Baby's 2nd Christmas

The only thing I can think to start this with, is how different Christmas was, compared to what I thought it would be like. *Sigh*

When we listed our house for sale we knew we'd have to scale back on Christmas, probably wouldn't be able to put up our tree, etc. But when we sold and ended up with our closing scheduled for only five days after Christmas, my vision of what Christmas would be, really came shattering down.

It just didn't make sense to give Megan tons of presents that would have to be packed away and not seen again for almost four months. Instead, we only gave her three small gifts that she could take along with in the car. At least she had something to open on Christmas morning. On the empty living room floor, no tree in sight. :( She did get other presents from grandma and grandpa and her cousins that she got to open the night before, so it wasn't like she only got three little presents. But dang it, that isn't how I imagined her Second Christmas to be.

The first photos are from Christmas Eve. She loved looking at the tree. She would go up to it and touch it so gently. And that dress, so cute!

And Christmas morning.

Part of me is already looking forward to Christmas 2011. Putting up the tree and decorations and actually having presents under the tree. Megan will be 2.5 by then. She'll really be into the pretty lights and ornaments. Hopefully we can make it especially magic for her and us after the disappointing Christmas that we had in 2010.

Look Who's ONE!

How is it possible that our little baby girl is already a year old? We had her 1yr appointment and she is still a peanut. She is so active that she just burns everything she takes in. Here are her official 1yr stats. And yes, officially, still a peanut.

• Height - 29 1/4" 50%
• Weight - 17lbs 10oz 5%
• Head size - 47cm 90%

She's been walking independently for several weeks now. It was like it was her mission in the weeks leading up to her birthday to be walking by the time she turned one. She did it! She's so little, it makes it especially cute to see her walk across the room or carrying something that looks almost as big as her! Her favorites are the large playground ball and the FP Cookie Jar that she got for her birthday. You just have to be thankful that the cookie jar isn't "real" or breakable.

9 Months Old!

Sorry to be MIA for so long. I'm still feeling torn as to whether or not to continue to blog. In a way I miss it, but then again, I barely have time to think about blogging. Maybe I should focus on being photo heavy with updates in pictures more than words.

She's certainly changed since my last post in November. Here's a current picture. I'm thinking maybe I'll go back and add a few postdated entries just to get more stuff out there. I always liked going back and seeing where we were at a certain time.

Today we had her 9 month check-up and she's doing really good! She's been crawling for a little over a month and pulls herself to a stand on almost everything. She likes to cruise along...I'm sure she'll be walking in no time! She's still my little peanut, that's for sure.

• Height - 27 1/4" 25-50%
• Weight - 15lbs 10.5oz 5-10%
• Head size - 45.8 cm 90%

Well, That's Different!

This kid is hilarious. I don't know how she does it, but every now and then she pulls out one of these new tricks and has us laughing and laughing. I'm pretty sure neither of us taught her this one since neither of us can repeat it. Thing is with these noises that she does, she seems to only do them for a couple of days, and then moves on to something new. If she starts doing something new, we have to catch it early.

For a few days, this is what she was doing after she had a bottle. I wish the video was clearer, but it was bedtime so the room was only dimly lit and her white noise was already turned on.



I have no idea how she made the connection that this action was even possible let alone as funny as we found it. When she drinks a bottle, she cups her tongue like a U around the bottle nipple while she's sucking. This is something that breastfed babies do, so it seems that she still has that skill even though we haven't really nursed since July.

5 Months Old

This kid just amazes me. I've been struggling to get some decent pictures of her lately so I didn't really have high expectations that her 5 month pictures would turn out very well. I figured we'd have to try at least two different "sessions" with her to get anything workable. Nah! She nailed it on the first attempt. And she was in such a good mood. I am very pleased with how these turned out.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Someone has found her voice

This is pretty funny. Over and over and over. The tongue just cracks me up!

Baptism Day

For a while now we've been trying to figure out what to do as far as a baptism goes. We don't belong to a church, but we really felt it was important to have Megan baptized. When we got married, we hired a minister who came to our site to perform the ceremony. It felt like the right thing to do to contact him and see if he'd perform the baptism. When we called him, he said he often gets requests from couples he's married to baptize their children. With that, the decision was made to travel to his home church to have the ceremony performed. It would be a private service, on a Saturday morning.

Here are some photos from the service:

And more photos of Megan in her beautiful baptismal gown:

The dress was just beautiful. It's too bad there isn't reason to dress her up in it a few more times before she outgrows the dress.

What'cha Doing?

At the very beginning you can hear me asking her "What'cha Doing?" She goes on the tell me all about her day.

Megan's Big Day

Look closely. What do you see?

That's right. Megan got her ears pierced today. I have to say she did really well. Definitely better than when she got her shots. She cried, but it wasn't nearly as bad and didn't last nearly as long.

Here she was just before getting them pierced.  Oh yeah, did I mention she's teething and actually taking a pacifier now?  Only took four months to get her to keep one in her mouth for any length of time.  Must feel good on her sore gums.

On the count of 3.  1....2....3!

All done!

It's only been a few hours, but so far they don't seem to be bothering her.  She hasn't been tugging at them or anything.  Now mom & dad are responsible for cleaning and twisting the earrings three times a day for 8 weeks.

October 15 - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

We were an hour late, but still lit our candles to remember and honor our babies that were too beautiful for this earth. As crazy as our lives are with an infant, we still often think about our first babies.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is a day of remembrance for all pregnancies and infant death which includes but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, SIDS, or the death of a newborn. It is recognized in the United States and throughout Canada on October 15th of each year.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed with Remembrance Ceremonies and candle lighting Vigils which coincides with an International Wave of Light with participants lighting candles on October 15 at 7:00 p.m. around the world to honor and remember our children.

For more information: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day or Remembering Our Babies

She rolls! 4 months 2 days

Finally all of her hard work has paid off. She's been trying so hard to rollover for the last few weeks and tonight she did it! Yeah Megan!

These were taken right after she rolled over. The first is a little blurry, but she looks so proud of herself. Not optimum shooting conditions, and trying to capture the moment!

We Have a Four Month Old

Where has the time gone? I've been horrible about updating the blog, but for so long it felt like there really wasn't anything worth posting about. Now that Megan is starting to do more, I'll try to be better about posting more often.

She has her 4 month appointment (with shots) on her actual 4 month birthday. I've been waiting quite a while for an official update to her stats! For the record, she is still an itty bitty peanut!

• Height - 24 1/4" 50%
• Weight - 11lbs 5oz 10%
• Head size - 42 cm 75%

I decided to do her 4 month photos a day early because she would be having her shots and I figured I'd have a better chance at getting some decent pictures. Here are some recent photos.

Some of her recent developmental milestones that she's hit have included giggling, trying (really hard) to rollover, making raspberries and grasping and playing with toys. She is also cooing quite a bit. One of her favorite things is music and us singing to her. She's getting to be so fun to spend time with! Tummy time is no longer such a struggle and she'll actually lay holding her head up for up to 5 minutes at a time. For the past month or so we've been taking stroller rides with her riding in the seat instead of the bucket car seat. She loves this! Sometimes it'll put her to sleep, but usually she's way too busy looking around to be distracted by sleep! Now that the chilly weather is starting to settle in, we're going to have to move our walks to the mall.

Last weekend we took our first long road trip. 430 miles (each way) in the car was too much for her. Going out wasn't too bad, but coming home was not so good. The fact that she still eats every two hours didn't make things any better. What should have been a 6.5 hour drive all of a sudden turns into an almost 10 hour drive with frequent stops for her and meal stops for us. Every time we stopped to feed her it was at least a half an hour. So glad we got that out of the way before winter. There is no way I want to make that drive again anytime soon.

Everyday is something new. I promise I'll try to be better about posting in the future!

Blowing Raspberries is so much fun!

This is a perfect example of the awesome mood that Megan wakes up in. Bottle is done, it's time to play and make silly noises at or with momma.

September 18 - A Day of Anniversaries

Not only is September 18th our wedding anniversary, it is also the anniversary of our egg retrieval. The day our little Megan was conceived. What a perfect addition to an already special day in our lives. Oh how our lives have changed in the past year. We feel so blessed.

What a difference a year makes:
Then - Our little Day 5 embryos (actually Sept 23rd). Hard to believe one of these is our Megan.

And Now - Our little almost 15 week old.

3 months - Little Miss Personality

Another month has passed. It's just unreal how quickly the time seems to be going now that Megan is here.

We have this month off as far as appointments go, so we tried to weigh Megan to at least get some idea of where she's at now that she's 3 months. The bathroom scale said 10lbs. So, she's gained about a pound in the last month..give or take the accuracy of that scale and method.

This month we've discovered so many things. Megan loves making faces at the baby in the mirror. Even better is when you hold her and look at her in the mirror and she looks at you in the mirror too and flashes one of her giant smiles your way.

Stroller rides have been taken to the next level by getting to ride like a big girl without the car seat bucket. She loves to look around and take it all in. You barely hear a peep out of her unless it's some sort of coo or other sound of contentment.

This kid loves music. Lucky for her, daddy likes to sing silly songs to her. He makes her laugh and it's so adorable!

This morning I noticed that she's started doing a fake cough. It's funny, she'll do it and then smile real big. She also makes a sort of kiss sound when you smother her with kisses.

Megan is definitely a social butterfly. I honestly think she likes people watching and taking in her environment. She's generally a really good baby and tolerates being passed around to whoever might want to hold her. I hope she stays this way. I don't want a clingy baby that won't go to other people.

I honestly don't think we could have asked for a better sleeper. We've been working at getting her down between 8:30-9:00 and she's starting to sleep ten hours (more consistently) before she wakes to eat. Then she'll take a bottle and go back down for another 3-4 hours. They say babies at her age should be sleeping an average of 15 hours per day and we're almost getting that in her night sleep. For now, naps are still mostly happening in the swing. We've tried the PnP and crib a few times but she'll only sleep for 45 minutes whereas if we put her in the swing, she might sleep almost two hours.

Photos are definitely a challenge. She has such an amazing smile, yet doesn't like to show it when the camera comes out.

2 Months Old!

We're here and all is well. Sorry it's been so long between posts. Days pass and weeks just sort of blend together. After having so much to look forward to for so many months, we're really just taking it day by day and trying to enjoy every moment right now.

Today was a big day for Miss Megan. She had her 2 month appointment and that included 3 shots. Poor kiddo. She did fairly well with the shots and I had timed a bottle pretty well to fall during her appointment time, but it was taking them so long to prepare the shots that we ran out of time and patience. Luckily they came in before she had finished so she had a bit left to help comfort her after it was all said and done.

I was anxious to get her on the scale to see how she's doing. I had an idea of where she'd be because I saw a LC a few weeks ago and she put her on the scale with clothes and a diaper on and she was about 8lbs 9ozs.

Here are her updated stats:
Height: 21 3/4" 25%
Weight: 8lbs, 14oz 10%
Head size: 39.2cm 50-75%

These are the numbers from her Day 3 appt:
Height: 18.5" 5-10% (not sure about this as the hospital recorded her as 19" at birth. I doubt that she shrunk.)
Weight: 5lbs 9oz 5-10%
Head size: 34cm 10-25%

Of course one of my questions was are we feeding her enough? We're doing expressed breast milk in bottles for the majority of her feedings so there's a little guess work in figuring out how much she should be taking. As long as she's gaining, they're happy, even if she is only in the 10th percentile for weight. I guess she's just gonna be a peanut. That's okay. Keep her smaller for a little while longer that way.

Our nights just keep getting better and better. Since she had surpassed her birth weight at her 2 week appointment, we were given the okay to let her sleep without waking her for feedings during the night. That meant we were getting 4 hour stretches almost right away. Now a normal night is anywhere from 5.5 to 7 hours. She's pulled one 8 hour night and that was so nice.

She's been smiling for a few weeks now. I love going in to get her in the morning and telling her "Good Morning" because she always flashes one of her big smiles. Sometimes she'll coo and make noises back at me, but that's really just starting. It seems like everyday is something new even if it's something that seems so small like actually holding a rattle that we place in her hands.

We usually take a couple of walks around the neighborhood each week. At first the stroller rides lulled her to sleep, now she's getting to the point where they'll settle her, but she doesn't usually fall asleep anymore. She's still riding in the bucket to the travel system so she really isn't taking things in, but it's still nice to get out for a nice walk.

Here are some recent pictures. I have flickr linked in at the top, but posting pictures will keep something here in the timeline.