5 Months Old!

I guess the standard here is going to be to post about our baby girl's milestones at least 1/2 of a month late.  : /  I did, however, take her pictures on her 5 month birthday.  Go me!

Stats:
Weight: 15.8 lbs. (Between 50th and 75th percentile)
Height:  I honestly didn't take her height this month.  Oops.

At 5 Months:

• Carson still refuses to roll from her stomach to her back.  As soon as you put her on her back, she immediately rolls to her stomach.  This, unfortunately, leads to lots of screaming since she can't roll back over yet and it appears that she isn't too fond of this position.
• Carson has two bottom teeth.  Her brother already 4 teeth on the bottom at this point, so it looks like she won't have a whole mouth of chompers as quickly as Reed did.  She likes to chew on anything she can get her hands on.  Sometimes it's our fingers and goodness are her teeth sharp?! Ouch!  She sometimes gets a bite of her own fingers.  She doesn't like that so much.
• She started to get food during her 5th month.  We started off with rice cereal mixed with milk and then moved onto sweet potatoes.  I think she likes the sweet potatoes better than the cereal.
• She sits up pretty well but not great.  Any slight tilt to one side and she is laying sideways.
• She is still wearing some 6 months clothes but most of her clothes are 6-12 clothes.  She is a growing girl!
• She is wearing a size 3 diaper.
• She is a little chatter box.  There isn't much better than going in her room in the morning and her welcoming you with her sweet smile and voice.
• She is a stomach sleeper.  And she sometimes likes to sleep face down.  I do my best to turn her head, but she puts it right back where it was.
• We love, love, LOVE her!!

5 Months Old!

I am thinking she is going to have hazel colored eyes as well.

Look at those lashes!

Happy Birthday to Jesus, Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Reed's preschool had their annual Happy Birthday Jesus party in mid-December this year.  It really is one of the highlights of the season for me.  I love that we get together with our preschool friends to celebrate the real reason for the season.  It is so special to hear all the kids singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.  It truly makes my heart smile.  We had our own party for Jesus on Christmas morning.  I will post the video soon.

Visit with Santa!

He is obsessed!

Reed is definitely going through a Star Wars phase.  We took family pictures yesterday and he wasn't much for the camera, aside from the few times I allowed him to take a picture with his lightsaber.

Reed is 4.25 years old!

Whoa, we have a 4 year old!  I can't believe how big our little guy is getting.  He says things sometimes that give me a glimpse of him getting older and more mature and as excited as I get to see him learning and growing, it also makes me a little sad.  Even though I tell him that he will always be my little boy, it certainly want always be like it is now.  I just have to remember to soak it all in.

Stats:
Weight: 35 lbs.
Height: 42 in.

At 4 Months:

• Reed is one smart little cookie.  He can write all of his letters from memory, some better than others.  He has also learned my phone number, which I hope he will never need to use but I am glad he knows it.
• He loves to color and he is really good at it.  He is very particular about coloring angry birds, toy story characters, ninja turtles the right way.  Each piece of costume is colored the way that he has seen it and he gets angry if he messes up.  He usually does this from memory.  He loves for me to search the internet for whatever he might like to color, and then he spends 20 minutes scrolling through the google images to find just the right picture to color.
• He can be a total melt-my-heart, make-me-cry-he's-so-sweet kid.  Last night as we were in the car heading back to our house from Summerville, he asked if he could do the Buzz Lightyear thing when we got home.  He likes for Chris to lay on the floor while holding Reed up in the air by his feet (I have to hold his hands, of course!).  We told him that he would probably be asleep when we got home.  He was adamant that he would be awake.  Well, about 15 minutes later he said "Daddy, we'll have to do that thing tomorrow, because I am really sleepy".  Five minutes later, he was out, sawing logs.  Such a sweet boy.
• Favorite Color:  Red
• Favorite Food: Pizza and Ice Cream, although he never met a sweet he didn't like.  He also loves cheese quesadillas with black beans from Willy's.
• He is adored by all of his friends.  I have been stopped multiple times by either parents of kids in his class or parents of kids who he plays with on the playground with to tell me that their kid LOVES Reed.  It makes me so happy to hear that our little guy is loved by his peers.
• He loves playing good guy/bad guy.  Of course, he always has to be the good guy.
• He loves music and he loves to sing.  I have been on a country kick lately, so he has been learning a good many country songs.  It is so cool when he asks me to the turn the radio up, so he can hear the song and sing along to it.  His favorite song right now is "That's My Kind of Night" by Luke Bryan. "Floating down the Flint River, catch yourself a little catfish dinner, don't it sound like a winner, winner, lay you down and love you right.  Yeah, that's my kind of night."  Probably not the most appropriate lyrics for a 4 year old, but he loves the catfish dinner part, ha!  Zac Brown would not be pleased.
• He continues to have what some people call tantrums but we call outbursts.  This deserves a post all to itself.  I hope to sit down soon and write all about how these go down and how we are trying to deal with them, because I know that we are going to get past this and we will all laugh about how angry he used to get when he was 4.
• He is very into Ninja Turtles and Star Wars right now.

4 Months!

Carson was 4 months as of November 16th!  I have finally pulled myself out of the editing fog that I have been in and have a minute to write about our sweet girl.

Stats:
Weight: 13lbs. 15.8oz. (50th percentile)
Height: 24.5in. (50th percentile)

At 4 Months:

• Carson is a super happy baby.  She smiles at anyone that will give her a few moments.
• She is rolling from her back to her belly like a champ.  She started doing this at about 3 1/2 months.  She still refuses the belly to back roll.
• She adores Reed.  He can make her smile just by walking by.  It is the sweetest thing to see.
• Carson got her two front bottom teeth at about 3 1/2 months.  She likes to put anything and everything straight into her mouth and sometimes it is her fingers or ours, ouch!!
• During her 4th month we went in for a nasty cough.  It was nothing the first time, but when I took her back a few days later because it had gotten worse, it had turned into baby bronchitis.  Apparently, babies can't get bronchitis, but our pediatrician said that is what it was.  So, she was on antibiotics for just over a week and that knocked it out.
• She is back to sleeping so good.  We had a bought while she was sick and on the antibiotics where she was waking up multiple times a night, but that has subsided, phew.  It is hard to go back to waking up multiple times a night after getting a full night's sleep for so long, for me, not Carson, ha!
• She loves to be naked.  She gets so excited when we pull her clothes off and let her roll around in just her diaper before her bath.
• She loves hearing the sound her fingernails make when she scratches on things.
• We went through a short period where if we were not a home and someone else was holding her, she would make the most pitiful face and then start crying.  Poor thing.  The pediatrician said that this is completely normal.  We think we may have gotten her out of it by making sure we hold her for a bit to get her comfortable before passing her off.
• She still refuses to take a bottle, meaning I can only be away from her for a short amount of time. I am hoping that she is going to figure it out soon.
• She is not a very good napper.  It is rare for her to take two good naps every day.  She takes a few short naps but only if we hold her.  She will take a longer nap if we swaddle her.
• Girlfriend loves to be held.  It should come as no surprise that our house is usually in disarray and we have to eat takeout, because she refuses to let me put her down for longer than a few minutes.  Little stinker.
• She continues to be chatty.  She makes the cuteness little face when she is trying to talk.  I swear, I think she tried a "duh-duh" sound the other day.  I am sure she will probably say "dada" first.

4 Months!

Her trying-to-talk look.  So cute!

Not happy being held by someone other than mommy or daddy.

Sick little girl.  This is the first time she has actually acted sick.

Nothing sweeter.

Teeth!

Carson with her Great-Grandmother, who absolutely adores her.

Pumpkin Patch

Yes, I do realize that we are approaching Thanksgiving and I am just now posting pumpkin patch pictures.  If I am lucky, I might post some Halloween pictures before Christmas.  Life is super busy right now with two awesome kiddos (one who is craving as much attention as possible and the other who does not want to be put down), one husband who is working constantly (I thought we left that behind) and my photography business.

In the midst of my favorite season, which happens to be the busiest season, we managed to sneak away to a pumpkin patch one weekend.  I was so excited to take pictures of both our kiddos at the pumpkin patch for the first time.  I opted to go to a place that we have never been before.  I was so disappointed in their mini pumpkin patch.  Thankfully, you can't tell how small it was from the pictures.

Getting two kiddos to look at the camera at the same time is an act of congress.

And I have yet to figure out that process.  Ha!

Chatty Carson!

Everett

Everett Bruner, daughter of our dear friends Kelly and Bo and baby sister of Brick and Thatcher, went to heaven to be with The Lord on Friday.  I cannot imagine the pain our sweet friends are feeling.  Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate life without their precious baby girl.