Baby Nora: 9 Months

Nora will be 10 months tomorrow, but here are all the 9 month details - better late than never!

This was the most challenging photo shoot yet. It is near impossible to get a photo with no movement, and even more so keep a baby on their back (and happy) at this age!

See? Not too happy...

Stats: Around 17.5 pounds, not sure how long, 4 teeth (two bottom, one front, and one lateral incisor)!

Activities: Faster crawling, waving, pointing, lots of cruising, and tons of babbling! 

Food: I had originally planned on doing BLW with Nora, but she has loved all the purees she's tried and always wants more, so we just continued doing that (along with some large pieces of raw fruits and veggies) up until now. She has definitely mastered the pincer grasp by practicing with puffs so this month I diced up steamed zucchini and squash. She gets almost every bite right into her mouth and loves it! I imagine we will start doing more of this now. 

Nora is eating three meals a day, and I thought that with the addition of food she would begin nursing less. Not the case! A nursing session every 2.5 hours is still pretty typical. This little girlie LOVES her food. I think she would eat all day long if we let her :). That's seriously not an exaggeration! 

Sleep: The transition to two naps finally happened! The 5:30 wake started getting later, more like 6:30 so we started skipping her noon-time nap. Her naps have lengthened again (thankfully!). Her morning nap is about an hour, and her afternoon nap usually ranges from 1 to 1.5 hours. She's started waking up once at night again, usually around 1:30 or 3 to nurse. She's cutting more teeth, so I'm hopeful sleeping through the night will become the norm again soon.

Want to know what's even more difficult? 

Getting a good family photo in a reasonable amount of time. Nora's probably thinking don't you have enough photos of me?.

That's the best we've got, folks!

+, Lauren Aiken

Two Years

Matt and I celebrated 2 years of marriage yesterday. We have packed quite a bit of change into two short years. We've lived in three locations in two different cities, switched jobs and ended jobs, had a baby, and bought a house. People have asked me if I can believe it's already been two years, but really, it feels like much longer than that! It's been two years filled with adventure and uncertainty, growth, much transition, and a whole lot of learning to rely on our Savior - the only unchanging thing in this world. It has been two years filled with enormous blessings, and one we will look back on with great joy.

Little N went down just after 7, and we headed out for a little date night at a brand new restaurant in Franklin called Gray's. Dining out is one of our favorite things to do together, but unfortunately those nights are few and far between as of late. We enjoyed it all the more, though, and spent our evening recounting our adventure-filled first two years and discussing a few goals for the coming year.

Last year, we decided to exchange the traditional anniversary gifts, and year two is cotton. Matt brought a lovely bouquet home and gave me a dress to wear for the night! Between you and I, it is actually 100% polyester, but I love it all the same :). 

I, of course, tried to make a crafty keepsake and a card. It didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned, but it will be fun to look back on. And I think it's actually kind of cute :). 

In case this needs explanation...in year two, we had a baby and bought a house. 

Anyhow, on to our date night pics. We have a nice camera, but I mainly use the auto flash off setting because I haven't taken the time to learn how to use it... Matt loves to experiment with all the settings and knows more about cameras than I do so with his help I attempted to go manual. Bear with me, guys. It was dark.

I rarely drink a cocktail, but I like to try different things when we're out. This one was gin, lemon, strawberry, rhubarb with peppercorns floating on top. So different!

Shrimp & grits and black-eyed peas falafel in the background.

If you live in or are visiting Nashville, go check out Gray's! I loved their decor (everything is made from reclaimed wood), and they have a fun twist on southern food.

+, Lauren Aiken