Eloise at Two Months

I couldn't choose just one of Eloise's two month pictures to add, I mean seriously, look at that face! *insert heart eyes emoji*

WEIGHT: 9 pounds 15.5 ounces (14th percentile)
HEIGHT: 23 inches (71st percentile)
CLOTHES SIZE: Newborn and 0-3 Months (but only like two things in the larger size)
DIAPER SIZE: One

LIKES:
 - Play time in the morning (her happiest time)
 - Hair dryer
 - Being vigorously bounced on an exercise ball
 - Loud cheek kisses
 - "Her throne"
 - Being outside and moving around
 - Baths

DISLIKES:
 - Having no clothes on while laying down (strong Moro/falling reflex)
 - Hiccups
 - Car seat
 - Cold things touching her (wipes, hands, etc.)
 - Nap time
 - Getting boogers sucked out
 - Tummy time

FIRSTS/MILESTONES:
 - Christmas! (5 weeks)
 - Intentional ADORABLE smiles (5 weeks)
 - Ride in a stroller (5 weeks)
 - New Years (6 weeks)
 - Roll over from tummy to back (6 weeks)
 - Movie at the theater (6 weeks)
 - Cold :( (8 weeks)
 - Cooing and "talking" (8 weeks)

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Still pouts often, it is SO cute. Pictures way below!
 - Dustan is the master burper and bouncer
 - Fairly consistently sleeping 4-5 hours at a time in her bassinet at night
 - Very good head control by the end of the month, can almost hold it up indefinitely
 - Eye tracking pro--when she feels like it ;)
 - Sad little coughing cry when she's hungry
 - Still has a huge belly, haha
 - Cluster feeds from about dinner to bedtime like clockwork--this is also her fussy time
 - Eyes are maybe starting to look blue?!

Christmas was so fun this year, even if Eloise was so young that she slept and nursed through the entire thing. I enjoyed putting her in little Christmas outfits and bows and opening all her presents for her, haha. We really just can't wait until she is a little older, enough to open her own presents and understand the holiday a little more. It will be the best!

Christmas Eve church dress!

Christmas cousins!

Eloise decided to really get into the New Years Even festivities and stayed up from about 6 pm to 1 am straight. It was a little rough. She refused to sleep, and just wanted to nurse constantly while we were partying. But, Eloise got to actually be up for New Years, woohoo! Funny story about the pictures below. Dustan and I were just about to have a New Years kiss (after banging pots and spoons outside for a few minutes right at midnight) with our sparkling cider. Right as we were about to kiss, Dustan's little brother exclaimed that he burned his face with a sparkler AND Eloise did a huge poop I could feel on my hand. Hence, this picture. One of the firsts of 2018!

This month brought SMILES. The prettiest most happiest smiles! They were very scarce at the beginning (starting around 5 weeks) and would come out most often first thing in the morning. Eloise would be fussing and crying after waking up in the morning, then would give us the biggest smiles when she saw us coming to get her and saying "good morning!". Her smiles make even the most sleepless night worth it--usually ;) We weren't able to capture any of her smiles in pictures (only videos) until we did her two month pictures seen at the top of this post. So below we have her best pouty faces, haha.

Actual TEARS in her eyes, heartbreaking

When we got back home from Christmas break in Colorado, I put Eloise in her bathtub seat while it was dry a couple times while I got things done. It is easier to move around the apartment with me than her bouncer, and she doesn't really like just laying on the floor. I soon found that Eloise loves her bathtub seat. It's hilarious. Sometimes she'll even be crying, and calm down when she sits in it. We have named it "her throne". Her favorite is when we put it on the table next to us while we eat. The kitchen cabinets are fascinating.

Once we got home from Colorado after Christmas break, Eloise decided that she was going to completely boycott naps. For over a week, she would only sleep a few hours total during the day (from hours about 9 am to 10 pm) TOPS. Sometimes she slept as little at 45 minutes the whole day! It was a disaster. We spent hours trying to get her to sleep, with no progress. It was rough on her and us. She was sleeping at night still, but not great. We finally decided we needed to get Eloise on a bit of a schedule, which we started right after her two month shots. More to come on that on her third month blog post!

I love those squishy lips!

"Dad, stop embarrassing me."

We just can't believe how FUN Eloise is starting to get, and how she will just get more and more fun as she gets older! It is so exciting to see her growing and getting more aware of the world around her. We sure love her lots!

Back to School/Fall Fun!

Just a short compilation of photos and descriptions of some of our fun activities from the end of August and school starting and before baby girl came :) We were able to have some nice, relaxed fun! This was supposed to gave been posted by Thanksgiving, whoops, haha.

Weekend in St. George

We went down to St. George with some of Dustan's family for Labor Day Weekend and had a blast! The main purpose of the trip was for the older boys to get some mountain biking in. The rest of us spent some time relaxing, eating good food, hiking, etc. Thanks Everett family!!

Football Games

BYU football games are a fall staple around here! We have gone to as many games as we can, though not as many as normal seasons. BYU's football team is a little rough this year, but the games are always still fun with some friends :)

Muse Concert

For my birthday back in March, Dustan got me tickets to see one of my favorite bands in concert, MUSE. I had seen them a couple times before, and they are incredible live. I had been anticipating the concert for months, and it finally came around in September! It was at the outdoor USANA Amphitheater in West Valley, and we got awesome lawn seats right up next to the rail with no one in front of us. 30 Seconds to Mars opened (good music, but have major potty mouths) and then MUSE came on and they were awesome. No chit chat from them, just all music. They did GREAT!

Kraus Family Visit

For their fall break in Colorado, the Krauses came to visit us for a few days! The main purpose was so that they could try out more of the mountain biking in the area. I am not mountain biking right now (I would probably crash and kill baby), but I enjoyed some hiking while they biked.

We also went on a fun hike to the Fifth Water Hot Springs up Spanish Fork Canyon, it was gorgeous and way fun, as always. Though far more busy this time of year compared to when we went back in February.

Festival of Bacon

We have a few friends that host a "Festival of Bacon" each year the weekend before Thanksgiving, where they cook up a huge mountain of bacon and gorge themselves on it. One of the few rules of their festival is that there needs to be more bacon than the previous year. This year, there was a whopping 18 pounds of bacon. We cooked all the bacon together within a couple hours, then ate it with fancy drinks and ice cream.

I was in charge of the bacon stacking

Mountain Biking

Though already briefly mentioned above in the St. George trip and Kraus family visit, Dustan has loved doing a lot of mountain biking this summer and fall. He tried togo at least a couple times a week. It is his all time favorite sport! Pictures to come :)

Eloise at One Month

We sure have loved this first month with our sweet baby girl Eloise <3 Hopefully I'll get her second month post out more on time (which is in one week, haha). I told myself I would just pick a handful of my favorite pictures of her each month, but I couldn't help myself! So cuteness overload is ahead #sorrynotsorry

(Eloise didn't have a one month appointment with her pediatrician, only a two week and two month appointment, so no exact update on her stats at one month old.)

CLOTHES SIZE: Newborn
DIAPER SIZE: Newborn

LIKES:
 - Hair dryer
 - Being held always
 - Getting her hair and neck stroked
 - Milk and pooping
 - Getting vigorously bounced on an exercise ball
 - Warm baths
 - Car rides (car has to be moving, and she can't be hungry)

DISLIKES:
 - Hiccups and sneezes
 - Getting her diaper changed
 - Cold wipes and hands
 - Getting her clothes changed
 - Drying off after a bath
 - Sleeping on flat surfaces

FIRSTS/MILESTONES:
 - Thanksgiving (3 days)
 - Visit to Temple Square in SLC (5 days)
 - Bottle--she took it like a champ! (3 weeks)
 - Road trip and visiting a different state--Colorado (4 weeks)
 - Meeting all her current grandparents, aunts, uncles, and one cousin

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Eloise has the absolute CUTEST pouty face when she is about to cry, though it hasn't yet been captured on camera adequately
 - Hair just keeps getting longer and more wonderful!
 - Eloise rarely ever slept more than two or three tops hours at a time, even at night
 - She smiles and chirps often in her sleep

I recently wrote a very long post about Eloise's Birth Story, and it has a a plethora of photos we took in her first couple days of life while at the hospital. But just below are a few of our favorites. It is crazy to us to see how much she changed in just a week!

While in the hospital, Eloise's jaundice levels were of course checked. When we left the hospital two days after she was born, they were borderline high, so we were told to meet with her pediatrician a couple days later to get checked again. So we did! Because her coloring was really yellow, the pediatrician had us go to the hospital and get a heel prick for Eloise. Her bilirubin levels were pretty high, borderline needing to have treatment with bili lights. But after going back for another heel prick (poor baby), they had started going down. Eloise was in the clear! It took a couple weeks for her skin to lose the yellow tint though.

Taken in the hospital

Though Dustan and I only call our girl by her full name Eloise (along with little pet names such as sweetie, darling, baby burrito, etc.), our siblings/Eloise's awesome new aunts and uncles decided that this name was too long and they often call her Loulou or Lou. Though we don't ever use this nickname, we think it is pretty cute and have approved of it.

First time in the car seat and taking a car ride!

Eloise experienced her first Thanksgiving at just three days old and was a total champ. She slept during the entire meal and got passed from person to person so everyone had the chance to eat. Dustan and I loved having both of our families stuffed into our tiny apartment to have Thanksgiving dinner all together.

Chilling in the sun on Thanksgiving

Walking around Temple Square at five days old

Here are some of our favorite newborn pictures we took when Eloise was eight days old. We had some fun trying out these cute baby pictures on our own--we've never done them before! We bought a fuzzy white blanket and used our boppy pillow and giant tupperware bins for posing. We're pretty happy with how they turned out :) And Eloise only pooped and peed on the blanket once! Haha

Though we don't have any experience with other infants, we feel like our Eloise is very alert and very strong for her age. Even at just one week old, she could be awake for hours at a time without getting fussy, and that time only increased as she got older. Eloise can hold her head up for longer periods of time than I would expect her to be able to, and sometimes her legs will bear most of her weight. Within just a week, Eloise could bob her head, and by the end of the month could hold it up fairly well--with only a little wobble--almost constantly.

First real bath!

Post bath fluffy hair

When Eloise is sleeping, she wants to be held. She was like that from the minute she was born. We tried putting her in the hospital bassinets to sleep for a little bit, but she never lasted more than 30 minutes. When we got home from the hospital, it was the same. Thankfully, my mom stayed at our apartment the first week and would take shifts holding her in the middle of the night. Once she left, Dustan and I would basically just have to take turns holding her all day and night in between feedings, because she wouldn't really sleep anywhere else. Eloise slowly got better and by the end of the month would often give us a single three hour stretch of sleep in her bassinet, though the rest of the night was still about the same, haha. And sometimes it would take an hour just to get her to sleep in the bassinet. An improvement!

Smiling in her sleep :)

Sleeps just like her daddy!

Below are pictures of Eloise's bassinet. She does not like her bassinet. She does not like sleeping on flat, still surfaces. She started to sleep a little bit better once we got this "Infant Lounger" from Grandma Kraus (basically a big pillow that's more shallow in the middle, kinda like a filled in Boppy). It helps her feel more like she is being held. I also read "Happiest Baby on the Block" and consequently committed to swaddling and using white noise every night, which also has helped.

I was all concerned about giving Eloise a bottle, because I didn't want her to refuse to breastfeed if she ended up liking the bottle better. I wanted to wait until she was about a month old to try out a bottle, but at four weeks old we would be driving eight hours to Colorado, and wanted Eloise to be able to take a bottle to make the drive easier. So at three and a half weeks we gave the bottle a try. She loved it (after some hesitation), but still continued to breastfeed. Yay!

Like I just mentioned, we drove to Denver area when Eloise was just four weeks old. She did so much better than we expected, to be honest. All she did was sleep and eat! We would feed her a bottle while driving then stop soon after so that we could burp her, change her diaper, and let her stretch a little. Eloise would fuss for a while when we got back in the car, but would fall asleep again within about 15 minutes.

Little cousins meeting for the first time! Just 12 days apart

We sure love our sweet little Eloise!! We love her curious eyes when she is awake, her feisty cries when she is hungry, her sleepy little smiles, and everything in between!