Visit for Grandma Jan’s Birthday

Our poor Daddy has been swamped at work and therefore has put in a lot of extra hours, so Clara, Janie & Mommy headed to Chehalis mid-week for a quick visit. On Wednesday it was Grandma Jan’s birthday and we ended up having a fun family party for her. Clara helped pick out a great party hat, a fun birthday balloon and a beautiful flower arrangement for Grandma.


The birthday girl and her grandbabies!

Brendan, 15 months

Taylor, 4 years

Clara, 3 years

Janie, 8 months, and her look-alike, Uncle Ryan

Fun Day! The girls with Grandma & Grandpa before bed

Janie is 8 months!

What a month full of changes for our Lil' Gem this past month has been! There have been some challenging days, but for the most part, we are having SO much fun with our sweet baby girl! A few days shy of eight months old, she FINALLY rolled over. Just as we predicted, once she was willing to do it, she continued consistently rolling over, in both directions. She still moves slowly and isn't getting across the room on her own quite yet but we know that our days without the baby gates up are limited. Janie is also far more content spending time on her tummy than she has ever been. Her arms are getting much stronger and she hold herself up really well and rocks back and forth, but has yet to really get up on her knees and attempt to crawl.

She is also making progress standing up with support and can really get her bounce on while playing in the exersaucer. Janie typically spends time in the exersaucer when Mommy is making meals and she has learned that she can easily get my attention with some of her crazy bouncing and silly sounds. When I walk over to her, she shares the best playful grin!

When she is fed and well-rested, Janie has a very calm and content personality. She really loves to play! In the past it was a challenge for her to enjoy independent play, but now really seems happy to sit with a few toys in front of her. She seems to study her toys as well as whoever is playing with her with an adorable intensity. Her beautiful blue eyes twinkle and she has adorable head tilts and facial expressions we can't get enough of. She still loves to play peek-a-boo and it is something that is sure to get a laugh out of her. At the changing table she gets a hold of whatever I am putting on/taking off her, hides her face with it, then peeking over with a playful smile until I we say "Peeky" and then she is quick to cover he face again. This never gets old!

Patty-cake continues to be another one of Janie's favorite games. When cued with "clappy-clappy" or "Patty-cake" she sweetly taps her hands together several time and bounces a little. At playgroup she seems to recognize her favorite songs and squeals when we start signing them. Just last week we got out some of Clara's favorite first books and have noticed that she really enjoys the ones with animal sounds. Clara loves to make the sounds for her and is working on memorizing the books, especially Moo, Baa, La La La, so that she can "read" them to her baby sister all by herself.

Janie has tried lots of fun new foods in the past month. She enjoys eating and never refuses food unless it is cereal made with formula. Our gal still refuses any formula and has only taken a few bottles in the past month. Again, Grandma & Grandpa Michael came over so Mommy & Daddy could attend a Cozen event at Canlis and Janie even refused to take a pumped bottle the whole time we were gone, but then has no problem taking one the next morning for Mommy... Silly kiddo!

One skill that has really developed in her self-feeding of puffs and small treats. Occasionally she will drop one, but her accuracy of getting them from whatever surface she picks them up from her mouth is up to like 85%. She also loves Mum Mum crackers and eating fruit out of her baby feeder. In fact, it was her interest in the puffs that seemed to be her motivation for her first roll.

There is still no sign of teeth, but she has increased her chewing lately, making us believe that they are not too far off. Clara got her first 2 teeth at 8 1/2 months, but we are learning that Janie has a completely different pace. Since she is still nursing almost every three hours, I guess the longer she goes without teeth, the better for Mommy!


We have started to teach Janie signs, starting with "more", "milk", "food" and "please". Just recently she has been making the sign for milk when she starts to fuss before nursing. When we realized that she was doing this, it was such a proud moment! Along with the signing and clapping, Janie is all about waving. If we wave at her, it is as if we can watch the wheels slowly turning and about 10 seconds later, she finally gets her right hand waving up and down. Of course, we get excited and provide praise which seems to just get her little hand waving harder.

Having always been a "talker" Janie's baby babble is starting to change into mimicking sounds she hears and making the sound over and over. She has been saying "Mama" for a while, she now says it when she wakes up like she is calling out for me/us to come get her. She doesn't make the "Dada" sound very often, but does loudly call out "Aaah-wa" , a sound that I like to think is her calling big sister, Clara.

This month we decided that functioning on only 4 hours of sleep every night was not working for Mommy & Daddy, especially combined with all the time it was taking us to get her to go to sleep and decided to work on sleep training. Oh, my... it was hard! Poor Janie cried it out and while we did the same thing with Clara around this age, for some reason, it felt even harder for Mommy this time around. (Maybe that is just time working its magic) After several rough days, especially evenings, our Jane Bug finally is able to get herself to sleep in her crib. All the crying must have worn her our because for the first week or so, she was sleeping 10 hour stretches. Now, she does not go quite that long and is up sometime in the 4:00 - 5:00 hour, we are not spending the hours getting her to go to sleep. It won't be long now before we actually have a semi-reliable schedule. Having a little more sleep sure leads to a happier household!

Little Bun Buns!

Janie
This is silly, I know, but I just can't resist... Some of my favorite photos of Clara at around 7 months were in these sweet bunny ears, so tonight I decided to try and stage similar shots of Janie. I only wish that we had purchased our nice camera before Clara was born so that the photo quality of her shots were better, but nonetheless, these are some cute little baby girls! They just melt our hearts!

Clara

Janie

Clara

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'... Our sweet baby Janie is Rollin' AWAYYYYYY!

At almost 8 months old, our Janie finally felt motivated enough to roll over. In a matter of minutes she rolled from back to front a few times and then made some complete rolls. She still is a slow mover but is moving around all over the place, and she is pretty proud of this new type of mobility. Mommy, Daddy & Big Sister are all so proud of her as well!

Matching Sweatshirts

Last summer, not long after we found out our little Gem Baby would be a girl, I had one of those "ah-ha" moments during pre-sale shopping of the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, looking at this adorable strawberry line of Pumpkin Patch clothing, where I realized all of the fun to be had getting my sweeties matching/coordinating outfits. Looking back, I can't believe it took me this long to make this realization, but in that moment I went a little crazy!


Finally, many months later, Janie's clothes are starting to fit! Yipee, Matching sweatshirts!!! Of course, I had to take advantage of the photo opp!

Such sweeties they are!
And already, such great friends!

I know they are not going to love this years from now, but it is just so darn fun!

Tulip Festival

This year we made it up to the Skaqit Valley Tulip Festival for an afternoon. I had not been since high school and it was a first for Kevin. We lucked out and had nice weather and the girls enjoyed being outdoors. The only glitch in the day was that we made it up to the festival without much battery in our camera (event though I thought I had charged it that morning while volunteering at Seattle Children's Hospital, then forgetting it there and having to have hospital security let me into where I left it, only to find it somehow didn't charge) and therefore only got around fifty photos. If you know me, you know I could have taken many, many, many more!

Luckily, right before the battery gave out, someone offered to take a family shot and it turned out decent! Instead of trying to get just the right shot and battling Clara to look at the camera, we spent the rest of the visit enjoying the view, eating ice cream and allowing Clara to play in the gravel. That was very nice too!

Easter 2011 in Qunicy

This year we had a fun Easter in Quincy. We stayed at Grandma & Grandpa Michael's house the night before and had to let the Easter Bunny know in advance that we would be there. Clara even left him carrots and apples on the special plate. Sure enough, it worked and he left some treats on Easter morning.

Clara quickly caught on and saw the eggs leading her down the hall!

Then she found his note. He even signed it E.B., just like in the movie HOP that we got to see the Friday before with our pals Christy, Hayden and Logan.

Each girl was left a generous Easter basket! Lucky kiddos!

We turned our head for two seconds and Clara immediately went for the largest piece of candy she could find! No, while we allowed her to eat some of the candy, she only had a taste of this big egg right then. The stunt really didn't surprise us much though since our Scout definitely has inherited Mama's sweet tooth!

The girls also had fun baskets from Grandma & Grandpa!

Janie loved taking everything out of the baskets!

And she wanted to dig right into her "candy" too!

Clara posing with the bunny ears she made the day before at our local spring kids fair.

The Michael Family

Our sweet girls

Clara Natalie, 3 years
Janie Caroline, 7 months

After we wrapped up the Easter Bunny excitement we headed to Auntie Amy & Uncle Elmer's house. Clara was SO excited to see her cousins! We had nice weather so the kids were able to play outside (something we haven't been able to do much yet this season). Auntie Amy had some sweet baby chicks that the girls were showing Clara. She liked petting them but did not have any interest in holding one.

After a fabulous meal and the kiddos had a great Easter egg hunt!

Clara got quite a basket full of eggs and had so much fun! Again she dove right into them and was munching on the jelly beans.

Then she bounced off some of her sugar high on the trampoline.

Crazy hair...

Miss Janie enjoyed being passed around and watching all the kids play together. It won't be long until she is right in there too!

While it isn't as cute as the professional shots we had done a few weeks prior, I had to get a photo of Gem Baby in the bunny coat that Clara wore for her first Easter. She looks so cute in it!

And one of the fun treats was getting all of the cousins (Taylor, Ashley, Clara, Janie, Jason, Zac, Zane & Hailey) together for a photo with Grandma & Grandpa. This is the first since Janie's arrival, and even includes Jason, who just turned 17!!!

Easter was a happy day and we all enjoyed being together. We wish that we were able to get together more often, especially Clara who adores her cousins and would probably choose getting to be with them over all the candy in the world. Both kids were so tired that they slept the entire ride home.