1st birthday planning.

I can't believe we're already here. Well, technically, a little more than 3 months away, but still. My girl is almost 9 months old. *cries* My mind has been buzzing with birthday party ideas recently. What should we do? Her birthday is in July. Perfect for an outside party. Josh's mom has a pool and a nice sized yard, so no worries about crowding everyone inside the house. Let me share the ideas I have now...

For Cameron's 1st birthday, I made this banner.

It is hanging in his room now. It's amazing he hasn't ripped it down yet. And now that I've jinxed myself... But I definitely plan on doing one of these for Hannah too.

Now that I've started writing this post, I realize I don't have a whole lot of ideas.

-I want to make cupcakes and a smash cake for her.
-Pulled pork is always a crowd pleaser - and it's simple and feeds a lot of people. Sounds good to me. Mix in some pasta/potato/fruit salads, a veggie tray and some chips and we've got a menu. Simple summer food. Maybe some hot dogs for the kids?
-We got a cool drink dispenser for Christmas. I'm thinking lemonade. Yum.
-She already has a dress. I got a great deal on it at Meijer.

- The color scheme is obvious. Her room is painted with 3 pink walls and 1 green, so we will use a lot of pink and incorporate green into it as well. Maybe pink plates/cups and green silverware? Fun!


That's it for now. I will have to decide if I want to make invitations or just be lazy and buy some. The party won't be huge, just a lot of family. I look forward to celebrating my girl's (extra busy) first year of life.

Beautiful Baby.

I promise I don't favor one child over the other. She is just easier to take pictures of right now. =)

Happy 5 Monthday, Hannah!

Sweet baby Hannah is 5 months old today. Impossible. I took some pictures of her in the usual monthday outfit, but thanks to the lovely Michigan weather, the lighting isn't all that great, so the pictures are only okay.

Hannah is a big girl. She is still drinking 8 ounce bottles of formula every 3 or 4 hours, and has started having rice cereal and even some fruit and veggie purees. We have discovered that she is not crazy about bananas, much like her brother, but likes sweet potatoes and applesauce (Cameron's favorites when he was a baby as well). She still hates tummy time, but will put up with it from time to time. She has rolled from belly to back once, and is really close to being able to roll from back to belly. She loves to play with Cameron's toys (and by play, I mean put them in her mouth and chew on them) and pull her socks off. She loves her piggies. She is still not the greatest sleeper, and wakes up a couple of times in the night, but she has to maintain her chubby little thighs somehow, right?

Happy 5 monthday, Hannah. We love you!

December happenings.

There hasn't been much going on around here these days. The snow is starting to fall, and we are in semi-hibernation mode. Taking 2 kids out in public alone is hard, but throw in a bunch of ice on the ground and freezing cold temperatures and I start to panic. I would rather stay home in the warmth, thank you very much.

And that is what we did today.

Hannah had taken a nice 30-minute cat nap this morning and woke up in good spirits, so I broke out my fleece, plexi glass and camera and started taking some pictures of her in the Santa hat her grandma bought for her. It started out wonderfully. She was on her tummy, not throwing a fit, looked at the camera several times and even smiled once (and I missed it). She started to get a little fussy half way through, then I blinked and she was on her back. The girl absolutely hates tummy time. In Hannah's world, tummy time is some sort of torturous punishment. We have been trying to enforce daily tummy time for awhile now, but the screaming always gets to be too much and we give up. Now that she has figured out how to roll, we will have to be a little more strict. And as soon as it happened, the joy was stripped away as Cameron began screaming. I could not figure out what was wrong, and looked him over for a good few minutes before I realized that his foot was bleeding. I am pretty sure that he had cut it on the plexi glass while I was celebrating with Hannah. I cleaned it up and managed to get a bandaid on it while he continued screaming. I eventually got him to calm down - that was until I had to change the bandaid. He ate lunch and is now down for a nap, so I am hoping he will be his normal self when he wakes up.

Here are the pictures I took of Hannah, and one of Cameron too. =)

Hannah is 4 months old.

I do not recall time flying by this fast when Cameron was a tiny baby. Hannah has somehow turned 4 months old today. 4 months. She is finally starting to grow some longer hair (I'm ready to make her some bows!), and has recently found her toes. She has been gnawing on her hands for a couple of weeks now and drools like a St. Bernard. We are really starting to believe that she will be getting a tooth any time now. The girl still hates tummy time, and if you are crazy enough to leave her on her belly, she will let you know how angry she is. We make the best of the couple of minutes she tolerates it, though, and hopefully soon she will learn to love it. She will be going in on Wednesday for her 4 month well baby visit, so I will update her growth then. For now, enjoy her 4 month pictures, and a look back over the past 4 months with Hannah.

 

Sigh. Before we know it, the girl will be 16, wearing tiny mini skirts, wanting to borrow the car and giving an attitude whenever possible. Lord, help us.

Hannah is 2 months old!

Okay, time. It is seriously time to slow down. Somehow, our little girl turned 2 months old yesterday. It is unbelievable to me. It seems like just yesterday that I was counting down the days until she was born, and now I want the days to go by slower.

She had her 2 month well child exam this morning, where she had to have 6 immunizations (1 orally, and 3 shots. They mixed 3 of the doses into one shot, thank the lord). She did surprisingly well. She turned as red as a stop sign for about a minute, then let out a 30-second cry. She has been pretty sleepy since then. The poor girl, she probably hates her mama now.

Anyway, she is growing very well, according to the doctor. She is up to 12 pounds, 4 ounces now which is in the 90th percentile. She is 24 1/4 inches tall (95th percentile). Her head has also grown, but not too much. It measures in the 75th percentile at 15 1/2 inches.

She is definitely starting to grow!

In honor of her 2nd month of life, we had a photo shoot yesterday. Well actually, a couple of different ones. Here are my favorite shots of her. =)

Catching up.

Life has been pretty normal over here for the past couple of weeks. The weather has continued to show us what fall will bring, complete with wind that knocks a bunch of leaves out of our trees. Guess it will be time to rake them up into huge piles very soon.

Cameron is still as crazy as ever. I (Josh didn't think it was a great idea) decided to transition him from 2 naps a day to 1. He seemed to benefit from 2 naps for a long time, until he decided that he would only sleep for an hour each time, which defeated the whole purpose. We had started a bad habit with him that we have decided to stop cold turkey while we are doing the other transition. We had been giving him a bottle half full of water to help him calm down and fall asleep, and last night was pretty bad. He was put into his crib at 7:30 and screamed and cried until 8:30. Josh finally decided to take a sippy cup of water up and he refused it. He finally fell asleep a little while later, thank god. It was pretty rough. Lesson learned, no water bottles in Hannah's bed.

Hannah seems to have improved after we switched her from the Gentlease formula to the Soy. She was having some serious digestion/stomach issues and now seems to be doing a whole lot better. She is growing really fast, and it hurts my heart to say that she will be 2 months old tomorrow (so look out for that post, complete with new pictures!). Thursday morning she goes to the pediatrician for a checkup and her 2nd round of vaccinations. Poor baby. I hate taking the kids for their shots. I am excited to see how much bigger she has gotten.

We don't really have too much going on this week. Tomorrow, I am going to get my eyebrows waxed and my hair cut. I am having a tough time deciding what I want to do to my hair. I might get a few inches cut off and some new bangs cut. I love getting pampered every once in awhile (it has been 7 months since my last trim). Josh and Cameron will go on Thursday night for their haircuts.

We are all getting cleaned up for my dad's wedding this weekend. I have to pick up my dress tomorrow from the lady who altered it. We went shopping 9 days after Hannah was born, so of course it needed to be altered, big time. Especially since it was a tad too big when it was purchased. I have lost an additional 15 pounds since I took the dress to the lady initially, so I hope it isn't too big. Nothing I can do about it now.

Let's talk about the weight loss. Since Hannah was born on July 15th, I have shed almost 45 pounds. That is 35 pounds of Hannah baby weight and 10 pounds of the Cameron baby weight I never worked on getting rid of. At this point, I am still 40 pounds away from my goal weight, so I guess I am half way there. Of course, I realize that it's going to get harder and harder to get rid of the weight as I lose it, and I'm okay with that.

I leave you with an overabundance of pictures from the past week and a half.

Cameron tried to fix the doorkob.

Then he tried to put it back in its place.

Hannah relaxing in her swing.

Mr. Muscles

Watching the Michigan game with daddy.

Playing with his crayon box.

Tummy time with Hannah Boo.

She was tired of the camera.

Getting his own juice out of the fridge.

Modeling daddy's Tigers hat.

Labor Day weekend.

We have had such a nice weekend. Not only is it Labor Day weekend, but it was also U of M's opening game on Saturday. GO BLUE! We spent Saturday after lunch out shopping. Everywhere you looked, someone was wearing blue & maize. We, being new to liking football, were not decked out in our team's colors. At the mall, we went to the college team store and got ourselves some shirts to wear for the game. We went straight home and watched the Wolverines win their first game. Yes!

I finally caught a picture of Hannah smiling on Friday afternoon.

So cute.

The weather has been AWESOME for the past few days. We are getting a nice sneak peek at fall, and I am loving it. I even brought out the fall decor for the living room and hung up my branch wreath on the front door. I am really excited. Fall is my favorite season. With fall comes our (3rd) wedding anniversary, Cameron's 2nd birthday (cry), the leaves changing color, pumpkin patches and apple orchards. This truly is the best time of the year.

I have some happy news on the weight-loss front. I have lost 11.8 pounds in the past 5 weeks. I am very happy about this. I have 26 more weeks to lose 43.2 more pounds. If I can continue my weight loss of 2 pounds a week without too much of a plateau, I will hopefully reach this goal in 21.5 weeks. Bring it on!