Two Months Old!

Nora turned two months old on February 4th.  Our big girl keeps getting bigger!  At her check-up, she was 13 lbs, 12.6 oz (93rd percentile), 23 1/4" long (91st percentile) with a 16" head (97th percentile).  Sadly, she had to get two shots while we were there.  She was not a fan, but she calmed down quickly with some mama snuggles.

Baby girl started sleeping a lot better this month.  When she was just over 7 weeks old, she went 6 hours one night and 7 hours the following night.  I thought we were golden!  But then she went back to 4-4.5 hours.  Ho hum.  Finally the night before she turned two months old she slept through the night!!  She actually woke up after 5.5 hours, but I gave her the pacifier and she went back to sleep for another 3.5 hours.  I accidentally woke her at 7:00 am, after she'd been asleep 9 hours.  I was so happy!!  Since then she has done great!

I mentioned this before, but she has great neck strength.  Here she is demonstrating with tummy time.

Nora started smiling at us at about 5 weeks.  She was pretty stingy with those smiles at first, so it took awhile to get good pictures.  She started "talking" to us just before the two month mark with little coos and gurgles.

The boys are still loving their baby sister.  They're really getting the hang of helping out.  If Nora fusses, they always want to help by getting her pacifier for her.  In the car, Charlie has started singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to her if she's fussy, which is really sweet.  I caught a video of him singing at home one day.  I asked why he was singing in such a silly voice, and he said he was using his baby voice since Nora is a baby.  Fair enough.

One day we had decent weather, so we tried out our new stroller.  Nora was all bundled up and she did great.

One night this month after the boys went to bed, Nora had some major bubbles hanging out of her mouth.  She seriously had this for a solid 5 minutes.  Jason and I were dying imagining her thinking "What?  What's everyone laughing at?"  Hahahaha!!

Here are the pictures from Nora's monthly photo shoot:

And the monthly comparison.  I can't believe how much she grew from month one to month two.  Look how much she filled out!!  Chunky monkey!

January Fun!

Here are a few of our highlights from January.  First, we went to a birthday party for our neighbor Will, which was at Jump 4 Fun.  The boys loved it!

This was written on the back of one of Jack's worksheets from school.  I LOVE this stage, when they sound words out...

Charlie had crazy hat hair at Jack's soccer game:

The third weekend in January, Nora and I went to a girls weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks with our neighbors.  I debated even going at all, but I decided at the last minute to go and just bring Nora along.  She was 6 weeks old at the time, and she was a total trooper!  She did great on her first long car rides, barely made a peep while we shopped all day Saturday and even slept while 7 people got pedicures (which took forever with only 2 technicians on staff).  She did start to get a little feisty while we were out to dinner Saturday night, but we literally had been gone from the condo for 8 hours.  So proud of my little lady!

All the ladies (except Nora and me): Kim, Melissa, Kim, Chrissy, Renee, Theresa & Jen

Kim, Nora, Theresa and Jen

Pedicures!!  Melissa & me

We did some damage at the outlet mall!!

These were my purchases for Nora - girl clothes are so much fun!!

While the girls were at the lake, the boys had some fun of their own.  Jason took the boys to a class at the Zoo.  The subject was Safari so they made safari vests in the class.  They had a fun time!

After the class, they headed to Jack's soccer game.  It was the first week in a new league but they also received t-shirts because they got first place in the indoor league they had just completed at Vetta Sports.  Champions!

Back row: Coach Tommy, Kaelen, Preston, Jack, Jackson, Coach Jared
Front row: Tyler, Connor, Parker, Louis

On Martin Luther King day, Jack was off school, so we went to Kokomo Joe's with our friends the Duckworths.  The kids had a lot of fun bouncing, mini bowling and playing glow in the dark putt putt.

We celebrated Grandma Lang's birthday with dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings:

At the end of the month, Charlie went to a birthday party at Bounce U for one of his school buddies...

Charlie's standing towards the left; white shirt with red sleeves

Nora and I tried out her new sling, which worked out well

It was another fun month!!

Snow Days!

We had a few snow days in January.  The first was on a Saturday so no school closings, but the boys did get to go sledding with Daddy and some neighbors...

The second snow day happened during the week, so Jack's school got cancelled.  Jason again took them up to the neighbors' back yard and they had a blast sledding with their buddies.  This time they tried out their new snow tubes from Grandma and Grandpa Clayton (Christmas presents) and the dads helped them build a ramp.  So fun!  I'm told there were only a few ramp mishaps; two with Charlie going airborne and one with Jason (which I would've paid good money to see).

Nora and I met them up there after they were finished outside and we hung out and had an impromptu dinner with the Scallys.  It was a fun day!

One Month Old!

Nora turned one month old on January 4.  She is growing so fast!!  By one month she had outgrown pretty much all the newborn clothes in her closet and was filling out the 3 month clothes quite well.  We moved her to her own bed shortly after the one month mark.  She was starting to get pretty fidgety in the Rock N Play, so we decided to give the crib a whirl. She did great sleeping in there, and we started getting better sleep too without hearing every little grunt and squeak.

A couple days after she turned one month old, Nora had her follow-up appointment with the urologist.  I also decided it was time to introduce her to a bottle, so we did that while we were waiting for her ultrasound.  It was pretty funny; I made Jason take pictures of her first bottle, but the receptionist was calling our name to get us checked in.  He apologized and they said "it's OK, she's your first, isn't she?"  And he said "Oh, no, she's our third; my wife just insists on documenting everything..."  Haha!!

She took it like a champ with very little hesitation, but I learned that even the size 1 Avent nipples were too fast for my breast-feeding baby.  Since then we've switched to our Dr. Brown bottles and she does great with them.

We got to go in with her for her ultrasound this time, so of course I took a couple pictures!  She did great and the technician got all the measurements she needed.

After the ultrasound we met with the urologist.  He said her kidneys looked the same.  We were hoping they would've shrunk, but at least they didn't get bigger.  He said he still can't rule out reflux without doing that invasive test, but since her ureters still look fine, he's assuming/hoping she doesn't have reflux.  He gave us the option of taking her off the antibiotic or keep her on it as a precaution.  We weighed the pros and cons and decided to keep her on it until her next appointment, which will be in April.  The doctor said there have been tests proving that the prophylactic antibiotic does in fact prevent kidney infections IF she has reflux, so we decided better safe than sorry.  There are no long-term effects of continuous Amoxicillin use, so the only con is that we have to remember to give it to her every day.

Nora had her one month check-up a little late because her pediatrician was out of town.  At 5 weeks old, her weight was 11 lbs, 3.8 oz (84th percentile) and her height was 22.5" (90th percentile).  Her head size is 39 cm (95th percentile).  Quite an increase from where she was at 12 days (66th and 47th percentile in weight and height, respectively)!  Baby girl is big like her brothers!!

She is getting so strong and does a great job holding her head up on her own.  The doctor was impressed when he laid her on her belly how well she could lift her head.  I credit all the snuggling since her favorite is to be held up on your shoulder facing you.

Nora met her buddy Lincoln in early January too.  This is our neighbor's third son, and he was born in mid-September.  His older brothers are the same ages as Jack and Charlie, so Nora and Lincoln will be seeing a lot of each other over the years.

And here are some other pictures of Nora's first month.  We'll call this 'the many faces of Nora.'