Grace Elizabeth - 4 Months

About a week ago, Grace turned 4 months. At Grace's appointment she weighed in at 12 pounds 11 ounces (25th percentile) and was 24 inches long (70th percentile). I suspected that she was on the long side, and I was right! According to Dr. Maher, Gracie is right on track with all her milestones and is "a perfect little princess." I happen to agree! FYI - The pictures throughout this post were taken by Grace's great-uncle Bob while we were in The Dells this past weekend.


Gracie continues to be a cheerful little girl full of smiles and squeals; she's such a joyful addition to our life! Some of my favorite moments are when Grace and Olivia start talking to each other. I swear that all Olivia has to do is look at Grace and she's guaranteed a smile! Lately, Grace will just start squawking (for lack of a better word) in order to get attention. She gets the giggles if Olivia squawks back to her - I definitely need to get this on video! Other ways to get Gracie to smile are tickling her belly, raising her up in the air, and just generally talking to her in a cheerful voice. I think she might be one of the happiest babies I've ever been around - of course I might just be a bit bias, but this picture speaks volumes! :)


In the sleep department Grace isn't doing as well, but I still can't really complain. She gets up most nights at some point to eat and generally again around 5. Then, she'll go back to sleep till 6:30 - or later if we're lucky! Napping continues to go well. Typically we get a really long morning nap, a shorter one in the afternoon, and then a little half hour snooze in the evening. I'm debating messing with the morning nap in order to get a longer afternoon one so that she's on track with Olivia, but I'm a little nervous to mess with the good that we've got now too! The weirdest thing Grace has done is to take crazy long naps at daycare - one that was 7 hours and another that was 6! As Grace has conquered her fingers, she's developed the habit of falling asleep with her middle two fingers in her mouth - it's odd, but pretty cute at the same time.


The transition to daycare went really well. Grace's happy disposition of course helped with this, and I didn't feel as much stress about the whole process as I thought I would. I think it really helped to have the transition be cushioned by some time just with family when I initially went back to work. Olivia is very loving to her sister while at daycare and if an almost two-year-old can be proud of a sibling, I think Olivia is. Daycare finally got her saying "Baby Gace" and more recently "Gacie."


Olivia and Grace's relationship is growing in such a fantastic way. Grace is now the first thing Olivia asks for in the morning. She's moved up in front of "milky," a major honor! :) And Olivia frequently says "baby old (hold) her," "baby lap," and "baby see." More frequently, Olivia has begun identifying Grace's emotions with "baby happy/sad/fuss." Olivia entertains Gracie on a regular basis as I already mentioned and always wants to have Grace watch her - this includes having Grace watch her while she sits on the potty. Olivia also carries her baby around on a regular basis and does the same things with her baby that I do with Grace.


Developmentally Gracie has gotten the hang of grabbing objects and bringing them to her mouth. She continues to roll from belly to back and is working at going from back to belly. However, I'm not going to make any predictions on when she's actually going to conquer that milestone as I tend to think things are going to happen much sooner than they do. She's become a pro at sitting in the bumbo seat and has just started trying out the exersaucer. She's holding her head really well in the baby bjorn, and I notice myself holding her a bit more on my hip than I used since she's getting more steady and strong in her trunk (although her favorite position is still facing out hanging). Grace is nearing the excessive drooling stage, so who knows - maybe a tooth will make it's appearance in the next month or two.


Overall, I couldn't be more pleased with how Grace and our family has progressed after 4 months as a family of four. Things have smoothed out into a generally peaceful routine, and I'm so looking forward to a fun summer together!

Baptism

This past weekend was Grace's baptism. Tara, Grace's aunt, served as Godmother, and Paul Berland, a family friend, as Godfather. Grace is lucky to have two such amazing people to watch over her in an extra-special way!


Our little girl held up fantastically during the service and actually seemed to enjoy the entire holy water experience. When we got home I was doubly impressed by her general calmness as her entire body was covered with heat rash most likely sparked by the itchy tag on the inside of her dress. She even tolerated being taken out into the 85 degree weather for a couple additional pictures before being changed into the softest cotton dress ever created (thank you Auntie T!).

During the service, Olivia provided some entertainment by repeating, "All done song," when we went up to the front of the church to introduce Grace and to request the baptismal rite. She also insisted we discuss the numerous people sitting "up high" (in the balcony) multiple times! Olivia is definitely at the stage where she won't stop repeating whatever it is she's saying until rightfully acknowledged - it's quite cute most of the times and somewhat ridiculous at others.


After the service, we had friends and family to our house for a little lunch. It was great to have everyone together for conversation, food, and laughter. The kids all played together so well, and I have another post in the making detailing the fun events of Memorial Weekend.

Thanks everyone for helping make Grace's day a special one!!!

Bathtime Bliss

One of Gracie's favorite daily activities is taking her bedtime bath. We got into this routine fairly early on in her life, and if it's possible for an almost four month old to look forward to something, I think Gracie looks forward to her bath! The moment we walk into the bathroom and I lay her down on the town, she is all smiles and little squeals! It's a great way to end the day with some nice, cheerful yet calming, one-on-one time with Grace.


Here's a couple of videos that do a decent job of showing Grace's excitement about bathtime. Next time I'll have to have Brian video for me so that there's not so much jostling of the camera as I try to maneuver both camera and baby!

The Fish Hatchery

One of hits of this summer is sure to be the Decorah Fish Hatchery. It's a pretty cool place, if you haven't been, and it's fantastic entertainment for little kiddos. These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago - Mother's Day weekend - when Chris, Beth, Max, and Mya were up for a visit.


We all braved the chilly temperatures early on in the morning while Gracie took her morning nap to head out to the Hatchery. As we passed by the bank, the thermometer read 42 degrees - thus you see the hats, red noses, and heavy sweatshirts! The cold didn't seem to bother the kids any though! They hopped out of the cars and headed up to the fish food machines with a certain sense of determination! Roger and Pat have probably bought at least 20 dollars of fish food so far this spring - they are accepting donations if you'd care to contribute to their fish fund! :)


The kids did great feeding the "fishies," and it was fun to watch them getting excited about all the flopping and splashing fish. Grandpa Roger clearly has visiting the hatchery down to a science as he knew exactly where to lead the kids so they could actually see the fish as they were throwing in the food. All the smiling and laughing nearly distracted Beth and I from our shivering! I truly think the kids would have stayed for much longer - despite the cold - if we would have let them. However, when Beth noticed Mya shaking as she tried to drink her juice box, we decided it was time to head out!

It was great that this past weekend the kids got to head out the the hatchery once again - this time loaded down with sunscreen as the temperature was near 80 degrees! Take care till next time "fishies"!


P.S. - As I download these pictures I couldn't help but shake my head in amazement at the change in temperature that's occurred these last couple of weeks. It's difficult for me to imagine that we were wearing hats and winter coats only a couple of weekends ago! Today it reached 90 degrees in Decorah and we had an early dismissal from school because it was boiling hot in our red brick building. My classroom by the end of the day was 82 and apparently it was 86 in the upstairs rooms! Tomorrow it's supposed to be even hotter until a thunderstorm blows in late in the day. Crazy!

Odds and Ends...

Just a few pictures and videos to fill you all in on some random things going on around here... By the way, I apologize for how high-pitched and annoying my voice sounds on video! :)

After playing outside all morning with daddy, Olivia fell asleep while eating lunch. I came downstairs after laying Grace down for a nap and Olivia was just sitting quietly in her seat eating, so I decided to get a bite to eat too. I figured I only had a couple of minutes before she started whining "all done mommy." I was just thinking "Wow, Olivia's really focused on eating" when Brian walked into the kitchen and started chuckling - I turned around and here's what I saw. Poor little thing...

Keeping Gracie company...


Jumping on daddy!

Mowing with daddy...
But no...the mower was not on - that would be too scary!

Tim - Brian's assistant coach - has the touch when it comes to Gracie!

Hanging out with Timmy on the couch!

A couple of videos of "Baby talkin'" as Olivia likes to say!

My Pal Elliot

One of the greatest things about the age that Olivia's at is that she has really started to play "with" instead of just alongside other kids. One of her newest pals is Elliot, affectionately called "Ellie." It's been great fun watching the friendship between these two grow the last couple of months! There have been many moments that Karen and I have said, "Where's the camera!" when we've been out walking or playing outside and catch Olivia and Elliot toddling around while holding hands and hugging and kissing goodbye!

Last week we had the men's tennis team over for dinner and Paul, Karen, and Elliot joined in too (thanks for the yummy brownies by the way!). This get-together allowed us to finally get some pictures of Olivia and Elliot playing. We're looking forward to many play-dates in the future and hopefully these two will continue to be such good buddies as they grow up! We're happy to continue the tradition of Berland - Huinker friendships (for those of you who don't know, Brian and Paul were buddies pretty much from the moment they were born!), and maybe someday we'll be taking prom pictures of these two! :)


These two were pretty bummed that we wouldn't let them go outside - they're favorite place to be of course! If you concentrate on their cute little faces, you won't notice all the smudges on my window!!! The consequence of having a little girl who's obsessed with going outside, looking outside, and smashing her face against the window while complaining about not being able to go outside!

Ring around the rosy...

We all fall down - and literally bump out heads...

Gracie getting some love.

No kisses this time, I guess.

Dancing, laughing, smiling, playing...

The smiles say it all, don't they!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!! I hope you all had as fantastic of a day as I did. A special thank you to my mom and Brian's mom for always being there for us and our children! We are so lucky to have to such amazing people in our lives!


Brian let me sleep in this morning - till 7:15 that is when Gracie began demanding that she eat RIGHT NOW! :) We had a good morning playing with Olivia while Gracie napped, and then we headed out to Oneota for Mother's Day brunch with Roger, Pat, Chris, Beth, and all the kids. The kids behaved wonderfully during breakfast, and Ba-pa rewarded them with rides in the golf cart afterwards! Olivia absolutely loved this and asked for "mor" and "muy" every time they stopped!



Both girls were very ready for a nap when we came home and neither put up any fight at all when we laid them down. Olivia ended up sleeping for 2.5 hours and Grace for 3! I gifted myself with a nap too! After Olivia woke up, Brian mowed the lawn while Olivia tentatively watched - she's a bit of a wimp with that sort of thing as many of you know, but I do have faith that by the end of the summer she'll be mowing right alongside her daddy!

Once Gracie was up, we headed down to the Whippy Dip for the first time this spring. It was the first time that Olivia's really shown serious interest in eating ice-cream. It was pretty cute to watch her learn how to lick her cone - I was actually pretty impressed that we didn't have too big of a mess after all was said and done, but, honestly, I've never seen anyone eat ice-cream as slowly as Olivia. I think our Whippy Dip excursion took almost an hour and we only live two blocks away! Gracie has a happy little camper during this little adventure and fell back asleep after a while. When we got home, Olivia, and I spent some time doing a little gardening. We planted the tomatoes, green peppers, and herbs. Everything will spending the nights inside though this week as it's supposed to be rather chilly - got down to 38 last night (yuck)!


Our day came to a close without any fuss and it was a very peaceful goodnight with both the girls. It was a perfect end to Mother's Day to put both the girls to sleep while getting some good cuddles at the same time. I feel so fortunate to have such an amazing family - both immediate and extended! Thank you Brian, Olivia, and Grace for making my day so perfect!