Tuesday, April 30, 2013

7 months!!

Sidney is 7 months old today! I can't believe our little peanut is that old already! I say that every month that rolls around, but it is so sad that time is going this fast!

The fact that Sidney is 7 months old, means there is only 4 months until Kylie turns 4!!! Holy crap!

Sidney has been pretty busy this past month. She can now pull herself up on things. She did it on her little blue rocker chair, in her crib and on my legs. When she does it on my legs she usually gets stuck in sort of a L position, unless I bend my legs up. She easily goes from sitting to crawl position and has even pushed herself backwards with her hands. She can also turn herself in a little circle when she is in a half crawl/half laying on her belly position. I know she badly wants to be moving. She sits on her hands and needs and keeps rocking herself back and forth! I imagine this next month will be it. I bet she will be crawling before she turns 8 months.

Sidney still doesn't have any teeth. I thought this morning, that I may have seen a slight little white barely showing on her bottom, but I'm not 100% sure.
 For a week now she has been wearing an amber teething necklace.  It is made from Baltic sea amber. When warmed against the skin, the amber releases succinic acid, an all-natural anti-inflammatory with antibiotic and pain-relieving properties. So it helps with her teething pain.
 Many people think they are just hoaxes. But I think it works and I think it seems to be helpful. She has already stopped "chewing" on her lips/tongue like she has done previously and like Kylie did all the way through her teething. She is also just less cranky in the evenings, so I am sold that it must be working.

Sidney weighs about 16 pounds still. I find this to be surprising since she weighed 16 pounds a month ago. I thought she would way more than that since she is on a pooping hiatus again. She has pooped 2 times in the last couple of weeks. I just bought her some prunes, to hopefully remedy that situation.

She is also 26.5 inches, maybe. I could not get her to cooperate with getting measured today. But that seemed pretty close. She has been growing about half an inch each month lately, so that should be pretty close. :)

She is still pretty bad about being fed with a spoon. So, she hasn't had as much food as most 7 month olds usually eat. She discovered cheerios and puffs this past weekend. She did pretty good feeding herself. I may have to just really finely chop some very ripe fruit/veggies and just let her feed herself.
I think she would like that better anyways.
Oh - and we got a high chair!! Thanks to Mike's grandpa!! His family brought it out to us this past weekend. It is a beautiful wooden high chair and I am so glad we were able to receive it!

She is such an amusing little girl. She has quite the shy attitude as well. She will still give people a little smile as she turns her head down, so you can't see her face. She is usually quite vocal and makes the cutest little trills sometimes.


Here are a couple pictures from today!

My big girl.


Refusing to let things be and sit still for pictures.
:)

Standing with her blue chair!
 
 
We are looking forward to seeing what she will learn this next month!


Sidney's Dress

I realized Sunday night, that I didn't get a single picture of Sidney in her dress, by herself.

So I dressed her back up and took pictures Monday afternoon.

She REFUSED to have her bonnet on, so I didn't get a good picture of that. But I took her outside to some random spots and took a couple pictures....here are a few of the better ones that I was able to get from her. She wasn't in a real smiley mood. :(

The only smile I got
& the only one with shoes on too I think!
 
 
The only way she wouldn't touch her bonnet
was to have something in each hand.
Thus, we removed the shoes.
:)
 

Outdoor shot
(I think I need to re-edit the coloring on this one)
 

I really like this one!
:)
 

She refused to look at me. :)
It was a little too sunny out for her.
 

Took advantage of the shady spot by the hay-bales,
but she was still all squinty
 

And a little pouty looking. :)
 

:)
 
 

Monday, April 29, 2013

A Family Gathering - Part 3

UPDATED: More photos added to end!

Sunday.

Sunday was Sidney's baptism. It was promising to be a good day weather wise, when we headed into town.

I had every good intention to make the cake for Sidney's luncheon. My whole Sunday morning was thrown off when I forgot to grease the cake pan so that I could take the cake out of the pan to frost it.

My mom came to the rescue and came out and made the frosting for me. After piecing the cake back together and getting it all done it looked alright. You couldn't even tell it was in multiple pieces after it was frosted. Thankfully! :) It seemed to taste alright too!

It looked a Whole Lot like Kylie's cake did. That was just bad planning on my part though.

The whole baptism went well too. Mike and I joined the church by answering a few questions before we started Sidney's baptism.

I was terrified she would scream her head off once I passed her off to Pastor Green.

BUT...

She didn't make a peep. I was so excited. She did squeal and whine a little the entire time I held her, but that was ok.

It was a wonderful experience and I am so glad that we did it.

I have no photos from the moment because I used our camera to take video of it. Soooooo - those of you reading this that were there and took pictures - I would like some! :) Please?

After church we headed back out to the "farm" for lunch. The wind really picked up so we moved to the side of the house. After a couple of hours there, we decided to take it back to the hotel. It would be a little nicer inside somewhere (our house is not large enough to accommodate that many people!) and people could just relax at the hotel before leaving this morning.

We opened the gifts that Sidney received and the girls got some more pool time. Then some more play and snuggle time with family.

Sidney was going to have some bananas for supper, but then decided to throw her jar on the floor and shatter it. She then got to discover what Cheerios are and seemed to approve of them. :)

Overall, it was a great weekend. I am pretty sure everyone is exhausted. At least I know that I am. Kylie seems to be exhausted as well. (She took a nap today!)

Sidney has decided that after being held all weekend, she doesn't want to be put down at all today. I imagine she will get over that fairly quickly though.

I hope everyone is having good traveling weather home and hopefully we will see you all again soon!

Here are a few pictures from Sunday.

Sidney with her Godparents,
Uncle Chris and Aunt Rachel
 

Everyone who came out to join us
:)
 

chilling on the side of the house, so it wouldn't
be so chilly
 

Her cake. Now imagine, the cross on the right side,
the date on the bottom and the words "Kylie Jean" where
the cross is, and you would have Kylie's baptism cake
:)
 

Hanging out at the hotel
 
 
Mike, Chris & Kylie
 

Sidney's way of helping open presents
 

Chris and Sidney with her new toy
 

Cheerios!
 

Swim time with Katie!
 

Kylie helping give Sidney a push around the pool
 

My side of the family
 

Grandma & Grandpa Reger with the girls
Kylie is VERY tired!
 

Kylie and Elise
 

Grandma & Grandpa Mattmiller with Sidney
(If anyone has a better pic, or a pic with both
girls with them, will you email it to me?)
 

Reading a book!
 
 
 
On another note - if anyone has a good pic of the Mattmiller family from when we did pics at the church, I would also like one of those. And if you have a good picture of Mike, me and the girls on the hotel couch from Sunday night, I would like one of those too!
And feel free to send any other cute pictures too! I didn't take nearly enough pictures this past weekend!!

A Family Gathering - Part 2

Saturday had great weather. Almost too great. Quite a few family members got some serious sunburn. Although they didn't seem to mind to take that kind of souvenir back to their snow covered homes. :)

It was sunny and warm and we spent the entire day just hanging out outside. Enjoying the fresh air and enjoying the company of the cows. We ended the night with a small campfire and a couple of us roasting some marshmallows.

Here are a few pictures from Saturday.

Sidney getting some Auntie love
 

She sure loves hair clippies!
 

Kylie's new best friend, Elise
Getting pushed by Elise's daddy, Doug
 

Fun times
No one believed us that the rope on the tire
swing, would hold up.
(It did.)
 

Crazy climber Kylie
While Elise gets her sock and shoe fixed by her
mom, Michelynn
 

Katie trying to feed the moo moo cow
:)
 

Mallow roasting.
Note: Kylie is helping her daddy hold his beer.
:)
 

YUM!
 

Sidney with Grandpa Mark
 

Off being fascinated by the cows and
contemplating whether or not they could
get to a calf to pet it. :)
 

Pretty sky
(I messed with my editing tools - the sky
didn't really have such potent colors.)
:)
 

The end of the night.
 
 

There were sooo many more photos! I may post another blog tomorrow with extra random pics. Just to post more pics, just because. :)


A Family Gathering - Part 1

We had a whole bunch of family come over/up for the weekend. Had visitors from MN, WI, and CO. I think it was a big success. (At least none of them complained!) The first of our visitors came Thursday night via air. Kylie was pretty excited to watch their airplane land and to pick them up! The majority of the group came Friday afternoon and the last of them came up Saturday afternoon. It was SOO good to see everyone!

Friday night we just hung out at the hotel and got the girls in the pool. It was nice to just relax. I imagine all the people that drove that day felt the same way.

Kylie and Sidney got showered with a whole lot of love.

Sidney even allowed other people to hold her! It was touch-and-go a few times though. If she caught a glimpse of me, it was usually game over though and she would start screaming. :)

Here are a few pictures from Friday. :)

By the way - Sidney can do this now if she is set sitting
by the edge of her crib.
Thank goodness she hasn't figured out how to roll
from back to tummy and get to the edge yet.
I have a feeling the mattress will have to go down soon though!
 

Dena and Kylie playing in her little Kitchen.
Aunt Dena was Kylie's best friend on Friday. :)
 

Sidney being perfectly content with Uncle Chris
 
 

Color time!
 

Big Grins for Uncle Chris!
 

Just relaxing in the pool.
:)
 
 

Monday, April 22, 2013

A Snowman and Muddy Puddles!

We woke up this morning, to large quantities of heavy sticky snow. Not very exciting to us adults, but to 3 year olds it is fabulous!

It totally put a damper on my cleaning/shopping schedule this week in order to get things ready for visitors. So since the majority of my day was already squashed do to the snow, I figured it was ok to promise Kylie some snow time this afternoon. :)

It stopped snowing mid morning so we ran to town to do a couple of errands and go to the grocery store to buy a carrot.

By the time we got home, it was snowing and starting to blow. Kylie was still determined to go out though. So after everyone had lunch and I put Sidney down for her nap, Kylie and I headed out to make her first snowman.

"First snowman?" you ask. Yes. She is 3.5 yrs old and we still haven't made a real snowman. ( I wouldn't really count this as a real one either, but she was happy with it!) It seems that where we've been living, we have never gotten any really good snowman snow - and if we did get it, it was WAY to unbelievably cold to go outside and play in it.

Here are a few pics of her first snowman.
(I remember these being easier to make when I was little!)

Kylie getting it started
 

Sticking in the nose!
 

Adding the buttons!
 

Kylie and her little snowman!
 
 
The wind was getting kinda bad, so she wasn't real enthused about making a real big one. This was a perfect Kylie sized snowman though!
 
One of Kylie's fav. cartoons on tv is called Peppa Pig. Peppa loves jumping in muddy puddles after it rains. So, since we have a giant muddy driveway now due to the melting snow, Kylie couldn't resist doing some muddy puddle jumping. Even though I knew her feet would get soaking wet, I let her have her fun since I am sure (hopefully!) this will be the last real snowfall until this fall. (I HOPE!)
 
 

I love this picture. :)
 

Over by the cow fence
(where all the babies come wandering out!)
 

 
 
Hope you all have a good week. I am sure it will be better than mine. I will be cleaning all week! :) Out of love!