4 months

Oh my! Our precious girl is 4 months old?! Time is flying. I am astonished daily by all the new things she can do - and starting to dread mobility, which I know is just around the corner. Eeek. This is such a sweet time. Eliza is a happy, cooing baby who still just lies where I put her and doesn't get into trouble. She is my little companion.

She takes her fingers now, and rejects the passy more and more (a good thing…sort of). Sleeps 12 hours a night. Atta girl! She talks to us eagerly, puts everything in her mouth and is ready to explore the world around her.

At about 3.5 months she started turning the pages of the Cat in the Hat, which I have to say was pretty impressive. She gets very excited about Thing One and Thing Two when they come on the scene (but can we talk for a second about what a creepster the Cat is? Or how appalling it is that the negligent mother just leaves these kids by themselves with the goldfish in charge? Seriously - go back and read it). She's giggling, suddenly ticklish, and continues to be unbelievably STRONG! Our small but mighty little one.

Our little doll baby is finally growing some hair (hard to see - it is blond and about a half an inch long right now). She has grown so attached to us both. My favorite thing in the world is going to get her out of her crib first thing in the morning - huge, excited smiles - and how her face lights up when Daddy comes home from work. We are pretty attached to her too. I spend all day trying to get her to take good naps and go down for the night without a fuss, but as soon as she's asleep for the night I have the indescribable urge to go and hold her. I don't. But I want to.

Here's the exception. So, most of the time, little miss sleeps in her crib. We've been working on sleep training (really the only un-fun part of month 4 - it involves teaching them to self-soothe) and we're making some pretty good strides. But every once in awhile, she successfully fights the nap, passes out mid-meal, and sneaks her nap in on me. Ask me if I put her in her crib when this happens.

Our days continue to be filled with firsts (frequently captured on the iPhone). Like her first rice cereal:

Her first teeth, which may be a few months away yet but we are well into the fun chewing on everything, drooling, fussing phase.

Some days, it's a losing battle against the drool.

Sitting up by herself - though she's been a "supported sitter" for awhile now.

And last week, her first trip to the park - the weather got cooler for a day or two, but we are sadly back into triple digits:

(she liked it, until we bumped into naptime. Thus, the lip came out in full force).

I am so thankful for every inch of her, and in awe of the little personality she is developing. And I so, so love being her mama. Happy 4 months, little E!

El rancho

The Kritser Ranch is a beautiful and relaxing place to be. The house, and the surrounding land simultaneously defy and embody the West Texas stereotype.

Much more than just a home, the headquarters, a historic, 100 year-old ranch house, lives and breathes its rich family history. The walls are covered in family photographs, mementos, articles, and artifacts. The perfect place to begin and end the day, the screened porches have seen thousands of cups of morning coffee, as well as their fair share of spirits and cigars. The prohibition-era closet still has a secret compartment where the liquor is kept, and a signed photo by Charles Lindbergh, who once crashed his plane on the property, hangs unassumingly in the hallway. The fireplace in the back bedroom has Nicholas' father's name carved in it, along with many of his cousins and siblings; we found a Dr. Seuss book to read Eliza, Scrambled Eggs Super, which was a favorite of Nicholas' grandmother's, according to the inscription inside. Many of the furnishings are original or early to the home, though it's been lovingly "spruced" over the years to keep it a comfortable and enjoyable place to visit.

Ranch days are lazy days. Time passes more slowly, in a good way, and we just kick back and enjoy being outside. We go on ranch rides, walks through the meadow. We hammock. I play around with my camera, the baby plays on a quilt in the grass and the dogs get very, very dirty.

Eliza got to ride in the Baby Bjorn with me for ranch rides, which she appreciated. The ranch is on a really cool geographical cross-section, meaning that on your drive you'll see the terrain change pretty dramatically in a short period of time.

Since it has been so unbearably hot this summer, outside to our baby is pretty much the space between the car and the house. Poor little lady hadn't even truly felt the grass between her toes in her first three and a half months of life. We took full advantage of the cooler weather and spent a lot of time under the shady trees by the house. We attached Eliza's jumperoo to this swingset, which has been on the property a very long time (note how it has grown into the tree).

This trip was brimming with introductions. First and foremost, this was our introduction to "vacations" with a baby. It was nice to get away; not quite the same carefree, responsibility-free getaway it once was, but so fun to be together for a week, with just little E. to dote on. She was a trooper on all fronts and she loved getting to spend so much quality time with her papa. In addition to introducing Eliza to the ranch for the first time, we also were able to introduce her to some of our Amarillo friends, including her precious friend, Lisle, who is just six days younger. I was finally getting to meet her after months of daily texts and pictures with her mother, Dottie. Dottie and I have been on this journey to motherhood together, so it was wonderful to finally hold her sweet girl, and to put our girls together.

On the last night we were there, Eliza was also, we think, introduced to her namesake (or rather, her namesake introduced herself to Eliza…) but that's a story for a different day.

The big 3-0

A belated happy birthday to my most favorite guy, who has spent countless Labor Day weekends and birthdays at his family's idyllic West Texas ranch in his thirty years of life.

(He shares his birthday with his cousin Ben's sweet fiance Amanda, so I'm sure this won't be the last ranch co-celebration!)

As his birthday falls the day before our anniversary, Sept. 1 (also known in Texas as the first day of dove season), I have since had the pleasure of celebrating quite a few anniversaries and birthdays at the ranch myself. I can think of no more fitting place to close out his twenties, where countless family Christmases, birthdays, weddings have been celebrated over the past 100 years, and where many babies before Eliza (a sixth generation) have been proudly introduced to their heritage for the first time. The name Eliza comes from both sides of our family; on his side it came from way up on his family tree, to his great great grandmother, whose four daughters were left the Kritser Ranch in the early 1900s. He was so excited to show her around this special, historic family place that is so close to his heart, and we couldn't have ordered up more perfect weather to do so.



(He totally fought me on getting a Baby Bjorn. Something about it not being very manly, I think. Well, he's probably right. John Wayne probably wouldn't be caught dead in a Baby Bjorn. But it ended up being just what we needed for getting around the ranch with her so I think he's on the bandwagon now.)

Nicholas' first trip to the Kritser Ranch was when he was just two weeks old, so Eliza had some catching up to do. We took her out to Lake Jack for a picnic under the trees, just as his parents did with him some 30 years ago.

That is his grandmother painting en plein air. We weren't quite that relaxed as the dogs were running in and out of the water like little the little outdoors-deprived monsters they are these days...not lounging quite so peacefully as the pup above.

Miller and I have been together for nine years of our twenties, so in many ways we've grown up together. I've watched as he grew from the sweet and scruffy, good-timing frat boy into the more responsible (but no less good-timing, when appropriate) husband, lawyer, father, friend who remains one of the kindest men I'll ever know. His spontaneous sense of adventure and good-natured, easy going spirit are undaunted by the new challenges that come with having a new little one in tow. Rather than give her the world, he can't wait to show it to her. Put simply, I cherish him now more than ever at thirty, with a distinguished twinge of salt and pepper in his hair and that same sparkle when he smiles, a smile our daughter shares. I cherish that too.

To the man who takes such wonderful care of us, you are better than ever at thirty, and we love you ever so much. Happy birthday!