1.28.2012

Rhys @ 6 months

How on earth 6 months have already passed, we have no idea.  But this little cutie pie is already a half year old!

The sleep department is still in dire need of improvement.  We got the one solid night that I posted about, but unfortunately that was a lone occurrence.  Rhys' typical schedule is:
Up at 7am, eat
Nap at 9am
Up at 11am, eat
Nap at 12:30 or 1
Up at 2:30, eat
Nap at 4
Up at 5, eat
5:30 or 6, cereal
7, bedtime snack (milk)
7 or 7:30 down for the night
10pm - quick snack while still sleeping
Wakeup call between 2 & 5am.

Luckily, she just wants to eat during the 2 or 3am wakeup and then she goes right back to sleep.  I suppose it could be worse!

We started cereal a few weeks ago.  I'll need to go back and find the pictures of that!  I thought I posted it, but now I'm thinking maybe I didn't get around to it.  She mostly pushed the food back at us for the first 2 weeks, but she's getting better at it.  On a good night she takes around an ounce of cereal.  I thought it might help in the sleep department, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.  We have noticed that she is fussing a lot more when we put her down for naps, and she can go pretty long in between, so maybe she is starting to stretch her naps into just 2 daytime and MAYBE that will help her nighttime sleep.  I told David tonight that I'm pretty sure at this point we won't ever get a full nights sleep again.  By the time Rhys figures this out, Natalie will probably be getting the rest of her molars, and after that calms down Rhys will be getting teeth, and then after that...well, I'm not sure but it is always something!


We've also tried Banana, but she hasn't been a big fan yet.  We tried a few times with just banana, and a few times I mixed it with her cereal.  She liked the mixture better, but still gave us the sour face.


Rhys is getting to be quite mobile.  She is not exactly crawling, but she isn't stationary either.  She is up on all 4s, rocking back and forth and then she crashes forward.  She scoots herself backwards, and she is QUICK!  She spins herself in circles and rolls constantly from front to back.  Neither of us have seen her roll back to front yet, and that frustrates her - a lot.  You can tell by the cry that she is laying there on her back.

We haven't practiced sitting up too much yet.  She is pretty determined to reach and grab things, so she usually ends up tipping over pretty quickly. 
(Liam & his mama & daddy came by about 2 weeks ago.  Rhys was watching his every move, and Liam thought she was pretty fun too)

Rhys has been really good about picking things up and getting them to her mouth.  She grabs her paci and swings it around, chews on the edge, occasionally she will actually use it, but mostly she just plays. She likes to grab anything we are holding, or buttons on our shirts, or necklaces...pretty much she goes after anything in reach!

She has such a happy personality.  If you smile at Rhys, you are almost guaranteed to get one back.  And she giggles pretty easily too. I felt like we always had to beg Natalie to smile or laugh, but Rhys is just a happy camper.

Rhys and Natalie are starting to interact more and more.  I'm sure the wars are about to start though.  Rhys always grabs Natalie's hair and that never ends well.  She also grabs Natalie's toys and Natalie grabs it back and yells "no Rhys, that's mine".   Aye. Let the fun begin, huh?
(Natalie wanted to "hold" Rhys.  After I set her up there, she told me "mama, take picture, Cheese!"...so I obeyed and took their picture. Doesn't Rhys look thrilled?)

We have a convertible car seat on order and are just about to make the switch out of the infant seat.  Rhys is getting SO heavy to tote around!!  The tricky part is that she's not really ready to sit in shopping carts.  It also makes it a little harder to get everyone & everything out to the car.  So, we're kind of holding off, but at the same time, I'm ready to get rid of the infant bucket and it's 9lbs.

We just opened our last pack of diapers that we were given before Rhys was born. Such a nice gift from family and friends!

Unofficial stats for the 6 mo mark:
Height: somewhere in the 24-25 in mark. She was awful squirmy when we tried to measure
Weight: 17.5 lbs - seems like she is tapering off a bit
Diapers: size 3
Clothes: some 6mo, mostly 6-9mo

We go to the Dr. on the 6th for her 6mo checkup.

1.27.2012

Weekend Away

This last weekend Michelle and I had decided that we needed to get away from the house. So we packed up the girls and headed to Bass Lake for the weekend. I was nice to get away and not have an agenda. 
We arrived on Friday morning to the cabin. It was 40 degrees in the cabin so we decided to turn on what we thought was the heater and head back to town to pick up a few things and have lunch. After being gone about an hour, we headed back to the cabin, only to find the temperature only at 44 degrees. After some investigating, we realized that we had turned on the air conditioner and not the heater. We turned on the heater and sooned it warmed up. It rained most of the afternoon and into the night.
On Saturday morning, we woke up to some light rain. While eating breakfast, the rain turned into hail. It continued to hail for most of the morning. Below is after an hour or so of hail.



Later in the morning Papa, Grammy, and Ryan joined us. Ryan and Natalie were having a great time climbing all over Papa. At one point they all pretended to be sleeping.


  
In the afternoon, it was really starting to snow.  There were some big snowflakes coming down.  So we decided to go outside to see if we could catch some. 


We had a great weekend with no agenda and no where to be.

1.12.2012

Sleep, at last!


This little munchkin slept great last night! Went to bed at 7:45 (a little later than normal), I fed her at 10, and she slept until I woke her up at 7! I couldn't be happier! For the first time since before she was born, I got 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Yes, there was a 9 hr span in there..but it takes me forever to fall asleep, no matter how tired I am...plus I had to deal with this other little munchkin before I could get in bed...


Natalie was still awake when I put Rhys back in bed at 10:15. No idea what her deal is. We put her to bed about 8:15, which is pretty normal for her. And for the last 2 weeks or so, she continually gets out of bed, stands by her door, or sneaks down the hall and we spend the better part of 1-2 hours putting her back in bed. Aye! If it's not one thing, it's another!

1.09.2012

New Year's Visit

Our friends Ricardo, Ari & Sebastian came down for a visit over New Year's weekend.  It was good to see them all and the kids had a blast!  The weather was nice and warm around 70 - even better than most summer days around here.

They played with the chalk

And watched movies

The dads supervised outside play


We went to see the Monarch Butterflies.  There weren't too many, but there was one tree that was pretty full and a few on the ground.

Running across the logs was a big hit





And proof that Rhys was there too...she mostly took a nap, and was a little annoyed that sister tried to hug her.

And here's a scary image.  Natalie behind the wheel.  We don't take the MG too many places these days, but it made for a good play pen while we were cleaning up Christmas decorations.

1.07.2012

Natalie's toys

Natalie got lots of fun stuff for Christmas. She hasn't gotten to the "princess" phase yet, but she did get a few dress-up things. We let her try them on after we got home from the Valley. Tired girl, but after we got the dress on, she stood up and said she needed to Twirl. How she knew that, I have no idea.

Here she is playing with her new doll toys. She was loading up her entire loot in the stroller. And notice "Christmas" in the background. This place was a mess.

Christmas morning before we got ready for the day, Natalie wanted to play with her Art Easel that Grandma & Grandpa gave her. She loves to sprinkle the letters all over the house. She's used the chalk side a few times too. I didn't realize it, but I must have some more pictures on the camera that I still need to upload because I took some of her drawing.

And, a picture for GiGi of Natalie in her Sleeping Beauty (is that the right princess?!) dress. It's still a little long, so she kind of trips on the hem, but soon I'm sure she will want to wear this daily.

Christmas #3

Our original plan was to host Christmas at our house, but that didn't work out this year (probably for the better too since everyone at our house ended up sick the weekend we had it planned for).  So, we headed to the valley on Christmas Day.

Kevin, Shannah and Liam came by for a visit that night.  The kids had a blast running around.  Natalie and Liam took turns pushing each other and riding in the car.  And they chased each other down the hall countless times.  They were definitely having a good time.










The next day, everyone came over around 10:30 or so. Natalie was kind of grumpy (she had a bit of a cold AND she didn't nap on Christmas, never a good combo). Gifts were up first.  This was the best picture I got of the four kids.  I have one with Liam & Natalie looking at the camera, but Ryan has his eyes closed.



Can you tell she's tired??

Natalie got lots of doll toys and dress up clothes. Rhys got some fun new toys and a new wardrobe. We are set for a while now.

We had Mexican food for lunch this year.  Since the plan was to have Christmas "at the beach" (aka, our house), someone came up with the idea of Hawaiian Shirts.  The guys participated...



After lunch, we headed back home.  Natalie was on her way to melt-down city, but luckily the car ride home wasn't too bad.  Rhys has been a great traveller so far.  We were able to make the drive in both directions without stopping this time.  So nice to make it in one shot; when Rhys was younger it was taking an extra 40 min or so because we were having to stop and feed and change diapers and take a break from the car seat.  Much better to be content for 2.25 hrs.

Christmas Day 2011

The girls woke up Christmas morning to find their stockings and presents under the tree.  Santa brought them a few small things, but didn't go wild this year.



Rhys kept grabbing the tree and Natalie kept telling her "no, no sissy, no touch"...They both did really well with the tree this year, I think this was the only touching either of them did.







Rhys kept trying to eat the paper.  She was really liking opening presents.

After breakfast, we loaded up the car and headed to the valley.

To be continued....Rhys is waking up.

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