Paige is Five Months!

I'm not sure how it happened, but Paige turned 5 months old last Friday. I really want to freeze time. She's still pretty cuddly and I want to soak up every minute of that that I can.

She's also still a very happy baby. Brooke and Miles can make her laugh out loud better than anyone else (except maybe Mama).

She's doing better on her tummy. I've discovered that I get the best results from her when I roll up a dowel under her arms. She doesn't need it, but gets lazy fast if it isn't there. She's still rolling tummy-to-back. I called the Early Intervention people to refuse services and it turned out that she didn't qualify for PT, anyway.

It's a good thing that she's so cute and smiley during the day because she's a little more high-maintenance at night. Her most recent routine is to go to bed around 6:30, then to wake up around 11-11:30 and then again around 4 or 4:30. In her defense, I usually just feed her and haven't attempted sleep-training yet. To be honest, I'm not hating the one-on-one time. I also wouldn't hate a full nights' sleep, though...

She usually sleeps until around 8:30, which is very helpful for getting the other kids ready on school days. She eats around 9:30 then takes an hour or so long nap around 10 if we're home. She eats again around 1 then takes a nice, long nap (2-3 hours) around 1:30. Sometimes she catches one more quick nap early evening, but usually she sticks it out until bedtime. We'll probably try some solid food in the next couple of weeks.

Her baby hair is pretty dark, straight and spikey as you can see. We'll see how it ends up.

In the meantime, we're all going to enjoy spoiling our baby!

Weekend in St. Louis

Now that Lexi's in kindergarten and the other kids have started preschool, it's hard to find more than a few days at a time to get down to St. Louis. This past weekend, Matt was out of town on a golf trip, so I packed up the kids and Ozzie and headed down for a few days. Thankfully, we had smooth rides both ways and the kids were all pretty awesome. Miles had a few random screaming incidences and Paige pooped and cried both ways, but it was nothing that required stopping. Our big hiccup of the weekend was forgetting Blankie. Brooke cried herself to sleep the first night and I'll do everything within my power not to make that mistake again. Thank goodness the other two are thumb suckers.

On Saturday, we got to go to both Lexi's and Luke's soccer games. Lexi was really aggressive. Luke was more interested in playing on the baseball diamond with the other kids (in his defense, he woke up sick Sunday so he may have been starting to get sick then). At any rate, it was fun to see them both play.

We got to spend some time with Papa T and Grandma, too.

We spent the night at Papa T and Grandma's house on Saturday. That night we went to a carnival and saw some...interesting characters. Brooke loved all the rides she went on, as usual. Unfortunately, they were all too fast or spin-ny for me to get a good picture. Miles got off of the roller coaster after 2 times around and off of 2 other rides before they started due to being scared. Either he doesn't have Brooke's thrill-seeking gene or he has yet to discover it.

Paige enjoyed playing with Tim and Krissi's friends Lindsay and Brett while out to breakfast on Saturday.

We also spent some time at my grandparents' house.

I'm not sure who had more fun - the kids getting the candy or my grandpa giving it to them.

See you next month, St. Louis!

September Randoms

Here we are, almost done with September. Two weekends ago, we sent to our friends', the Tostos, lake house in Michigan. It was a lot of kids and not a lot of sleep. Oh and the high temperatures were in the low sixties, but we still managed to have a lot of fun.

When we got home that Sunday, Brooke and Matt went out to Medinah and "played" 6 holes. Brooke much prefers being on the course to lessons. Don't we all?

Grammie Deb and Grandpa Brian were out there so they stopped by to watch a hole or two, also.

We finished our last session at My Gym for now. It was getting too difficult to have all three kids in the sibling class and I think we're going to sign Brooke up for gymnastics next month.

 

These guys continue to love giving their baby sister attention.

Being silly at breakfast. I'm so sad that with the end of summer comes the end of good produce.

 

Conquering the rock at Atten Park. Brooke was terrified of this last year, so it's exciting to see her venturing out of her comfort zone.

I've been so busy making sure we get out to enjoy this beautiful weather that I've been bad about taking pictures. I'll try to get some more this week!

Lately (Sept. Edition)

I really love this picture of the three of them. Minus the pen marks on Miles' forehead. What can you do? Football season is back in full swing. Here's our annual "first game" picture with Matt. Hard to believe that our offspring has tripled since the first one four years ago.

Enjoying a little "after dinner" ice cream. Notice the ice cream all over Miles' shorts. Apparently I should have totally stripped him.

Watching TV after naps. Brooke had a blanket, so Miles went up and got his.

Watching a movie in our room (we seriously don't watch that much TV, that's just when they're contained and I have time to think about taking a picture). Brooke got under the covers like this so Miles followed suit.

I just wanted to post this to remember how cute and chubby Miles' feet are at this age. I cannot get enough of them. He took this picture, btw.

This pretty girl is fast approaching five months old. At her four month check, her height was in the 85% and her head circumference was in the 99% (yikes!) but her weight was only in the 25%. Long and lean?

There they go with the tongues again.

Cuddling with Daddy.

We've been using the Bumbo a bit more to help Paige work on her head strength, and be up and around us when we're doing things at the kitchen counter.

Making play dough!

Helping Paige with tummy time. They continue to be great with her - minus the expected fingers in the face and toys thrown on top of her - and she lights up when she sees them.

Quick Paige update before I forget for her 5-month post: At her four month appointment, the doctor was a little worried about her poor tummy time skills, the fact that she wasn't rolling, and her head shape, so she referred me to early intervention. Being an OT, I'm kind of embarrassed that I needed to call them, but I was hoping they'd have some ideas, and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any red flags for bigger issues. I was impressed with how quickly they acted. I met with the social worker within a few days and the PT and DT came out last week. Paige "barely" qualified and they said that it was largely due to her not rolling over and there being only a few milestones that she should have reached at this point. They said that if she progresses before our meeting at the end of the month, they'd be comfortable with me cancelling. They were able to see firsthand how good her coping skills are - she picks her head up, looks around, then lays it down to the side and sucks her thumb. Basically I just need to stay right on top of her and make sure she's extending that neck. And since they've been here, she's rolled a few times and has gotten visibly stronger (this picture was taken after several minutes, so not her best work), so I'm going to call and cancel the meeting and in the meantime do what they'd be doing - since that is what my degree is in and all. It was just good to hear that they didn't have any major concerns that I'd missed and that I wasn't not doing something obvious. Oh, and they didn't recommend a helmet. Yay!

Resting on Daddy.

Back to the big kids. We've moved the roller coaster outside and it's been lots of fun.

More fun outside on the new patio furniture. Notice the bug bite between Paige's eyes. Seriously, do mosquitoes serve any purpose whatsoever?

I'll try to get a few more posts up between now and the end of the month. Have a great rest of the week!