Hannah at 4 to 5 Months

Hannah is 5 months old today.

I still don't see how it is possible for 5 months to have gone by already. Jeez.

I think the natural thing to do as parents is to compare your children's characteristics, especially when they are babies since the differences are all innate. It's not a matter of saying one is better than the other. They're just different.

Comparisons happen even before the baby is born. People ask how the pregnancy is compared to the last. For us, the real difference happened at birth. When the doctor placed Hannah on my chest right after she breathed her first breath, John and I looked down at her lovingly and said to ourselves, "Who are you?!"

She looked so different than LE. She still does. It's amazing how much we think LE's perfect and so, so beautiful. But yet, we think Hannah's perfect and impossibly cute.

Look at our little baby. Those cheeks and neck that make her give the widest smile when squished. Those lashes... the one thing she shares in common with her sister.

Hannah is loud and loves things that are loud. She wakes up happy but loud... yelling or screeching with excitement while slobbering on her hands or grasping for her toes. The sound of the vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, coffee grinder, or a running bathtub makes her flap her arms and legs with excitement. LE, on the other hand, is just getting over her fear of those noises and still clasps her ears in expectation of noises that aren't even that loud (like the Kitchenaid mixer on medium).

Hannah concentrates very intently on bringing things in with her hands. She played contently in the jumperoo for 45 minutes the other day. Another day, she played on her play mat for the 40 minutes that LE and I worked on a craft for her daddy. 

Instagram photo

She's a happy baby who doesn't have to be held nonstop. My back thanks her. On the other hand, John and I are a little sad that she doesn't like to melt her whole body into us and snuggle a while. Sometimes I just squeeze her anyway even though she tries with her whole body to push up off of my chest in an effort to get out of the snuggle hold. I'm thankful that she doesn't need me to hold her constantly, though, and that when it's nap time, I'm able to put her down to do other things. 

Despite not wanting to cuddle, she won't take a bottle (or pacifier, but I don't care about that). Sigh. I'm not giving up hope! Two weeks ago, we had Hannah's 4 month check-up and got the go-ahead with rice cereal. We're hoping that the cereal will be the gateway to the bottle. 

Here she is right before her first bite (out of focus):

Success! She didn't hate it. She actually does quite well with it now, opening her mouth for bites.

Sweet baby, Hannah. I can't smell her or squish her enough. Her coos are endearing, her arm flapping funny, and her giggles contagious. 

Instagram photo

(On a side note, Hannah is long and lean for her age. She's at around the 90th percentile for height (half inch taller than LE at this age), 50th for weight for age (LE was 40th), and 15th percentile for height to weight (LE was 11th). She's supposedly extra strong for her age and healthy all around.)

Happy Thanksgiving! This year was our first time staying home and attempting to do the whole Thanksgiving meal thing by ourselves. I think John and I had Thanksgiving as just the two of us the first year that we were married. Even though that was only a few years ago, I feel like I've come a long way culinarily. I don't remember everything (yes, you read that correctly, John ;) ), but I do remember making turkey breasts and dressing. Neither turned out that well.

This year was the year to go all out just for us four. John thought of it as a good practice run for future years when we could potentially host others. So, I spent a few hours looking at recipes on Sunday evening, determining how to cook what and how long it'd take. I made a timeline for the week to prep certain things in advance, like chopping all of the onions, celery, etc. Then, it was game day (pun intended).

It started out really easy and peaceful. I did the stuffing and prepped the bird as I was supposed to and get her in the oven.

I cleaned up the kitchen in a few minutes...

and then went to see what the family was up to. At one point, John and LE were building towers downstairs while Hannah slept. At another point, I went upstairs to find them having a party with all of LE's dolls in a circle around toy cupcakes and brownies. LE was singing the alphabet to them all while playing the "violin."

A little earlier than planned, the turkey registered at the right temperature. It looked perfect!

The dance began of putting all of the things in the oven and on the stove at the right times. This was the hardest part but still not bad. 

John carved the turkey and found that parts of the dark meat were not actually done yet, so we just set the dark meat aside to cook separately and went ahead with the white meat. I'm not sure what I'd do differently since I checked the internal temperature multiple times out of the oven. I must say that this allowed the white meat to not dry out, though, and it was well-flavored and moist. Woohoo!

LE had been patiently waiting all morning for her "'pecial lunch." Somehow that equated in her mind to PB&J. She burst into tears, and through sobs proclaimed over and over, "I wanted peanut butter and jellllly!" It was hard not to laugh. 

 

With the promise of a PB&J after she finished her other special lunch, she liked everything, especially the "chicken" with ketchup. It's not Thanksgiving without the ketchup! 

And little Hannah was held most of the meal until she pooped out of her diaper resulting in two of us needing to get changed. She promptly fell right to sleep in her swing after that. ;)

All in all, the dinner was great. The gravy was especially tasty, and the stuffing was best the next day. Turkey, mushroom and walnut stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls. 

And here's my favorite part, of course.

k

Happy Thanksgiving!

2 Months: Hannah

Hannah and Lauren were both in great moods right before naptime, so I spread a blanket across the floor near the window in our master bedroom, opened the blinds, and put Hannah down on the blanket. Lauren instantly wanted to be next to her. I managed to get a couple of my favorite photos of the two together. These show just how much Lauren loves to be close to Hannah. 

None of Hannah’s big, gummy smiles were captured, but the look in her eyes commands me to stop and stare for a moment.

The photo spreads are taken from the photobook that I'm putting together, which makes the text hard to read in this format. In case you can't read the text above, I'll write it out again:

at two months [Hannah]...

• smiles and coos often, especially at family & a toy cow 

• rolls over and holds her head up like a 4 month old 

• won’t take a pacifier or bottle 

• sleeps most of the day in her swing 

• wakes up every 2-3 hours to eat at night 

• comes in at the 48th percentile for weight (11.72lb) and 87th percentile for height (23.7in) /// (Lauren was 12.2lb and 23.5in) 

•  is getting over her painful evening gas in her belly & takes medicine for reflux 

my girls

New Year's Eve Tradition

Back in March, before I started using Pinterest, I saved to my Evernote notebook a post from the blog Eighteen25. They created this cute box to store a printout of the kid's interests/favorites/dreams every year (both of the following images are theirs).

This is a great idea to do on birthdays or the start of each new year.  I really like the idea of a tracking the current interests of kids and even adults. Though I think the box is cute and a great idea for a many families, a digital file would work better for our family.


I'm constantly trying to purge our belongings so that we actually know where things are and remember that we have things! So, for us, we'll be using the printable below, scanning it back into the computer, and then including it in our photo books that I do through Shutterfly.  We have a big collection of Shutterfly books; I like how it keeps all of our memories accessible without the bulk.

Click the image for the full-sized printable JPG

For the adults, I recommend taking a look at the list that Simple Mom's Tsh came up with. The last page of her PDF is formatted so that you can print it out and cut out little cards. 

This morning, I noticed that 30 Handmade Days also did a New Year's printable. Go check hers out, too! The image below is hers.

Happy New Year!

LE on Christmas Day (21 Months Old)

LE is 1 1/2 Years Old!

Last week marked LE's half birthday. It's amazing to look back to a year ago and see how much she's changed. Babies grow up so quickly!

Last year around this time, LE was still needing to have tummy time.

She sported the curl-hawk-- like a mohawk but just a curly cue. Now, her hair is long enough to kind of pull back into a ponytail. It's straight in the front and really curly in the back.

She was just starting to army crawl. Now, she runs, climbs, jumps, bounces...

She was just starting to eat veggie purees. Now, she'll eat anything except purees.

Our little LE is very spunky and full of life.

Photo compliments of my older brother

LE jumps up and says, "Oof, oof!" when she hears or sees a dog. Similarly, she does her version of "moo," which I can't spell, when she spots a cow. She's a bit more timid when it comes to meowing. Watch carefully to her face when John asks her where the pig is.

Did you see it? She makes a funny face and blinks. We didn't notice her doing this until watching a few different videos of her. We figured out that she thinks "oink, oink" is "blink, blink" (a command she knows). So, she thinks that when she sees a pig, she is supposed to blink. {She also thought "big" was "pig" towards the end; this was the start of her getting congested, and her nose was bothering her.}


She takes care of her stuffed kangaroo and baby doll LeLe by offering them her pacifier and sippy cup. Throughout the day, she sets them on top of a cloth on the ottoman to change their pretend diapers. If she's able, she'll take out a baby wipe and diaper from the bin. Then, after cooking with her pans and wooden spoons on the rug, she lets them sample her soup. Almost always, we have to get to taste.

She's starting to get persistent about some things, like picking out which socks to wear and how many shoes to wear around the house.

She's still happy to nap on her dad, just like she has since the day she was born.

We're excited to see how she'll change in the next year. It's been so fun so far.