5.16.2016

Nora at 4 Months

Our baby girl is growing up fast!  She turned four months old on April 4th!  She is the most laid-back, happy little baby.  She rarely fusses, and is always dishing out smiles, especially to her big brothers (who get a little disappointed in the odd case where she doesn't smile at them).


This month Nora gave us her first laugh!  On a Friday night just about a week after she turned 3 months old, I was just talking to her on the couch and I think I made some funny noises and next thing you know she was laughing.  We all got to witness it, which was so great!  We've gotten her to laugh a few times since then, but so far she's been kind of stingy with those chuckles.

At four months, baby girl is still sleeping swaddled.  We think she's almost ready to ditch the swaddle, but we haven't tried it yet at night yet.  She does take naps unswaddled and her most common position is arms above the head.  She's still sleeping great, going anywhere from 10.5 to 12 hours overnight.


This month Nora started really drooling, blowing bubbles, sticking anything and everything into her mouth, especially her hands and toys.

We also got out the ol' Bumbo seat and Ms Nora thought she was quite the hot shot sitting in that thing!  We've been getting a lot of use out of it, as she now prefers sitting in that over her bouncy seat. 
 

Nora had her four month check-up and everything went well.  She is growing very quickly, just like her big brothers did.  She weighed 17 lbs, 10 oz (96th percentile), was 25 3/4" long (93rd percentile) and had a head circumference of 17" (98th percentile).  I compared her weight to her brothers: Charlie at 4 months was 17 lbs, 9 oz (almost exactly the same!) and Jack was 20 lbs, 13 oz at 4 months.  She had to get two shots in her thigh plus a liquid immunization squirted in her mouth.  She wasn't a fan of the shots, but calmed down pretty quickly.

Here are the pictures from Nora's four month photo shoot.  She gave me one measly little smile...



And a little comparison of our girl at month 1-4:

5.14.2016

Easter 2016

We had a great Easter once again this year.  We hosted my mom's family on Saturday and the weather was perfect!  We got to sit outside and the boys had fun playing baseball and basketball, especially when my cousin's son A.J. joined in.

Easter morning the boys got to find the eggs the Easter Bunny hid for them.  He brought them a new game for their Wii (the one they played at the Ramirez house while we were in Florida), along with some money and candy.  Somehow I neglected to take a single picture of our morning at home.

After we were finished at home we headed up the street to the annual egg hunt with the neighbors.  So many kiddos!  They loved it and got a LOT of candy!

It was a little chilly that morning so Nora was bundled up





 After lunch we went to my Aunt Patty's house for a quick visit with my dad's family.  The boys got to do another egg hunt while were there!


 We finished the night off with the Clayton crew.




Another nice holiday!  Easter is one of my favorites because we spread it out between two days, which seems much more manageable.

March 2016

In addition to returning to work, we had some other fun stuff going on in March.  First, the boys each got a new baseball helmet, which was very exciting!  A few weeks earlier, Jason had taken them to Johnny Mac's Sporting Goods and the boys each made a mental list of baseball/sports gear they wanted.  Jason told them they could earn the items one-by-one with good behavior, using our baseball charts.  Well, after they were SO well behaved during our marathon airport adventure on the way home from Florida, he took them that very night to get their new helmets.  They had earned it, big time!
Jack wrapped up his latest indoor soccer season in March.  This session they played at Tony Glavin in hopes of finding some greater competition.  Unfortunately they still clobbered most of the teams they played.  The boys loved it because they all got a lot of goals, but they definitely need to find the right league to challenge them a little more.  They had fun though, which is of course what matters.  Jack prefers indoor soccer to outdoor because the ball doesn't go out of bounds.

Here he is scoring a goal:
 And after the championship game - they were undefeated and won the league.

And one of Jack's biggest fans.
Also in March, Jack performed in the Kindergarten musical, "Zoosical the Moosical."  It was on a Wednesday evening in the high school theater, and it was so sweet!  They got to dress up like their favorite animal (Jack chose polar bear because he wanted something that stands on two legs like him.  Can't argue with that logic.) and they sang 9 songs relating to animals.  I wasn't sure how our shy guy would do but he got really into it.  We have a copy of the DVD with all the songs on it, but this one was my favorite:
My pictures turned out terrible because we were in the last row, but you get the idea.
The 5 kindergarten classes - Jack's is on the right
Our polar bear is in the back row
Jack's cheering section - all the grandparents plus Daddy & Charlie (and I had Nora in the carrier) 
Jack chose not the wear the hat we got him, but at least Charlie liked it
Jack, Jack and Nathan after their performance
And the little brothers: Logan, Charlie & Tyson
This is random, but one night Charlie joined us in the middle of the night, and I got a kick out of how he was sleeping when I got up in the morning.

Here's a little video of Charlie rocking out in the car...
We went to our buddy/neighbor Logan's 4th birthday party.  It was at a park and the theme was "hunting."  Our boys LOVED it - they got to wear their camo and shoot Nerf guns and bow and arrows.  They also did a scavenger hunt and a fire truck randomly showed up and the firemen handed out ice cream bars (not arranged by Logan's parents, they just happened to come by).  It was a fun party!





The boys both started their outdoor soccer games in March as well, so we had a busy month!!