4 Months old on Tuesday...

and she gets cute every day!

We're doing some growing or something 'cause we're a little off schedule, but it's easy enough to adjust - when it involves Wylie sleeping for 10 hours all night two nights in a row! woo hoo!









And she sooo wants to sit up all by herself!  We're practicing that very safely until she can do it on her own!

 

A week of FIRSTS!

At 15 weeks, Wylie has had a busy week! 

She has pulled the ladybug ring to make it sing all by herself! 

 

She can sit up in her exersaucer all by herself and move the monkeys and make the alligator sing "red, yellow, blue"!

Wylie also rode an elevator and stayed in a hotel for the first time (not all that exciting, but she did well in her travel bed! No pictures for this one!)

She saw her first snow...although you can't see the snow in the picture, but they were really big flakes, I promise!  And it was 34 degrees, but it didn't stick :(

She also celebrated her first Halloween in a strange but cute sort of costume thingie!   We don't get trick or treaters and there wasn't anything for her to go to, so mama didn't do much except buy a pink glow-in-the-dark skeleton onesie and attempt to make a tutu at 4pm on Halloween!  Hopefully that isn't foreshadowing the future of all homemade costumes - what am I saying, that runs in the family and I don't think I can escape that gene!

We're very proud of our little - big girl!!

National Traveler: Baby Wylie

Well, she couldn't be a better traveling companion! Baby Wylie (as her cousin Jake likes to call her!) would fall asleep as soon as the airplane was pulling away from the gate...just like in the car! She'd sleep the entire flight and wake up just as we were pulling into the gates! Very proud mama...only once did she get a little fussy for just a few minutes.

Wylie and mama went to Ft. Walton Beach Florida last weekend to visit her Great Grandmama. We were able to keep the trip a secret so Grandmama was very pleasantly surprised at our arrival!

Cousins Jake and Amelia also surprised Gmama and got to meet Baby Wylie for the first time. Amelia was a great babysitter and Jake thought she was really cute!

As it happened, my friend Jenny from college was staying in Destin the same weekend so we picked her up from the airport.  We went to the beach, but an unexpected extra cold front came in and it was never more than 60 degrees there! But we still managed to go to the beach everyday and when we weren't there we were shopping or watching my cousin perform Irish dancing! It was a great visit with family and we hope to make it back next year when it's quite a bit warmer!

Wylie's First Trip to Dallas

I didn't mean for a month to go by without posting!! It has been very busy here in Muleshoe. Tickled Paint has moved from its storefront location to the world wide web and thus we've been moving out as well as moving in! Lots of rearranging going on at the Osterkamp house and lots keeping us busy. But not too busy to notice little Wylie growing up!

Here are some pics of her and all her new tricks! She talks, smiles, laughs and is just as cute as can be! She has always held her head up well, but now she's REALLY good at it! She loves to sit up and stand up too! And tonight, during tummy time, she rolled over for the first time! Go Wylie!

Last weekend Wylie and mom went to Dallas to see Grandma Carole and to Nacogdoches to see her namesake, Aunt Jane Fay. Wylie did awesome on the plane...the altitude didn't seem to phase her at all! We did some shopping, met a college friend at an old favorite restaurant, The Magic Time Machine! I also squeezed in a sewing lesson and made her first handmade outfit!

Hope you enjoy these pics of our growing little peanut!

I love my baby!

Can I brag for just a minute? I love my baby!! She's so good, it's such a blessing! Yesterday we had a few friends over to meet her and boy was she spoiled being held! But she was never fussy (except when she got a little hungry, as would anyone) and after the party was over she hung out with mom and dad for a little bit, ate a little more and put herself to sleep at 10:30 and didn't wake up until 5:45! And just now, we ate breakfast, hung out with daddy for a little bit, took a bath, and after a few yawns I put her in her bed and guess what? She put herself to sleep again! And, I must add, both times without a pacifier! (I've been a little anti-pacifier - only when necessary to help soothe is my philosophy!) So needless to say, I'm a very proud mama this morning!

Our little girl has also started talking! Well, cooing I guess technically! But it just started this week and you can carry on a whole little conversation with her! She's even almost laughed a few times!

First Bottle

Wylie is 7 weeks now and we decided to try her lips at a bottle...not too bad, I love how she was staring at me like, "how come you're over there?" She did great and it's nice to have that option for daddy to feed her every now and then!

She is so good at holding her head up and loves to be upright! I guess I need one of those bumpo chairs for her so I don't have to use my hand all the time. It's just amazing how fast they grow!

We're about to head up to the store for a party tonight, so I don't have too much else to report except she is the cutest baby ever!!

Oh what fun!

We've had a busy two weeks! Aunt Frances arrived on Friday and surprised Camille and Wylie by bringing Papa! Frances was supposed to meet me at the car and I tried to surprise her by waiting at the gate. Luckily my surprise failed (out of only two baggage claims I was at the wrong one!) We met at the car as planned and as we were exiting the airport Frances told me to slow down and I saw this man on the side of the road and initially thought to myself "you want me to pick up a hitch hiker?" and as we approached the man I saw it was my dad! This is the second time they've managed to pull something like this on me! They are very good at surprises!!

So Aunt Fran, Papa and Wylie had a great weekend together! Papa fixed Wylie's fan in her room and was right on schedule with Wylie and her naps and Aunt Fran brought more bedding for her nursery too! We were all sad to see them go and are already planning our next visit.

Wylie is starting to enjoy her swing and her new bouncy chairs too. Which is allowing mama time to exercise (two days in a row now!) With the departing of our visitors, it was also time for mama to go back to work. Of course, Wylie was well prepared in her Tickled Paint uniform! We've survived the first two days okay! It's a little chilly at the store so Wylie gets wrapped all snug in her handmade blanket by Aunt Kat!

And as for Wylie, she's growing fast! We've caught her smiling big a few times lately and she is making a lot more "cooing" sounds too! My video was too big to upload, so I'll try to catch it again soon!

Happy Birthday Wylie!

Today Wylie is one month old! We celebrated by baking her a cake....well, baking Joe a cake! (He claims she requested it this morning when he got her up!) Despite the fact that we both need to work on getting back into shape, I decided she deserved her first cake anyway! Of course, I decided this late in the afternoon, so it's not my best work, but not bad for a last minute homemade supreme white cake with homemade buttercream frosting too!

Our little girl has slept through the night (6 hours) for the past two nights! I wondered if it was too soon for this and I was quickly told by my sister that I should be dancing in the streets! So I'm definitely not complaining! And according to our home scale, she's weighs 10 lb 6 oz. today. She's also starting to enjoy her swing...well, a few minutes longer each time!

She really is so sweet and I can't wait for everyone to meet her!

One month already...

Can someone please stop time?!?! It is going by WAY too fast! Wylie is growing so fast - already getting too big for newborn clothes. According to our home scale, she's about 10 lbs now. She loves to hold her head up and look around and is actually quiet good at it already!

Aunt Katherine came to visit last week and we had a great time doing nothing! Kat finished knitting an adorable blanket for Wylie and we just enjoyed hanging out with Wylie.

This week Camille's friend Mary Beth came to visit. Flew from New York and then drove to Muleshoe from Dallas! Hopefully Wylie will someday get to visit her in New York too! We had fun touring Muleshoe, the Clovis Walmart and the dairy - a first for both Mary Beth & Wylie (the dairy, that is)! We've enjoyed everyone's visits and are looking forward to Aunt Frances' next weekend! Wylie is certainly spoiled with great friends and family!

So much for the excessive sleeping!! Wylie is doing great having more awake time! She'll stare at you, the lights, the walls...just taking the world all in! Of course, now this means she's having to learn to go to sleep after being awake...we're working on her doing this without aids (pacifier, rocking etc.) and sometimes she does it and sometimes she doesn't! We'll get it down soon though I'm sure.

She loves to spend her afternoon awake time chillin' with Daddy!

Grandma Carole came to visit this weekend and we assembled her swing from Mary Beth, Julie and their moms. Hoping she'll like it eventually...it didn't get the response we were looking for the first few times, but we'll keep trying! Grandma also brought her an organic clown (to go with her circus theme room) that mama slept with so it'd have my scent...and it might have actually worked!

Two Weeks Today!

It's hard to believe Wylie is two weeks old today! She had her first doctor appointment on Wednesday. She had given mama a scare, just a little one, she just seemed to sleep a LOT! So much that it was really hard - practically impossible to wake her up. Since she's breastfeeding, they thought it would be important to bring her in to have her weight checked to make sure she was gaining weight good and to check her jaundice to make sure that was clearing up.

And, to our great relief she is a perfectly healthy baby!! She weighed in at 8 lbs and measured 19 1/2 (note, she was 22 at birth, but she was pretty squirmy at the dr. office!). Her coloring looks excellent - which means she's got Joe's olive skin! So that means she has Joe's lips, Joe's feet, Joe's skin.....maybe she'll look like mama eventually!

She stills sleeps a lot, but for the most part is starting to have more awake time. Unfortunately, last night was when she decided to have some of that and kept me up from 1am to 4am! Hopefully we'll get her on a good schedule so she knows the difference between night and day (this pic is of her sleeping today...too bad she wasn't like this last night!)