Month 4

Looking through all of our pictures, it's crazy to me that all of this happened in the last month. It seems like it's been longer than that.

 This picture was taken at our nephew, Brayden's, blessing.

 Luckily Meili takes pictures with my phone, or there would be no evidence that I'm even a part of the family half the time since I'm the one always taking pictures. The downside: they are usually not the best pictures, and I am always in my pajamas.

 One of Meili's favorite things in the world is riding the lawn mower with Josh. In fact, if she thinks for even a second that he is going to do it without her, she starts crying on the spot. She calls our lawn mower a tractor, and even sees giant construction cranes and says, "That's just like our tractor!" Yes, just exactly the same.

 We borrowed a Bumbo from Josh's brother and already, at three months, he had outgrown it. Meili, however, fits just fine.

I let Meili pick out our egg dying kit for Easter, and she picked one that made the eggs glittery. It was quite the mess, but they actually turned out pretty.

 I had a hard time narrowing down the pictures, because my kids are so dang cute!

 My mom had an Easter egg hunt at her house.

 This picture doesn't even show the half of it. Meili got a blue stamp in one of her eggs, and immediately covered her arms, face and shirt in blue. We washed that all off just in time for her to get chocolate ice cream EVERYWHERE!

 She's a goober! What else can I say?

 I love this picture of Ruby even though it's blurry. Goober must run in the family!

 From the Easter bunny, Meili got a helmet-her suggestion, and the Easter bunny thought it was a quite good one!

 And we had a mini Easter egg hunt at our house.

 Grant's first Easter was memorable to say the least. Memorable for all the wrong reasons. I spent the entire church block in the mother's room, with him crying his guts out. I figured it was just that church throws him off his schedule, and that after a good nap, he'd be just fine. But he wouldn't eat either. We went to Josh's parents' house for another Easter egg hunt, and tried and tried and tried to get him to take a nap-which he eventually did, but he was still grumpy... all... day... long... We talked over all the possibilities with Josh's nurse sisters, and kind of decided that he was probably teething. AT THREE MONTHS! Meili didn't get her first tooth until after she was a year old, mind you. It finally seemed like we got him settled down, and several of us thought we saw a tooth-for sure. So that explained it. (I also saw blood in his mouth at church, but I thought one of his nails might have cut him.)

The next day, the tooth was nowhere to be found. People have told me that the same thing happened to their kids, and the doctor said it was possible, but he kind of made it seem like he didn't think that was what happened. So, I guess maybe Grant is scared of the Easter bunny.

 However, we were able to enjoy the Easter egg hunt while he had his nap.

We decided that the helmet the Easter bunny brought wouldn't fit for very long, so Meili got to pick out her own helmet. Of course, this pony one was what she really wanted. Josh was bummed that I didn't let her get it. You've got to be kidding me!

My nieces Shasta and Shelby had a Mad-Hatter's birthday party with friends, and this was the outfit Meili wore. It was so cute in real life that I had to get a picture!

 Again, thanks to our jr. photographer, we have documentation of the first time feeding Grant solids. I decided to start a little earlier with him than we did with Meili because he's already sitting, and I thought that since he likes to eat more than she does, that maybe he would do better with solids. And let's face it, I'm getting sick of not sleeping at night, so we were willing to try anything to get him fuller! 

I think he does okay eating food so far. He never really got into rice cereal, but can you blame him? Now he's tried carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes, and has had a few feedings that I thought he did really well.

 She requested that I take this picture.

 This was Meili's last soccer game. I made her go, even though she was sick, and felt really bad after. She didn't play much, but she was excited to get her certificate and water bottle.

 Grant was also super ready for the saucer. We had to put a pillow behind Meili for the first little bit to help stabilize her because she was so little. Grant needs no additional support, and he likes standing up on my lap so much-no cuddling, that I decided the saucer was a must.

 Now he's more comfortable in it, and just gets so frustrated that he can't get any of the little toys in his mouth.

 They're just cute! Enough said.

 I tried for WEEKS to feed Grant, with some success. Josh decided to try one day, and Grant ate like a whole bowl! That's when I remembered that Josh was way better at feeding Meili than I was too. I wait for them to cooperate. He just keeps putting it back in their mouth until they have no choice but to eat it. 

Josh always says that Grant is a momma's boy. That picture says otherwise. 

Just within the last week or so, Grant is getting better at holding things, or reaching for things, and bringing them to his mouth. This particular toy kept him occupied for about 20 minutes today.

Because our yard is so big, and we don't really know what to do with it, and my parent's always have trouble growing a garden because deer eat the whole thing, we decided to grow a community garden for our family in our backyard. Josh and I did a garden a couple years ago, but we basically planted some stuff, watered it sometimes, and weeded it once, and we got some vegetables. So this time, we're trying to put a little more effort into it than that. And my family is going to come up and help when they can. (They already came once to get it started.)

In other news, this last month has actually been really LONG. We did lots of fun things (thank goodness), including me going to Bear Lake for Destination Bunco-where I, of course, did not take pictures. But we also made 4 trips to the doctor's office, and have wiped so many boogers, sprayed so much saline, and took so much medicine. At the end of April, Meili got a cold. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that I hate more than hearing my kids coughing. I'd take the flu, a fever, a rash, almost anything (I shouldn't say that out loud) over a cough. Because coughs last forever, and there is nothing that can be done. So Josh and I overreact when it comes to coughs. As soon as Meili coughs just once, Josh and I start her on a strict regimen of saline, vapo rub, bulb syringe, humidifier, bed inclined, honey, and some kind of medicine. And yet, she was still sick ALL... MONTH... LONG... And I don't just mean a cough every now and then or when she runs. I mean, wiping her nose on her sleeve so many times that under her nose was rubbed raw and started bleeding. I mean, waking up several times a night, crying because she is coughing so much, and is so tired. I mean, not going to church, or the gym, or soccer games, or friend's houses, several times throughout the month. (I would always think that she was getting better, so we'd go out, and then she'd immediately get worse.) It all started with Grant getting congested when I took him with me to Destination Bunco. He had a hard time sleeping because he kept choking. Then I came home from Bear Lake to Meili being sick. After the first week of Meili's cough, I took her to the doctor, and the doctor basically just said that we had to wait it out, but if it got worse, she'd call in a prescription for a sinus infection. It did seem to start to get better over the next week. Then when she was almost back to normal, Grant started getting congested, and as soon as he seemed like he was almost over it, Meili's sickness came back with a vengeance. I took her to the doctor when she had a fever of 102 and the doctor said she was probably starting to get pneumonia. On Monday, after 2 days of amoxicillin, Meili was completely back to her usual self, and sleeping through the night. But then of course, Grant's congestion had started to flare up again. Today I decided that he probably had an ear infection (his well-child visit was last week, mind you-nothing we like more than hanging out at the doctor's office). I took him in, and sure enough, infections in both ears. So now that he's started his round of antibiotics, he's acting more like himself as well. Thank goodness! It seems like we might be able to get back to normal someday.

As far as Grant's development-

To be completely honest, I've realized that because we had that one hard month with Grant, I have it stuck in my head that he is a hard baby. (Except I don't usually call him hard, I call him "high maintenance.") And in some ways, he might be high maintenance, but I think he's really normal, and I just got that stuck in my head. I told the doctor, "He's only awake for about an hour and a half before he seems like he's ready for another nap." The doctor said, "Yeah, anything between an hour and three hours is normal for this age." Then I said, "He takes 4 and sometimes 5 naps in the same day-except he is getting better, and stretching his naps and his awake time more and more." The doctor said, "Yeah, 4 naps a day is pretty average at this age." Then I said, "He isn't content very easily. If I lay him down on a blanket and walk away, he gets fussy." The doctor said, "Yeah, he's probably just social. That's harder for now, but really it's a good thing." Then I said, "He's still not rolling over, at what point do you worry about that?" And the doctor said, "I didn't worry when my daughter wasn't rolling over at 10 months." So I sighed, laughed, and said, "Really? There's nothing we can fix about him?" And since that conversation, I realize more and more what a good baby Grant is. He has yet to sleep through the night, and he's bound and determined to make sure I never get through all three meetings in church ever again, but besides that, I would say we have it pretty good. 

At his appointment, he weighed 17 lbs, 14 oz. I was so excited! I thought for sure that he was going to be at least 20 lbs, and I'm just not looking forward to toting around a 30 pound baby. So for his weight, he's back on the charts at 94%, and he's 26 inches which is 86%.

This Month

Month 3 in our house has been much better than month 2. We go through these stages with Grant. I feel like I have him figured out and then he throws me a curve ball, I freak out, call the doctor, throw my arms in the air and say, "I don't know what to do with this child!" and it's as if he hears me and promises to be good, because then things go well for a little while. (I hope that the cycle continues that he listens when I have no idea what to do with him anymore.) For now, he eats really well, and usually wakes up once, maybe twice at night, and then goes right back to sleep, and his pattern during the day is that he is awake for an hour, takes an hour nap, awake for an hour, takes an hour nap. All day long. Yes, I would love longer naps, but he's pretty easy to put down for naps, and when he starts to get grumpy, I know it won't be long before he's asleep, so I don't freak out. 

We're doing good right now.

And I survived the busiest month that I've had up to this point at this job. Note to self: Don't schedule your busiest month, two months after you have a baby. We were all pretty much on the brink of a disaster all month long. But we all survived.

Meili had another dance recital at a Senior Center, and I, of course, couldn't get my camera to work right, so the pictures are not great-story of my life.

But Meili was as cute and as distracted as ever :) I love my little dancer!

Grant just gets cuter and cuter. Thank goodness he's got some of his hair back! I always say that he operates in extremes. He is either sleeping, eating, crying, or smiling and cooing. He rarely just sits there content. But the smiling is so fun! And his smiles, when he does smile, are bigger than Meili's were.

 Meili's final recital was the 28th of March. I was more excited than she was, until she found out that there was makeup involved, and then she was so excited to put sparkles on her eyes.

And she was distracted, as always. In fact, leave it to my child to be telling everyone else what to do while she is simultaneously not listening herself. But Josh and I smiled the whole time!

Meili went to Baby Animal Days 3 different times this year, and it still wasn't enough.

We had a major meltdown caused by these Shetland ponies, but nothing we couldn't recover from.

 I think Meili rode these horses 5 times that I know of, and it still wasn't enough. She didn't need the baby bears, just riding horses all day long.

Oh, and Shasta, she needs her too!

 We were doing sidewalk chalk, and I outlined my hand, and started to write Mom and then I was going to do the same with Meili. Meili said, "I already wrote your name over here." So she showed m and I wanted to cry, but instead, I drew a big square around it and took a picture. I'm so proud!

 Last week, Meili started soccer. If you think I was excited about dance, you should have heard Josh when it comes to soccer. He said, "Does she need cleats, does she need shin guards? We have to get her a ball so she can practice in the backyard. What clothes does she need?" etc. etc. 

 Soccer is a little more natural for Meili than dance because she loves running. At this point, she's not aggressive enough for "herd ball" though. (If you've ever watched 3 year old soccer, you know what I'm referring to.)

This was when Meili followed the ball onto the wrong court, and just kept playing. And I didn't even stop her because I was laughing so hard and trying to take a picture. Notice that everyone else is either green or grey and then there is the one lone black shirt. 3 year old soccer is entertaining if nothing else.

 First soccer game = first soccer injury :(

It wasn't even related to the game. She was running over to see me, tripped, hit her face on Grant's carseat, and bit her lip in the process. It was SO sad! And I wasn't familiar with the rec center, and I had no idea what to do. Meili has never had anything swell on her before, so I think it was so weird for her and she just kept showing me her lip, because she knew something was wrong and was freaking out. I felt so bad for her, but she was a trooper and still wanted to go play again 2 days later. I couldn't even convince her to get ice cream or something. She just wanted ice. 

This is what it looked like the next day. Most people just ask her if she drew on herself or something.

 I have a strict dress code in my house. Some people let newborns wear only a onesie, but I've just never been like that. My kids wear long sleeves, pants, and socks pretty much from October to April, and even in the summer they wear shorts no matter how young they are or how hot it is. I had to make an exception for just a few hours so that we could admire Grant's thighs. I mean seriously! (Apparently I like this onesie, and it makes me want to take pictures of my kids, because we have several of both of them.) Rolls are a new thing in my life. Meili never had them, and I just really love Grant's chubbiness! I posted before Grant's 2 month appointment, so as an update, at 2 months Grant was 16.3 lbs and (I think) 24 inches. He's off the charts for his weight and 81% for his height. In comparison, Meili was 17 lbs. at a year! He is one big boy! I think it's all part of his plan to make sure I can tote him around in his carseat for as little as possible.

 And, last but not least, we made our mandatory Easter cookies, and Meili decided to dance in the flour on the counter. (Don't worry, we didn't make any more cookies after her feet had been on the counter.) 

Check out our cute little baker!