Thursday, November 21, 2013

Amelie at 2 months


Ohhhhh, we just love this girl.
She wins the award for best baby sleeper in our house! She usually sleeps from 8 or 9 pm until 2 or 3 am!!! Then she eats and sleeps again until between 5 and 7 am. This is unheard of! I love it. I think that because I am actually getting some sleep at night, I am enjoying dressing Amelie up in cute outfits more than I did with the other kiddos. Plus, she doesn't spit up much and she only has dirty diapers like every 5-6 days. So I know if I dress her cutely, there is a good chance the outfit will last more than an hour or two.

 
At 2 months old, Amelie has become much more interactive.  She gives awesome smiles.  She is now 23 inches long and weighs 12 lbs., 15 oz.  And her eyes are still blue-gray.  Rob and I think my dad gives this look.
 
Last week she had a fever and cough, so I took her to the pediatrician.  Because she is so young, he ordered a chest x-ray and many, many other tests which we had to go to the emergency room for.  It was not a fun evening for her, or for me, but in the end she was declared healthy enough to go home.  I felt much more peace of mind knowing that she was breathing okay, and it was not RSV, or pneumonia, or croup, etc. and she recovered in just a few days time.
 
Amelie has very strong opinions, and does not hesitate to express them. She LOVES bath time and diaper changes. She HATES the car seat, and being put down in general.  (This may be a lifelong battle, being the youngest of four children.)  To illustrate this point, the following three frames were taken in under 5 seconds...

 
"I see you."

 
"We made eye contact, and you didn't pick me up?"

 
"We made eye contact!!!!  And you didn't pick me up?!?!"
 
One final note about Amelie.  I noticed that she is tongue-tied.  You can see in the photo above that she cannot stick her tongue out.  Apparently this runs in my family. Who knew?!  So being tongue-tied (ankyloglossia) means that the tip of her tongue is connected to the bottom of her mouth by a thin piece of skin (called the lingual frenulum.)  Amelie's is about 1/4 inch from the tip of her tongue (so not actually a "true" tongue tie.)  So far it hasn't affected her eating at all.  We will wait a few years and see if it affects her speech or if it will loosen on its own, if not the doctor will simply "clip" the tongue tie (a procedure called a frenotomy.)  Honestly, we may just have it clipped in a few years either way.
 
We just love this girl.  I can't wait to see what she does tomorrow!


Sunday, November 10, 2013

trick or treat

I did my very best to keep Halloween simple this year! We were still very sleep deprived, and in new baby land, and figuring out how to juggle four children.

 
Originally Toby wanted to be a Bad Piggy (like in the Angry Birds game.)  But as he began to see the costumes in the stores he changed his mind to wanting to be a bat.  Not Batman.  Not a vampire.  Just a bat.  Let me just tell you, there are no bat costumes at Walmart.  In the end I made him these bat wings out of black fleece and wooden dowels and he wore all black.  I also made him bat ears on a headband AND we bought a Batman mask as a back-up in case he didn't like my ears.  He wore the ones I made to our church party and the Batman mask on Halloween.  EVERY person asked him if he was Batman, and he would say, "No, I am a bat." 

 
Charlotte wanted to be a witch.  We got a pointy hat, a broom, and some stripey tights, and voila!  Witch.  I also got her a green witchy nose (at her request) which she then refused to wear because "it's not very cute."

 
Jakey was Tigger.  Until he saw Toby's Batman mask.  Then we had a serious problem.  So we had Bat-Tigger at our church party as a compromise, and Jakey actually refused to go trick or treating this year when he saw the first kid who came to our door dressed as a zombie.  He stayed home and handed out candy with Dad and Amelie instead.
 
 
 
Amelie dressed in her glow-in-the-dark skeleton jammies that Aunt Melissa sent.  She slept through the Halloween party, and then screamed while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters with Daddy and Jake.
 
 
We hit the pumpkin patch a little late this year and our only options were enormous or teeny-weeny. 


We went with teeny-weeny.  We picked out 6 pumpkins and let the kids draw faces on them and use stickers to decorate them.  I seem to be the only person in this house who likes to carve Jack-o-lanterns, and I was fine with taking the year off this once.  Maybe by next year one of the kids will be willing to help scrape out the pumpkins.
 
In addition to our church party/trunk-or-treat and regular trick-or-treating, Toby had a party at preschool, and Charlotte had a party at ballet.  There is so much candy!  Even with just the 2 big kids going basically around the block (we were out for just over 30 minutes) we received more Halloween candy than in any year past!  What is up with that?  Isn't there a recession or something?  I was totally blown away by the extent our neighbors went to for this holiday.  One house even had LIVE BATS flying around.  No joke, fruit bats that they keep in their garage, were flying around outside their house.  It was very cool.  Also, I won second place in the chili cook-off at church.  I got a two-inch tall trophy and everything! lol.  So it ended up being a very fun Halloween for our family this year.

Charlotte's tea party

A few weeks ago we celebrated Charlotte's 7th birthday! She wanted to have some girlfriends over for a tea party this year, so Rob took the boys and the baby out for the afternoon and we girls had a girly fun time. 

 
Charlotte hand wrote her invitations and had very specific menu requirements.  This is not traditional tea party fare, but we had peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (no crusts of course,) egg salad on pita triangles, petit fours, raspberries, red grapes, lemonade, and pomegranate herbal tea. 

 
We ate cupcakes after singing happy birthday and the girls each decorated a small tote bag to take home with stickers, lollipops, and bracelets in them.

 
Charlotte is for sure our little social butterfly. She loved having her girlfriends (Adelyn, Eliza, Stori, and Raegan) over and having the focus of the day be on her.  They all played so well together, and I was glad my friend Emily decided to stick around and hang out with me while they partied. For dinner we had Chicken Pasta Primavera (Charlotte's favorite) and sang again and ate more cupcakes with Daddy, Toby, Jake, and Amelie. 
 
Charlotte is growing to be a thoughtful and kind girl.  She is still stubborn, and at times can be very bossy to her little brothers, but I think part of that is being the oldest child and learning early how to be in charge and delegate.  Ha!  Charlotte still loves to draw and now also writes stories.  She is so incredibly creative and we all enjoy reading her books.  Just before Halloween she won a drawing contest at school for "drug free" week.  She was so proud to receive a prize from the Principal and have her picture displayed in the hallway.  (Now she holds "drawing contests" at home- Rob won the last one which is why that is her favorite thing to do with Dad.)
 
I am thankful for Charlotte every day! I love seeing her develop her talents and appreciate her desire to be a help to me with her new baby sister.  She is her own person, and we love her and her originality.
 
Charlotte's birthday interview
What's your favorite color? Pink
What's your favorite movie? Rise of the Guardians
What's your favorite song? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
What's your favorite food? Candy- is candy a food?
What's your favorite thing to do with Toby? build with his Legos
What's your favorite thing to do with Jacob? Cuddle
What's your favorite thing to do with Mom? Cuddle too
What's your favorite thing to do with Dad? a drawing contest
What’s your favorite part of the school day? Recess!
What do you want to be when you grow up? A mom!
What makes you feel happy? Candy!