the arndt family: Two Months of Madeline!

Madeline is two months now! Things I'm loving at this stage:
- She smiles a lot.
- She is starting to have "cooing conversations" with us.
- She LOVES looking around at everything.
- She's awake A LOT (sometimes I don't love this when she hasn't taken a decent nap during the day).
- She can hold her head up by herself pretty well. It's still a little wobbly though, but she is awesome at tummy-time.
- She loves to suck on her hands (self-soothing here we come!).
- She is sleeping through the night!!!!! She'll sleep for 8 hours, if I don't wake her up to feed... which I do sometimes because I need to "unload" or else I have to pump. (I contribute this amazing feat to two things: the Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper and the Summer SwaddleMe blankets.)
- She eats for about 10-15 minutes rather than 30-60 minutes!!!

We are still having problems with the spitting up and vomiting, but it is not as bad. The week before Christmas we went back to the doctor and FINALLY got a prescription for some Zantac. She still has her bad days though, but we have definitely noticed an improvement. We go in for her two month checkup tomorrow, so I think we'll ask if we can up her dosage since she is getting bigger. She'll be getting some shots, which I know she won't like. Hopefully, her whole routine won't be messed up because of it. We're also planning our first trip with her to San Diego to visit my family. It is going to be a very long day, but she loves her car seat, so I think she'll do well. Jon isn't working and is finishing up his Bachelor's degree (yay!) this semester. They're all online classes, so we have that freedom to go somewhere whenever. Madeline will be able to meet her Uncle Roger (he was a butt and didn't come to Utah with my parents when she was born) and her Great-Grandma, who is now 92. We're taking advantage of this awesome (40 degrees and no snow) winter weather to travel because it won't last forever (in fact, it's supposed to snow a little tomorrow). I'm not sure how long we'll be gone. We're planning on staying at least a week, but we're going to keep an eye on the weather and drive back on a non-snowy day.

In other news, Jon is planning on going to graduate school, which I may have mentioned before. I was pretty sure we were going to be in Vegas (and, trust me, I'd much rather go there), but we have decided to go to Arkansas. The only reason I agreed to this is because it is MUCH cheaper than Vegas. UNLV would be $10,000/semester and higher rent for an apartment than what we're currently paying. Whereas, Arkansas Tech (I think?) will be about $3,000/semester and rent for a house will be cheaper (although, we don't know what all the utilities will end up costing). The only other positive in this is that we'll get to see Emily and Joseph's families more (and Madeline and Bailey will be best friends!). I made Jon promise me to take me to DisneyWorld since we'll be much closer to it (yes, I know it's still a ways away). Also, Jon has promised that we'll only be in AR for those two years, and then we'll move back West.

I'll leave you with some cute pictures of my baby from my phone.