Amélie

My baby is growing up so quickly.  I  love watching her grow and learn new things each day but it sure makes me sad how fast it is going by; it makes me want to have a ton of kids so I can always have a baby!  Babies are so much fun!

This little girl is still pretty small compared to other babes her age.  She had her 4 month check up yesterday (she is almost 5 months, we are running a little behind schedule on her appointments).  I thought it'd be interesting to compare Amélie and Jordan's stats at 4 months.

Weight:  Amélie 11.8 lbs - 4%,      Jordan 13.8 lbs - 49%

Length:  Amélie 22 inches - 40%,  Jordan 24 1/2 inches - 60%

Head:     Amélie 38 cm - 23%,       Jordan 40.2 cm - 30%

As you can see Amélie is on the very low end of the weight chart.  The doctor said that we will keep and eye on it but as of right now she is not concerned because Amélie has had a steady increase in weight and she looks very proportional.  She's just a long, skinny little thing.  I wish everyone could meet her!

Painting accident

So much for Jordan and I trying to paint our nails today.  I'm still working on trying to get this off the carpet, my shirt, my arm and the table.  Maybe this needs to remain an outdoor activity?  SO FRUSTRATING!

More cacahiya please?

This is how things happen a lot at our house.  It's perfect to put Amélie in her Bumbo seat and set her on the table during meals so she can be part of the family.

We've offered a reward to Jordan for having 100% accident free days when it comes to going potty and that reward is this tasty chocolate cereal with marshmallows.  Jordan loves it and is always asking for "caca-hiya" (translate as chocolate cereal).

Today when her friend was over I put two potties in the bathroom so they could each use one (you know, power of suggestion, or maybe it's just that peer influence).  When Melody's mom went in to help she found poop in one potty so she went to have her daughter use the other one and there was poop in there too.  I guess Jordan decided halfway through that she needed to switch potties?  I wonder what gave her that idea but it certainly cracks me up whenever I think about it.

A favorite

I was going through some old text messages the other day and came across one from my mom that was typed as though it were from Jordan and it said something like "Hi Meemee!  I miss you and I'm so excited to come see you and Daddy and my new sister!"  I had to read it a few times to figure out the Meemee part and it made me sad that I had already forgotten that it was Jordan's way of saying Mommy so I'm putting this on here so that I won't forget again!

It was so funny because she used to only call me Momma but one day she started saying Meemee and it took us a week or two to figure out why she was calling me Meemee.  Brandon was the one who figured it out.  He and Jordan were in the car and after he said Mommy, she repeated "Meemee."  Duh!  It took us too long to figure that one out, how frustrating I'm sure it was for her.

Amélie

This little one is so smiley, so talkative and so much fun to have in our lives.  We love her so much!

Like any baby, she loves to be naked.  And just like her sister did, she LOVES her changing table!

I've been trying to get started using cloth diapers again.  With Jordan, I was so excited to start using them that I started before we even came close to running out of disposables.  I was so excited that I apparently was easily able to overlook the frequent leaks as I adjusted to having to change diapers three times as often and I didn't mind the smell that overtook her room and the extra laundry.  This time around, however, I am really struggling to look past all of that!  It is getting better as I get used to them but it still is such an adjustment.  I have learned a little trick that seems to keep the smell down in her room and that is VERY helpful!  And I've begun doing a load of laundry every day and that really helps me to keep up on everything, including diapers. So that's not so bad.  And the leaks have really seemed to be less once I accepted that I need to change her more often and figured out a new way to place the inserts.  So I guess it's really not terrible.  I'm really learning to like them again although I'm not sure I'll ever be as gung-ho about them as I was in the very beginning.  I have no idea why I just went on about that!  But one more thing:  I forgot how BIG cloth diapers make a baby's butt look!  It's so goofy looking!!

I have my computer back out in the main living area (I had moved it into our bedroom but realized it was so hidden away that I wasn't uploading pictures or blogging very often at all...out of sight, out of mind.) so hopefully that means I'll be more consistent with my blogging again!

Earrings & Tapout

About a month and a half ago one Saturday, we had a wedding to go to in the morning and a UFC fight card to watch in the evening.  I wanted the girls to wear their TAPOUT gear that day for the fights but wasn't so sure about it for the wedding but I didn't want to change them midday so I decided to dress up the outfit by giving Jordan some fancy hair and clip-on earrings.  She looked so cute!

Then, on a whim, we decided we should get her ears pierced!  On the way home from the wedding, we stopped at the mall and got them pierced.  It was such a quick decision, which is usually not at all how we do things but it's one that I don't regret.  Jordan has done so well, and they look so good on her!  During the piercing, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout when the first side was done, then after side two the pain really "kicked in" and she started crying, then the lady asked her if she wanted a sucker and she stopped crying and sucked away on her sucker.  We looked in the mirror and she was super proud and that was pretty much the end.

Here is the real thing:

And here is my sweet baby in her Tapout.

more quick Jordan stories

Yesterday Jordan really wanted to go outside.  I let her know that she needed to eat lunch and take a nap first then promised she could go outside when she woke up.  She obliged.  When I heard her awake after her nap I opened the door to her room and she came running out heading to the back door and shouting "Outside!  Outside!"  I started laughing then quickly reminded her that she had to get some shoes on first.  She has always been such a lover of the outdoors.  Sometimes when she'd be crying when she was a baby and I couldn't figure out what was wrong I would just take her outside and she would immediately stop and be perfectly content the entire time we were out there.

This morning I was cleaning Jordan's face after breakfast when I hear "...two, three, four."  and see her moving her little pointer finger along.  She was counting the pieces of cereal that had fallen into her bib and when I looked in there, sure enough, there were four pieces.

This kid loves cheese.  She asks for it at nearly every meal and at random times throughout the day.  She will sneak it off the counter whenever she can.  I often times find her stealing grated cheese off the plate that I've kept a little too close to the counter's edge.  This particular day she went straight for the block of cheese.  I turned around to this:

Bare-bottomed Butterfly

Jordan got this adorable butterfly wing headband from a good friend of mine along with a super cute butterfly outfit.  Jordan has taken quite the liking to the headband and wears it often.  This day in particular as I was getting her dressed for the day and was still in the process of taking her jammies off when she asked for the headband.  After I put it on her head she took off running through the house...bottomless.

She got quite the kick out of it.  So did I!

But how could I not?  Just look at her!

Bogart's bath

We give Bogart a bath and wash his bedding the first weekend of every month.  He always feels so refreshed and energetic afterwards.  Brandon took a video of it this morning that is pretty funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhr8CjZaeXY&feature=player_embedded

new stuff

I just imported pictures from my camera to the computer and realized I have LOTS to blog about and that's not all: I have stories to share that I don't have pictures of.  I won't bombard this blog post with everything.  I'm hoping to be able to do one post a day and get caught up.  I'll just go in the same order they were taken.

These two can have so much fun out in the yard doing absolutely nothing but just walking around.

We really have no yard toys just that rocket in the first picture and the bike in this picture but neither really get played with since they are too hard to get going on grass and we have very little side walk in the backyard.  When we are out on the main sidewalk we have a better bike (we got the red, blue & yellow one) with a 5-point harness and a handle for me to be able to push until Jordan learns to pedal.  It's awesome.  But usually when we are on the main sidewalk going for a walk we take the double jogging stroller.  The awesome bike normally gets used when we are walking the trail because it's easier to pack into the car and Amélie is perfectly fine riding in the Moby wrap (which is also totally awesome.  I used a Baby Bjorn with Jordan but the Moby is SO. MUCH. BETTER.)  Wow, I really didn't mean to get off on all of that.  The whole point was that we don't have any outdoor toys besides the rocket & bike that are difficult to play with in the backyard so it really makes Jordan have to use her imagination.  For now she is perfectly happy walking around the yard with Bogart on her heels.  She also has a huge bucket full of dirt (well, it used to be full, most of it has gotten scattered here and there throughout the yard) and some smaller pails and a shovel that she loves to play in like one would a sandbox.  I'm planning on giving her her own plot in the garden to see what she can grow...once the weather actually gets warm enough to plant anything!  They pushed back our Farmer's Market so it won't start until July this year.

We've enjoyed a few warm days lately.  We got to eat lunch outside one day!  AND I've been able to hang my laundry on the line twice now!