Yucky Cold

Hannah has a yucky cold at the moment and it's making her really cranky. Last night she just did not want to go to bed :( Bad timing since Kyle's PE exam is today! Eventually she did go to bed, but she was up early this morning and was of course cranky by 9:00am. Other than this recent cold, Hannah's sleep has been much better lately. She's been going down without a fight and even taking some longer naps!

She continues to love her table food, especially watermelon, and is really scarfing it down. The saga of the sippy cup continues. You will be happy to know that I have not completely turned Hannah away from her sippy cup. She will again gladly drink water from it just like before, but she is pretty hesitant about anything else. I did manage to get her to drink some extremely diluted juice from it two different times, but still no formula :( It's like she has this little rule in her mind that says that formula is for bottles and mommies hold bottles and water is for sippy cups and babies hold sippy cups. I'm going to try some formula in the sippy cup again today and see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

As far as her language development goes, she's started to catch on to the sign for dog and likes saying the word cat which comes out at tat. She's also decided that she loves to have books read to her and she will actually bring me a book and sign more and then climb in my lap for me to read it to her! This just melts my heart :) I have always dreamed about snuggling up to read a good book with Hannah and now it's reality. Sometimes she'll even be on her play mat and sign more and I'll ask her what she wants more of and she'll look towards her book shelf. When I say, go pick a book and mommy will read it to you, she crawls over to her shelf, rummages through to find the book she wants and brings it right over and hands it to me. Then she crawls in my lap and makes the more sign to tell me I haven't started reading fast enough! I'm working on teaching her the sign for book so that she can be more specific, but so far she hasn't caught on to that one yet. Another cute thing she has been doing lately is saying hi anytime someone walks into the room or anytime someone says hello to her. It makes me smile so much to hear her say it because she sounds all sweet and innocent when she does it. We tried to get a video of it, but she was more interested in the camera than talking. I'll post it anyway as soon as I can get it uploaded as it is quite funny.

Other news in the physical development department is that Hannah has another tooth. It's her top left one. I think I can see her top right just under the skin, but so far it hasn't popped through. Pulling up in now old hat for Hannah and she does it left and right on everything she can. Yesterday I caught her standing up holding onto the seat of the bar stool at the breakfast bar with her knee up on the bottom rung. She was trying to get it stable enough to bring her other knee up and climb! UGH! I am not ready for that! Hannah's hand eye coordination is also getting better. She can now easily put the rings on her rock and stack (all except the orange and red ones because the holes are really small) and is starting to try to put the shapes through the holes on her shape sorter.

Just a side story for you, for Easter Pap (Kyle's dad) and Mindy gave Hannah this pink fuzzy bunny that sings "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." while it's ears go up and down to the beat. We thought she might be afraid of it because it's loud and I think a little scary, but Hannah absolutely LOVES it. She will crawl over to her toy box and make the more sign (she does that when she wants anything these days it seems!). I'll ask her what she wants more of and she'll get this shy look and reach in and swipe at the bunny and smile then make the more sign again. I tell her, well then get him out. Usually she tries to pull him out, but he's kind of heavy and she can't usually get him. After I make her try for awhile I ask her if she needs help and get the bunny out for her. She then makes the more sign and smiles so I turn the bunny on and let him sing. She gets really quiet while he sings and watches it intently. Then, as soon as the music stops she makes the more sign to start it up again. Usually we have to eventually tell her all done, otherwise she would listen to that bunny all night and drive us absolutely crazy! I dread the day when she has the coordination to actually make it sing on her own! We may have to make the batteries disappear when that day comes!

Trying New Food

Hannah has really been enjoying trying new food. So far the only thing she really does not care for is barley cereal. She happily eats sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, green beans, rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, mixed grain cereal, and rice cereals flavored with apples. Her favorite seems to be squash which is really interesting because Tiffany told me that her son Chase's favorite food as a baby was squash! I was watching a National Geographic special on multiples in the womb and there was a bit about twins having similar food tastes because of the food they get to taste in their mother's womb that she ate while she was pregnant. I wonder if that is why boy Chase and Hannah seem to like squash? Maybe Tiffany ate a lot of squash while she was pregnant with both of them. I'll have to ask her and see. Hannah continues to get better and better with her sippy cup and has also now moved on to feeding herself veggie puffs. She's getting quite good at picking them up and popping them right into her mouth. Although, if she doesn't get one in on the first try and it gets sticky she really has a hard time because she can't seem to figure out how to get it off her fingers, nose, chin, or whatever it happens to stick to! She does enjoy feeding herself though and it's so fun to watch her. She's really been working hard to crawl and get herself into the sitting position from her belly. She's not able to do it yet and that really frustrates her. Like when she was trying to learn how to roll herself from her tummy to her back, she DOES NOT want any help and gets frustrated with herself quite easily. She's obsessive about her practicing and after she's been at it awhile with no success she starting the baby version of swearing! You can hear her muttering and grumbling up a storm with an angry look on her face. I try to make her take a break and roll her over or sit her up, but it does not good. She throws herself right back down on the floor and rolls over and starts to try again!

Well, I have several videos of her attempting to crawl and a little bit of the baby swearing to post as well as a video of Hannah petting Abby. I hope you get as big a kick out of them as I do! Most of the pictures are from a photo shoot Hannah and I did about a week ago for her 6 month birthday. I took over 150 pictures! Don't worry, I'll only post my absolute favorite (that's still a lot of them though!). There's also the promised picture of her new tooth. It's not a good picture, but it's the best I can do because you can only see if close up and if I get close enough for a photo Hannah grabs the camera lense!

Here's her petting Abby. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6017763007904431500&hl=en

These next few are all of Hannah trying VERY hard to crawl. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8751132350717752381&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3330074893361422687&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5181032669711524925&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4812604729765231532&hl=en

Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas!

Hannah has survived a whirlwind of Christmas activity already and it's only Christmas Eve! Actually tomorrow will most likely be the tamest day of her holiday season! So far she's attended 7 Christmas gatherings already. Of course, she's loved every minute of every single one of them because she LOVES to socialize. I actually think she gets enjoyment out of entertaining guests and just generally being a socialite. As was the case when she was born, she has received many, many gifts which we appreciate greatly. We have so many generous friends and family members who are determined to spoil Hannah rotten!

Ok, time for all the new Hannah milestones and updates. Her cold that appeared last week continued to linger on through this week so Friday we took her in to see the doctor just in case since we knew it was either Friday or wait until Tuesday. Boy were we glad that we took her in because it ended up being more than just an ordinary cold. When the doctor listened to her lungs he said that they sounded different from each other, but that in infants it was often hard to tell if they are really different or not b/c of how wiggly babies are. Hannah was acting ok and not running a temperature, but he decided to send her for a chest x-ray just as a precaution since it was a holiday weekend and we would be out and about and it would be difficult to get treatment if she got worse later. Anyway, it turned out that from the chest x-ray that the doctor was able to diagnose Hannah with pneumonia. It was in the very early stages and only in her right lung. She was barely showing any symptoms at all and since we managed to catch it so early the doctor said it wasn't a big deal at all. He even cleared Hannah to go ahead and attend her 2 holiday gatherings the very next day as long as she didn't take a turn for the worse. It seems that once again Hannah dodged the bullet on what could have been an extremely serious illness since she is an infant all because of the quick thinking of her doctors. We are so fortunate to have some wonderful doctors involved in her care.

Hannah's newest trick is drinking from her sippy cup all by herself. She will still let me hold it for her occasionally to help her drink, but mostly she wants to do it herself and she is totally able to do it! Every now and then she doesn't get it tipped up quite far enough and she sucks in a bunch of air, but really she's pretty much mastered the skill. She absolutely LOVES to drink from the cup. The other day when she wasn't feeling well from her pneumonia and was refusing her bottle, we managed to get all of her formula down her using the sippy cup instead of the bottle. The doctor had stressed that it was important for her to stay hydrated and that she really should not be decreasing any of her fluid intake while sick. So, we were quite happy that she was so willing to drink from the cup because it made our life much easier.

Now that Hannah's hair is getting longer I can finally put it in pigtails and she looks absolutely adorable that way! It makes her look much older with them in. I took a picture of her sitting up by herself looking at a book with her pigtails in and she looked just like a toddler instead of a 5 1/2 month old! Speaking of looking older, when she was at the doctor they took her weight and she is now up to 18 lbs 2 oz. I don't remember the exact weight, but my mom told me recently that I was only l8 or 19 pounds at a year old! Hannah's 7 months ahead of what I was as a baby! Then again, she was double my weight when she was born since she was 8 lbs 14 oz and I was only 4 lbs 7 oz!

This Christmas season has been totally amazing. Hannah has brought more joy to our lives than we ever could have imagined. At church this morning the pastor spoke about how in our society today people are never satisfied with what they have and are always wanting more. In general I agree with him, except with one thing. I prayed and prayed to God to bless us with a child, and while I would be thrilled with another child somewhere down the road, having Hannah has completely fulfilled me. If we never have another child or if I never get another material thing my entire life I will be happy, I will be content, I will feel completely fulfilled and satisfied because the joy we have known these past 5 months is like no other I have ever experienced. It is the most precious Christmas gift (and birthday gift, anniversary gift, or Mother's Day gift) I have ever received and it continues on and on every single day when I look over the rails of the crib and see Hannah's face always bright eyed and shining smiling up at me with a smile of pure joy and love for only me. This gift keeps giving and giving. God has truly blessed us with the most wonderful daughter in the world.

Sippy Cups

Hannah continues to amaze me everyday. Recently I started giving her a sippy cup about a 1/4 filled with water to play with each time I feed her cereal. Before I give it to her I tell her this is her cup and I say, "Mommy can drink from Hannah's cup. Can Hannah drink from Hannah's cup?" and then I show her how to drink from the cup. Usually she just chews on the spout when I put it up to her mouth and then pulls the cup out of my hands and plays with it for awhile, but yesterday she watched me intently as I drank from the cup. Then, when I put it up to her mouth she latched on and started gulping down the water! It happened just like that! She had an eureka moment and now she's got it down pat. She thinks drinking the water is pretty cool although she can't manage to hold the cup herself yet and still drink the water, but I still think it's pretty cool that she learned how to drink from the cup so quickly.

Another update is that Hannah is down to only 4 bottles a day. She takes 4 7 ounce bottles and has now successfully moved to 4 hours in between each bottle. She has also been eating 2-3 tablespoons of cereal twice a day. So far she has tried rice, oatmeal, and rice with apples. I think she likes the rice with apples the best and I can't say that I blame her.

Hannah has also recently started developing a sense of humor. She will now laugh whenever we do something funny like make a funny face or talk in a weird voice. It's like she finally gets jokes now. It's awfully cute to see her laughing hysterically over mom saying silly things. It makes me laugh when she gets going and then that just makes her laugh even more.

This weekend starts Hannah's holiday engagements. She has 3 Christmas get togethers this weekend and 3 next weekend (one of which lasts all day!). I have a feeling she's going to be spoiled rotten by all the attention before it's all over.

Hannah got her first cold on Wednesday and it's still hanging on. She's really stuffy in her nose and her chest sounds all congested too. She's been pretty lethargic and fussy and of course she's very tired but refuses to sleep. On Wednesday she did take a 2 hour nap which has NEVER happened before. I kept going in and checking on her after a 1/2 hour b/c I was worried since it was so atypical for her.

Hannah also continues to resist going to bed at night and naps in general. She's been throwing huge fits every time we try to put her to bed. It's quite frustrating because we really don't know what to do about it. I have no idea why she's started this new habit of hers and I must say I don't like it. I miss the good old days where she put herself to sleep each night.

Yesterday the adoption agency called and asked us if it would be ok if they ran a story about Hannah's adoption in the Associated Press! I was thrilled of course and said yes. They said they would let us know when it was going to be published so that we could get a copy of it. I think it's pretty cool and can't wait to see what they write about Hannah. :)

Well, I think that's about all the Hannah updates for now. Hannah is still feeling really crummy and is not liking me being on the computer so I had better go and cuddle her some more.

PS. The pictures you see are Hannah's 4 month pictures. Now that she's 5 months old I've finally got around to scanning in and posting the 4 month pictures!