily morning snuggles. She nurses and then snuggles for a while which is simply the BEST way we could ever imagine starting our days. We are also doing a trial run from excluding dairy and soy from my diet this month. I’ve now been eating both dairy and soy for a couple of weeks and so far so good — hallelujah! It’s AMAZING to just be able to EAT without having to check every single label. I’ve literally been ravenous and am eating everything in sight. Soon we will slowly start to introduce dairy and soy into Juno’s actual diet with the solids she is eating so we will see how that goes! Fingers crossed! Solids, at this point, are still slowwww going. Juno isn’t all that interested in food. She has a handful of purees she likes (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, prunes and peas) and our latest foods have been blueberries and spinach, but she really is just a bird when it comes to eating. We are going to start some feeding therapy soon at Children’s Hospital because she still has the hardest time with anything other than purees. We are trying to give her little pieces of soft foods every now and then but she honestly just isn’t ready yet and that’s okay. Even the tiniest bites of real food make her gag, and then she continues to gag until she throws up everything in her little belly including alllll of the milk from her last feeding. We are hoping that starting feeding therapy now at such a young age will really help in the long haul. I’m also still terrified of giving her new foods ever since we found out she was allergic to avocados last month. Since she didn’t react the first handful of times having avocado and then all of the sudden started throwing up from them, we are trying to expose her to each new food at least of handful of times before we determine if it is a safe food for her and since she eats such a little amount at each meal this process takes about a week for each new food. I think I said this last month but I didn’t realize that starting solids would be so scary, but I’m feeling more hopeful now that we will be starting therapy and that she hasn’t had any other reactions to any other foods so far.

Juno’s become SUCH a good player this month. Gone are the days of her wanting to be held 24/7. Now that’s she’s mobile she just wants to be put down on the ground and wants to play with all of her toys. In the last few weeks, Juno has started CRAWLING! While she isn’t fully crawling on all fours yet, she has become a pro at army crawling on her belly and will scoot to wherever she wants to be and goodness she has gotten FAST. She is getting more comfortable with taking more steps on all fours so real crawling will most likely take off any day now. She still loves to walk around the house holding onto our hands too and walking independently in her walker has become her favorite thing to do. Her little legs move SO quickly and she runs around laughing and talking and smiling the whole time. She will stay in her walker making laps around our main floor for so long and we just crack up the whole time watching her. Other favorites this month include standing and playing at the taco food truck at Yaya and Papa’s, playing in her new play house that Yaya got us for our house, and reading books that have textures in them or that make sounds. She will sit and look at a book for a good period of time which basically makes my teacher/book lover heart EXPLODE with happiness.

June Bug got her first little smidgen of a cold at the beginning of the month, but for her first bout of sickness, it was a walk in the park. She never got a fever and a little runny nose couldn’t get this girl down! We are so thankful that Juno has been so healthy these first 9 months of her life and we definitely don’t take that for granted. We are also happy to report that her sleeping is really starting to become more consistent. While she can’t quite make it through the night yet without a feeding, she has been doing pretty long stretches through the night (last night she went almost a 6 hour stretch) and she has started NAPPING. Yes, napping! Like not for just 20 minutes anymore, but for over an HOUR everyday. knock.on.wood. In fact, yesterday her morning nap lasted TWO HOURS. Oh my gosh, this has been a game changer. She’s napping right now as I type this if you can even believe it! While her pediatrician on Monday said, “While I wish she was a bit fatter and eating solids a little bit better, within the next month or so you can start to cut out her night feedings”. So, that’s our plan for now! We are letting her sleep until she wakes up and for another month or so I’ll continue to feed her if she does wake in the night. A full night of sleep is in my future … I can almost taste it!

Juno is still toothless although we think this might be the month of her first tooth (do I say that every month?). We love her gummy, big, open-mouthed smile so much. A few other things we are loving about her right now — her fuzzy, soft hair that continue to come in, the way she holds a plank with her bum straight up in the air when she’s on the hard wood or the grass, and how she grabs our faces and pulls us in for a big open-mouthed, slobbery kiss. This month we played with our cousins a lot (on both sides!), soaked up the last few days at the pool over Labor Day weekend and spent a lot of time with YaYa while this momma got a lot of work done. Goodness, 8 full months are in the books and we can’t wait to see what month 9 brings. Brandon and I still look at each other every single day and say, “how is she ours?” and for that, we are truly blessed. June Bug, we couldn’t love you more. Thank you for making us your parents. Until next month …

Jack & Ruby - A Darling Denver Studio Session

August 29, 2019

This darling session was so much fun! I absolutely l.o.v.e when a client has an idea in their head that I can help bring about. Jack and Ruby’s momma, Leslie, had been wanting to do some studio shots for a while now and we finally got them done. August actually turned out to be the perfect time to do these because both Jack and Ruby celebrate birthdays in August. Jack just turned 5 and Ruby just turned 3. Happy birthday to these little loves! Leslie’s vision is to choose one photo of Jack, one of Ruby and possibly one of Oskar (he’s a Bernese Mountain Dog just like Remington), to make big prints of them, frame them in simple, modern frames, and have them become a unique duo or trio of art in their home. I loved these photos in both black and white and color … I can’t wait to see which ones Leslie chooses to print and frame. I’ll post a picture of the final product once she does!

Studio sessions are some of my absolute favorites. I love getting to set up the strobes and create the perfect lighting. I love how simple and beautiful the photos always turn out to be. I love how studio sessions turn out so unique. And, if you haven’t already heard, we are so excited to announce that we just broke ground on building our very own photography studio in our back yard! Instead of having to set up and tear down our in-home studio all the time, we will simply walk out back where we will have a studio ready to go year-round. We envision a lot of these types of sessions as well as themed mini-sessions, holiday sessions, headshots, newborn and baby sessions, and the list goes on. You can follow our studio build over on my instagram. I have a highlighted story called “Studio Build” where you can stay up to date on our exciting new studio!

Jack and Ruby, we love you so much! May years five and three be filled with so much joy! Xoxo

A Darling Colorado Back To School Session

August 13, 2019

I have been busy with so many fun back to school sessions lately and this darling session was no exception. Here in Colorado we go back to school so stinking early (the beginning of August is still SUMMER in my opinion), but I’m not going to complain because these bright, summery sessions give me all the feels! Back to school season is such a good time to get portraits done … what a great way to document and cherish the stage your children are in right now before they are another year older because we all know how fast it goes!

Bennett and Megan are as cute as can be and even more sweet. I had the greatest privilege being Bennett’s 1st grade teacher this past school year. What a lucky teacher I was to have him in my class. His smile is contagious, he is ALWAYS happy, he loves everyone around him and he is going to do amazing things — he already is! This was my first time meeting his big sis, Megan, but she’s off to 8th grade and just from spending an hour together, I can already tell that her family and friends are blessed by her. She is polite, loves her little brother, and is so beautiful inside and out! I think there are good things in store for her for her final year of middle school!

Bennett and Megan, I wish you all the best this year. Your teachers are so lucky to have you in their class(es) this year (I know from experience!), and your friends are so lucky to have you by their sides. Bennett, you are going to love second grade. Keep smiling and bringing joy to everyone around you. Megan, enjoy every minute of your last year middle school. You are going to do awesome!

Doesn’t Bennett make the cutest little assistant you’ve ever seen? I wish I could bring him along to all of my sessions! Thanks for helping, sweet boy!

8 Months Old!

August 6, 2019

Juno Elizabeth is 8 months old! I love this stage Juno is in right now so much and wouldn’t trade it for anything, even with the severe separation anxiety and all the worries that come with having an 8 month old (I know I’ll be saying that at every stage!)

I’m not completely sure how much June Bug weighs but a couple of weeks ago at the doctor she was 14 lbs 5 oz and 24 inches tall. I just cleaned out her dresser and decided to put all of her 3 months clothes away despite most of them still fitting her. I pulled out all of the 3-6 months and 6 month clothes and she’s wearing those now … they are bright and summery and fun and she has plenty of room to grow into them! Thanks big cousin Ellie! We sure do love hand me downs and not having to buy anything! Juno’s teeny tiny feet are wearing size 0-3 month shoes (on the rare occasion that we actually put shoes on her). YaYa bought her some darling 3-6 month jellies but they are HUGE on her still. Maybe this fall she can wear them? She is also still in size 2 diapers, but we are about ready to start wearing size 3 at least at night pretty soon!

We just got back from another camping trip in Grand Lake and we had so much fun. Juno got to splash in the freezing cold water (she LOVES the water), go on a boat ride for her second time, saw a black bear and a mama and baby moose duo and got her first teeny tiny sunburn on her little cheeks despite a sun hat and lots of sunscreen. I tried my best but the sun won on our day on the boat. It didn’t last for long though! We came back from camping with full hearts and oh so tired because Juno’s sleep while camping was not so good this time around. Someone remembered what it was like to nurse all night. Bad habits in the making … yet again!

Speaking of sleep, I think we are in a bit of a regression right now. Last month I had wrote about how we had done some official sleep training and our nights were going so good. While I still had to get up to nurse her in the night, I was often waking her up to do this instead of the other way around. Now Juno has been having a couple to a handful of wake ups each night. Her longest stretch lately has been back to around 4 hours (sometimes shorter but sometimes a bit longer on a good night). Right when you think you are getting the hang of one thing, something else comes up, right? It’s always something! Her napping is still pretty much non-existent unless I’m holding her or she’s in her wrap or car seat. Every so often she’ll sleep anywhere from 20-45 minutes either in her crib if we are home or in the dockatot but those times are still few and far between. You should see how much I can get done in 20 minutes though — it’s truly unbelievable! I know part of her sleep right now is my lack of consistency — for some reason hearing her wail is breaking my heart right now when I was SO strong with letting her cry it out a couple of months ago. She’s also started rolling over onto her belly while sleeping this month and 98% of the time this wakes her right up and she will not lay her head back down once she’s awake and on her tummy. We are hoping she’ll learn to like sleeping on her tummy sometime soon! Occasionally when I check the monitor and she’s sound asleep on her belly so I am hopeful!

Juno’s still exploring and eating solid foods, although I wish she could just have milk forever and not have to eat real food. Sometimes she’s interested in eating, other times not so much. I was hoping to do more baby-led weaning, but I’m following Junos lead and she much prefers a good ol’ Purée. Every time she’s tried to have any sort of finger food, she ends up majorly gagging and throwing up everything that is in her little tummy and then she has no interest in trying again, so for now, we are sticking with baby food. She likes to feed herself with the spoon and make a gigantic mess every time she eats. She now has to eat naked because by the end of every meal she is covered from head to toe with baby food. You should see our floor and the walls in the breakfast nook. Ha ha! While Juno is having fun playing with her food, I am a nervous wreck. This mama never knew that starting solids and trying new foods could be so hard and worrisome! Juno has had some reactions to some of the foods she’s tried so now every time we give her something new, I turn into a anxious basket case. We saw the allergist a few weeks ago to rule out a peanut allergy and now we have to go back to the allergist because we are certain she is allergic to avocados. On three separate occasions, Juno has thrown up BIG TIME a few hours after having avocado. The first two times were in her crib after she had gone to bed and it wasn’t until the third time when she had avocado for lunch and a few hours later started projectile vomiting that we realized on all three occasions she had avocados a few hours beforehand. The first time she never made a peep so I went in to give her a dream feed before I went to bed and she was caked in throw up. Cue all the mama anxiety. The second time she at least cried but I still didn’t know why she was all of the sudden throwing up in her crib and then the third time since it happened during the day I finally realized it was something she was eating. I’m now terrified of giving Juno any new foods. Can’t she just eat the same 5 purées for the rest of her life that I know are safe?

Juno has gotten lots of cousin time this month! I started watching my sweet nephew, Micah, two days a week so Juno and him are having so much fun together. They are learning how to share toys and not grab each other’s faces. He’s three months older than Juno and Juno is learning so much from him! She’s also gotten to play with big cousin, Ellie, and twin cousin, Raleigh, quite a bit too! It’s the best having built in best friends, am I right?

Juno still has zero teeth despite all the drool. She continues to chew on everything and she loves to play with her toys. She will sit up and play for a long time, but her favorite is standing up and walking with our help. She loves to walk around the house all day long. She is rolling around like crazy still and will scoot backwards but hasn’t quite figured out how to move forward and she isn’t crawling yet. She can almost pull herself up to standing by herself! She loves to stand and hold on to things and thinks she is oh so big when she does this.

New within the last week is that Juno says “da da da”. Not sure she knows that she’s saying “Dada” when she does this but Brandon sure does like to think so and he likes to rub it in that she said Dada before Mama. We’ve got to start working on those mmmm sounds I guess!

Even though she says Dada now, she’s still a mamas girls through and through. The separation anxiety has peaked and she now screams and screams if she knows I am home and pass her off to Brandon or leave the room. She doesn’t want anyone to watch her except her Yaya. I left her with her Auntie KK a couple of weeks ago for just over an hour in which she screamed bloody murder the whole time (bless her heart, watching 3 babies one who of which was screaming, one who wanted to be held but couldn’t, and one who plugged her ears the whole time). If you ask Ellie now, “What does Baby Juno say?”, she replies, “Wahhh wahhhhh!” Ha ha! Juno is just a bit stubborn and doesn’t give in easily. I wonder where she gets that from?!

Her favorite things this month include going on walks, sitting in the grass and playing with leaves, her dog Remington and walking all around with our help.

I simply cannot believe our baby girl is 8 months old. I’m not sure where the time has gone. I’m excited to soak up another month, but cannot believe that our sweet little nugget is 8 months old. Time, please slow down!

7 Months of Juno Elizabeth

July 13, 2019

Juno is 7 months old! How she is now closer to ONE than to a newborn is beyond me. These 7 months have been the best of my life and this past month was no exception. I’ve gotten to have so much time with my girl this month and I’m eating it all up. It’s so special to get so much time with her … I will never take this for granted. I wrote most of this post on Juno’s actual 7 month birthday, but I didn’t get her pictures done until now (a week and a half later) so I’ve gone through and added some updates from the last week here and there! Posting this a bit late this month but that is ok!

Juno is now 14 pounds 1 oz and is growing, growing, growing. She is a big fan of solid foods and loves to eat! She loves peas, sweet potatoes, squash, oranges, carrots and prunes. She still isn’t sure if she likes bananas or avocados but we will keep at it. We tried some peanut butter and she had a mild allergic reaction — cue the Benadryl and the on call doctor — so we are going in to see an allergist in a week for some further allergy testing. [Update: We saw the allergist on Tuesday. After a scratch test and blood work to confirm, Juno does NOT have a peanut allergy! We are SO glad because I absolute LOVE peanut butter. She just had a little localized reaction from her first exposure. Apparently babies at this age now have to get their blood taken just like an adult does through the inside of the elbow instead of on their heels like when they are itty bitty. Needless to say, this was awful. The entire medical facility needed ear plugs. She continued to scream and scream and scream until we were all the way home. I had even tried to nurse her before leaving and we made a pit stop at Auntie KKs to try to calm her down but poor thing was not a happy camper] Back to the solids update - we are going to cut back on some specific solids to help her tummy a bit because she’s back to being pretty uncomfortable like she was when she was little and we are making sure to do more prunes and pears and things like that. Her reflux has gotten pretty bad again, which solids should be making it better not worse, so we aren’t sure what is going on, sweet pea!

Juno is still in the same size diapers and clothes as last month - size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes, but we are starting to put her in more of her 6 month clothes that we have since they are more summery — right now most of it is swallowing her up but I’m sure she’ll fit into it in no time. She finally can wear some of her size 0-3 month shoes but they are still big on her … she has the tiniest feet ever. Juno’s hair that all fell out is finally starting to grow back in. We laugh at her “duck fuzz” that is sticking straight up on her head. It’s so soft and fuzzy. We still don’t know what color hair she is going to have — sometimes it is so dark like when she was a newborn, sometimes it looks blonde and other times it is bright red. Any guesses out there? Look at the pictures below and let us know what you think. Juno still doesn’t have any teeth yet but we swear she’s been teething for months now. I guess she is just a drool-y, chews-on-everything kind of baby.

This month we went on another camping trip this time to Grand Lake and we were so much more prepared for this camping trip compared to her first one last month. We had all the things this time - bottle warmer, sound machine, baby monitor, different seats to set Juno down in. While in the mountains, Juno went on her very first boat ride. We rented a pontoon boat and spent a few hours on the lake. The weather was a tiny bit chilly but the day on the boat turned out to be pretty nice. Juno was a trooper - she didn’t like her life jacket at first, then she caved in and took a nice long nap on the boat and woke up from the high-winds (not so fun) on the way back to the marina. Juno also had her first campfire, saw her first moose - a couple of bulls plus a mama and a baby - and went in a baby swing for the first time. She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry on the swing! Overall it was a great trip and we can’t wait to go back at the end of the month. Juno also went to the zoo for the first time this month and celebrated her first 4th of July — we went to the pool and barbecued with family then she went down for an early bedtime at Yaya & Papas while we got to enjoy some fireworks with some friends!

This month Juno learned how to sleep at night! (Insert all the praise hands here!) We did two solid weeks of official sleep training and as hard as it was, it worked! Night one Brandon and I turned off the monitor, turned up the TV and settled in for what we thought would be a sleepless night filled with hours of crying. Don’t worry we followed a plan and did check ins at timed intervals so she knew we were still there and loved her and cared about her. We were pleasantly surprised when she cried for less than an hour total that first night and each night got better and better from there. Juno is now sleeping all night with the exception of slightly waking when I go in to give her her two night feedings. Juno’s pediatrician wasn’t okay with us weaning all of her night feedings quite yet and wanted us to make sure she is still getting at least one but preferably two feedings in the night. So while Juno is sleeping for 11-12 hours a night now, this mama still has not gotten more than 4-5 hours of sleep at a time yet and goes in at 10 pm and 3 am to nurse her. When my alarm goes off for her 3 am feeding, it takes all my might to go in and nurse her, but once I have her in my arms I kind of love it. There is nothing like sweet snuggles in the middle of the night and I know I’ll miss it someday - she won’t need these night feedings for long so for now I am going to cherish them. I’ll sleep through the night someday. [Update: I forgot to set my alarm last night for her 3 a.m. feeding, and she made it until almost 5 a.m. before waking up hungry. Making progress!] Since Juno is sleeping so well at night now, on nights that Juno has multiple wake ups we know it’s usually because her tummy hurts. There seems to always be a correlation between her sleep and how gassy she is, sweet girl!

While her night sleep has been a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Juno’s daytime sleep is another story. This girl does not know how to nap for more than 25 minutes unless she is in the car or in our arms. We know that night sleep comes before good daytime sleep so we will keep practicing our good habits (except for when I hold her and rock her during naps like I am right now while typing this — haha!) We can’t complain though because having her sleep so well at night is a dream come true. Naps will come, we aren’t worried about them now.

Some of Juno’s favorite things right now are:

-the pool - this girl loves the water! She also loves bath time and showering in the sink after meals (haha!)

-rolling all over the place

-the dog - she now pets Remi, lays on her and laughs when Remi licks her. She loves my parent’s dog, Paisley, too.

-eating - she loves all the new foods she’s been trying, loves to play with the food on her tray and doesn’t mind being messy in the slightest

-sitting up - within the last week, Juno figured out how to sit up on her own and now she loves it! Before that we would try to sit her up and she would immediately want to be standing. All of the sudden she got the hang of it and loves to sit and play now.

-her mama - she’s definitely s.t.i.l.l. in a mama phase

-walks and the car (these have always been a favorite for her)

-playing peek a boo

-singing and dancing

Juno’s not so favorite things:

-when people she doesn’t know well try to hold her

-when mama leaves her

-naps

-bananas and avocados (must be a texture thing)

-not being held for long periods of time — she would be prefer to be in my arms ALL day long if she could — my solly wrap is still the best thing ever. Strap this girl to your chest and she will hang there forever.

Goodness we love this sweet girl. She has the best laugh and the biggest smile in the world. She melts our hearts all day long.

To start off our 7 month pictures, here is a then and now. On the left was our pregnancy announcement over a year ago when we announced that we were expecting. On the right, here is Juno while camping in the same onesie☺️