5 Month Smiles

 Man, time flies even faster with the second kid!  This smiley girl is 5 months!  She has stopped sleeping well at night.  Some nights are ok, but for the most part she wakes up twice to eat, and that's not including all the other random wakings.  We aren't sure what's going on.  Luckily, Quentin is a good helper and gets up with her a lot.  I am so lucky to have a husband that is willing to be a hands on father.  It's so hard to get that little sleep and then go work the next day.  My job is most physically demanding than most people realize, but I somehow power through and survive.  Pretty soon we'll probably give the Ferber method a try. But that is an exhausting few days, so we have to figure out the right time to do it.  Luckily, she rewards us with the smiles pretty consistently throughout the day.  The first picture is actually a week too soon for this post, but I love the smile and I couldn't resist.  The second picture is her real 5 month mark.

Moving on from the terrible sleeping, this girl has been busy with lots of other stuff.  I can't say that she's mastered the art of eating cereal yet, but she has definitely improved! We don't feed it to her every day.  I think we have only done it 3 times now.  She also loves to talk.  She started this about a month ago, but I just love to hear it.  She also laughs sometimes and that is the best!  She has started rolling from her back to her belly, but gets mad after a while because she seems to have forgotten she can roll herself back.  She wants so bad to sit, but that is still a work in progress.  She still loves to be held and still loves her Brady the most! She has also started to notice and enjoy watching Butters a lot.  Watch out, Butters, she will be on the move before long!

Swimming

This summer we joined a pool to help wear Brady out keep Brady entertained and to get some swimming lessons in.  It definitely keeps Brady entertained, but not sure how successful the swimming lessons were.  I will say he has made a lot of progress in braving the pool.  He has always loved the water, so the baby pool was a big hit from the start, but they have a little 2 foot section that he has enjoyed playing in too.  He also likes to jump off the side of the pool to us (which can be exhausting to us both).  The real win with the pool is that he plays along pretty well as long as he has an audience.  We do a lot of "watch this" but I don't mind that at all.  So it is a wonderful place for me to take him because he plays by himself and that frees me up to hold Hadley, who also enjoys it because she likes to be outside ALL. THE. TIME.  We've only put her in the water once.  She seemed pretty indifferent to it, but next year I think she will like it more.  Hopefully we can get Brady to follow along in his lessons a little better next year too.

Cereal Time

 We started Brady on cereal at 4 months.  So we decided to do the same with Hadley.  She likes to sit in the bumbo (or bumble bee as Brady calls it) and had seemed pretty interested in watching us eat for a while.  I love this first picture!  She is sooooo happy!  Plus I like the hair sticking up.

 "Ready for my food, Mom!"

"Not so sure about this stuff."

"I think I'll just eat this bib instead."

So it wasn't hugely successful.  I think she enjoyed it, but wasn't quite ready.  Not sure any of it even made it to her stomach, but we'll try again in a few weeks and see.

Hadley is 4 Months

Hard to believe this sweet girl is 4 months already! She is still a pretty happy baby and always full of smiles.  She loves her brother and is more generous with the smiles for him.  She's still our tiny little girl.  She still mostly likes to be held, but we have put her in the exersaucer some and she seems to enjoy that. Most nights she is still sleeping pretty well.  Here's to hoping that continues!

Here are her stats:
Height: 24.3 inches (43%)
Weight: 12 lbs, 5 oz (13%)
Head Circumference 40.6 cm (50%)

4th of July 2014

This year, since 4th of July was on a Friday, we got a 3 day weekend.  Woohoo!  We got to join in on the last day of fun at the Weeke's family reunion at the Lake, met up with the extended Bell family on Saturday,  and then Cassie and Kyle blessed Kesten on Sunday.  It was a weekend jam packed with fun times and it was great to see everyone and fun for me to meet more of the Weekes side of the family.  Here are our little fire crackers!

As you can see, Brady has a stye.  This poor kid has had these styes fairly consistently since a little before Christmas.  We noticed the first one at our Christmas visit to Mooma's and can't seem to shake them since.  Dr./Uncle Kendall told us to apply warm compresses to help get rid of them.  Sometimes they aren't too big, but other times they are HUGE and look super painful.  Eventually they pop and all that pus and blood comes out, which Brady hates to see.  We have taken him to the pediatrician for them twice.  Both times they put him on oral antibiotics and repeated the instruction for warm compresses.  They added the instruction to wash his eye lids every day with baby soap.  You can imagine how much Brady loves that.  I emailed an eye doctor that we know and he said there is not much we can do besides what we have been doing. But no matter what we do, they still keep coming.  It is super frustrating!  I feel so bad for my poor Brady!

3 Months

Who has the world's biggest (and cutest) smiles and is 3 months old now?  This girl..

I can't believe she is already 3 months old.  But at the same time I feel like she has always been mine and can't believe she has only been here 3 months.  I could not ask for a better baby and I love her more and more each day.  It is hard to walk through the room and not stop to talk to her because she has a magnetic force that draws you in.  You can tell she loves people by how she draws you in and rewards you with a big smile.  She is also a pretty good sleeper.  Some nights are worse than others and we are still figuring it all out, but we are so blessed to have a baby that sleeps through the night more often than not.  And, yes, that makes her even easier to love 

Brady Is Just As Cute

My life seems to be mostly consumed with Hadley.  Feeding, changing diapers, rocking her to sleep...typical life of a mother with a newborn.  But Brady is still here and just as cute (and bossy) as ever! He is such a funny boy.  I should start writing down the funny things he does and says.  Maybe I'll make a list and add it in here later.

 Here he has overtaken Hadley's chair.  Can't say I blame him since it has the vibrating function on it.  Why don't they make adult sized seats like that?

 He really likes Spiderman.  He got this stuff for his birthday and every once in a while puts it on.  Mostly he just does the spiderman fingers though.  He's pretty proud of himself because he can do his fingers like that all by himself now!

 This is actually the arch that goes above Hadley's play mat.  It has been repurposed to a fishing pole.  And he likes to catch his fish and bring over the pretend fish to Hadley.

 Lori gave him this helmet so it didn't come off for quite a while.  He loves to kick and Grandma bought him this ball to play with.

At the end of the day, this eventually happens.  It sometimes takes hours for him to actually go to sleep.  He runs me ragged some nights (and days).  Even though he's a pretty good boy, he is definitely a 3 year old and has the energy of one!  I couldn't resist this picture.  Love him!