July happenings

Time keeps marching on.

 

Amber is 10 months old now and continues to be a very active baby! She is a fast crawler and is pulling up on EVERYTHING!! She has started walking behind her push toys and when we hold her hands. I am sure she will start cruising around the furniture soon.

She is still a terrible napper and pretty inconsistent sleeper at night. I have a feeling that is just going to be a part of her personality....not needing as much sleep as her parents or brother!!!

We had Amber dedicated at church in a smaller fashion. We go to a large church and Dan and I have been attending the traditional service since they started it. The traditional service is much smaller (300?), meets in the old chapel, has piano only for music and is apprised of people wise in age!

Needless to say we bring the median age of the congregation down a bit, but we love the service and the people!

Dan has been attending a different Sunday School class while I work in the nursery. Most of the members of his class attend the traditional service. They all were so faithful to pray for us when Amber was born and we were unsure of her medical issue and scared.

We made a special request ot have her dedicated to God in this service as opposed to the dedication they have in the contemporary service with the pastor and 20 plus babies.

They agreed and it was a very special time for us.

 The "pastor" who lead the traditional service gave a humbling and personal charge to us as parents on how to teach our children about the Lord God everyday.

We feel blessed to belong to our church and the fellowship and relationships we have there.

 

 Since we live in Texas and the coolest temperature of the day is maybe 79 degrees and that is at 2am, we have been spending a lot of time playing in water!

Now that Amber can stand so well, she loves to splash in the water table. Of course, when Nathan sees the table he wants the pool out. How can I resist, I mean it's too hot to do anything else!

 As soon as she "stole" the hose from brother she tried to drink from it. Of course she sputtered and coughed, then she just laughed and went right back to trying to drink from it again..sigh....I guess she doesn't learn to well from her mistakes!!

 I was tired the other day (Amber had been up several times at night) so I laid down on the couch in the playroom while they were playing. I guess Nathan thought it was a game, because he came right over and climbed up on me and pretended to be "sleeping". It was really cute! I of course enjoyed the cuddle time.

 My mom purchased a Dallas zoo pass for the year. She takes them alot, but this was the 1st time I had been in a long time. I have a pass to the Fort Worth zoo, but I really like the Dallas zoo better. They have an amazing children's area at Dallas zoo complete with a little "river" for kids to splash and walk in. That was Nathan's favorite part. I even let sister crawl around in the water and she was happy as can be, I just didn't capture it on camera.

Nathan loved watching the penguins (he is really into penguins right now) he calls them "oon-gaa's"!

 

 Amber and I on the elephant.

 

 Amber's new favorite thing to do is to take a walk with her daddy in the backpack. She just smiles and babbles thes whole time!

 Our neighbors tree came tumbling down in a storm a few weeks ago. Dan decided to clear it out for them while they were gone for the day and of course Nathan got to help!

Don't worry, those are safety goggles, Dan does not normally wear them!

He was so cute following Dan around and "helping" him move branches out of the way. The chain saw was a little loud for Nathan so he got to wear his daddy's ear muffs. He loved wearing them!

He really loves helping Dan with projects. He stayed outside in the heat with Dan for well over an hour, just watching him and "helping"! Such a daddy's boy! I am so thankful to have a husband who can teach our children a plethora of life skills such as this and show them what it means to serve others, even if we get no recognition or reward for it. Such wonderful lessons to learn at a young age!

Little Crawler

9 month old crawler!

Amber turned 9 months the last week in June.

Her stats:

Wt: 18 lbs 3oz - 50%

Ht: 80%

 

She started crawling on Father's Day and has gotten progressively faster at it! The game has certainly changed around here now that she is mobile. She was hesitant about crawling on the tile which helped contain her in certain areas of the house. However, a few days ago she realized the tile was not bad and now crawls on any surface!

2 days ago she started pulling up to standing! I mean she has only been crawling for 2ish weeks! And, to top it off  TONIGHT, she crawled up onto the fireplace!

We are in trouble!!! What a totally different child from Nathan. If you remember, Nathan never crawled so we could leave him in 1 place and he would stay there. I am not used to having a fast crawler around. Yesterday I put the 2 of them in the play room while I started lunch and Amber crawls into the kitchen and under the table to eat the crumbs on the floor from breakfast.

Here is the little mover at 9 months. She is such a beautiful baby! I love all of her facial expressions, laughs and squeals! She is a much more personable baby, as she smiles, laughs and interacts with people so easily!

               I have not taken enough pictures of her crawling so this is the best that I have to show.

 



 

She is a very happy baby! She has quite the little personality. She talks very loudly and it into everything. Her favorite "game" is to take any toy her brother is playing with and chew it. He is not a fan of this game and we have started dealing with working on sharing and not "harming" your sibling, even if she takes your favorite ducky!

 

 

She is doing much better about sleeping during the night. She usually will sleep from 8:30pm to about 5:30am, when she wakes up, drinks a bottle and then goes back to sleep until about 7:30.

She is still a bad napper, but that is partly my fault because I never got her on a good nap schedule.

With Nathan, my whole day revolved around his nap schedule, but now since I have 2kids, Amber odes not get the day revolved around her. Some days she takes to naps, other days she takes one.

My least favorite day is when they are on TOTALLY opposite nap schedules os I don't even get 5 minutes to my self without one of the awake. But, at the same time, when they are on opposite nap schedules I get to spend time with each child individually and I love that time.

She is not a good eater unless she is feeding herself. We can not get her to take more than 1 or2 bites of baby food. However, if you give her chunks of bread, apples, eggs (or broccoli!) she will happily feed herself. She does not actually eat that much of it, most of it ends up in her lap. I am not sure how to get more solids in her, since she does not eat much. She is still dependent on her bottles. At least she is experimenting with a plethora of different foods. She loves to gnaw on apple slices and I give her those most frequently because they are the easiest to clean up.

 

 

I have a feeling that she is going to be walking before we know it!

It amazes me how different 2 siblings can be at such an early age! They are quite opposite, although they do have some similarities. The biggest difference between them is just the age at which they accomplished gross motor skills. But I guess it is to be expected that the younger sibling will catch on sooner since they have an older sibling to watch. They both like to be outside and to swing! We spend a lot of time during the day swinging! They both love their cribs, as they sleep well in them and enjoy just playing in thier cribs. We never use their cribs as time-out or as a punishment, so they only have positive views of them. I guess that they feel safe in there?

They both are water babies too! Now that it is summer we have the pool blown up and in use most nights! Amber will just splash....however, tonight she tried to stand up on the side and nearly fell out onto her head, that girl!!

They both are at fun ages right now but I am still learning to appreciate all the small things! Some days I feel like all I do is clean up their messes and deal with meeting all their needs. I find it hard to find joy in those days, but as the Steven Curtis Chapman song says "Do every little thing to the Glory of the ONE who made you", and I am really trying to do that, with the Lord's help of course!!

Other days, it is easy to see that I made the right decision to only work part-time so I can relish all the little laughters, smiles and memories. On those days, the seemingly mundane tasks are enjoyable.

 

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!!