Happy 4th Birthday Miss Grace!

Dear Grace,

I can't believe you are already 4 years old!  Your daddy and I are always saying to you that we want you to stay little forever, but you're not too keen on that...instead, you love to stand up on your chair during dinner (when you decide to actually eat dinner, that is) and show us how much you're growing as if every bite triggers and extra millimeter or something.  You love to talk about how big you are, and I think you take the cake in regards to "most excited for their birthday"!  You seem to think that your almost as old as Olivia now that your 4 and will somehow catch up to her - I imagine you'll eventually figure out that you're always going to be younger!

This weekend at your birthday party someone, I think your Aunt Beth, said that you have spunk.  Yes, that is most definitely true...you have enough personality to fill our entire house!  You can be sweet, cuddly, crazy, sassy, silly, aggravating, mischievous, kind, a little mean, funny, and sensitive all in a matter of minutes!  You have pretty much zero patience (we're working on this) and are one of the most stubborn and persistent people I know.  And, while this last trait, to be honest, makes me want to tear my hair out and scream quite often, I think it's going to take you great places one day.  When you truly want something in the future, I have a feeling you're going to fight for it, and the willingness to fight can be the key to success.

You're doing really well in your transition from youngest to middle child.  You love your little "Grady Bug"/"Buddy" so much, and it makes me happy to see you be a little mommy.  You're pretty proud of yourself when you can make Grady smile, help him with his paci, and get me this or that.  Sometimes you don't like when you have to wait when I'm helping Grady, but overall, you get it that waiting in this regard is necessary and don't seem to mind entertaining yourself with some toys or a show.  You don't ask to hold Grady too much but you really like to be near him.  The other day he fell asleep on my lap while you were "reading" him books - pretty cute.  You and Olivia get along really well for the most part; you enjoy playing a lot of the same activities (but you like dance a lot more).  You two help each other out quite a bit too which is very sweet.

You're super into imaginative play right now...I find you often up in your room playing with your dollhouse, baby, stuffed animals, and Barbies.  You also really like playing house, school, and dress-up.  I often find myself nodding in agreement to some story you're telling me about something even though I really have no idea what you're talking about as most of what I'm supposed to be understanding is part of some imaginary world/game/situation!  What else do you like:  going to Luther with Dad, playing Trouble (you're obsessed), drawing/coloring, doing puzzles, watching TV/movies (sigh), and creating stuff with Leggos.  Uncle Nate bought you some new Leggo sets for your birthday, and you were instantly obsessed - you call it playing blocks, and it makes my heart happy to see you and Nathan connect over this shared passion.  :)

Based on your interests, I think you're going to be the child who's good with abstract concepts...the drawings you make and your explanations of them along with all the other imaginative stuff you do make me feel this way.  We'll see if I'm right!

You're enjoying preschool and seem to have lots of friends.  It seems to me that you don't hesitate to involve yourself in activities and groups of people.  Sometimes a shy side of you comes out but not very often, and when it does, it's relatively short lived.  You can write your name pretty well and like to make letters though don't always seem to know what you're making.  It'll be fun to see how you grow next year as you switch to school 3 full days a week instead of just 2 mornings.

Other facts about you:  You love filling your bed with stuffed animals, blankets, books, and whatever else; basically you fill it so full that sometimes it's hard to find you in all the chaos - how can that be comfortable?  You barely eat anything these days...we can see most your ribs.  You'd probably take 3 baths a day if you were allowed to, like to change clothes, and/or like to wear no clothes or clothes that don't make sense...like swimming suits when it's -15 and our house is 60 degrees.  You love a big glass of milk at bedtime and like to get out of bed a couple of times before falling asleep.  You're obsessed with the movie Frozen and anything connected to it.  You can backtalk better than I would like...seriously this is a major problem that your dad and I are working on (sometimes more successfully than others) as hard as we can and can be a tattletale.  You are a pretty good sport when we play games, have great hand/eye coordination (thanks to hot potato with Dad), do your best to manipulate your dad and I, like to give people nicknames, have a recognizable sound of your feet running across the floor, love to laugh, don't pronounce "r's" very well, can get dressed, put your shoes on, and zip your coat by yourself (though you don't always like to do so), can be amazingly cooperative or a terrible listener, and have a major sweet tooth.  Whew...that's quite a bit of information for a girl who's only four!

One last little piece...today (January 30) at your well-child check you weighed 32 1/2 pounds (30 percentile) and were 39 3/4 inches tall (52 percentile).

Mostly, Gracie-girl, everything I just wrote shows that you are a lovable little girl who adds a lot of spice, spunk, and sweetness to our life.  You have the kind of personality that just draws people to you, and your smile is big enough be be seen across the room.  You have a zest for life, and there is absolutely no way it (or we) would be the same without you.

Lots of love,
Mommy

2 + Months

This last weekend I got to meet our friends' new little addition, Quinn...she was born on the 13th (my mom's birthday), and weighed 8 pounds and was 21 inches exactly.  Now, granted Grady had 9 ounces on her when he was born, but their length was the same, and all I could think as I stared down into her sweet, sweet face was GRADY IS HUGE!  :)

Actually, I don't think he's that big, but he's certainly not hesitating in the growing department!  Our little guy is basically out of 0-3 month clothes...especially the ones with feet.  I haven't packed them all up though - while some certainly still do fit him, I think it's a little bit of denial on my part too.

I'm going to parallel this post to Grace's 2-month post in style...here goes...

Playtime:  Grady is a big fan of smiling these days - yeah!  Love them (and need to get more pictures of them...apparently he's not interested in posing).  To get smiles, all you have to do is talk to Grady - he'll love you, guarenteed.  Grady also likes his swing (most of the time) and is really starting to enjoy his little play gym.  It's neat to see how he can focus on the hanging objects now and be enteretained by them.  We've tried out the Bumbo seat too as you can see below...I'd say he was neutral about it.  Grady also is, just like his sisters, a lover of baths.  As night time often equals a little fussiness, I often start bath a little early 6:00-30ish...often, he'll get his and then happily hang out in the bathroom while Liv and Grace take their bath or shower too.

Not the greatest picture...but a sort of smile.  :)

Eating:  Doing super!  He eats about every 3 hours during the day...at night, it's all over the place.

Liv took this picture...a funny face, but it shows 

that Grady's a good eater - hello, double chin!

Sleeping:  Similar to what I said for Grace's 2-month post, we're working on it.  Every once in a while I get a really amazing nap, but so far, I haven't figured out the trick to making these a "for sure" situation.  I've begun using that "pick up-put down" method if Grady wakes up too early, and sometimes I can get him to go back to sleep and other times, I can't.  Patience.  I'm really ready for 2 good naps a day with one smaller one in the evening though instead of 5 little ones, and I think Grady would say the same if he could...he's amazingly happy after a nap that lasts longer that 30-40 minutes (which is his usual amount right now).  I have hope...I went through this stage with both the girls and they turned out to be excellent nappers.

Schedule:  I'd say Grady is up fairly consistently between 6:30 and 7:30 every day...and he goes to bed about 7:30 at night.  During the day I'm doing my best to follow the EASY schedule (eat, activity, sleep, you (mom/Grace) time, but it's hit or miss in terms of success as Grady doesn't always sleep long enough for me to feed him again right when he wakes up.  Again, patience.  At night, Grady is trying on some longer sleeps, but he's not consistent with these...sometimes I get a 4 hour chunk, sometimes 5, and three time 8!  The positive part of getting up at night is that it's usually pretty quick as Grady doesn't require too much to go back to sleep after eating.

Favorite Things:  His sisters!  Besides the things earlier mentioned, Grady loves Olivia and Grace and smiles at them a lot!  Thankfully, he also doesn't seem to mind getting held, squished, and/or poked by them either!  At night, Grady likes to be cradled to sleep - with his head on my left arm I might add.  This used to be the case for during the day too, but now he's drifting off more often on my shoulder.  Grady sometimes loves...and sometimes hates...his paci - not sure what direction he'll go in this department.  He also likes to face out and see what's going on now that he's getting more sturdy.  I've had him in the Baby Bjorn a few times, and he's seemed to like this.  He's pretty good about getting carted around on errands too - can't wait till we can start going on walks once it gets warmer.

What He Can't Do (Yet):  Sleep for long periods of time, enjoy long periods of tummy time (although this is how he takes most of his daytime naps), grab objects, roll over (although he did do this once!)

What He Can Do:  Smile!  Coo and ahh at you - so cute!  Follow objects, make huge messes in his diaper, hold his head fairly steady, and stare intently at anything bright or that has good light/dark contrast.

What I Hope:  In the next few weeks, I hope we make some progress with naps and longer night stretches.  And, I hope Grady continues to stay healthy (a major feat considering the rest of our health - more on that later).

PS - A funny reminder...on Grace's 2-month post, I wrote that I really hoped Olivia would start calling Grace, Grace instead of Baby.  I had forgotten how she didn't use Grace's name for so long - little stinker!  :)

5 1/2 - WHAT?!?

Today, Olivia came home from school with a little birthday banner - she's 5 1/2 today!  Can you believe it?!?  We celebrated (fyi, we never truly celebrate 1/2 birthdays, but she's just so excited) by having tacos - one of Olivia's favorite meals (thank you school lunches for that!).  Tomorrow she's bringing treats (I didn't know we were supposed to do that - whoops!), and she informed me tonight that the boys would want the cookies with yellow frosting and that the girls would all want the ones with pink frosting.  We'll see if she's right - I'm sure she'll tell me because she likes to be right...just like her mom, I'm afraid. 

Here's a few facts about Miss Olivia:

I guess turning 5.5 is tough business...

Liv fell asleep on the couch tonight at 7:00

1.  She's a great big sister.  While I won't say Grace and Liv never fight or bicker, they don't all that often, and if they do, it's relatively short lived.  And, of course, as of right now, Olivia adores her baby brother and does pretty much anything I ask that involves him!  She loves that he smiles and sticks his tongue out at her...wonder what she'll think when he's older and does that for different reasons than just starting to communicate!  :)

2.  She's doing great at school.  Comments at conferences (awhile back of course) were all very positive.  She's starting to spell on her own and pick up a number of words when reading.  I enjoy working with this on her but admit that we need to do more of it.

3.  She's a great helper...if I need help picking up, Olivia's my gal.  She's so great at putting things away and in the right spot!  She likes to comment that she's helping and Grace isn't.  One thing we're working on - Olivia putting her own laundry away (she's not that good at it and likes to ignore my request as of now).

4.  She's patient (Grace, not so much).

5.  She's a cuddler - for example, this morning she got up on the early side and went downstairs where Brian was working out on the elliptical.  I heard her go down and fell back asleep till she woke me up saying, "Mommy, I'm cold; can I cuddle you."  Of course!  She crawled in with me for about 10 minutes and then said, "Okay, I'm warm now; can I have some breakfast?"  Love it.  She also is super snuggly if we cozy up for a movie, likes to sneak her way into our bed at night (usually resulting in Brian moving to the couch), and still sucks her thumb and loves anything fleece as her "silky" (although she no longer asks for hers - did I say in a previous post that the silky fairy had come to take them to some other kids?  When I told her this, Olivia's told me silky fairy was mean.  But seriously, losing the silky wasn't too big of a deal at all).

6.  She loves playing games but isn't always the best sport.  Tennis at Luther, running on the track, Trouble, Uno, Bingo, and Go Fish are Olivia's favorites.  She also likes taking pictures with my phone, playing "hot potato" and tackle with dad, playing babies/house (using her cell phone from Thyme as a means of communication), and coloring a lot.

7.  She's growing!  I really have no idea how much she weighs, but when I carried her upstairs tonight (see above picture), I couldn't believe how far down her legs hung or just how darn heavy she was in general.  She's also wearing some size 6 clothes without them looking ridiculously huge on her (the pants fit my long-legged girl pretty well especially).

8.  She loves riding the bus to and from school!  She has a number of "older" friends (6th graders) because of her Mass buddy (Ava) at school.  It was pretty cute to witness this when they all came up to her and said "hi" at her Christmas concert.  It's my opinion that Olivia is not truly as shy as she acts when Brian and I are around.  We've also started doing more play dates with friends which she loves and we love because she's so happy and totally exhausted afterwards - all that fun is tiring I guess!

9.  She's having second thoughts about ballet and tap class...I keep reminding her that she can just have fun at class and can decide what to do about the concert later - this does seem to truly make her feel better.

10.  She's trying on a "sassy" (somewhat back-talking) attitude lately...I'm not super fond of it as you can imagine.  Thankfully, these little bouts are relatively short lived...mostly, Liv continues to be super sweet, kind, loving, and soft-hearted - it'd be pretty much impossible not to love her!

Holiday Festivities

Before I start to forget, I better write about are holiday festivities this year.  We had a really nice extended Christmas.  It was great spending quality time with everyone and not rushing through our visits.  Here's a run-down...

The Huinker Family - We celebrated the weekend before Christmas with the Hodens, Pat and Roger, and us.  The Hodens arrived Saturday afternoon, and we pretty much didn't see our kids (other than for opening presents) until they left Monday morning.  As always it was fun watching the cousins play together, and Olivia and Grace loved having sleepovers at Grandma and Grandpa's!  In fact, Olivia or Grace (I can't remember) asked if they could stay for 100 nights.  :)  We missed Tara and Tony but did get to Facetime with them a couple of times and have promised that this is the only Christmas we won't spend together while they're in Japan.  And, it was reassuring to know that Beth and Chris would be seeing them shortly!

Our Family - Santa came Christmas Eve morning!  The girls were excited to see their note from both Santa and Emily Ann (our elf) and both informed me that they had heard Santa the night before.  It's hard to say what their "favorite" presents were but we've been playing a lot of games and dolls and reading a lot of books since then.  I spent the rest of the morning packing and trying to organize before we headed up to Northfield...we decided to go early because of a snowstorm which hit about 1/2 way through our drive.  The kids held up great through, and other than a quick stop to feed Grady, we plowed through and arrived in time to order sushi with Nathan and get the kids to bed at a reasonable time.

Santa brought the girls cool bean bag chairs, and Grace was especially pumped that he heard her request for a new Barbie movie (she asked for this exact one!).

The Thornton Family - Christmas morning we once again got to indulge in presents.  The girls had a great time playing with the cradles my mom and Mark gave them for their American girls dolls (which I had knowingly packed).  Around noon, the rest of the extended family arrived, and we all enjoyed opening presents and eating way too many hors de vours!  Brian headed home in my mom's car on Christmas night so he could finish up the end of a very busy month, but the girls and I stayed for a couple more days.  It was very nice having help (especially since this was when Grady started his no-nap week), and I also felt like I truly relaxed a bit as I couldn't be distracted by the types of things I would have been if I'd been home.  Grace probably spent as much time in the bath playing (seriously 2 baths a day) than doing anything else; apparently Grandma's bathtub is way cooler than ours at home.  It was so nice to spend time with Nathan too and give the girls a chance to really bond with him - especially over legos - go figure (Nathan and I used to play those so much as kids). Nathan, Thyme, and I went to the movies on Thursday, and on Friday we enjoyed some time out in the snow as it was a beautiful day and spent some time with our good friends the Woitallas.  We were glad to see Brian though on Saturday (we met him in Rochester and switched vehicles), and it felt good to get home too!  Once again though, the girls were disappointed that our stay wasn't longer!  My mom said the house seemed especially quiet on Saturday night!

Grady all cozy in his new chair from Auntie Thyme.

A happy family.

Since then, we've organized and re-organized our presents and house (the basement and the girls' rooms especially) and made the most of the time home together!  Oh, and we celebrated New Year's with our good friends the Gavles.  After dinner at our house, the girls headed down to theirs for a sleepover that was deemed a success even though it included a few middle-of-the-night conversations about missing mom! 

A Grady Update: 6-8 Weeks

With Christmas, traveling, New Year's, and four days without internet, it's been a while since my last post.  I had a secret end-of-year goal of beating my record of "blog posts in one year," but, unfortunately, that didn't work out.  And, just to keep my stress level low (because that is my one and only New Year's Resolution:  To stay calm and serene), I don't think I'll set an official goal for 2014; however, I do really like this whole "baby/toddler/little girl" baby book thing I've got going on, and I really want to keep it regularly updated!

Anyways, on to the point of this post...Grady and what he's been up to these last few weeks.  To start, Grady had a doctor's check up at 6 weeks - he weighed in at 11.1 pounds and was 23 inches!  A pretty impressive growth spurt from his 2 week check-up where he was 8.13 pounds and 22 inches.  Dr. Menke said he was looking great!  We go in on Monday for his two month shots...I decided to wait until he was 8 weeks old...6 seemed too little - still not looking forward to it though.

Otherwise, there's not too much new to update other than the milestone of smiling which is starting to occur more and more frequently, the start of some longer stretches at night (and by that I mean 3.5-4.5 hours instead of the very consistent 3), and the onset and hopefully completion of a tough and trying stage of incredibly short naps (seriously, like 10 minute naps while being held only).  This last dilemma definitely had me stressing...good thing it occurred before New Year's because I would have already broken my one resolution in that case!  Yesterday and today, Grady took a really nice morning and afternoon nap with some shorter snoozes in between...here's to hoping this trend continues!  I love holding the little guy - but with the girls home too, doing so constantly is just not easy and/or possible, so it's been nice to have a few hours where I can devote time to them and doing things around the house.  While I'd like to think I'm an AB personality, it probably should be a capital "A" and a lower case "b" in my case because I love schedules, and even though I can be patient in the meantime and flexible when necessary, I can't wait for my little guy to be on one!  :)

Here's a number of pictures of our little man (and our little ladies) from the last couple of weeks and from today's impromptu photo shoot.  Thank goodness my sister-in-law Beth had her phone handy for the smiling pictures!  I love the ones from today especially...we weren't exactly color coordinated, so that's why the pictures are all in black and white, but I'm pleased that they turned out so well and show how much Grady's big sisters love him!

Grady - 5 weeks

Ready for Olivia's concert - 6 weeks.

First captured smiles - 6 1/2 weeks.

 Christmas - 7 weeks.

Today - 8 weeks