Today we were surprised by the early arrival of a new niece. Jeff and Tach welcomed their third child today, three weeks early. She is a healthy 6 lbs 10 oz girl named Reese…no middle name yet. We’re excited to meet her soon!
Reese Root
The recent bad news that we’ve had is that my maternal Grandma, Dorthula Hershberger, died yesterday. She has had many health problems for ten years now and she recently had pneumonia and did not recover from it. Audrey and I are going to be driving with my sister Anne up to Indiana for the funeral later this week.
I’m working to become more proficient with video so here is another recent clip. I needed proof that Audrey can roll over because she never seems to do it when her dad is around. Every day I can’t get over how amazing she is.
Today is a big day. Ever since Audrey was sick she hasn’t been sleeping as well. She wants to eat every 2-3 hours day and night. The daycare staff also commented that she has seemed hungrier so maybe she’s going through a little growth spurt. Anyhow, we decided to go ahead and try some rice cereal this morning before church. The following video demonstrates what Audrey thought of that….
We’re not sure if she ended up getting any inside of her. She was pretty interested in the spoon…although right now she is interested in anything that she can put in her mouth. After she ate we made it to church and through church without many problems. Tonight we’re going over to Aunt Anne’s and Uncle Brian’s to hang out and to meet the newest member of their family, a dog named Avery. And that’s all the excitement here.
I am a little obsessed with videos right now. I just feel sad for all you far away family and friends who don’t get to see Audrey regularly. I also know that videos won’t make up for that, but at least you can see her in action a little bit. So here she is talking. I wish that I could somehow mute my voice out of it, but I’m not that technologically advanced.
In the rest of life, it is finally getting a little cooler here. We’ve been working on weeding a lot and hopefully will finish putting down wood chips in the next two weeks depending on weekend weather. Both Audrey and I are feeling better but she still hasn’t settled into the nice sleep routine she had been in before she was sick. We’re still hoping…
Life has thankfully settled down and we are more in a routine now. Audrey and I have both been sick with colds for the last week and that kind of shook things up…particularly the night time schedule. But we’re getting better and I have hope that her sleep will return to what it was before she was sick. I have been trying for two weeks to get a video of Audrey rolling over…exciting stuff, right? But instead, since the little one doesn’t want to cooperate, I have Audrey laughing, talking and holding her head up. We’re trying to figure out the best way to get video into our blog so this post starts with Audrey laughing. I think that it’s set up so that if you click on the title of this post it will take you to a place where you can see the video.
Today (Sunday) Audrey had a play date with two other little baby girls. My friends Mary Katherine and April both have baby girls. Sydney is six weeks old and Piper is five months. Audrey celebrated her first play date by smiling at Piper for about five minutes and then sleeping for the next two and a half hours. Sydney slept most of it too…it was definitely more of a play date for the moms.
While we were playing Chris was working on some furniture building. He built a shelf system for his DVDs upstairs. It was not from our favorite new website, he used his very own design, and we’re excited to be able to fit everything he has on shelves now. Unfortunately the pictures that I took of the play date and furniture building are two big to put on the blog. And I’m not feeling energetic enough to do what I need to do to make them smaller so instead you’re just going to get some pictures of Audrey. Big surprise I’m sure
Today Audrey turned three months old! She is growing so fast, it seems like she is growing and learning new things by the day. She has been working hard at rolling from her stomach to her back. She has been doing it a few times a day recently but then I’ll try to have her perform for Chris and she won’t do it. Every time she rolls she either smiles and is pleased with herself or she looks really surprised like she has no idea how that just happened. She is smiling, cooing and laughing more and more. She goes between being a very happy baby to a quiet serious baby, with a little furrow between her brows. She is reaching for toys and just showing lots of interest in the world around her.
Her unofficial three month measurements are 23 inches long and between 11-12 pounds.
I am officially working four days a week now which gives me a little more time home with her. She is only going to daycare two days a week (part time) and that feels a lot better. She seems fine there and I go and see her at least once during the day when she’s there.
We had some family pictures done over the weekend. We found someone on craigslist who was doing affordable half hour sessions downtown. Here’s a few!
I’m working on a new hobby. One that I never really thought much of until Erin introduced me to a website that I have become slightly obsessed with. I want to have everything on it…which means that I need to learn how to build. The website is www.knock-offwood.com. Ana White develops plans for building furniture that you can find in stores such as Pottery Barn and West Elm. I looked on the website and fell in love with about every piece of furniture on there. And in all honesty it didn’t look that hard to build things either. I just don’t know how to. So I enlisted Chris after picking one of the easiest looking pieces as my first project.
We are without a saw at this time because our miter saw was stolen from our old house (shed). We had the wood cut at Home Depot and came home on Sunday to put together a console table. Chris taught me how to use the countersink drill bit and it all went pretty smoothly, except a broken drill bit on the first hole I tried to drill. I also misread the plans and we had to make a small adjustment. Even with all of that we were able to put together the table in about an hour. The sanding and staining took a little longer but by the end of the day we had a table. I’m thrilled to have a place to put our mail and keys when we come in the door and I have a little more confidence to start a bigger project. It is also fun that this was something that Chris and I enjoyed doing together. With Audrey’s help of course.
Chris
Sarah
Audrey
Console table
Console table
Not much else is going on. I’m back at work although it looks like I’m going to go down to working four days a week for at least a little while. That way Audrey will only need to go to daycare two days a week. She’s working on rolling over this week and has done it three times. She seems surprised every time that it happens.
I have now finished my first week back at work. It’s been a tiring (both emotionally and physically) week but we got through it and I think it can only get better from here. Monday was my first day back and Chris was off that day so Audrey got to stay home with him. I had been dreading the thought of leaving Audrey for a whole day because I hadn’t been away from her for more than 2-3 hours before. But my first day back went pretty well. It was fun to see my co-workers again and I felt productive and more like my old self. Chris and Audrey came up to visit me around lunch so that I could feed her and it was a nice day. The next day I had to take Audrey to day care and that was a whole different story. When I dropped her off the first time I could hardly stop crying. Since the day care is about a two minute drive from my office I went over there in the morning and afternoon to feed her but it was hard to see and leave her that many times. She went to day care two other days and then I just went once to feed her and that was a little easier. She was a pretty good sleeper all week but I was super tired by the end of the week. The weekend has been great. At work our census is down and it looks like we will be flexing a day a week…right now that sounds pretty good to me.
I don’t have any great pictures from this week but I’ll put a few in from the end of our North Carolina trip. We had a great time at Holden Beach, being with family and just spending time relaxing together. Audrey finished the week with zero sunburns so I think the trip was a success.
We have continued our travels and are spending the week in Holden Beach, NC with family. Audrey has now visited seven states in her nine weeks. This is my last week of maternity leave and I’m really trying to make the most of it. We’ve been playing on the beach, playing games and just having a great time. Chris has been a little under the weather yesterday and we’re hoping it passes soon. He has his heart set on doing lots of fishing and caught a small shark two days ago.
Fishing
Grandpa and Caleb fishing
He’s also been metal detecting the beach and has found an assortment of goods.
Josh and Chris searching for treasure
Audrey has put her feet and legs in the edge of the ocean. She liked her feet in the water and did not like her legs…however she was just waking up from a long nap when I dunked her bottom half in For the most part she has been sleeping down by the beach, under a tent, to protect her porcelain skin.
First time in the ocean
Getting a little more wet
Beach Girls
Aunt Anne and Audrey
With Aunt Rebecca
Cousin Anita
Mermaid Naomi
Anita and Aunt Erin
Rebecca and Keith kayaking
Audrey sunbathing (in the shade)
She has been a super sleeper this week and I’m hoping it’s her growing up and not the beach air and sun. She’s slept about 6 hours the last three nights, nursed, and gone right back to sleep for about 3 hours. She’s having a great time with her cousins and Caleb has become her best friend. She smiles and talks with him. Yesterday, I tried to see if she would look at me when Caleb and I were with her together and she just gazed away at Caleb as happy as could be. I told everyone it might have been the best day of her life with how happy she was.
Audrey and I just got back from a rather impromptu trip to Michigan. I decided about a week and half before we left that it was silly to be off of work for ten weeks and not go to Michigan. My sister, Anne, who lives in Chattanooga is a teacher and has summers off so we decided to travel together for the week. Best decision ever!!! The weather was beautiful compared to what it has been like here. Plus Audrey is a super traveler at this age. She loves her car seat and didn’t seem to have any problems riding 10 hours either way.
We spent the first several days with Dad and Marcea. They are having house renovations done and wanted to protect us from the dust and chemicals so we stayed at a family friend’s home. They have three girls who were home for the summer. Two are in high school and one finished her first year at college. I actually babysat for these girls ten years ago and it was fun for me to get to spend some time with them and see how they have changed (and stayed the same). Audrey got plenty of attention and was spoiled by being held a lot. She also went swimming in their pool with her Uncle Josh. As Josh has three children of his own he wasn’t quite as cautious as I was about getting her wet…not that he dunked her or anything. He knew she would be interested in the light patterns on the floor of the pool so he held her facing the ground and she was fascinated for longer than I would have expected.
Napping with Manu
Talking with Wafu
We then spent the next two days with Mom and Paul. One of my best friends from college came down with her husband to see us and to meet Audrey. I also took Audrey over to the parent’s of my best friend from high school…and found out she would be home from Chicago the next day. We missed each other in Michigan by about 10 hours. Which is what I get for not talking to her more often We had dinner with Josh, Erin and the kids and got to see Jon for a little while. Otherwise we were pretty lazy.
With Grandma
Trying to get her thumb
Seven Weeks Old
Seven Weeks
Enjoying the beautiful Michigan weather with Aunt Anne
With Me
Smiles
Audrey is definitely smiling more, making more eye contact and cooing at us. She also has been sleeping in her crib which was something I really was hoping for. The swaddling seems to be working. She is pretty good at still wiggling her arm out if she really wants it because her typical sleep position is with both arms up by her ears. We think she’s pretty cute.
I don’t have any pictures today, but just some updates on how Audrey is growing. She had her six week check up today and is doing great. She is now 21 1/2 inches tall, weighs 9 lbs 7 ounces and has a head circumference of 15 inches…all in the 50th percentile so she is well proportioned.
She got three shots at the appointment, and did not do so well with that. The first one she cried for a second and calmed down. The second she started shrieking and would not stop. And the third took her breath away. She turned bright red and cried one of those silent cries for longer than I thought possible. We stayed in the room for a little while so I could try to calm her down and she just kept crying and crying. The doctor even came back in to check on her because she was so upset (and so high pitched!). As soon as she was buckled into the car she settled down and has been sleeping since. She really loves her carseat.
Overall the doctor was happy with her progress. She said not to worry too much about her not wanting to sleep on her back, but to just keep working on it a little bit every day by trying to get her used to her crib and her room. She also suggested that we could try swaddling again…which we might but Audrey would protest it so much the last times that we tried that I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Good news and bad news
Today we were surprised by the early arrival of a new niece. Jeff and Tach welcomed their third child today, three weeks early. She is a healthy 6 lbs 10 oz girl named Reese…no middle name yet. We’re excited to meet her soon!
Reese Root
The recent bad news that we’ve had is that my maternal Grandma, Dorthula Hershberger, died yesterday. She has had many health problems for ten years now and she recently had pneumonia and did not recover from it. Audrey and I are going to be driving with my sister Anne up to Indiana for the funeral later this week.
I’m working to become more proficient with video so here is another recent clip. I needed proof that Audrey can roll over because she never seems to do it when her dad is around. Every day I can’t get over how amazing she is.