Carlie's 6-month update!

This past Friday, Carlie celebrated her half-year birthday!  The party will continue on Tuesday when we go to the doctor for her well-baby visit (and shots!). I'm anxious to hear her stats (I will update here on Tuesday) since they were concerned with her weight gain (or lack thereof) at her 4 month appointment.  If you ask me, she's become a little chunky monkey over these past two months!

Edited to add in Carlie's stats!  She is in the 10th percentile for weight, weighing exactly 14 pounds (up 2lb, 1oz from 2 months ago).  Carlie is in the 10th percentile for height, as well, measuring 24 1/2 inches tall (up 1in from last checkup), & she is in the 50th percentile for head circumference, measuring 16-3/4 inches (up 7/8" from her 4 month measurement).

Carlie really loves to eat now! She nurses 6-8 times a day and she has also been eating some solids for a few weeks now and doing really well.  So far, she has tried (and liked) sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, apples, peaches/nectarines, and pears, as well as rice cereal.  She didn't really care for the green beans (and they didn't really agree with her either!), so we'll have to try those again later on down the road.  She usually eats solids twice a day right now; at lunch and dinner-times!

We have also started Carlie on a straw sippy cup over the past few weeks.  Unbelievably, within just a couple of days, she was sucking on and getting water out of the straw.  It's so funny to watch, too, because you can tell when she sucks and actually gets a drink of water - she makes this face like she just got some big surprise! You can tell she wasn't expecting that to happen!  Of course, she still doesn't drink for thirst-quenching purposes, but I'm really excited that getting her to use a straw cup may be just that easy!

Carlie is still wearing size 2 diapers & is now in mostly 6-month sized clothing.  She is still using her infant car seat, but rumor has it that she is going to ask Santa for a big girl seat for Christmas, so her days in the infant seat seem to be numbered!  Carlie also out-grew her infant swing over the past month, attempting to sit up every time Mommy & Daddy would try to place her in it!

 

Carlie is now very good at sitting up on her own & that seems to be her preferred position most of the time.  That's most likely because she can more easily keep an eye on big sis & stay a part of the action!  She loves when Hadley plays peek-a-boo with her, gives her zrbts (raspberries on her belly & cheek), & dances to try and make her laugh.  No one is better at making Carlie laugh than Hadley!

This month, Carlie's favorite toy is her squeaky giraffe, but she also really loves her giraffe rattle, her Fisher Price baby camera, & anything she can chew on!  She also really likes to have her Violet dog & her giraffe teether/rattle toy in the car (are you noticing a trend with the giraffe toys?)!

Carlie has continued to not be my rock-star sleeper that she was for the first 4 months of her life!  Her naps have been pretty normal (a short nap in the am, a 1.5-2hr nap in the early afternoon, & a short post-dinner nap before bed), and she is great about putting herself to sleep, but the night-wakings have started to become almost unbearable!  She used to go to bed around 7:30pm & not wake up until 3:30 or 4am, but that hasn't happened in months!  She now goes down around 7 or so & then it's anybody's guess, but she's always up at least twice a night!  Usually around 1 & 4 lately!  I've been praying that she would make a turn-around one of these days!

We took two family trips to farms/pumpkin patches this month (Savidge's & Kunes' Farms)!  Although there wasn't too much for Carlie to do there, she found ways to entertain herself!

Carlie loved swishing her feet around in the corn pit at Savidge Farms!

Peek-A-Boo Carlie at Kunes Farms!

Family photo in the pumpkin patch at Kunes' Farms!

Cutest 'lil pumpkin in the patch!

We also attempted to stuff Carlie in a pumpkin this month! She wasn't excited or amused by this!

Get.Me.Outta.Here!

Sister love!

Mama & her girls!

 We celebrated Carlie's first Halloween by dressing her up as a Penn State game ball - for the chilly Halloween night that we had, I'd say she had the best costume!

WE ARE...Nittany Lion, PSU Cheerleader, Coach O'Brian, & the Game Ball!

Carlie waving her Terrible Towel!

 And of course I have to include that Carlie weathered her first (and hopefully only) hurricane this month!  Hurricane Sandy caused a 24 hour power outage in our home, but thankfully nothing more!

Hadley's 22-month update

I hadn't really planned to do another blog post for Hadley until her second birthday, but she's just been doing SO many new things, that I didn't want to miss an opportunity to write about them before she moves on to bigger and better things & we forget! 

We are - Penn Pate!

 A few things that Hadley loves right now:  Kites (thank you, Mary Poppins), jumping on and off of everything, the moon - she wants to go out and see it all the time (even when it's the middle of the day with no moon to be found) - it's become a bit of a bedtime routine with Daddy, but unfortunately, it has been very cloudy lately, so we haven't had much luck in finding it, which is a shame since it's a full moon right now!  Haddy also loves dancing or to "shake your booty" as she learned from Aunt Kate & Aunt Mel.  Such a silly Sally!

Haddy loves to cheer for the Eagles, Phillies, & Penn State with Daddy!  

She also likes to say "o-tay," and "I yub you so much!".

 

 Haddy knows the first names of all of her grandparents (Deb-Bee, Har-Bee, Chris, Bob).  She also likes to call her Daddy, "Dada Gregg!" and tell her sister (or "sis" as she is sometimes known now), "Good Job, Car-Car!"

 Haddy can be a very silly girl, as well!  When someone gives her something (her milk, a snack, etc.) she replies, "Tank you-welcome" or "Please-tank you-welcome" to cover all her bases!  She also says "Shoo Fly - Charlie Bit You" - although we're not sure why she has strung those two together...she does love the "Charlie Bit Me" video on You Tube!

 Haddy also likes watching this video on YouTube.  Mommy thought the man was pretty creepy, so she nicknamed him Creepy Guy...and of course, Hadley now calls the video, "Creepy Guy."

Haddy can now identify all of her upper-case letters and she can count to 5 or 6, but often has to be prompted to count in any other way than "1,2,3,8"

Carlie's 5-month update

Our little Carlie-bug is getting to be such a big girl! She continues to grow and change right before our very eyes each day!  Some mornings, I will get her out of bed & I swear she's grown since the night before!  From our estimates on the baby scale, she's up to 13-lbs or so now, which is great because that would be up a whole pound from last month & hopefully it will put her at a better place on the percentiles for her appointment next month.  The doctor had suggested starting her on solids because of her percentile decline (still an overall weight gain, but apparently not enough), but I really still feel that Mama's milk is all she really needs right now (for another month or so).  We did try the solids out a couple of times, but she was disinterested at best & I wasn't really too excited about the idea either, so we're going to cross our fingers and hope for the best at next month's weigh-in!

Carlie's first attempt at solids - the face says it all!

Carlie's currently in size 3-6 or 6 month clothes now (mostly 3-6) and just moved into size 2 diapers this week!  She is still a pretty good sleeper, but I hope what we're going through is just still the 4-month sleep regression & that we'll be back to her even-better sleeping habits soon!   She has good nights where she's just getting up once to eat, and of course bad nights where she's up two or even three times to eat!  One cute thing she does this month, however, is rub her eyes when she's sleepy...that's always helpful when Mama & Dada can't figure out what she's trying to tell them!

Carlie says "Go Eagles" (and Steelers!!)

Carlie's "favorites" this month are...
 Cuddling, especially with Mama - it's really cute (to Mama) that when Mama is holding her & someone else comes and puts their arms out to pick Carlie up, she hugs onto Mama and buries her face in Mama's shoulder as if to say, "don't let me go, Mama!"

Cuddling with Mama after her baptism

Her Bouncer/Jumperoo - Carlie's gotten really good at turning on the music on her Exersaucer (in the basement) and spinning the parts on her Jumperoo (in the living room).  She will play independently for 5-10 minutes or so, but she does love when Mama and Hadley march and dance for her while she's playing.

 

 

Watching Hadley run and spin - Hadley, in general, cracks Carlie up like no one else, but she especially loves it when Hadley runs circles around her or does Dizzy Lizzy & "spin spin spin" until she breaks out in a belly laugh!

When Mama sings "Carlie Sunshine" and Daddy plays "Seven Nation Army" (aka the Penn State song) with her.  They always calm her down when she's starting to get fussy.

We ARE...Penn State (girls!)!

Tummy Time - Carlie actually tolerates tummy time very well now!  It's actually been over a week now since we've seen her roll over - she'll spend ten minutes or more playing on her tummy without getting upset!

Carlie plays with her princesses during tummy time!

Carlie had a big event this month, as she was baptized on September 16th by Pastor Dave.  She did a great job & ended up falling asleep at the end of the service (just in time for pictures).  Haddy also did a great job sitting with family through the whole service, rather than going down to the toddler room!  Carlie had a fun party afterwards at Grammy & Granddad's house, with many of her family and friends there to celebrate!

Carlie with Pastor Dave

 

 

Carlie's 4-month update!

This past Sunday, our Carlie-bug turned four months old! We celebrated by going for her well-baby visit today, complete with two immunization boosters (ADPT/IPV/Hib & Pneumococcal) & an oral vaccine (Rotavirus)! Sounds like a fun time, huh? On the plus side, Carlie was a little doll for her appointment up until the shots. She smiled and cooed, laughed and rolled over while the doctor was checking her tummy-time stance! She did mention that her head is still a little misshapen, but we're working on it - she just prefers that one side so much that it's really hard to coax it any other way.

Her stats were: 23 1/2 inches long (25th percentile), 16 1/8" head (50th percentile), & 11lb 15oz (less than 25th percentile). The doctor seemed mildly concerned about the decline in Carlie's weight percentile (she still gained about a pound and a half from her 2 month appointment, but her overall percentile went down) & suggested that we might want to start feeding her a meal of solids here and there. That was a little disappointing to me, as I was really hoping to exclusively nurse for at least six months. Either way, I think we'll wait a bit longer and see how things go. She's certainly not starving & she's otherwise healthy, so I don't want to rush into solids if I don't have to!

Carlie continues to be a good sleeper, though she's been waking earlier at night than she had during her first 3 months. She used to sleep until around 4 (or sometimes even 5), but lately she's been lucky to make it to 2:30 or 3! I'm not sure if she's just growing, or doesn't know what to do when she wakes up at night (often times, just putting the paci back in will keep her content for another half hour or more), but I'm hoping that it resolves itself on its own! She's also been screaming bloody murder at nap time when I try to put her down awake (as I had been doing consistently from the start)! We just started enacting some nap-time sleep training today, which kills Mama, but we know it's for the best!

Carlie is still wearing size 1 diapers (we are still using up size 1 diapers that we had leftover from Hadley, so hopefully we can finish those up before moving on to the size 2s!) & mostly 3-month clothing. We're starting to introduce some 3-6m clothes, especially the onesies and jammies, which tend to fit a bit snugger.

Carlie officially rolled over from belly to back on August 18th - she had been rolling quite often as a 2-week-old or so & then she stopped for a couple of months, so I'm glad to now have that skill under her belt. It makes tummy time so much less miserable when they can roll over once they've decided they've had enough!

Carlie's favorite toys this month are her activity mat (especially when she's on her back, kicking at the musical pad) and her rings, which she's just starting to grasp and hold onto (before Hadley takes them away from her, that is!). Carlie loves to play Peek-a-boo & smiles up a storm when you play Patty Cake with her. She loves when Hadley comes over to kiss her and tell her "yub you"! She also laughs when Mommy and Daddy say, "Colonel Mustard!" (don't ask - it's a 'How I Met Your Mother' reference!)

This past month's big events were our family trip to the Lehigh Valley Zoo & the closing ceremonies of the London Summer Olympics!

We have Olympic Fever!

End-of-Summer family trip to the Lehigh Valley Zoo