Wordless Wednesdays: Outdoor Naked Time!

5 Months Old!

I'm a few days late, but the littlest one is now 5 months old!!! She just keeps getting sweeter and smile-ier every day. Still wakes up around 4 or 5am for a bottle, but there have recently been several nights where she slept from 7pm to 7am...so nice! She is also rolling all over the place, putting everything in her mouth, and drooling so much that she leaves a small puddle wherever she lands for more than ten seconds.

Because of the Vicodin I wanted (needed?) to take after my appendectomy, nursing is officially over. :( The nurses gave me all sorts of rules about when & how I could feed Noelle in order to minimize her intake of the drug, but it just seemed too risky to me. She is doing great, of course; I still miss it a bit.

And let's go ahead and write down a few more things about me, in case my daughters want to know when they have kids:

--I have no idea what Noelle's "typical schedule" is, whereas I knew Delilah's to the minute. Everyone says it's because you're more relaxed with the second one, but I don't know if that's entirely accurate. I was pretty relaxed with Red, I just had SO MUCH more time to write things down and make plans.

--The body is taking much longer to re-adjust itself. :) After Delilah, I had a flat tummy again in about 10 weeks. Here we are at 20 weeks, and my tummy is flat in the morning, but has popped out again by bedtime. :) Don't know if it's gravity, or lax muscles, or age--probably all three.

--Just now feeling like my energy level is back to normal. Perhaps it's just been enough time, or perhaps I had to wait until I stopped nursing and my hormones went back to normal.

Okay, enough about me. Back to Noelle:

--still has beautiful blue eyes

--still has completely indiscernible hair color. At any moment it can look blonde, brown, or red.

--loves looking at Delilah. All the time.

--starting to sit up on her own & gets so sad when she falls over

--barely wimpers when she gets hungry, but as soon as she sees the bottle she will start wailing if you don't get it in her mouth in five seconds.

--fills our hearts more than we ever knew she could. Baby girl, all three of us fight over who gets to hold you.

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February Recap, Part II: The Bighams!

Before we sold our house, we had received a couple comments that our house was beautiful, but that the handle and hardware for the front door looked incongruously shabby. So I decided on a whim to head up to Austin and replace it myself. I figured it wouldn't take long, so I called Laura to see if she & Makinley wanted some visitors for the next day. She said sure and we headed to Austin after a brief Home Depot stop.
We had a blast hanging out all day...watching the girls play, eating lunch, catching up, and laughing a lot. And around 4pm we headed over to my old house for what I thought would be a quick job...turns out replacing a door handle and deadbolt is a little more involved than one might think. :) But Laura entertained the girls, Noelle napped, and I stared at the schematics until they finally made sense. I also buried a St. Joseph statue in the yard, b/c so many people had been telling me that he would help sell my house. Within two weeks we had two offers (after 8 months of nothing), so I am now a firm believer in St. Joseph & new door handles!!!!
Laura's husband, Scott, was out of town so it was a girls' night. And since Laura will be adding her own 2nd baby girl to the mix in June, I look forward to many more girls' nights with the six of us!

P.S.-Funny story about bath time: I was downstairs feeding Noelle, M & Red were upstairs playing, and Laura was upstairs getting ready to give M a bath. I told Red that she didn't need a bath b/c she had showered with me that morning. Laura went to grab M's pjs & when she walked back into the bathroom, she found both girls completely naked waiting by the tub. :) Delilah was not going to miss out on any water fun!!!

February Recap, Part I

I am extremely behind on my blogging...finally selling your house and having an emergency appendectomy will do that.
So, yay! House is sold. Barring anything crazy happening, we close on March 25th and will be done...hooray!!
As for the appendectomy...woke up last Monday feeling sick & crampy, and by 10:30am it was so bad that I texted Chris and said he needed to come home. He drove me to the hospital my brother works at, & my brother was my anesthesiologist while his favorite general surgeon removed an appendix about 4 times the normal size. It was about an hour or two away from rupturing, which would have been a MUCH worse scenario, so everything went as well as possible. My parents were ANGELS and took the girls most of the week so I could rest & recover as much as possible. Chris was an excellent nurse & I'm now pretty much back to normal. Not exactly how I planned to spend last week, but that's just how things go sometimes!
So...getting back to February...
One of the best nights of the month was spent with my dear friend, Allison. I've talked about her on the blog before, and hopefully she will be reappearing much more often b/c she & her precious family are finally moving back to Texas this summer!!! She was in town to house hunt, visit friends, and escape the Minnesota weather (but all she did was bring it with her). We decided to be rebels and met for dinner on a night that the weathermen swore was going to bring the worst ice storm in years. Glad we did b/c it was a WONDERFUL reunion...we shared secrets and perfected our dreams as only the best of friends can do. We had dinner for three hours, closed the restaurant down, and still weren't close to being done. We also had a cryogenically frozen mix of Captain Crunch and cilantro for dessert, but that's a story for another time.
February also brought a visit from Jewel, Delilah's Austin baby sitter. She made the round trip in one day just to spend a few hours with Red. How fabulous is she?!?! We spent the afternoon at the park and Delilah was in heaven. We already have plans for another visit in April. We love and miss you, Miss Jewel!!!

And we'll end with a random Feb pic of the girls snuggling on the couch. Delilah woke up from her nap and wandered sleepily into the living room; as soon as she saw Noelle, she wanted to climb on the couch and snuggle with her. :)
That's it for now...Part II is on the way!

4 Months Old!

4 months old and we're on the move!! Rolling over like a champ, and starting to scoot!!! She gets on her belly, and then uses her legs to kind of push forward and slide along her belly. It's all happening way too fast for my taste...stay little, baby girl!

Her 4 month check up revealed that she is still very long...but a quick look back at Delilah's 4 month shows that she was quite long at this age, too...and she has since become a shrimp. :)

Weight: 14 pounds, 8 ounces ( 72%)

Length: 26 inches ( 97%)

Head: 16.25 inches (62%)

Noelle is super ticklish and saves her best smiles for her daddy. I got the first smiles and giggles, but he gets them more often. I had dreams when I was pregnant that she would be a daddy's girl, and I think they may have been prophetic. She also gives Delilah huge smiles...I think Red is Noelle's favorite entertainment. Can't blame her...Red is pretty entertaining.

She is still a very easy-going baby: cries when she's hungry or tired and that's about it. Still wakes once in the night to eat (between 3 and 5am), but goes right back to bed after she eats.

Loves to be rocked, loves her swing, loves her bouncer...guess she just likes to move.

Happy 4 months old, Noelle. We love you!