May happenings

 May was a busy month for us!

This little girl turned 8 months old and is so close to crawling. She is able to go from any laying position to sitting and crawls backwards. She is a very smiley baby and quit the babbler.

I am very excited for the crawling stage since Nathan never crawled I feel like we missed out on a fun milestone.

She is eating more solids now, however she is not tolerating yogurt, so I hope that does not mean she still has a dairy intolerance! She loves in the high chair and gnaw on a cracker while we eat. She also is obsessed with her sippy cup! It is hilarious to watch her when you put the cup in front of her. You would think we had never given her a drink in her life!! She likes to chew on Nathan's feet/toes and thank goodness he finds it funny.



 

I took my yearly New York trip with my mom this past month. I brought Amber along this time. We had a fun time, however the weather was not cooperative. It was in the 40's, rainy and strong north winds....at the end of MAY!! We made the best of it and were still able to do lots of shopping!

My sister lives on Long Island, so she came into the city and took Amber back to LI with her for 2 days. That way my mom and I were able to go see a few shows and shop without having to worry about Amber.

We saw "Nice work if you can get it" and "Cinderella" this time around. They were both fun, light-hearted and entertaining musicals! We had seats in the front for "Nice work", and it was so fun to get a different perspective by sitting that close up.

ON Sunday we took the train to Long Island and spent the day with my sister. We went to the beach after stopping by a farm that is known for their homemade pies!!

 



I was bad about taking pictures, but here is one of us on the 1st day, braving the cold and rain! Amber never complained (cried, fussed) once! She was telling us that she is a born New York girl! It has been a tradition in our family since I can remember to take a girls yearly trip to NY. I look forward to Amber being able to join in on the fun as the years go by!

 

I don't have any pictures, but Dan and Nathan had a really goo father/son weekend while Amber and I were gone! Dan was so creative and had different activities planned for each day. They went tromping through 2 creeks and found bugs, trash and mud! They had a camp out in the living room, they went swimming at the city pool, they had a flashlight adventure 1 night, they washed the cars, went for bike rides and more!! I don't think Nathan would have noticed if I never came back!

Dan is such a wonderful daddy and I am glad they had such a fun weekend together.

 We have hit the beginning of the hotness of Texas summers which means we will be spending most of our time in some form of water. Either the city pool, backyard pool or sprinkler.

They both love the water, but what little kid doesn't?

 Nathan loved to run between his big pool and sister's baby pool.

 

 

Nathan's new favorite thing to do lately is to wear our shoes. It is so funny. He will run into our closet in the morning and pull out different pairs of our shoes and wear them around!

During the day he will sign for me to take off my shoes so he can wear them around the house.

 He has a little room to fill to wear daddy's shoes

 

 



 Amber is now big enough to ride in the bike trailer. They both enjoy bike rides, but Nathan misses getting to ride on the back of the bike. He was too tall, his legs would not fit anymore.

 

And my new favorite picture to end!

 

 



1.  

He said "Mama" (and "Dada")!

 

 

This adorable little boy said "Mama" and "Dada" yesterday!

 

 

We were walking down the stairs, Dan was carrying Nathan, and we stopped to look at some family pictures hanging on the wall along the staircase. We do this ALL the time. We ask Nathan who each person is and since he never names anyone we then name each person. Yesterday evening Dan stopped, pointed to my picture and said "Who is that Nathan" and Nathan said "Mama". I know it sounds silly both Dan and I both teared up right then. He said it! Those sweet 4 letters that mean so much..."Mama".

Dan then pointed to his picture and Nathan said "Dada"! We got so excited and told him what a good boy he was and that he was the smartest kid ever! this made Nathan happy and he said "mama and Dada" several more times to see our reaction. Believe me, we did not disappoint him with our praises!!

He has said it several more times today too!

When we tell people that our over 2 year old does not have more than 5 words we get a mixture of responses. Everything from " Boys are late talkers", " Just wait, when he starts talking you will just wish he will hush (my least favorite remark), "my son did not talk until he was 3", "oh, umm... well, have you considered speech therapy?" and last "My kids say "mommy this, mommy that " all day long and it gets old!"

I am not knocking any of those comments, I just feel like I won't get tired of hearing "mama" all day long. I have a greater appreciation for the word now. I have been waiting to hear that word for over a year (based on when kids normally say "mama")

If Nathan needed us or was trying to get out attention he would say "uhh, uhh". Now I am hoping that will be replaced with "mama or Dada"!

 

We started speech therapy with him last week. They are going to see him 2 times a month and give us "homework" to work on his speech. The Therapist said that kids that had multiple ear infections between the 9-12 month age are later talkers. She also said kids who have more interest in music are later talkers because the music part of their brain is overactive and therefor the speech center is under active. Also, she thinks he has a short frenulum (under his tongue) and therefore does not have good coordination with his lips and tongue for speaking.

All interesting information.

He has been babbling so much more even in just the last week, so I am hopeful we will start hearing new words frequently!

 

In other news, we now have a full fledged sitter! She just decided 2 days ago that she was ready to sit without falling over!

This has been a happy last few days for us. Last night, the kids were entertaining them selves, just like we have imagined, for awhile in the playroom. We had set Amber in the playroom in front of some toys and turned on Nathans music. Dan and I were cleaning up from dinner and noticed that there was nobody crying, no one standing under out feet in the kitchen. We peeked in the playroom and Amber was sitting up and actually playing with her toy (instead of trying to eat it) and Nathan was sitting a few feet away playing with his train set. It was a beautiful moment for us.

All the hard work of having a toddler and baby is starting to pay off!

I am not saying I want them to entertain each other all the time so Dan and I can watch TV or be on the computer, but I am so glad to see that they can entertain themselves for a period of time.

This went on for over 10 minutes!

Then today, we went ot Firehouse subs for lunch and just a fun time as a family. Usually we do not eat out with the kids because it is to stressful for us. Amber will throw all her toys on the floor and start fussing. Nathan will take tons of coaxing to eat and makes a huge mess with any condiment he gets his hands on, so we just avoid it.

But today was different. Nathan sat in a big boy chair and ate all of his food without a single fuss or any purposeful mess and Amber sat in her high chair chewing on straws and eating her baby food. Nathan was laughing at Amber most of the time as he found her chewing on the straws hilarious! Dan and I got to enjoy our food while watching our beautiful children laugh at each other. It was such a wonderful moment and really got me excited for all the fun times we will have as they get older!

Indeed, it has been a productive few days around the Hill house!

 

 

 

 

 

April Happenings

Amber turned 7 months old yesterday! She is such a fun and happy baby now! The memories of her first few awful months are starting to fade!

At 7 months she is rolling around like crazy. I can put her down with her toys and within minutes she will have rolled several feet away. She likes to be on her tummy or back but she does not like sitting.

She no longer will sit in the bumbo for more than a minute or two. I am sure she will be a late sitter because of this, she would just rather be rolling!

She babbles all the time. It is easy to get her to laugh and smile. She recently found her toes and now they are a common thing to find her chewing on.

She is at the stage where she has to have something in her mouth constantly or she is not happy. She still does not have any teeth and I keep thinking it will be any day now because she is so dependent on chewing on something.

 My little chewing rolly poly!

 

 Happy most of the time! I love that grin and laugh!

Nathan is full blown 2 now and some days he is very good at being 2!!

His favorite thing to do now days is mow the lawn with daddy. He gets SO excited when we tell him he gets to "help" daddy mow the lawn! My sister got him a toy lawn mower and the only time he will play with it is when daddy is mowing. He then proceeds to push it all over the lawn the whole time Dan is mowing! It is so precious!

Because of his love of mowers, if he hears any on the other side of our fence we usually go on a mower hunt. We will go scour the neighborhood for the mowers so he can watch them mow. The other day I got home form the store and let him out in the front yard while I unloaded groceries. A few minutes later I found him a few house down just staring at the lawn guys working! He stood there without moving for awhile! Little boys and machines!

 

 

HE continues to have a love for water, I doubt that will ever change. He loves to help us water all the plants. He takes it very seriously and follows our direction very well. He is very well behaved and focused when we give him a task like that to do.

 Of course, he had to have some fun with the water hose!

Another new thing he loves to do is to play in my car. He "asks" to do it every time we go outside. I only let him occasionally but he thinks it is the greatest thing.

It is a little scary how he just picked up the keys and tried to get them in the ignition!

 

 

"Mom, a little help reaching the pedals please!"

 



Easter and 6 months

 6 MONTHS

 

Guess who is already half a year old?!

 



6 Month stats for Amber

 

83% for height

44% for weight (15.5 pounds)

She is eating baby food 2 x's a day and loves it!

She babbles and talks all the time.

She rolls over both ways

She loves to play with her toes.

No teeth yet but she chews on everything~

She will take a pacifier but she is not dependent on it.

She now uses the highchair to eat and Nathan sits at the table with us (which he loves)

She loves being outside, just like her brother.

She enjoys being on her tummy.
Her sleeping is good some nights (will sleep at 8:30 and not wake until 4am) and other nigths she is up at 1am and  4am. Oh well, at least she goes right back to sleep after being fed.

 

She seems like she has developed alot in this past month. She is a baby now instead of an infant! She still does not have a great schedule as far as napping goes, but it is much harder with the 2nd than with the 1st child. With Nathan, my whole day revolved around his schedule and it is not the same for her, I'm afraid. Luckily they both sleep at the same time in the afternoon, so that helps.

 



 EASTER



We went down to Houston, where my grandparents live, for Easter weekend. This was our first trip as a family of 4. We were nervous about how the kids would do in the car for 4ish hours, so we planned to go before bedtime, in hopes that they would sleep. I must say, our plan worked beautifully both ways!! We fed them both, bathed them and put them in jammies. We left around 7pm. Amber was asleep by 7:30 and Nathan listened to music and played with his toys until 8:30. Then I gave him his paci and lovie and told him it was night-night time. It took him a little while to fall asleep but he never made a peep once I told him to go to sleep!

 

We had fun activities planned for each day. Of course baking cookies was involved in the plan! Here is Nathan helping Gram-E mix the dough.  Such a serious look on his face!



Then he HAD to taste it to make sure it was safe!

Side note: He is at a stage right now where he loves to help me make dinner or baked goods. If he sees me cooking he will motion for me to get his stool so he can help! He even will pull out the oven mitt when he sees me turn the oven on!It is so precious and i LOVE it! 

We went to an egg-hunt at a near-by church. They had music, activities and the egg-hunt.

They had 3 people outside playing guitars and singing kids songs.

Here he is with Gram-E singing and dancing to the music.

 





They did the egg hunt by age groups. I wasn't sure if he would grasp the concept, but he started running when he saw the other kids go! He picked up the 1st egg and opened it. He only put a few in his basket, the rest he opened then put back on the grass!

 

 

 

 

 

 




 I love this picture of him holding his basket. Such a sweet and innocent boy. I know it won't last forever and I am trying to cherish it! 



Later that afternoon we took him to a splash pad to play. Yes, only in Texas can you be in your swimsuit in late March! He played on it for a little while but he was more interested in throwing rocks off of a nearby bridge.
We also colored some eggs, but that did not keep his attention for very long

On Sunday morning we went to a sunrise Easter service that started at 7am. That meant we had to be ready and have both kids ready by 6:45!

We even made it to the service a few minutes early!

After church we took some pictures and then came home to do a home egg-hunt and open Easter baskets.

 



 Nathan with his basket

 

 Here is Nathan enjoying all the attention from his G-Gram, G-Pop and gram-E!!

 

Amber got an Easter basket with several new little toys for her to gnaw on!

 

 



 

 4 generations

 

 

Love the smile! He is not very good at smiling for the camera so you have to catch him off-guard!

 

 Me and my girl

 

We had such a fun weekend with family and Easter activities!

I am so thankful that we found a good time to drive the kids, it alleviated so much stress to drive down in peace and quiet! Now we can visit my grandparents more often!

 

A parting shot of a little girl and her daddy!!



A Mickey Mouse Birthday

 

2 years old

 

Nathan turned 2 this past week and I debated about what to do for his birthday. He is too young to appreciate a birthday at any kind of venue, I didn't want to spend the money to rent a bounce house and he doesn't really have many "friends" at this age.

 We had been discussing purchasing a big fort swing set for the backyard and decided this would be a good time to get it. Dan found a great deal on craigslist. My plan was to have a Mickey Mouse (his favorite thing right now) themed birthday party and unveil the new swing set. I was going to invite family and a few of his "friends" (really mommy and daddy's friends who happen to have kids close to Nathan's age!)

The whole party revolved around it being a day with good weather and having the swingset complete.

I planned the party for a Sunday evening (4-6pm), the day before his birthday.

First, let me start with the swing set.

IT came in these 4 boxes and they each weighed a ton. (it took all my strength to help Dan carry them into the backyard)

 

 

 

Dan is quite the handyman, he has every tool known to man and enjoys building things. However,I got a little nervous when he unpacked all the wood from the boxes: it looked like we were adding an addition on to the house!! I knew he could do it but I had only given him a week to complete it before the party.

 

 

This next box made me even more nervous as it contained 800 bolts!

The instructions said it should take 2 moderately skilled people 20 hours to complete the swing set. Thank good ness Dan is expertly skilled ot make up for my novice skills!

 

 

Dan did an amazing job and had the whole thing ready by Friday. I did not want Nathan to play on it before his party so we left the swings and slide off until the day of his party.

Here is Dan on day 1

 



 

 

And here is the finished product! HE even added a sandbox under the fort!

 

ON to his party.

 The weather was a beautiful, sunny 76 degrees.

Since  the party was close to dinner I time I decided to serve moderate snacks along with cupcakes and cookies. I made some sausage rolls, chips/salsa, veggie platter, goldfish, cheese/cracker tray, and my mom made a fruit salad. I made cupcakes and mickey mouse shaped cookies which I attempted to frost. (I am not someone who's finished products would EVER be on Pintrest!)

My mom came over early to help me decorate the cookies.

I woke Nathan up from his nap at 3:30 and let him wear a new mickey shirt! HE was very excited about that. We then went in the front yard and waited for everyone to arrive. I didn't want him to see the kitchen or backyard yet.

After our guest's (about 17 people) arrived we let Nathan inside. He saw all the mickey mouse decoration and balloons and was so happy and excited! His little face was adorable!

 



We then let him go in the backyard to see his new swing set. My expectations where not too high on his reaction. He ran over to it when he saw his swing. IT took him a little while to figure out that he could climb up the fort and go down the slide.

We spent the majority of the time outside playing with him and his 2 friends.



I did not have any games or activities since his 2 friends were 18months and 13 months old, plus I don't think Nathan would have cooperated or had the attention span to focus on a game or activity!

 



 

 

 



Around 5pm we came inside for Nathan to eat his cupcake. HE was very thrilled that he had fire on his high chair! He did not eat any of the cupcake, he just poked the candle in an out of it until the cupcake was destroyed!

 



Here is the attempt at my Mickey Mouse cookies. They turned out OK, but they could have been much better. IT was alot harder to frost them than I anticipated. 

 



 

The only picture I got with the 2 of us.

He still does his goofy "cheese" face for the camera.

 



 

After the cupcake we went back outside to play until people started going home. We did not have any present opening, which I liked. I can probably only get away with not having present opening on his birthday for 1 more year! The swing set was enough of a present.

 



Amber with her Mimi.

Overall, his party was a success!

His "real" birthday was the next day. We sent the day as a family playing on his new swing set, went to the park and then out to eat (Jason's Deli) for dinner.

 

Of course he preferred the black and  red icing cookie over the cupcake!

 

Nathan: At 2 years old you are in the 91st% for height and 70th% for weight. You have 4 words (sort of ) Hot ("Ha" with your hand out toward whatever is hot) Hat ("Ha" with your hand tapping your head) Down ("don") and Flag ("fla")

You understand most everything we say and have multiple signs to communicate. The Dr. did recommend we have you see a speech therapist. I am not too worried because you understand and follow instructions well. However, we kn ow you are starting to get frustrated because it is more difficult for you to communicate. You try and tell us important things all the time and get upset when we don't understand you. You do lots of pointing and will come pull my leg if you want we to see something in another room.

You love airplanes so much right now. You know the sign for airplane and pretend your food is airplanes alot! We take you to DFW airport and let you watch the planes land from the observation deck. IT is such a joy to watch your little face as the planes go over head!

We let you watch 2 shows, Mickey Mouse clubhouse and Veggie tales. You love Mickey Mouse and carry him (you have a stuffed animal mickey) with you everywhere. You squeal in delight everytime you see a Mickey Mouse!

You still enjoy books and are content ot sit by yourself and look through books.

We go to story time at the library and you are doing better about sitting still and listening to the stories, but you are still  a little young for it.

You have 1 friend who you see on a regular basis. His name is Davin and you do pretty good playing with him. Some times you both will just laugh and run at each other, which is funny. Sometimes you ignore him.I look forward to seeing how you 2 become more of friends as you get older!

You are a good eater, however a moody eater. Some days you will eat 25 green beans and then act like they are poison the next day!

 

 Oh the life of being a 2 year old!

 

I love being your mom and watching you learn and grow everyday!

5 Months old

What a much happier baby!!!
 

Amber is now 5 months old! She is a delight to interact with, as she smiles all the time!
She also coos and bables non stop and I just love it. WIth Nathan, it took a dog and pony show to make him smile so I am really enjoying her smiling ease!

She has a favorite toy, it is a little doll with a rattle on it, and she just lights up and smiles/coos every time she sees the doll!
SHe has started to roll over from stomach to back (ok, she has only done it once but it counts!)
 

  

She is still on a special formula for her colic and lactose intolerance. It is so expensive but she has not been colicky since we started it. She has been on it for over a month and we are going to try a soy formula soon. I sure hope she grows out of her lactose intolerance because 80% of my diet and the way we cook is dairy! (Ok, 80% is an exaggeration!)

The Nutramigin formula is causing her bad diarrhea and her poor bottom has been red for over a month.
We started her on rice a few weeks ago and she is not a huge fan. She will eat it sometimes and make a huge mess as she tries to jam her fist into her mouth after everybite. Other times she will just cry when I attempt to feed it to her. I am sure she will get the hang of it soon.



 

 



 

I have mentioned she is happy during the day, but nights are still rough.

Every night is different. Some nights she will go 3-4 hours without waking up and other nights it is every 1-2 hours. I have made some progress because she is not having to be put in the swing any more and some nights she will go back to sleep with just a few minutes of patting.

 

Every night is different but I try to put her to bed between 8-8:30 after giving her a bottle. She then will sometimes wake up around 11 or 12. I do not feed her until 1am so I just pat her until she falls back asleep. The last few nights patting has not cut it so I have ended up rocking her and falling asleep in the chair until 1am. She goes back to sleep after her bottle at 1am and then is up at 4am but we are not feeding her until 5am so it is more patting or rocking until 5. Then she will go back to sleep until 7 or so.

Some nights she is up every 1 hour or so just crying and other nights she will sleep from 1am to 5am without waking up.

 

We tried the cry it out method and it did not work for our family. I think it is a good method but I also think you have to find a method that you are comfortable with in order to stick with it.

I was surprised I did not like this. I was so tired of getting up so often I was ready to just turn off the monitor and let her scream, but I guess I am more of a softy than I thought. Plus she was waking Nathan up after 2 hours of straight crying and then he was cranky because he was not sleeping good.

We are now just trying to space her feeds in the middle of the night and are kinda stuck at 1am and 5am.

 

It really is hard on me to still be getting up 3 plus times a night at 5 months old. Nathan was sleeping through the night by 9 weeks, so this is all uncharted water for us.

I am very dependent on sleep and have noticed a negative difference in myself these past few months.

I know "This too shall pass" but it is quite hard on us right now. We both do not function well without good sleep and it is so easy to take it out on each other at 4am!

 



 

I am so thankful that she is a happy baby and smiles all the time! It makes the nights more manageable!

She loves her brother! She loves to watch him and smile at him. Nathan still does not interact with her much on his own.  He will give her a hug if I ask him to but usually just ignores her. . He did laugh at her for the first time the other night. She let out a big burp and he thought it was so funny!

I have caught him squeezing her a few times. He will just walk up to her and squeeze her leg or foot. He gets a time out for that and hopefully it will not escalate to hitting or anything.

I am looking forward to the day when they can play and interact with each other

 

It is hard to believe it has been 5 months but at the same time it has been a long 5 months.

We are very thankful for her and that she is healthy. I look forward to watching her grow and learn!