Thanksgiving Trip

Well, we survived our trip to PA and OH for Thanksgiving. It was a great vacation, but we are all glad to be back home. When all was said and done we had a little over 24 hours of total driving time (excluding all stops). That was A LOT of time spent in the car with a 4 month old, but Hannah did great. We estimate that she maybe cried a toatal of 2.5 hours the entire trip when you add up all of her unhappy times and at least a 1/2 hour of that she had a confirmed poopy diaper that we had no where to stop and change until we made it to the next rest stop. I can't blame her for crying that time. I'd cry too if I was stitting in poop! I must admit that the entire trip went much smoother than I expected. I was definitely happy to be wrong about my predictions on that! :)

We started off the first leg of the trip by driving to Ohio to stay at Baba's. Hannah had a blast there. She got to visit with her great grandma (Baba), her Pap (Barney) and Mindy, and her Uncle Kevin. Baba of course spoiled her rotten by holding her and giving her lots and lots of attention! Baba also gave her a brand new snowsuit and some baby clothes that used to be Kyle's when he was little! Hannah watched the Ohio State/Michigan game on Saturday and really enjoyed herself (That girl loves her football!) except for all the times Barney, Kyle, Kevin let out shouts because of good plays. I think they scared her so bad that they made her cry no less than 3 times!

From Ohio, we drove to Cressona, PA to visit Kyle's Uncle Ted. This was Ted's first time meeting Hannah and he commented on how alert she was (man if we only had a dollar for every time we heard that!). Hannah also got to meet her 2nd cousins John and Sabrina for the first time. Kyle and I hadn't seen them since our wedding so we were glad to get to see them. From Cressona we drove to St. Clair, PA to stay with Kyle's Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Bonnie. While there we got to see Kyle's two cousins plus Sean's 3 kids as well as Pop, and Dot and Tom. The house was very busy while we were there, but Hannah got TONS of attention so she didn't mind one bit! From St. Clair we drove to Hershey, PA for Thanksgiving Day at Kyle's Uncle Brian and Aunt JoAnn's house. While there Hannah got even more attention from two of Kyle's cousins (Sarah and Catherine). We had ready made babysitters whenever we needed them! From Hershey we drove back to OH to spend the night at Baba's then on to home the next day. It was a LONG trip, but it was so great to see everyone and we were glad that they all got to meet Hannah in person.

During the trip Hannah continued to work hard on rolling over from her tummy to her back, but she is still unable to do it. Hannah also continued to practice eating her baby cereal and is coming right along in that department. She's eating it much thicker now and even ate an entire bowl of it for Baba! Since there wasn't room to take the highchair in the car we used her stroller as a make-shift highchair during the trip and it worked pretty well. One weird thing that we discovered on our drive was my amazing ability to put Hannah to sleep without doing anything. At times Hannah would grow tired of being in the car and would begin to scream. I would turn around in my seat, put her pacifier in her mouth and hold it there for less than a minute and Hannah would instantly fall asleep! It was like pushing an off button! It was the weirdest thing we have ever seen. This DOES NOT work outside of the car, but thankfully for us it did work during our many drives. Even as we came to expect it and Kyle would be counting down the seconds until she was asleep, it would still always take us by surprise and freak us out a little bit because it was such an abrupt change. Screaming to sleep in 3.0 seconds with no in between! WEIRD!

Big Girl

Hannah is turning into such a big girl. Last night she had her first meal of solid food, very watered down baby rice cereal. She sat in her highchair at the table for the first time and opened her mouth up for the spoon like a pro! All things considered, it was a relatively clean and uneventful process. I knew she would be interested in food, but I had no idea that she would just know to open up her mouth for the spoon!

OK, I'm back several days later. Hannah interrupted the post and then life just happened! Just got done feeding Hannah another meal of cereal and she loved it! She ate alot and is really getting the hang of swallowing it too. Much less messy than the first time for sure! Hannah's been doing lots of big girl things lately. She's riding in her new car seats like a pro although it sure is a pain to get her in and out of them! I miss being able to just pick up the seat and take it out of the car with her still asleep! Ah, those were the days :) She's also riding in the big girl part of the stroller and really likes it. Today we took her to Walmart and we had to take the stroller in with us b/c I didn't want to carry her the whole time and I don't think I quite trust her in the front of the cart. Speaking of sitting in a cart, she did sit in a restaurant highchair on Friday and did quite well. We padded it up a bit with blankets to make her fit a bit better, but really I was surprised she could keep herself up with so little support for the entire meal. She's getting much stronger

Lately Hannah has been working VERY hard to roll over from her tummy to her back. She's like a machine. Every time we lay her on the floor on her back she immediately rolls onto her tummy and then tries and tries to roll back over onto her back. She's so close, but just can't quite do it. She doesn't like to be helped either. It's no good if Mom or Dad rolls her over. She MUST do it by herself. She's a bit obsessed with this I think. Friday night when we put her down to bed I heard her making weird noises so I went in to check on her and she had rolled onto her stomach in her crib! Each time I put her back on her back she would roll right back over. UGH! This scares me that she's able to roll on her mattress now b/c she since she can't get herself off of her belly I'm afraid she might suffocate in bed and we won't hear her. Very scarey.

Today we bought her a bunting suit to wear for her trip to PA. The trip is coming up soon and I still have to get her some more long sleeved onesies, a winter hat, and mittens. I'm also looking for some more Sassy toys to keep her busy in the car for the drive.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1326577827995150147&hl=en Here is a video of Hannah petting our cat, Penny. She really does love her kitty cats.

I'm back again after a several day hiatus. Hannah really doesn't want me to finish this entry! Here's another video. This one is of Hannah's first meal of solids in her highchair.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2138763262574598393&hl=en

This is a video of Hannah attempting to roll over from her belly to her back. The poor thing just can't seem to get the hang of it and it really frustrates her. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6226218425442246464&hl=en

This final picture is of Hannah sitting in a pile of leaves from our yard. I got this crazy idea that I wanted to take a picture of her every fall in the leaves. She wasn't so happy about the photo shoot, but at least it was memorable.

We eliminated Hanna's 5:00 am feeding because the doctor told her she was too big of a girl to be getting up so early for a bottle. At first she didn't take to the idea very well. She was just so used to getting up at 5:00 and having her Daddy time, but now she's getting the hang of it and has been letting me sleep until 8:00 in the mornings! YEAH for that! Now that we are slowly moving Hannah to 4 hours between bottles we've upped her amount each bottle to 6 ounces. We seem to be getting a bit more spit up than usual, but nothing like before the formula with rice starch! Really, there's not much we can do about the bigger meals because the doctor said she needs to be moving towards going 4 hours between bottles during the day, but he also said not to let her total formula intake decrease now that she's on solids and he also said to get rid of that early morning feeding. So, we really have no choice, but to up her ounces per bottle. She's really not super fond of extending the time between feedings, but it's hard for me to tell if she's really still hungry every 3 hours or if she's just used to eating that often like she was with her 5:00 feeding.

Well, we leave tomorrow for our trip to PA. Wish us luck that we can manage a crazy long drive with a 4 month old!

New Toy

Let me just say that I continue to HATE daylight savings time. I was never a fan of it and strongly opposed to Indiana switching to it whatever time zone we aligned with, but now that it is here and probably here to stay it continues to give me nothing but problems. Hannah absolutely cannot adjust to this time change. Her routine is still all out of whack! I've been trying and trying to slowly adjust her schedule so that she will be comfortable again, but it's just not working. If anything she's getting worse! Now, instead of waking up at 8:00 which would be 9:00 in her head, she's waking up at 7:00 and then struggles and struggles with going down for her morning nap. She gets so tired and cranky, but just refuses to fall asleep. I feel so bad for her.

Hannah had a very busy weekend this past weekend. To start off, on Saturday she got to go be the poster child for perfect adoptions at our adoption agency. Kyle and I went and gave a talk to prospective adoptive parents and got to show Hannah off. It was lots of fun and Hannah did not disappoint them. She was in her usually bright and bubbly mood and was too cute for words. Just seeing her is enough to give hope to those dreaming of someday having their own family. Then, after our IAC talk we went to Babies R' Us to get Hannah a big girl car seat. While there we also ended up buying her a new toy. It's a cross between an Exercauser and a Jumperoo. I'll post pics of it and hopefully a video too! She LOVES it even though she's really still too young to play in it. She is supposed to be able to sit up unassisted before playing in it, but we just supervise her in it and don't let her stay in too long. We tried it out in the store before we bought it and she was so cute that we just couldn't resist! At Babies R' Us Hannah also got to meet her cousin Olivia for the first time. Olivia was SO CUTE, but very tiny. Hannah looked like a toddler next to her! Then, on Sunday Mamaw and Papaw Like came to visit her and she wore herself out being cute for them!

I'm back now and it's Wednesday and Hannah just got back from her 4 month doctor's appointment. She got wonderful reviews from all of the nurses and the doctor and is indeed still growing like a weed! She is officially 16 lbs and 0 oz and 27 1/2 inches long and her head circumference is 17 1/4 inches around. That puts her in the 90th percentile for weight, the 99th for head circumference, and past the 99th for length. Her length isn't even on the growth charts for her age! She's as long as the average 9 month old (50th percentile) and has the head of a 9 month old and weighs as much as the average 6 month old! With this newest length measurement she has officially graduated out of her infant car seat. Thankfully Kyle thought to bring her new car seat with us to the appointment just in case because she had to ride home in it because she exceeded the length limit on her infant seat by an inch and a half! She got her next round of shots at this appointment as well and really she did better in the crying department, but the doctor said that this round of immunizations are generally worse than the 2 month shots and she could possibly have stronger reactions to this set. That does not make me happy given how miserable she was for several days after the last set of shots. Poor baby! One new thing we found out at the doctor was that Hannah can now begin eating solid foods, well sorta solid anyway. We get to start her on cereal now and it should be interesting. She's definitely interested in food as she watches me while I eat very intently and often tries to swipe food right out of my hand. All these new things that keep happening makes me both happy and sad. I'm glad Hannah is developing normally, but sad that my little girl is growing up. She's so active now that she rarely wants to just sit and cuddle anymore. :( I miss that.

Another of Hannah's new interest is sucking her toes. She has become almost obsessed with them. She constantly has her feet up and is chewing on her sock or her toes. It's quite cute, but it does make it hard to keep dry socks on her, especially since she doesn't have many socks left that fit!

Since her first attempt at rolling from her back to her belly Hannah has become quite accomplished at this new trick although she really only rolls one direction. She's begun to use it as a means to get around however and uses it to get to things that she wants such as a toy or the cats! The poor cats are really in for it now. She LOVES them and reaches for their soft fur any chance she gets. Once she can chase them around they are doomed! Now that she's spending a lot of time on her belly of her own choosing she has learned two more related tricks. First, she has learned how to push herself up on her chest and rotate her body a quarter turn in either direction to face the object that she wants. Second, she has begun to draw her knees up under her body while she is on her belly and wiggle her butt around and actually scoot forward a few inches. She's pretty funny because she hasn't learned how to push up with her arms yet at the same time so what she does is plant her face into the ground, push up with her heels onto her knees and shoves herself forward and then straightens her head back out! Along with these new methods of getting around comes sleep disturbances for Kyle and I. Hannah now gets herself stuck in her crib in the middle of the night from all her moving around and then starts crying for me to come save her from the crib bumper and put her back in the center! These middle of the night rescue sessions are becoming more and more common and let me just say that I am ready for her to be able to save herself (at least when it's 1:00am!). Finally, now that Hannah is in her big girl car seat she got to ride in the big girl portion of her stroller during a walk for the first time the other day. She really seemed to enjoy the view! I'm a bit sad that I won't get to see her beautiful face facing me while we walk anymore, but I am glad that she seems to like the new position so well.

To see a video of Hannah playing in her new toy for the first time just click on the link below.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3809507158152903955