hallie is 2 months old!

it's amazing to see and experience the changes in a baby in one short little month. since the beginning of june until now, hallie has gone from just beginning to sleep consistently to (praise the Lord!) now sleeping 9 or 10 hours at night and taking several good naps during the day. sleep is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

hallie's baby acne is finally gone, and she still has a good head of hair. i think she has lost a little of her hair, but her brother and sisters were almost bald by this point... so i wonder if she'll just start growing more now or if she's just late in losing her hair.

hallie sure is smiling and cooing now. it's so precious to see her smile when she hears her sisters' voices or sees them in front of her (especially caroline). i have yet to really capture her big smile on camera... but i almost caught it here.


and then i panned over to the right to snap a shot of her entertainment... how could you not smile at these two silly things?! :)


they sure do love their baby sister. they have not stopped marveling over her every time she gives them a huge grin or "talks" to them.

here is hallie with her three biggest fans...


her "floppy airway" still makes hallie quite a squeaky baby, but i think the squeakiness is getting quieter and not so often. her doctor said the cartilage would harden by 6 months or so, so maybe it's beginning to harden. (i probably learned about this during grad school, but umm... 10 years and 4 babies later, no recollection!) it has also been at least a couple of weeks since she's gotten choked up during nursing (and then losing her lunch all over me!), which i think is related to the squeakiness...in my--ahem--professional opinion! all that to say, my baby's growin' up, not throwin' up!

(updated 7/11/12: we just got home from hallie's check-up, and the doctor said the technical term for her "floppy airway" is tracheomalacia. it goes away when you put her on her tummy... interesting! her projectile vomiting has nothing to do with the tracheomalacia. just in case y'all were wondering. and it may be a year or 15 months before it goes away. so why did he tell me 6 months before??)

ok, moving on... hallie has found her thumb, as i mentioned recently. this is a monumental occasion in our family. our kids are apparently wired to be thumbsuckers-- we could see their hands by their faces in almost all their sonograms. and frankly, it's fine with me! i have nothing against pacifiers, but my babies usually don't care for one once they've found their thumb. the perk of the thumb? it is always available and ready for soothing. i can't guarantee its level of sanitariness (is that a word?), but i never have to run out to walmart at midnight to buy another thumb! i agree that ridding a child of a pacifier is probably much easier than stopping thumb sucking, but that's really not my concern with a 2-month-old. so just let me enjoy my baby enjoying her thumb! :)

besides thumbsucking, hallie's favorite pasttimes right now are watching the ceiling fan and swatting at her toys in her gym. a quick poll: have any of you had a baby who did not lovingly gaze at a ceiling fan? just curious because my babies have all loved their friend the fan.

this past month, hallie had her first trip to the beach and first out of town trip to see family. here she is with two of brian's precious aunts.


with two months under our belt, i'd say that we are in a pretty good routine with hallie at home. the kids do their best to be quiet while she's napping, and she is the center of their attention when she's awake. some days she requires more attention than others, and we just go with it. some days we get some (catch-up) school work done, and some days we don't. some days i get some house work done, and some days i don't. i usually don't accomplish a lot of both in one day! but what is always guaranteed is a busy home full of little people learning how to love each other and their Lord... and lots of snuggles from this scrumptious doll! God is good!


now that hallie is sleeping so wonderfully, i can move on to other goals... like taking more pictures and video of her and bathing her more often. yes, such is life with the 4th child!! (and seriously, is she really all that dirty? well, she is definitely the least dirty member of this household!) i really will be back soon with pictures from ethan's birthday and the 4th of july!

baby girl update

i am 30 weeks pregnant today, and it hit me that i never did announce our baby girl's name on here!  this little kicking machine is sweet baby


hallie!

we can't wait to meet her in 10 weeks.  we are still deciding on a middle name, but at this point, i'm just glad we have a first name for her!  we were able to have another sneak peek at her this morning, and wow, does she have some cheeks!


according to the sonogram tech, hallie also has a ton of hair. apparently, it is uncommon to see a baby's hair this early on the sonogram, but she could see hallie's hair very easily at several different angles. she also pointed out that hallie was practicing breathing, and we also saw her sucking her thumb (not surprised at all by that one!). the tech also told us that i have a lot of fluid... i didn't remember this before, but after reading old pregnancy posts, my body apparently did the same thing with amelia.

and as she was squirming about, contorting her little body in all kinds of positions, something popped on the screen that my kids would've picked out immediately...

a hidden mickey!


can you see it?? it's her belly and perhaps her elbow and foot or something... not exactly sure. but i had to giggle when i saw it... and the kids cracked up at seeing the hidden mickey inside mommy's belly.

speaking of mommy's belly... here's the latest picture of me and hallie, taken yesterday.


yes i have 10 more weeks to go... or let's just say 2 months, shall we??? i decided rounding it out to "2 months" sounds a whole lot sooner. :) i must admit that i cringe when people ask me how much longer i have to go... i think they expect me to say "2 weeks", judging by my big ole' belly, so when i say "2 months"... i get all kinds of shocked expressions in response. now i should just respond by telling them it's all my amniotic fluid. :)

so as my belly has grown, my lap has disappeared. this has not discouraged amelia from trying to snuggle with me, though.... she is by far my most snuggliest child, and she never gives up a chance to sit with me. well... over the last several weeks, i've tried to explain to her that i just don't have a lap anymore! yesterday during church, she was sitting next to me and then climbed up in my lap (really, onto my knee). she tried to get comfortable, but it just wasn't happening. she looked at me and whispered, "you don't got no wap!" i think she finally understood.

something that is new this time around is pretty persistent back pain. i've experienced back pain in my previous pregnancies for sure... but with hallie, i can't sit down on any comfy chair or couch without the top left side of my back burning. if i'm standing for too long, the same spot hurts too... and i usually wake up a few times a night with the same back pain, no matter how i position myself to sleep. the other night, i woke up screaming, and i really scared brian! i don't expect to go through pregnancy without aches and pains... it just comes with the territory of a precious child growing inside you. i am thankful that i am not fighting early contractions or on bed rest because of placenta previa or something serious. while the back pain is annoying, and i would love to just get a good night's sleep, i remember the admonition in 1 thessalonians... "give thanks in all circumstances"... and OH, how much do we have to be thankful for!!

we are thankful that everything looked fine on our baby girl today. it never ceases to amaze me how intricate and detailed everything already is on this child, being knitted so fearfully and wonderfully inside me. to see her little heart beating, to see her legs kicking, and to see somersault after somersault on the screen as i feel her poke me all over... it causes me to just stop and to praise my Father in Heaven. He is so gracious and merciful to us! He showers us with loving-kindness that we do not deserve. when i consider all God has done for me and the ways He continually blesses me, my back pain just seems insignificant.

the next two months are busy ones for us, so i'm praying they fly by quickly. before we know it, hallie will be here and i'll have my "wap" back! and hopefully by then, she'll have a middle name!