October KY Trip

This year we elected to go visit our KY family in October instead of our usual summer and Christmas breaks. We had really hoped to go during the summer, but it took us awhile to find a new rental home and then we had to pack/unpack and get settled prior to school starting back. I'm really glad I didn't add a cross country trip for five into all of that madness. We still could have gone back for Christmas, but that would have been the third year in a row we flew at Christmas. We wanted to enjoy a simpler experience this year and have the children wake up in our home Christmas morning. When we fly home for the holidays, the cost of 4-5 tickets pretty much destroys the Christmas budget before we even buy one single present. My parents were in the process of building a new home and were scheduled to move December 30th. While I wish we could have been there to help them, we really wouldn't have had a place to stay in BG while we were visiting. So, for many reasons we didn't feel a Christmas trip would be great timing this year. We settled on October because it is one of our favorite months in KY--not too cool so we can still do lots of outdoor things and not too hot as it often is in the summer. I was hoping to see some beautiful fall foliage, but the leaves had just began to turn. We were a little early for the peak color. Also, our baby girl turned one Oct. 20th! First birthdays are meant to be shared with grandparents. It was so sad for me when Caleb turned one soon after we had moved to CA and we had no family to share in our celebration.

Emily did not get a full week off of school in October. Her full week off is in November for Thanksgiving week. We got approved for her to take some homework with her and we signed an independent study contract. This worked out nicely and gave us the freedom we needed to be away a week in October.

Here's some highlights from the KY trip! This is a long, photo-heavy post, but I'm just not making separate posts for BG and Louisville and Birthday, so here it all is!

Caleb enjoys sliding at Jackson's Orchard with Nan and cousin Maddie

Baby girl's first trip to the orchard.

Sand play

Sweet boy with his uncle Stephen.

Emily thinks that going to KY = horse riding. 

We are all about the apple slushies

And the caramel apples! 

AK was not really feeling this photo op. 

Fun cake bunting courtesy of Etsy 

Anna Kate's first birthday cake was a pumpkin spiced cake with cream cheese icing

Pic with the cousins minus the three Burnham boys. Can't wait to have them all together again summer 2016.

Cute smile. Love her!

Mom and Dad with the birthday girl.
(Nancy was traveling to NC to help Jennifer and the girls with the road trip to Louisville. We were able to see our Reiss family for the second half of our trip.) 

Fun pumpkin painting

Thankful for presents!

This is probably their favorite thing to do when we come to KY. :) 

Four generation pic

AK with Uncle Stephen and Becca on a casual Sunday afternoon at their home

Pop and AK look so sweet together

The grands

Last day with Nan and Pop.

This little niece is growing up way, way too fast! I probably won't be holding her next time we visit. 

We started the Louisville portion of our trip with a park play date at the Beckley Creek playground. 

And met our sweet little niece, Kathryn, for the first time

Poppy and Anna Kate bonded pretty well!

We enjoy visiting Huber's orchard and winery during fall visits to KY. 

Sweet sisters!

So cute of these gals!

I included this pic because Jen and I had a good laugh that it looked like Jeremy was praying over Dinkney! In reality, he was just looking down away from the bright sun until it was time to say "cheese."  

I just love this pic of Jen and me with our babies and Ergo carriers. The timing of our Huber's outing didn't work out too well for Caleb or Anna's nap time. Thankfully, she was still small enough to fall asleep on me when she too exhausted to go any longer. That meant no cute photo of the three of my kids together, but sometimes a mama has got to keep the peace. An overtired baby is no fun for anyone!

Sampling some wine grapes straight from the vines.

A Favorite Photo of Emily and Dinkney. 

Sweet little ones.

Working on the future Reiss Christmas card. Dinkney bought all of these lovely outfits for the children. 

Well, at least we got a photo of all five grands before things took a turn for the worst!

Last day in KY and headed to the airport!

Another hug for Poppy

See you next year!

Anna Kate is ONE

Y'all, baby girl is one year old! I'm so happy to report that the Reiss family SURVIVED this year! Woohoo! All of my kids are alive and well and thriving. We (mostly me) managed to potty train our middle child! We managed to find a new rental, packed/unpacked all of our belongings a half mile down the road, and got settled before the start of the school year. Our oldest learned to read.  Somehow since Anna Kate was born, we managed two cross country trips, a paternity leave trip to Bodega Head, a trip to Santa Cruz with the Reisses, a trip to Lake Tahoe with the Lees and a back-to-school last hurrah to Point Reyes. We're leaving for a very quick trip to Disneyland in less than a week. (Not a full vacation. Conference speaking engagement for Jeremy and we get to tag along.) No wonder I'm tired. Tired and blessed.

This year has certainly had ups and downs. Adjusting to having three children when one of the kids is just two is seriously NO JOKE. I feel much more optimistic about the future. There were days I wondered what had we done? ha! I hesitate to talk about Anna Kate's nighttime sleep and napping (lest I jinx it), but y'all, it is SO MUCH BETTER. Even the last few weeks I've seen improvements in her ability to self soothe and fall asleep without so much help from me. It's a big deal. A month or so ago, I was desperate for her to learn to fall sleep better on her own. My old tricks weren't working anymore for the older baby she had become. (Believe me, I tried for months to get her less dependent on me for self soothing.) I'm not opposed to some controlled crying for baby when I know she's tired, safe in her crib, clean, well-fed, loved, etc. However, Anna Kate rarely fell asleep on her own, especially for naps. She did better at night. She would just get more and more upset and anxious if I let her cry any. It felt like it was making things worse to try to let her fall asleep on her own. Yet, there were days when she desperately needed to nap and I couldn't get her there. Days where I would nurse her for 20 minutes, then try to rock her to sleep without success, then stand up and hold her over my shoulder for another 20 minutes, sway and sing, etc. for FOREVER. She mostly wanted me to STAND with her. (High maintenance, I'm telling ya!) So hard to do for very long as she now weighed over 20 pounds! Sometimes after that whole routine she would fall asleep on me, then immediately wake up as soon as I put her down in her crib. So frustrating! Baby girl just had to start falling asleep in her crib on her own. (Also, I should say that while I'm working to get her to sleep, our three year old has full reign of the house. I never knew what kind of mischief would await me if I took too long to get baby girl to sleep!)

I have no doubt that part of Anna Kat'e napping troubles was that her routine was constantly being messed up by the lives and schedules of the four other people in the house. I have no idea how we finally worked through that awful period. (It lasted about a month.) I guess I became more determined and consistent. I still nurse her before she goes to sleep, cuddle her, etc., but now most of the time, she's going in the crib awake (unless she happens to sack out on me quickly and I hold her longer while she sleeps on me.) The crying is pretty minimal (sometimes not at all) and then she falls asleep ON HER OWN. Life changing, friends. I'm a mama to three. I know this. It is liberating to know that she will finally fall asleep and get the sleep she needs. She's taking better naps and sleeping better at night. She is now even falling asleep in her car seat if she's tired enough. I can't tell you how many times she fought falling asleep in the car and cried instead. This gives me hope for future vacations that she will be able to sleep if we need her to.

Pretty much all of my issues with Anna Kate this year have been sleep related. She's a happy baby. Meeting milestones. Nursed well from day one. She's eating solids well. She loves to go on stroller walks with me now. One of these days, I'm going to look back at the blur that was this year and miss Baby Anna Kate, but right now I'm totally in love with little toddler Anna Kate. I'm happy we made it through the first year!

Anna Kate's 12 Month Milestones

*Lovely one year old photography by my friend, Rachel Blackwell

Japanese Tea Garden San Francisco, CA

Here's an update on what little Anna Kate is doing these days. (i.e. AK's baby book)

Vitals as of 11/6/15

Height: 30 in (76.2%)
Weight: 21 lbs. 11.6 oz (75%)
Head circumference: 45.5 cm (63%)

Gross Motor

Walks well. She's had lots of practice  since 9 1/2 mon.

Climbs upstairs quickly on hands and knees

Knows how to sit down and scoot down one or two stairs on her bottom or...

she will dive through our sliding door step down onto the patio HEAD and ARMS first. :)

Speech and communication

Points to objects with extended arm and hand (doesn't point with one finger)
Spoken words: dada, mama, yeah
Hugs our legs
Kisses us on request
Waves hi and bye
Smiles and laughs easily
Enjoys peek-a-boo
She's really good at whining to let me know what she wants exactly. ;)

llnesses

She did not take any antibiotics her first year. Had no ear infections or stomach viruses.
She had a couple of minor colds.

Favorite Toys

Enjoys sound and light up toys
Enjoys brother's big trucks (e.g. the large firetruck and recycling truck)
Loves to take things in/out of drawers, or in/out of containers (e.g. taking out all the socks in a drawer or all the blocks in a bag. Basically, she enjoys destructive play and making a mess! haha!)
Does not have a most favorite "lovey" or blanket to sleep with despite keeping several in her crib for months now to see if she would attach to one of them.

Sleep

We are working to switching over to one nap a day and so far it's going pretty well. It will be much easier to be consistent with one nap a day versus two. Also, an early afternoon nap from 12:30-2:30 will be perfect for my 2:50 pm school pick-up time for Emily. AK goes to bed around 7pm and wakes up at 7am. Most of the time she wakes up once during that time for a quick nursing and then back to bed.

Fine Motor

Feeds herself food with either hand. We have not tried using spoons.
Drinks from regular cup with help. Uses a sippy cup for water, but still prefers milk from mama.
Picks up objects with pincer grasp
Does not yet clap her hands
Manipulates toys. Pushes buttons, levers, etc. Rolls cars
Turns pages of books.

Teeth

Anna Kate has four teeth--two on the bottom and two on the top. The two on the top popped through in October while we were on vacation in KY. So far, teething hasn't seemed to bother her too much. Actually, she was rather difficult when we were in KY, but we didn't know if it was because of the time difference and travel, different sleeping arrangements, or teething. I guess we'll see on the next one!

Sibling Interactons

Emily is still able to carry her, but not very far! I wish she would read to her more. I should make more of an effort to get her to do that. Em's really good at pushing her in the baby swings at the park and catching her at the bottom of the tiny toddler slides. I'm interested to see how Caleb and Anna will bond, especially since they will be home together longer before Caleb will start kindergarten. Caleb and Emmy still play more together at this point, but Caleb and Anna are doing some parallel play together, too.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll try to add more as I think of things.

Dear Anna (Anna Kate, AK, Annie, Anna-banana),

Baby girl, you are one! We love you so much. I love your squishy cheeks, your dimpled knuckles, and your toothy grin.  And your chubby legs! Oh my, they are the BEST. This month you have really perfected your wave. It is completely adorable. When Daddy comes home, you are the first and most excited to see him and welcome him. If we're upstairs, then you quickly go to the gate and wave to him at the top of the stairs. You repeat "dada" and do an adorable one or two handed wave. So far, you don't say my name too much. You mainly only use my name when you're hungry. If I'm making a meal and you're getting hungry, you say "mama" rather pitifully until I give you something. Not surprising that you associate my name with food! We've had a good year, but it's also been full of adjustments and surprises. As I like to describe to others, our first year in CA was like a honeymoon. This year got real. Even you were a big surprise to us, sweet girl. I would never have been so brave to have planned to have you far away from our biggest support system in KY, but you have made me brave. Even your birth made me stronger. You have taught me about letting go and loving more. Sometimes I judge myself because I can no longer hold things together as well with three kids, but the grace I am learning to give myself, has also helped me to give grace to others. Happy Birthday to you, baby girl. You are our little miracle.