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!

amelia is 1 year old!

happy, happy birthday to my baby girl! amelia is most excited that she has taken her final monthly pictures! this year with amelia has flown by for us. it seems like just yesterday that we were snuggling with our floppy-headed newborn who slept all day! and now she is this bright-eyed one year old who thrills on being flipped upside down over and over again. here's a little recap of amelia's monthly pictures...


these days, amelia is having a ball at waving at anyone in sight. she will sometimes say "hey!" along with her twisty, experimental wave. she also loves to say "bye, bye", "dada", "mama", "nite nite" (mommy's favorite!), and "nana" (which is how she tells me she's hungry). she started trilling her tongue last week, and now she does it in an attempt to imitate "eat". it's pretty funny to hear her do it, especially considering that brian has been trying to learn how to trill his tongue for years (and this slp wife has had no success in teaching him!). amelia is really nowhere near walking yet. she's content crawling from place to place, looking for forbidden toys to reach for (ie, horses with hair, ethan's cars). she has tried to stand unassisted a few times, but she's not trying to cruise around our furniture yet. it'll happen... she's obviously very busy working on talking right now, so she'll get around to working on walking soon enough. she's still as happy as can be most of the time, though she has hit that point where she gets fussy the moment she sees me after being away from me for a little while. that can drive a woman crazy, but hey, at least i know she knows her momma! here's my birthday girl just waiting for the party to get started!


check out these rolls before she's had any sweets! (in amelia's defense... she was turned to the side, which accentuated her sweet lil' love handles!)


if you've been around amelia for more than 10 minutes, you have more than likely seen "the scrunch". i've decided that she just can't smile any bigger, so the smile has to go up! :) the scrunch doesn't really make for the most photogenic of pictures, but it does always make me laugh!


"well, we've got to get ready for my party now! see you soon with lots of pictures from the celebration! bye bye!"

amelia is 11 months old!

our baby girl is so excited about her first christmas! ok, ok, so she has no idea that it's christmas. but she does clap on command, so we can make her seem excited about christmas! :)


i got a little nostalgic putting this sweet dress on amelia. it was just two years ago that another little girl (with a lot more hair) wore this dress in front of our christmas tree.


"mom, does caroline really have to be in this post? isn't this supposed to be about my 11 month birthday!?"


you're right, amelia. sorry. (i do have more pictures of both of the girls in this dress. click here to view them.)

it won't be long before we are celebrating amelia's first birthday! but until then, we have a Much More Important Birthday to celebrate... my kids can hardly stand it!

amelia is 10 months old!

can someone please stop my baby girl from growing up so that i can catch up on recording all of the things she has been doing lately!??! my camera is my substitute baby book these days. when amelia does something new, i just run and take a picture of it real quick. even if it's not a "keeper" picture, i can at least go back and look at the date for when she pulled up or for her first table food.

speaking of table food, amelia did enjoy some broccoli a few weeks ago for the first time. i am pretty sure she had more fun eating it than the restaurant staff had cleaning up the mound of broccoli below her chair. i did not care... i was so happy that she was so happy. (she was missing a nap at this point, and the broccoli was a wonderful distraction!)


amelia is learning a few baby signs, and she surely has gotten the hang of "more"! at first, she would sign "more" all the time just because she got a smile out of me. now she is using it to ask to eat. we are working on the sign for "eat", but she will sign "more" after her nap when she is hungry. she does it pretty insistently, but she keeps a smile on her face the whole time!

she is jibber-jabbering all throughout the day. she is saying "dada", and lately she has been working on "mama". she loves to wave bye and usually has a smile on her face. we are enjoying watching her learn new things, and i can't believe that she will be a year old before too long! she is getting more hair, and there's even a part in the back that is trying so hard to curl.

we stayed as busy as ever in november, so i'll just share a few pictures of our sweet girl from last month. this one is probably the heart-melter of the month...


i'd been meaning to get pictures of the girls in these matching dresses all summer, and i never did get around to it. one warm day last month, i finally took some shots. i love the one of amelia watching caroline dance.




amelia modeled some hats for kristie's etsy site...


and then aunt kristie made amelia her own hat that matches caroline's! i love it! (we'll see if the flower survives three months in a car seat with amelia...)



UPDATE (12/12/09): the people have spoken. click here to find kristie's etsy site. she is happy to fulfill custom orders. she is super good at custom orders. (she's super good at pretty much anything.) tell her you found her through tenlittletoes! her yarn is so soft, and it washes well. and it gets chewed on well. amelia has been the devoted tester on that one! (and who noticed the hair stuck to amelia's chin in that last picture!? i didn't notice it till the other day...)

amelia keeps herself busy throughout the day. whether it is getting stuck...


playing peek-a-boo....


or discovering her toys...


...amelia continues to be a content baby. she does keep us on our toes as she attempts to get into everything she isn't supposed to. the kids are learning what toys are amelia-proof and what toys need rescuing. we get creative with ways to block her from their legos or train tracks set up in the living room. just today, ethan told me that we needed to set up a "bear cave" (barricade) for amelia! ha! i have yet to ever use a baby gate in this house, but i have created some award-winning barricades in the last 4 months. (for the record, we don't solely depend on barricades to keep amelia where she needs to be. we are training her to obey us! but it is a work in progress, and with two other children needing my attention, her safety sometimes requires a barricade.)

before long, amelia will be walking and talking. wow. i still feel like i just gave birth to her! (without the sleep deprivation and pain, of course.) we are looking forward to celebrating amelia's first christmas with her. we've already hung her first ornament on the tree, and she is waiting to get cozy in her "first christmas" pjs! so stay tuned for all of that christmas tradition fun!! as for now, i've gotta go see what amelia is getting into!

amelia is 9 months old!

this has been a big month for sweet amelia lynn! it is so fun to see her personality starting to show. she is still laid-back and content, praise the Lord! she is still sleeping and eating well for the most part, though those top teeth have been making for some restless nights lately. one has finally poked through, and the other is almost there! now that amelia is pulling up on things, she decides to practice this new skill in her crib at bedtime. she will be absolutely ready for bed but still want to play around for a long time. i don't get it!! the problem is that she is not really sure about getting down once she's pulled up, so we have to go rescue her. i figured out that if i send her to bed with a chew toy, she gets distracted with that and forgets about pulling up. she chews on the toy and falls asleep. so far, so good! (i'm sure as soon as i click "publish", she will wake up and pull up in her crib!) amelia's defining "trick" right now is shaking her head. to everything. the kids LOVE this and think she is saying "no". so we have fun with it and ask her all kinds of questions and laugh as she shakes her head. here's a few other things she's been doing lately:

amelia started solid food a couple of weeks ago and is loving it!



but you wouldn't know it by this picture....


after a few bites, amelia got used to the taste, and she has gobbled everything down since then.




(technically, she had her first real food a couple of months ago when i found pink toy horse hair in her diaper. a lot of it. as a result, caroline's pink glitter horse now has somewhat of a layered look going on with her tail. this can be part of amelia's memoirs as a third child.)

we did buy a new baby swing for our poor, neglected third child! she giggled and laughed the whole time.


and amelia has discovered her new favorite toy: the garden. we bought this for caroline for her first birthday, so i was pleasantly surprised to see how much fun amelia has had with it at her age. she crawls in it and plays for a good long while. she checks the mail...



she plants (and eats) her veggies...


and she has worked so hard at pulling up on the front door. too bad she's not the least bit happy.


amelia spends the rest of the day crawling, crawling, crawling. she is fast and she is quiet. stealth is a good word for her. i've managed to keep her in the living room so far, thanks to my trusty hall monitor, ethan. he has learned that he is not allowed to push her back into the living room, but he's gotten pretty good at letting me know when she is headed toward escape. :) here she is planning her next mission. she's thinking, "if i can't escape the living room, i can at least suck on some baby doll hair while caroline is singing on the potty." (and in case you weren't sure, her eyes are blue.)


i've been wanting to get amelia out in the backyard for some portraits for the last few months, and it finally happened. we ran out there one day after she'd just woken up, so i am sad to say that she still looks sleepy in most of the shots. i was happy with how this one turned out, though.


so our baby girl is 9 months old. so much changes in a month when they are this little. i'm trying to soak in every little thing about her. like these chubby little hands. and her fat little thighs. (too bad those things still aren't cute at 30!!) and her fuzzy little head.



i love this girl. and i praise God for her.

amelia is 7 months old! amelia is 8 months old! and she'll be 9 months old soon!

according to this blog post, amelia grew up over night! in my last monthly post (the one that i actually posted on her monthly bday!), she was just starting to get hair, and she couldn't even sit up yet. and now here she is with some fuzz on her head and a couple more months under her belt! she is growing so quickly in real life, too.... it seems like just yesterday that she was a quiet baby, content with rolling around on the living room floor most of the day. now she is sitting up and crawling everywhere, and she is a little noisemaker! her favorite noises of late come from the back of her throat (for my speech therapy buds, she has perfected the glottal fricative!), and she has the best time experimenting with her voice. we joke that she is a genius because i'll say, "what do you use to unlock a door?" and then i wait for her to squeal, "kee kee kee". :) oh the silly little joys of motherhood! amelia also loves to shake her head-- not really on cue or for "no", but it's so cute when she does it. her other favorite past time lately is grabbing my face while i talk and sing to her (you know, during all that one-on-one time i have with her all throughout the day.... are you picking up on my sarcasm!?). mama's keeping baby's nails nice and trimmed these days!

amelia is working on two more teeth.... the top front ones, and those two will make four. she has still been a pretty happy teether most of the time, though i can tell lately that they're bothering her. speaking of pain, amelia is currently sporting her first big bonk. she rolled into our new (very used) armoire the other day, and her lack of hair shows off the purple bruise. :( it's small but looks really purple on her blond head!

amelia will get to visit her first pumpkin patch this weekend!!! we are taking a day trip to a (sort of) local farm. i can't wait! a farm! with pumpkins! not a parking lot with pumpkins! surely, surely, surely this will be better than the mosquito patch last year. it has to be! (i would say check back soon for pictures of this weekend, but with my track record lately, i doubt any of you would believe me!)

we're so thankful to God for our precious baby girl...