Holland - 7 months

Holland weighs 19 lbs and is wearing size 6-9 months.  She got her first tooth, started crawling, and is sitting up on her own!  She suddenly decided she loves a pacifier!  She likes to growl for attention, loves to eat butternut squash, and is such a happy baby! 

We sadly lost Daniel's uncle Walter, but it was nice to reconnect with family for the funeral.  Holland got to meet many people she had never met before, and it was just really nice to spend time with all of his aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

Holland - 6 months

Holland was Christened Sunday, July 30th at O-U.  My parents, Daniel's mom,
my grandmother Frances, Anna's mother-in-law Paulette, Anna, Julia, Sullivan, and Evie were in attendance.  Holland did wonderfully during the ceremony.  Unfortunately, as soon as we got in the car to go to her celebratory luncheon, she threw up everywhere.  This continued throughout the afternoon, but thankfully seemed to stop by the next day.  I am so thankful she held it together during church. I. cannot. even. imagine.

Holland is rocking on all fours, grabbing everything in sight and sitting up supported.  She occassionally mimics "hey" and likes to make B, P, F and O sounds.  She's wearing 3-6 month size clothes.  She loves to bounce in her johnny jump up.

She's still the sweetest, but the sickness has interrupted her sleeping through the night.

We enjoyed some summer fun attending the Hummingbird Festival in Holly Springs and going to Tishamingo for a day to hike and play around. I look forward to Holland being old enough to do some camping!

Happy 4th Birthday to Evie and 10 months to Holland!

My sweet Evie-pie is 4  years old! Since her birthday falls right after Christmas, we are typically out of town visiting family.  This year we were actually home, and she suddenly requested to go to the "bouncy place" for her birthday.  Queue me ordering a cake, finding an open bouncy place, and inviting friends/family the day before her birthday! We made it work and she had a great day! She's on a huge unicorn kick, so just about everything she wanted/got for Christmas was unicorn related!  The cake came from Kroger, and was surprisingly delicious!  She got a microphone she's been asking for, a unicorn jewelry box, and a crown.

AND...Holland is 10 months old!  Only 2 months until we'll be celebrating her first birthday! I suppose time flies when you are having fun (or crazy busy and getting no sleep!).  I'm so behind on my blog posts which means her baby book will never contain any information!

This sweet girl loves to cheese it up these days.  She typically has the biggest grin on her face and has tarted really wrinkling her nose when she smiles.  She still loves it when you  say "magical pea pie" to her- her brother and sister enhanced the typical "pea pie" to be "magical pea pie, frutti tutti", and Holland thinks it's hilarious.  She is now clapping her hands on command or when you say patty cake. She loves to pull her socks off and chew on them. She's started drinking very watered down pear juice from a sippy cup.  She hasn't been wanting her baby food much lately, but also has no interest in finger foods.  I made the mistake of trying to make her try a tiny bite of ham which she grimaced through and eventually gagged on and threw up everywhere. So, yeah, finger feeding isn't going that great.  She's been wanting to nurse a lot lately (probably related to the lack of other foods), so that's hard on me, and I'm exhausted.  Most nights I"m able to get her down in her crib from 8 to 12 am and then she's in the bed with us.  She will wake like clock work at 12 and 4 am just about every night (and sometimes more frequently).  She hasn't said "mama" in a while.  Usually when I ask her to say it, she immediately responds with "dada" and she thinks it's funny! "Yaya" is her new favorite gibberish of the week.  She loves her baths and kicking her feet and splashing.  She is a very fast crawler and if not contained will be all over the house in a blink.  We try to keep her contained in the living room, but she's a pretty good climber and sometimes escapes!  All in all, she's extremely good natured and lets us drag her around where ever we go with a smile on her face.  I'm anxious to get her eating real food (and drinking less mommy milk) and sleeping better, but this too shall pass.

During the last month, we discovered Holland has an egg sensitivity, she attended her first Christmas parade, went to her first Rogers' Christmas gathering, and opened her first Christmas gift (with lots of help).

Evie's class party

Evie's Church Christmas program

Holland- 5 months

Yeah, I'm so behind I'm going to have to rely on photos and fb posts to help me keep track of what happened this month!

Holland's biggest milestone was rolling both directions and trying rice cereal for the first time! She's in 3 and 6 month clothes, weighs about 17 lbs.  Making lots of raspberry sounds, and loves to chew on her toes. As with all of my kids, she didn't care for the rice cereal/breastmilk combo, so we only did it the once.  She kept pushing the food out with her tongue, so I figured she wasn't quite ready yet.

She made her first visit to Bebe's house in Cleveland and to McCarty's in Merigold. It's a long standing tradition that children receive a bird on their first visit to sit on a southeast pointing window sill. As nerve wracking as a trip to McCarty's with small children is, the gardens are worth it!  Such a beautiful and fun place to explore with kids.

Eyeing her first McCarty's bag

Add caption

Rolling with Bebe

Holland also had her first plane ride(s) as we traveled to Lake Tahoe/Truckee for a friend's wedding. She slept the entire way out there, but had a few crying spells on the flight back.  You can feel the frustration from other passengers, but not much you can do if a baby is going to cry.  It made and I so nervous/stressed, I'm sure that didn't help calm Holland.  No telling how many people I flashed while trying to feed her on the plane.  Oh well. Other than the crying, I also had a touch of a stomach bug and felt terrible the first half of the trip.  We did get out some to sight see and drive to the Lake in addition to the wedding festivities.  We stayed at the Cedar Sport Lodge in Truckee which was really pretty and had great breakfast/happy hours.

Dressed up with Daddy

The Beautiful Bride

We took a short hike around a lake next to Lake Tahoe. I can't remember the name at the moment.  We pulled off in to this state park because Holland was screaming and there are very few places going around the lake that you can pull off to feed a baby.  It ended up being a nice and beautiful little stroll. I forgot things like sunscreen, so Daniel's hat had to do for protection.

Fourth of July celebration at Lisa's house. This post is all out of wack, but I don't have time for perfection.

My sweet Evs

I'm behind on my Holland posts, but wanted to post on Evie before my feeble brain forgets!

Evie has started Willie Price this fall and, other than wanting to be walked in each day, has really loved it. Daniel and I had our first parent teacher conference and her teacher bragged on how sweet, and helpful she is.  She was described as an avid listener with a great attention span.  She plays with lots of different people and gets along well with everyone.  She comes to tell the teacher if she's upset at someone rather than acting out.  She loves her best friend Martin, and is very protective of him.  They always stand in line together or sit next to each other in centers.

My kids have very different personalities.  Evie is my joyful child.  She has the biggest, happiest, realest smile! She loves to talk to people and wants to say hello or wave to everyone.  She will gladly tell you all about her love of horses or dancing.  She is tender hearted and is very good at verbalizing how she feels (she doesn't get this from me).

Her big brother likes to keep his feelings hidden, and although he loves hard, he doesn't like to show it.  His first week of school, he made Evie a "map" to something and then folded it in to a fan.  She was soooo proud of that folded piece of paper, she took it to school to show it off.  The teacher said she kept going back to her drawer throughout the day to make sure her fan/map from her big brother was ok.  As much as they bicker, it's nice to have these reminders about how much they really love each other.

Evie is big on taking care of her baby at home and "feeding her". She likes to sit in the chair next to me and mimic me feeding Holland.  She wants to dress like her baby sister and is always bringing her toys or pacifiers to make her happy.  Evie gets so excited when Holland laughs at her or even looks at her.

Some of Evie's favorite things lately:
Horses/unicorns/ponies
Dancing- she asks constantly when she can dance on the stage
"Mogrit"- yogurt
cherry tomatoes
Singing Taylor Swift songs- especially "We are never getting back together"
Pretending to be Pete the Cat by putting converse on her hands and feet
Lots of dressing up and wants to dress herself each day

Holland - 4 months

We've had a big month adjusting to daycare, work, and our chaotic life in general!  We celebrated Daniel's 39th birthday with a low key celebration at home.  Daniel requested German chocolate cake, so I used my maternal grandmother's recipe for the icing.  It was not as easy as store bought, but was definitely delicious.  We sure are lucky to have Daniel in our lives.  He takes care of us and so many things around the house.  He's a cleaner, a fixer, an organizer, and a roll around on the floor and have fun-er! 

Sullivan lost another tooth (Evie kicked him while playing and it made the tooth bleed, so Sullivan finally pulled it out).  He attended Okra camp in Cleveland and got to do kayaking, stand up board, canoeing, archery, rock wall climbing, and many other fun activities.  I'm so thankful for Bebe and Fred Daddy letting him come stay and participate in such a fun camp. 

The highlight of Evie's month has been Pony Camp!!!! It was only 3 half days, but that girl is hooked and she has told every person she meets about pony camp. 



Sullivan and Evie are both still crazy about Holland.

Taking care of her baby.

Helping Holland sit up

Reading baby books to Holland

 

Even Sophie the cat is crazy about her!

 We've been trying to incorporate some fun activities into our lives instead of just sitting at home all the time. We joined a pool and that has been really fun!  Sullivan is getting much  more confident with his swimming now that he gets to do it more often.  We've got to get to work on Evie now!  Holland doesn't care for the cold, big pool, but likes splashing in the baby pool. We also took Evie bowling for the first time.  It was so much fun!

 

 

Holland has been practicing sitting up in her bumbo, sucking her thumb and taking a bottle much better.  She had to have another round of antibiotics and steroids after getting croup and double ear infection again.  Building up those immunities, I suppose. Not crazy about all the drugs, but don't want my baby in pain either.


On Holland's 4 month birthday, we all went for a rooftop dinner before Daniel left on an AT hiking trip with a friend.  It was bright and hot up there, but it is a good location for kids!

He didn't believe me when I told him he had a few freckles. He wasn't happy to see the proof..

We sat on the sunny side, always on the sunny side!

My sweet Holland is still an excellent sleeper, very content, making lots of B sounds.  She laughs primarily for Sullivan, but sometimes others are able to get a giggle from her.  She, just this week, started taking bottles at daycare.  I don't know what the magic trick was, but she decided she likes the fat dr. brown's bottles, but only if given by Miss Daisy, and only in the bouncy seat.  She won't take it from anyone else or if being held.  It's a start though!  I haven't been going to feed her at daycare anymore at lunch.  Sad, but good progress for her anyway. She's started grabbing her feet for happy baby pose and enjoys rocking around on the floor....almost rolling over!