Half a Year

This was a huge month for me.  Brielle is already half a year old...where is this time going and why can't I be with her everyday : (  We did have fun doing Brielle's six month photo shoot though!!

Weight: 17.6 lbs

Length: 25"

Favorite Toy: Jenny Jump Up, Exersaucer, and Monkey stuffed animals

Favorite Food: There is anything that we have tried that she does not like, not one!  She likes peas, avocado, carrots, greenbeans, bananas...tons of food

Favorite Game: For some reason she loves to make a cough sound to get our attention then smiles a bunch when we look at her.  It seems to be a game to her.

Sleeping Habits: Sleeping at least 8 hours a night.  We get a random night here and there where she wakes up and stirs a little, has a little whimper here and there but usually goes back to sleep within a short few minuets.

New Skills: Starting to swing a little in her Jenny Jump Up, pretty cute.  Eating puff crackers and barely getting them in her mouth.

Size of Clothes: 6 month clothes and size 3 diapers .

Gigi Stays for a Week

February is a big travel month for Chris so to help keep me sane my mom came and stayed with Brielle and I the first week he had to leave.  Lets just say it almost felt like I was at home with them while I was at work with all the pictures and videos I got all day : )  My mom enjoyed every second of it.  I almost had to fight her when I got home to hold her in the evenings, ok maybe I am lying but still my mom is over the moon with having Brielle in her life.

It was a lot of fun having her in town too because we celebrated her 49th birthday while she stayed with us.  A full day of shopping, drinking wonderful coffee, eating bagels at cafe's, and a wonderful dinner at Shogun which entertained Brielle like crazy.  She especially loved the smoke as it would rise to the vents.  I did have to pretend I felt great all day because I had a MASSIVE headache but my mom said she had the best birthday she had ever had that day so it was completely worth it.

 Happy Birthday Mom

5 Months Old

5 Months, *sigh* and yet each second, minute, hour, day, week and month that goes by I am more and more in love with my beautiful little girl.  How can having such a small little human being be this much fun?!?! I mean really, each day and week that goes by it seems as if she is doing something new or trying something new.  She is amazing with all her little sounds, giggles, smiles, coos and playfulness that is BRIELLE.  She is by far my favorite little girl, with many close seconds, but I am sure every parent feels this way about their child.  If they don't then shame on them and I hope they get a change of heart.
Anyway, This past month we bought a Jenny Jump Up.  My question is, "Why didn't I get one of these sooner?"  Oh my gosh does she love to be in that jumper.  She will sit in it for at least 30 mins if not longer at a time and just twirl on her toes, walk around, jump and smile at us constantly.  She loves when the dogs run around her while she is playing in there because she can control where she looks and turn in any direction she needs to.  Making her smile is pretty much top priority for us so when we get TONS of smiles with this toy we feel pretty ecstatic.

Weight: 16.4 lbs

Length: I did not measure her : (

Favorite Toy: Jenny Jump Up, Leap Frog Dog that talks to her, Sophie until we lost her in the park

Favorite Food: Loving Rice cereal right now and all the new foods she is trying.  Carrots, butternut squash and a little avocado.

Favorite Game: She is really loving Peak-A-Boo and when the dogs run around her like crazy in her Jenny Jump Up

Sleeping Habits: Sleeping at least 8 hours a night.  We get a random night here and there where she wakes up and stirs a little, has a little whimper here and there but usually goes back to sleep within a short few minuets.

New Skills: She is really grabbing everything in sight, toys, mostly my hair and earrings, the mail off the counter, jewelry at stores and we almost walk out with it (thank goodness we didn't), ANYTHING SPARKLY, really everything.  She really likes sitting in her highchair now and plays while I cook or need to clean something.  Still kind of falls over after a little while of sitting up.  Not quite rolling over from her back to her tummy.  Sometimes at night when she rolls over from her tummy to her back she wakes up crying because she can't roll back over all the way. Yes she sleeps on her tummy...don't judge us...it's the only way anyone can get her to sleep.  We have tried everything and so has her caregiver during the week but we have an AngleCare monitor to make sure she is breathing so it makes me feel much better about it.  It took my mo a good week or so to convince me to let her sleep on her tummy so I could get some sleep.  She is scooting a little bit on the ground when she is on my tummy trying to move towards her toys so I feel like crawling is going to be within the next few months....nooooo I still want my little bitty baby ; )

Size of Clothes: I can squeeze her into a few last pieces of 3 month clothing that were "big" 3 months clothes but for the most part she is wearing 6 month clothes.  Finishing up our last size 2 diapers and then its off to size 3.  .

A Laugh to Cure the Common Cold

Well it may not cure the common cold but it sure makes us happy and I think laughing and being happy helps more to stay away from the doctor than an apple a day.  Now I know our dog is licking her in the face but I checked all the parenting guideline books and it only breaks 7 rules.  : )

4 Months

Four months old.  Wow.  Each month that goes by I am just amazed at how fast time flies.  Everyone always tells you "Enjoy this time, it goes by fast!"  I always smile and say "Oh I know, I can't believe she is this big already," but what I am really thinking is "Ummm I know please stop reminding me because I want time to stop!"  Being a parent is still awesome and I love having her as my precious daughter.  She is so much fun.  Doing all new things as a family is different than what we were used to but I sure enjoy it all.

Weight: 15.2 lbs, in the 90th percentile

Length: 25 1/4 inches, in the 90th percentile

Favorite Toy: Anything she can put in her mouth.  She got a little monkey for Christmas and Chris named her Chewy because the first thing she did was put it straight in her mouth and start gnawing on it. 

Favorite Food: Formula

Favorite Game: She loves when we pretend to nibble on her toes.  She loves when I dance with her.  We twirl around like crazy, bounce, make funny noises together, dip her.  She loves it all.  She is so fascinated by the dogs now and of course Maggie, our female dog, loves the attention.  She constantly tried to lick her and when she succeeds we get the cutest little laughs from Brielle.

Sleeping Habits: She was sleeping through the night and then her mouth started bothering her and she would wake up during the night.  We left her sound machine at Chris' mom's house also over Christmas so we tried other things at night to make noise or play music, nothing worked as well as the sound machine we had before.  When Chris' mom mailed us her machine she started sleeping better.

New Skills:She is giving us big laughs now, not just giggles.  Each day it is more and more.  She is holding toys a lot better and pulling everything to her mouth which has been kind of nice because she can chew on them instead of me holding everything in her mouth for her to chew on.  She can sit up here and there for about 15 to 20 minutes at a time.  She sat up almost the whole majority of her 4 month photo shoot.  When she is laying on her back at an angle she sits up straight from the laying down position.  You would think she would have a nice flat stomach as much as she does it.  ; )  She can just about roll over from her back to her stomach and rolls over from her tummy to her back a lot more now but has been doing that for quite awhile now.

Size of Clothes: 3 month to 6 month size.  Size 2 diapers but we have found a few more size 1 that we are finishing up.

  

A Belly Laugh

Brielle just had her very first BIG belly laugh.  Chris was holding her facing me swaying back and forth while I was dancing and singing in front of her because it was making her smile so much.  Who can resist numerous baby smiles?  I was singing a song with her name in it like we usually do and when I stopped to drum on my leg we got a fabulous surprise.  All of a sudden she just belted out a huge laugh.  It was so cute and high pitched.  We thought it was so funny and unexpected we immediately started laughing so loud with excitement.  It scared and startled her because I don't think we have ever been that loud or laughed so hard in front of her so I had to help wipe away her little frown.  It was so priceless!  Wish it would have been caught on video but I am sure we will one day.  Can't wait to hear her laugh again.  She has been giggling for awhile now but no huge laughs like this time.  Sometimes we can tickle her a little and she will giggle or the dogs with run around like chickens with their heads cut off chasing each other and she enjoys that but nothing as great as what we witnessed dancing and singing to her.  Chris now makes the most awkward and annoying sounds he can muster up trying to hear that sweet laugh again.  Lets hope he finds a sound soon that works before I get a headache listening to him ; ) 

Earlier in the night we had date night with Brielle.  I thought it would be fun to go to Barnes and Noble, get some Starbucks but I can't say no to $5 drinks (I swear they put crack in them) and read some cute books to baby girl.  As I came back from the Cafe this is what I witnessed, baby and daddy time talking about books.  He wanted to show her a book called "Who was Elvis Presley" but it was for older kids and didn't have pictures so she wasn't too interested in it.

Teething Baby and Sleepless Nights

For all the fun things being a parent brings to your life it also brings some not so fun things as well.  I guess it is kind of like getting married, you love your spouse with all you have but you have to love the little things that drive you bonkers as well.  That's how I feel about being a mother.  Brielle is my world, my everything, my future and I wouldn't want any of that to ever change but in the middle of the night when her poor mouth is hurting her so much she cries and is restless it is difficult to 'Love" that.  When you rock back and forth so many times your tummy is sore the next day (not that I am complaining because hey, what a great way to work out and not really mean to), when you sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" so many times your brain went numb and you can't remember the words, when your husband snores really loud right at the time you finally get the baby to sleep in their bed and now you have to start all over, when you give up and just bring them to bed with you because sleeping in your arms is really what they want anyway so when you wake up in the morning you are so stiff your arm wont really move is when you know you are enjoying the "not so fun" with the new parenting job.  Poor girl has been teething for well over a month now and still no little buds have surfaced through the tissue.  She is able to hold toys and bring them to her mouth now where as a month ago she really wasn't able to do that.  A friend told me about all natural Teething Tablets and they seem to be helping.  When we first started giving them to her she was unsure of why we doing it and was fussy when we placed them in her mouth.  Now when she sees the bottle of Teething Tablets and our fingers coming towards her mouth with the small dissolvable pills she opens up for us and seems to enjoy it.  Maybe she is used to the taste (if there is any) or maybe they really do help and she somewhat understands that.  She is starting to learn cause and effect with simple things so you never know.  She has a little Sofie but it is still hot her favorite thing for teething.  I think her mouth is still a little small so she usually chews on her fingers, hands or her Monkey who was named, Chewy, by Chris since as soon as she received said monkey she just started gnawing on her.  Oh to go through this at such a young age has not been easy.  One of her favorite things is when we rub her pacifier on her gums back and forth and it squeaks.  We usually get cute smiles when we do this.  She doesn't really seem to like her pacifiers to suck on but rather to chew on them constantly while we hold them for her.  Hopefully as she gets older it will get a little better when she can sit up on her own and play more with toys that she can chew on.