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!

Ben's Very FIRST School Play!

This Christmas, Ben had his first of many school performance :) It was the Christmas program for preschool, and even though they're only two, his age group got to participate!

As with all "firsts", we didn't know what he'd think about being up on stage in front of crowd, but he didn't bat an eye!! Well, OK, actually, when he saw Mark come close to take pictures, Ms. Nita (his teacher) said he got a little whiney for Daddy, but she reminded him of their song they needed to sing in order to go back to the classroom to get some candy. That apparently did the trick ASAP, ha!!!

Singing songs, doing the sign language...

 Having fun!!  I was SO PROUD (and SO relieved he wasn't scared!)

 Lots of kids...the two year olds came on stage with the entire rest of the preschool at the end of the performace for their part.  You can see his teacher Ms. Nita keeping everyone going...I don't know how she does it!

 Ughhh....getting boring.  How much longer do we have to sing before I get that candy??

 Boredom = picking at the hairbow in front of you.  Apparently the candy trick didn't work for the little girl next to Ben!  He didn't even notice her the whole time, LOL!

Here's a little 1-minute video of the performance :) (Remember these videos won't work from the email; you must click through and actually go to the blog webpage!)

Here's another 2-minute clip that's pretty funny...Ben has a hard time keeping his hands to himself, and the nose-picker beside him (from the first video) becomes a screaming banshee!!

Lastly, all the children worked on some very special art for the school fundraiser that Mommy and Daddy could purchase (tee hee!)....here's Ben's ~ worth every penny!!!

Santa Baby!!

Last week, Anna got to meet Santa! Of course, big brother Ben was there to show her the ropes :) We really weren't sure how Ben would act now that he's old enough to have a real opinion about sitting on a strange-looking stranger's lap! I had a feeling he'd do OK, though, given we had the following exchange earlier this month when we waved at the mall Santa as we passed by:

Me: Ben, that man you waved at is named Santa Claus. He brings you presents!! We're going to come back when Daddy's with us and sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas.

Ben: **blank stare**

Me: You know, presents, like a puzzle, or books, or a school bus toy...

Ben: (leans forward in the stroller) "GET ME TO HIM!!"

Bahahahahaha!!!! How funny!! School buses are his favorite thing to see and talk about right now, so I knew that would be enticing!

So, we sat Anna on Santa's lap first in case Ben freaked out, we'd at least have a good picture of her. Here she is ~ Anna's first Christmas!

Ben did great, though, and seemed to have fun talking to Santa. Of course, he's been asked a million times, "What do you want Santa to bring you?" and he has consistently said the following:

1. a present (always the first response)
2. a pink present
3. elephant
4. tiger
5. a vitamin
6. alligator

We'll see how Santa does with that list ;)

And here they are together...so sweet!

Well, it's Christmas Eve and gifts are assembled and wrapped, and Santa's come to see us! Time for Mama and Daddy to (finally) go to bed and rest up for the big day tomorrow...I can't wait to see Ben's face in the morning since this year, he really "gets" the Santa thing! Merry Christmas and Good night!

Anna ~ 3 Months

Our sweet little girl is three months old!!  She is really becoming so much more "person"-like...smiling at us, even laughing sometimes :)  She loves Mommy's ponytail when it bops around as I'm looking down while changing her diaper or clothes and just beams when I talk to her, even waking up from naps with huge grins!!

Anna has moved into size 3 Month clothes and is still in size 1 diapers.  At night, she usually goes to bed around 9 or 9:30 and wakes up once during the night around 3-ish.  Then it's up around 7 or 7:30 to start the day....but not for long, because she always wants to nap again around 8:30.  A handful of times, she has slept all night (well, at least until 5 or 6:00), but as of now, that's the exception and not the rule.  Maybe soon, though!! 

Everywhere I go, everyone says what a SWEET baby she is...and it's really true.  She's very content and hardly ever cries unless she's super hungry or tired.  And then, just picking her up and holding her (and a paci, of course!) will comfort her. 


Anna's listening to big brother Ben read her a story.



By this time in Ben's life, his eyes had started to show little flecks of brown and green that went on to increase until his eyes were completely hazel.  Anna's are still quite blue, though, and are actually a bit lighter blue close to her pupil than they were at birth.  Maybe she'll keep those gorgeous blue eyes she got from her daddy!!  







November 2011

Well, I'm a little behind on posting here lately, but we had a fun November and I wanted to post some pictures.  Ben is still doing GREAT at school!!  He adores his teacher Ms. Nita and runs into her class every time...so excited to be there!!  I am so thankful he has a teacher that loves and cares for him so much :)  Here's his very first "school picture"....I know he's got many more to go in the coming years, but it's going to be hard to top this one!  I think they did a wonderful job, but of course, Mommy might be a little biased ;)

We attended our annual family reunion "Sumner/Caldwell" football weekend...it was Anna's first one!  It was so cold, Anna, Ben, and Mommy stayed in the car for the picnic part.  Thank goodness both kiddos were asleep.  Then we went to the mall and strolled around while the older boys went to the game.  It was great seeing family and everyone just loved meeting little Anna.



Go Heels!

  Anna and Mommy both had colds this month.  Again.  Poor little baby has already had two in her life and she had started sleeping through the night a little, but then reverted back to her newborn ways waking up every few hours because she couldn't breathe.  I even heard her sneeze herself awake once!

 Ohhhhh, the leaves.  And more leaves.  Ben has had a great time this fall thanks to the leaves.  Mark has not, ha ha!!  He was so tired of blowing leaves by the time it was all done, I thought we might lose a tree or two!

 Ben went to school to eat lunch for Chandler's birthday this year (at Chandler's request, too)!  All the kids just go crazy over Ben and think he's so cute and fun.  They want him to say their name or sit beside him and things like that, so Ben loves it, too.

 Anna....starting to hold her head up a little!!!

Last but not least, we had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving.  We ate at Grandmamma and Grandaddy's house this year.  Ben wore his turkey headband from school, and we made place cards in the form of pilgrims and Indians (oh, and a turkey!) for everyone.  It was hard to decide who was the biggest turkey in the family (ha!) but in the end, the honor went to Uncle Tom.  After all, his name is "Tom"!!

Anna's Swanky Photoshoot

I finally got the images from Anna's newborn session from the photographer, so here, three months later, are some of her at just four days old...it seems like just yesterday!  Swanky5Studios took the pictures, and I just love ALL of them :)