Playing Catch-Up!

Because it's yucky out, because my sister's "catch-up" post to her blog inspired me, and because Addie is FINALLY taking longer than 20 minute naps, I am going to play catch up on my blog.  :)

Like my sister's household, a LOT has been happening around here as well.  Unlike my sister, I have gone almost three months without posting something, she only went one...  Yes, I feel like a slacker and have guilt for not logging Addie's growth and accomplishments, but I'm back, and hopefully this time it's for good!

So where to begin?!  We have had so many events since my last post.  We had her first birthday party that she attended, her first Thanksgiving, her first Christmas and New Years, and we have moved!  We discovered at her cousin Greyden's birthday party that Addie LOVES loud noises, bright lights, and tissue paper.  She was a party animal!  I was so worried that all of the people and the toys that Greyden got would scare her but she would try to walk to them to get them! (let's remember that she was only about 2.5-3 months at the time...I think we're going to have an early walker, Lord help me)  I, of course, was holding her up, but she would put one foot in front of the other to get to his new toys.  At the end of the evening I had her facing outward on my hip, because Addie always has to be able to see what's going on of course, and she fell asleep on me!  Like I said, party animal!

We worked so hard on Grey's Bday cake and his smash cake...

Then when he was presented with he, he was scared of it...
and wouldn't touch it.  Not even the Elmo cake. *Sigh*

She did really well with Thanksgiving too!  There were tons of people and she just sat back and watched them.  Of course, she spent a large chunk of time sitting on her Grandpa Walther's lap watching football, but that's besides the point.  Christmas and New Years was fun for her as well.  The highlights from Christmas for her were of course, watching (and participating in) all of the unwrapping of presents, and going to all of her family Christmases.  We made it to both Grandparent's Christmases, her Great Grandma Barnes' Christmas, and Greg's Mom's family Christmas.  I was shocked that she did so well being carted all over.  But she is our little trooper.  We spent New Years at the Hockenberry's new house in Brighton, MI.  YAY MI!  (Sidenote: SOOOO happy they live closer now!)  Addie went to bed around 8pm as usual and she even let Greg and I watch the ball drop, give each other a smooch, and down a glass of champagne before waking up at 12:03am to be fed.

Grandma and Addie are all smiles!

Hmm, not sure how thrilled she was about this outfit.
Although once she caught a glimpse of her patent leather shoes,
she wouldn't take her eyes off of them.  

Santa was nice enough to leave us one of his elves!

How sad is it that the only picture I have from
New Years is our ginormous spread of food...for 6 people.
That's how we Shagenes Roll!

We moved into our new home prior to coming to Cass City for the holidays so we were excited to get settled into it in the New Year.  Things have been really coming along since we've been back.  We have most things in their place but I still have to get Addie's room done.  I can't quite decide how I want to decorate it so that is my biggest hangup.  Plus, she's still sleeping in our room so I'm not in a huge rush.

Addie is almost 5 months old already.  Where did all of the time go?!  She has had so many changes since last time I posted.  She is now actively playing with her toys and grabbing things.  Everything she touches goes into her mouth though, so that's fun.  She is almost sitting up on her own and we're still working on the crawling position.  She still loves to stand all of the time and will walk while I'm holding her.  She also supports herself on her legs all by herself.  She may skip the crawling stage all together, who knows?!  She plays in her exersaucer and loves to bounce in her jumparoo.  She's still a little small for her exersaucer seat so we have to stuff a hand towel around her.

We discovered Addie liked shiny tinfoil...so we
improvised a mirror on her Jumparoo.  She loved it.

Addie has also started babbling more.  The most recent addition to her vocabulary, if you could call it that, is making raspberries with her lips.  She does this all the time and spits everywhere when she does it.  We think that she maybe picked it up from us blowing on her belly like that.  Greg and I had a discussion that maybe we shouldn't encourage this but always catch each other mimicking her when she does it, thus encouraging her.  haha.  It's harder than you think not to repeat what she does back to her!  We think that it won't be long now until she starts trying to say words.  Very exciting!

Another first is that Addie ate solid foods at 4.5 months!  We started her on sweet potatoes and she loved them!  (Sidenote: Greg and I, being the dorky new parents that we are, had a moment marveling at the site of her orange poo the next day.  Our little girl is growing up!)  She ate about a tablespoon at her first sitting and kept going back for more.  Her little digestive system, however, didn't like them as much as she did, and the doctor suggested giving her bananas to help with her loose stool.  The only banana I had was a yellow, not so ripe banana, and Addie was not a a fan.  You'd think I was trying to poison her with the look she gave me.  She even shuddered after taking a bite!  We then tried oatmeal flakes mixed with breastmilk to help coat her belly, which she loved, but also had a tough time digesting.  Our new pediatrician is now recommending that we hold off on  solids until she's 6 months and her digestive system is more mature.  I'm FULLY on board with that one.  I'm not sure if I'm ready to handle big girl poops yet anyway...

Yummy! I love my sweet potatoes!

Whoa Dad!  Too close!

We went through quite a stint there where Addie was not sleeping well at all.  She had gone from sleeping a full 6 hours, waking up to eat, then sleeping 3-4 more hours, waking up, then sleeping a couple more hours, at 3.5 months, to waking up every 1.5-2.5 hours for almost a month straight.  We are still not sure if it was because of all of the chaos of us packing up our house and moving, traveling to, from, and around Michigan, her reflux, or a combination of everything.  She was sleeping in her Pack-n-play and napping in her crib when things got really bad.  She would only nap for a short 20-30 minutes three times a day and would wake up at night all the time.  At times she would wake up from a nap or sleep with a scream, which we later attributed to her refulx.  After realizing that it was probably the reflux that was causing her sleeplessness, she is now sleeping soundly again propped up in her swing to nap and in her rock-n-play for bedtime.  We were about at our whits end so thank goodness this worked.  I guess the moral of the story for us new parents was that, if something is working, don't try to change it unless you have to.  She's back to waking up only twice a night from 8pm-7:30am.  Woohoo!

Four Months Baby!