Anna ~ 4 Months Old

Little Miss Anna had a big fourth month!  We finally both kicked our never-ending colds/sinus infection/etc and felt MUCH better.  At her four month check-up, Anna weighed 11 pounds 15 ounces and measured 25 inches long.  Her weight fell from the 50% to under the 20%, but her height jumped up a few curves to the 75%, so the doctor isn't worried about her growth at all. 

She has been waking up quite a bit at night (STILL!), so we decided to try feeding her every two hours during the day instead of every three.  Whew!  That's a lot of eating!  In fact, she's never eaten that often, even as a newborn!  But what do you know, it worked like a charm the past few nights ~ she's only been waking once around 4 a.m.....Yippee!!

Anna's favorite sleep position.

Speaking of sleep, she is too cute when she's getting sleepy.  She doesn't fuss or anything, as long as she's somewhere comfy like the Boppy seat, and has her left arm free to put on her forehead.  If I see her striking this pose, I know it's time to put that sweet baby in her crib!!  She sleeps like this all the time!

She's really started "talking" more and laughing a lot,which is just the best sound ever!  A day after she turned four months, she rolled over, too!  Anna doesn't seem to mind tummy time as much as some babies, and she's already pulling her legs up like she's trying to crawl....oh my goodness, time is flying by!!!

We don't really have a set schedule "by the clock", but in the past few weeks, I've noticed a pattern where Anna basically gets sleepy about 2 hours after she last woke up.  So, she naps for an hour or two, then is awake for about two hours and we do it all again, all day :)  Then it's time for bed around 7 or 8:00 and she wakes up one more time to eat before midnight, and then hopefully just the once in the middle of the night.  Then it's up with the rest of the family around 6:30 or 7 a.m. to start our day!

Here's a picture of our sweetie without a bow in her hair...Daddy likes the "no bow" look better, saying she's so pretty already, she doesn't "need" a bow :)  Well, I agree that she's the most gorgeous little girl I've ever seen and she certainly doesn't need a bow to be beautiful, but Mama can't help herself sometimes...this girly stuff is so much fun already!!

Anna truly is a precious little girl, and these past four months have been heaven!!  I think a lot about how fun it's going to be to have a daughter, and I hope one day she loves her mommy as much as I love mine!! :)

"It's not Santa....

...it's Santa CLAUS," according to Ben.   Ohhhhhh, excuse me!  Ha ha!!  Ben made sure to keep us on our toes this season, for sure!  We had a wonderful Christmas for lots of reasons.  It was Anna's very first Christmas!  And, this was the first Christmas that Ben understood about "Santa" and looked forward to talking to him and his big visit on Christmas Eve :) 

Ben wanted to put out his favorite Bunny Cookies for Santa, along with the milk, so that's what Santa snacked on this year. 

 On Christmas morning, Ben slept in nice and late (7:30) and had forgotten all about Santa when he woke up, ha ha!!  We reminded him, though, and he couldn't wait to go downstairs and see what was going on!  We were so excited for him to see his new trampoline and kitchen from Santa, but.....

Ben playing with Anna's toys

...what he was most interested in was Anna's toys!!  Probably because they lit up and sang songs :)  After he checked them out, though, he saw his Santa gifts and loved them.  Here he is on the trampoline.

The only thing we could ever get Ben to tell us he wanted for Christmas was an elephant, tiger and alligator.  Sooooooo....Santa did the best he could ;)  Apparently there was a run on alligators in miniature form, so we had to call in a sub.  I think it was close enough for Ben, though, thank goodness!

 We had sausage pinwheels and french toast casserole for breakfast, and around lunch time, Mason and Chandler came over so we had the whole gang.  Anna enjoyed checking all the commotion out and watching us open gifts.  Oh, and wearing her new hairbow that was in her stocking :)

Anna and Ben on Christmas morning

~ Mommy, Daddy, Chandler, Ben, Mason, and Anna ~

Getting Ready...

....for Christmas!!  No, not 2012 (thank goodness!); I'm going back to 2011.  It's not too late to post about Christmas since January's not even over yet, right?!  We had a busy, busy December getting ready for the big day.   We had gingerbread trains to make...

...Christmas trees to chop down (OK, we really didn't chop it down, but instead had the workers with a chainsaw do it for us :)  Ben had a ball picking a tree out and running all over the tree farm.  We even saw a bunny rabbit streak out in front of us!  I had a good laugh because Ben just casually asked to go "get it"...as if that thing wasn't running at lightening speed and would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, ha!

Baby Anna had fun at the tree farm all snuggled up to Mama to keep warm!!

Ben's favorite part:  rocking by the fire.  He personally tested out each rocking chair a minimum of three times.

And finally, we had Christmas cards to send!  The timing of our attempt at this photo - when the older boys were with us, not raining outside, right time of day for good lighting, Anna awake, clothes matching and ironed, soon enough so that the cards could be printed and mailed before 2012, and on and on....just happened to inconviently fall when Ben was tired and possibly hungry.  GREAT.

The first few attempts were wildly unsuccessful.  Apparently Ben didn't want to play "paparazzi" at that time.



 "OK, I'll let you take my picture, but I am NOT sitting where you want me to.  Here's my best fake smile!"

 "I'm leaving."  I love the look on Mason's face...."Darnit!  So close!"  Of course, Anna's being an angel :)

Wait! Come back, we have Skittles for you, Ben!  Well....you see where that got us (see the yellow candy in Ben's teeth below!).  Not the look I was going for, though.

AHHHH....finally!  One decent photo in the bunch!  And here you have our Christmas card photo for 2011!