Four Months!

My baby is 4 months old already!  Where has the time gone?? She is such a happy little girl!  She has grown a lot this month, but she is still pretty petite.  

12lb 2oz

23 1/4" long

Size 0-3 month clothes

Size 1 diapers (the longest I've ever used size 1!)

She loves to kick and smile.  She even smiles with her eyes!  (Tyra would be so proud)  She is sweet and cuddly, but loves to be put in her swing with her binky to sleep.  Just this week she has decided on a bed time!  Hooray!  She has been going to bed between 7-8, but the bad thing is that she has also been back to waking up for regular feedings. Boo on that!  (She was sleeping 8 hours straight a few weeks ago).  But when she wakes up, she eats and goes right back to sleep-so I can't complain.  She seems to not be as sensitive to what I eat or drink anymore... except for beans.  She has her first ear infection right now and is pretty patient with taking her medicine.  I knew something was wrong when our happy baby woke up screaming like a pterodactyl last week!  She doesn't have much of a day-time schedule because she is baby #3 and I have to do things during the day... and she will fall asleep in the car seat and stay asleep and the others will not.  So she sleeps on the go.  Someday I will regret this, but for now it works for us!

And we have other kids, too!  And they're wonderful!  And crazy!  In fact, here's a little something about the month of February!

Steve stayed pretty busy with his last build-up line and finally got a real line for March!  I stayed busy hauling kids out and about in sub-zero weather.  Seriously-I forgot how cold it can be!  We have spent the last 4 winters in either Texas or Arizona... and while I cursed the weather from April-November, I will take that a MILLION times over January & February in the midwest.  Oh. My. Gosh.  And you still have to do stuff even though it's -4*.  Life doesn't stop.

I stood in line at the preschool building in our school district for about an hour to get George all ready for preschool.  I left him at home.  Then I went back to get him so that he could have a developmental screening.  The teacher said George is very smart, which we already knew.  His biggest strength is problem solving.  She was very impressed with an exercise they did where she showed him a picture and asked him what was wrong and what they could do to fix it.  She said that most kids know what is wrong and what they can do, but can't verbalize it.  Apparently, my Georgie gave her a dissertation about the situation... which involved taking a bug outside so that he can find his "mommy" and then a whole story about this bug family.  So she said he's where he should be.

Ruthie is becoming more obsessed with "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" by the day.  Seriously.  One night, I was singing our usual primary songs before bed and she made me sing "Gangel Giger" songs instead.  She's a funny girl.  One day I said, "Ruthie!  You're so pretty!" and she said "...and funny! ...and smart!"  She's a big teaser and loves to say "I tricked you!"

We went to visit Steve's sister Liz and her family in February.  That was fun!  We were supposed to be there for the whole weekend, but Steve's work schedule changed once we got there... so it was a great 28 hours at their house!  As soon as we decided to go, we asked the kids if they wanted to go... Ruthie put on her shoes and sat by the door!  She was so excited... and it took us about 2 more hours to get out the door!  The drive wasn't bad in our mini-van.  We love that car!

The end of February, we went to AZ for our new cousin Lucy's baby blessing.  It was a fun trip!  We got to hang out with my family and see Matt & McKensie and their boys, too!  Mmmmm... and I had Cafe Rio.  (side note: I hated it in college, but I think that's because nobody told me what to order.., pork salad for sure).  We planned on going straight home after the blessing, but we ended up going to UT for McKensie's mom's funeral.  So then we stayed for a long time because one of my best friends from OH got married on March 12th!  What we had planned to be two short trips turned into one long trip!  It was fun to play with cousins and Grandmas and Grandpas, but it felt SOOO good to be home.  In fact, I actually flew by myself with all 3 kids!  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  That's a lie.  The flight from UT to AZ was AWFUL... and that was the short flight!  I decided that on the big flight, I didn't care what I had to do, I was getting Ruthie's car seat on that plane!  For some reason she is totally fine sitting in the car seat for a 3 hour flight... it's just a hassle to lug it around the airport.  So after taking a ridiculous time to get all set up on the plane, all 3 kids SLEPT most of the flight!  It was heavenly!  And I read like 100 pages in a book!  A  REAL BOOK!  Who ever has time for that anymore?? 

So now we're home and trying to get back to real life.  The fact that we have had no schedule for the last 3 weeks is definitely catching up to us.  I've felt like I'm in "The Exorcist" a few times... but it sure does feel nice to just be home!

And some pics from our trip... all out of order!