12.29.2009

Our Christmas

So sad that Christmas is already gone. It really is my favorite time of year. We made the trek to Hanford on Christmas Eve. Had a great dinner with my family and then the kids were spoiled with gifts.

Hanging out with her Auntie Shannah


Modeling the Santa suit (hard to believe this fit Ryan 2 years ago!)






Holding her new dolly in her Christmas PJs


Trying on one of her new dresses from Kevin & Shannah


Meeting Jeremy & Shandra





We celebrated Christmas a few days late with the Remillards. All the kids were dressed up in their Christmas clothes, but we never did get a group shot! Need to remember that for next time. We spoiled the kids (again!) and enjoyed a great meal together.

Anna was happy to help open the gifts


Anna comforting Natalie (Mason in the background)


The boys putting together the doll's toys


The girls modeling their winter hats from Grandma


Best Present EVER!




12.22.2009

Puppy vs. Baby

I've been meaning to write this blog for quite some time now. When Natalie was about a month old, I asked David "Which do you think is harder: a puppy or a baby?". He immediately answered "a puppy, by far". I completely agree. At least when we compare our puppy and our baby. We lost Roxy to the busy road in January, and we miss her a lot, but at times she was a challenge. We brought her home when she was 10 weeks old, and the first month was definitely rough. She would whine and cry all.night.long. Between the crying and the bathroom breaks every 2-3 hrs, we didn't sleep much those first few weeks. Natalie was much easier that first month. Maybe it was just a baby-high, but she would actually sleep for a few hours at a time, she hardly cried, and we didn't have to stand outside and follow her around with a flashlight for the 3am bathroom breaks!

We'll probably get another dog someday, but for now we're just enjoying our baby girl :)

In other news, Natalie is getting into her own routine. I'm sure once I put this in writing, all of our progress will go out the window, but she has officially slept all night for 11 nights now. I thought it was a reaction from her shots, but she's been continuing ever since then. She usually falls asleep between 8 and 9, I wake her up a little for a diaper change and another feeding at 10 and then she is out until 7:30 or so in the morning! A few nights she has woken up around 3 and whined a little. I usually go give her the pacifier, and she falls back asleep. Overall, nighttime is pretty good. Daytime is still more unknown...she's usually up for an hour or so in the morning and then wants to take a nap. After that, it's kind of a guessing game, but usually 2.5 hrs between feedings. I think last week must have been a growth spurt..she was begging to eat every 2 hrs, but that seems to have stopped now. Sleeping and eating, still her two favorite activities!

We visited the beach Santa this weekend. Temps were in the mid 70s, too hot for Santa to wear his coat. Natalie was really alert, but the sun was kind of at a bad angle - too bright for photos.


I'm sure I'll have a ton of pictures to post after Christmas. We're looking forward to all of the family visits and fun. But for now..I'm off to try my hand at baking pies! (first I have to brave the grocery store!)

12.15.2009

Meeting Santa

I took Natalie to meet Santa yesterday. It might be the last year that she sits contently on his lap!


Sitting in her car seat, shopping with mom.




Cute picture from her bath. Now that she doesn't scream through the whole bath, I plan to try and video the next one.

12.11.2009

2 month stats

Just got back from the doctor's appointment a little bit ago. Natalie did really well with the 2 shots. She cried for about 10 seconds and then she was over it. She took her usual nap and is laying here "talking" to herself. Overall, I'd say she's doing well!

She weighed in at 11 lbs (maybe a few ounces less since she ate about 20 min before). That's the 52.8 percentile per Infantchart.com.

She measured 22 inches. 35th percentile per Infantchart.com, although the chart the Dr. showed us had her marked right at 50th percentile. Not sure why the discrepancy.

We asked about the blue eyes, and he thought there wouldn't be much change at this point. Especially because David has blue eyes and I have the recessive gene (from my mom).

He recommended baby lotion for the cradle cap (dry scalp). We've been using baby oil and it's kind of messy, so I'm curious to see if the lotion works better.

Overall, he thought she looked great and says to keep up the current routine since it seems to be working (ie she is gaining weight and sleeping well).

12.09.2009

2 months!

Natalie is two months old today!

Per the What to Expect The First Year book, she seems right on track. Over the past month, she has:

* Been holding her head up since week 5. It's still wobbly, but she's getting pretty strong.

* Started social smiling since week 5. It's not always on cue, but she dishes them out daily.

* Been making eye contact & following objects (especially mommy).

* Started talking to herself since about week 6. She is most active when laying by herself. As soon as she sees someone, she gets quiet and starts studying them.

* Been averaging 6 -7 hours between nighttime feedings. The 8 hr was a solo performance so far, but she has been making it almost 7 hrs the past few nights. She has definitely come a long way from the 2-3 hr nightly feedings.

* Started grabbing things..a few times this week I've caught her holding onto her pacifier and swinging it around. If she could only figure out how to put it into her mouth, we'd be in business!

* Been sleeping in her crib in her room. We moved her in there last week, and she's done great. I think we've all been getting more sleep; we don't wake at the slightest peep, and she sleeps through David's snoring (I of course never snore, although David may try to tell you otherwise!).

She tried rolling over for the first time tonight, but that's the first time she's seemed interested in moving. She spends a good portion of the morning on her tummy which she loves and often falls asleep like that.

She has been enjoying her baths more and more. We've gotten through a few completely tearless! (the first picture below was after her bath on Monday night)

Natalie's 2 month checkup is Friday afternoon. We're hoping the first immunizations aren't too rough.

Here's some pictures from the past few days - and a sneak peek of her Christmas dress.





12.03.2009

Number 8

Ocho. Acht. Huit, Oito. EIGHT. That's how long my baby went between feedings last night! On Tuesday she practically slept the day away, and then yesterday I had her out running errands with me. She took a few naps here and there, but they were short. She was super hungry last night, and after her 9pm feeding, she fell asleep. Based on the rest of the day I thought I'd get a 1am wake-up call, but to my surprise she waited until 5am!! I got her up, changed her wet diaper, fed her and we were both back asleep by 6. We both started stirring at 9; I guess yesterday's events were tiring for us both! Hopefully Xmas shopping will go as smoothly.

Big week for the number 8 (reminds me of Sesame Street), tomorrow she will be 8 weeks old.

12.01.2009

7 week update

This post has been in the making for 2+ days now. It's gone something like this: upload pictures, shower, feed baby, run errands, feed baby, clean kitchen, eat dinner, feed baby, upload more pictures, feed baby, go to sleep, wake, feed baby, shower, madly try to finish blog post before baby wakes...you get the picture.

We spent Thanksgiving with David's family. It was our first Remillard gathering since all of the kids were born. Things were definitely more chaotic than usual, but we managed to get some good group pictures.



Although we were up at 5:30am, we skipped the Black Friday shopping. We packed up and headed for Hanford around 9am. We had intentions of going to the Christmas parade, but the weather was kind of icky so we decided to stay in and enjoy the Turkey leftovers. On Saturday Ryan and Patty came over to visit for a while. We made paper hats. (I wonder if Ryan would be happy with newspaper and a cardboard box for Christmas? he is easily entertained).




We took Natalie to the AG Christmas parade on Sunday night. We got there later than we wanted because they closed the road from our house to the village, but we still got curb-side seats. We bundled Natalie up; she was pretty much awake and watched the whole parade. Maybe we'll make this an annual tradition!



Also, Natalie and I played dress-up last week. My mom saved the dress and blanket that I came home from the hospital in and gave it to me at my baby shower.





Natalie has a Dr. appointment next week...Based on my mom's home scale, she weighs around 10lbs 6oz. She's been holding her head up pretty well and giving us smiles here and there since about week 5. She coos and smiles a lot in the morning and gets kind of grumpy at night. Although the slumber party was fun, we moved her into her crib in her room at night. She started making quite a bit of noise while falling asleep and waking up and now we all get more sleep...our nightly routine has been to wake up once at 3ish.

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