Ellie is FOUR months (already?!?)

Somehow my little baby girl is already four months old!  At four months she:

• Smiles ALL the time and she smiles with her whole body as her toes stretch out and she clenched her fists. 
• Is right on the verge of figuring out how to really giggle
• Doesn't care to lay down and prefers to be sitting up whenever she is awake. Since she's too small for the bumbo still, this means she likes to be held a lot. But make sure you don't try to lay her down in your arms. Oh, and preferably stand the whole time too. So demanding!
• Takes 5-6 oz. of milk every 5-6 hours during the day.  She goes from about 9:30p-6:30a at night.
• Is able to breastfeed successfully without the nipple shield now (something Leila never did).
• Will not go to sleep right after feeding (most of the time.  The notable exception is after her first feeding of the day).  She likes to be up for an hour-hour and a half after she eats.
• Is a VERY mellow baby (especially in comparison with her older sister at the same age).
• Is more needy from 7-9 at night for some reason.  I think she just knows that if she is fussy then, Daddy is around to hold her.
• Still loves to be swaddled when she sleeps.  Pretty much the only time she'll wake up in the middle of the night is if she breaks out of her blanket.

 

 I took her in for her well-baby check today and the nurse could hardly believe what a tiny, perfect baby she is.  I couldn't agree more!  Here are her stats (remember that the percentiles don't reflect her adjusted age):

Height: 21.75" (.08 percentile)

Weight: 8 lbs. 12.5 oz (off the chart)
Head Circumference: 15" (2nd percentile)

So she is definitely a petite little thing!  But she has already just about caught up with her developmental milestones, which the pediatrician says is incredible for a 33 weeker.  We do want her to start gaining a little more weight so I'll be adding in a few more formula fortified bottles to her feedings.  Other than that, we just want her to keep growing!

Dino Museum (At Last)

Remember how I said that Leila missed her field trip to the dino museum like three weeks ago?  Well, she has pretty much been congested and feeling icky since then so I hadn't been able to take her and make it up to her yet.  But now that she is on antibiotics, she is feeling MUCH better.  Plus I decided to try and see if not letting her take a nap would help her sleep any better at night so we decided to spend the afternoon there today.  When we first walked in, she wasn't sure what to think of the huge dinosaur bones all around her, but she warmed up pretty quickly and had a blast exploring everything.

She was too excited to hold still for pictures

Her favorite part was hands down playing in the sand.  They have both a wet sand table and some dry sand boxes that the kids can dig around in.  One of the benefits to going in the middle of a weekday is that she had the wet sand table all to herself for a good 20 minutes.

Ellie pretty much slept the whole time, but even when she was awake she was good to just hang out in her carseat in the stroller.

Since we've got our annual passes, I'm sure we'll be back again (and again, and again)!

My Two Girls

Since we didn't make it to church today (we aren't taking Ellie yet and Leila had a super rough night), I was sitting around and felt like taking some pictures of Ellie.  Suddenly Leila was right next to her wanting to make sure she was in the picture too.  Too bad she doesn't cooperate for pictures very well...

Leila got distracted pretty quickly and I was able to capture some of the many expressions Ellie is making these days, along with her big, gorgeous eyes.

While Leila was not sleeping last night, she started complaining that her ear hurt so Jason eventually ended up taking her to the on-call pediatrician to see if we needed to get her on antibiotics.  She definitely had an ear infection (only her second one ever).  I'm glad she's getting old enough to tell me what's going on with her.

Making faces while waiting for the doctor

Two Years...

Growing up, my parents often made Valentine's Day a family celebration as much if not more than a celebration for just the two of them. In elementary school, Dad would help us craft very intricate and unique Valentines boxes. They'd give us our own Valentines gifts and we'd have a family candlelit dinner. It was this dinner two years ago that provided my last memories of my dad as he would pass away days later. I will be forever grateful that this tradition was in place so that I can look back on him chanting "chocolate, chocolate" and making Leila do a dance in her high chair. While this holiday is now laced with a wide range of feelings, including missing him fiercely, I am grateful for the opportunity to celebrate all of the love in my life and can't think of a better example of this than him. I am so grateful for the knowledge that our family will be reunited again one day. Love you mostest Daddy!

A Walk to the Jungle

Leila started a new unit in preschool today and will be learning all about Africa this month.  She made a safari hat at school today and when we went on a walk this afternoon, she informed me that she wanted to go to the jungle and look for animals.

Too bad Utah doesn't have a jungle and its winter so all of the trees are bare.  So, we had to settle for walking down by Utah Lake and spotting birds and a stone lion.  She was less than impressed.

Ellie's Gone Cordless!

Ellie has been on continuous oxygen since she left the NICU, which is not unusual for a premie.  At first it was looking like she'd get off very quickly (like 1-2 weeks), especially since she was on the lowest setting and had been on room air up until the day before we brought her home.  But every 2-3 weeks we would give her an oxygen saturation test and she kept failing.  I'd get my hopes up every single time that she'd pass and I'd be able to get rid of all of the cables and cords that kept us fairly well tethered.  I couldn't walk from one room to another without a huge hassle.  Shoot, even going from one side of the room to the other was a pain.  I HATED it!

Three weeks ago, after this had gone on for 2+ months, we were told that we needed to take her into a pediatric pulmonologist to see if there was an underlying cause that was keeping her lungs from fully maturing.  But of course we couldn't get in to see the specialist for another 3 weeks.  In preparation for Ellie's appointment with the pulmonologist this week, we did another oxygen saturation test over the weekend so that we'd have the most up to date results in hand.

Surprisingly, we got the call from the pediatrician this afternoon that she PASSED and could go off her oxygen and monitors immediately!  Initially they still wanted us to go to the specialist just to make sure but then the pulmonologist called shortly thereafter and said they'd looked over the results as well and were comfortable cancelling the appointment all together. 

I immediately disconnected her and starting getting all of the sticky goo off her face.  I am positively giddy and can hardly believe that I finally have a cordless baby!  

I do find it a little ironic that we got this news on Groundhogs Day since I have been comparing my life lately to the movie Groundhogs Day because it has felt like reliving the same day every day since I couldn't really do much to break up the monotony.

January Phone Pics!

January 1

Happy New Year from this smiley baby!  Just overlook the cradle cap...I promise this is worst it ever got!  As soon as I gave her a bath that afternoon, it looked MUCH better!

January 2

Ellie is an amazing sleeper and I am so grateful for that.  Sure, she's not quite going super long overnight yet, but when she is asleep, she sleeps soundly.  Even with Leila screaming like a banshee throughout the house.

 January 3
Leila is such a sweetheart with Ellie.  One of her favorite things right now is to let Ellie "tickle" her nose.  She thinks it is absolutely hilarious!

Leila got some new playdoh tools for Christmas and loves to create various things like snowmen, piggies, and wriggly worms.

January 6

I have definitely started to notice that Leila is becoming more and more attached to my hip lately.  You'd think she was jealous of the attention her sister gets or something...

 January 8
Since Ellie is still on oxygen, anytime we go anywhere, we take along a lot of extra "baggage" for her.

Ellie is such a snuggly baby.  Being held will almost always calm her down.

 January 9
I took Leila along with me to one of Ellie's appointments today for her yearly checkup (yes, I know it was overdue...the last few months have been a little crazy!) and she loved following the fishies around.

January 10

Leila has started wanting to sleep with the stick horse that she got for Christmas (aptly named Paisley).  I can certainly think of more comfortable things to have in bed!

 January 14
Just a picture of Ellie having some snuggle time with Daddy.

 January 15
I love this little peanut!

 January 16
I made this 3D paper snowflake for a project and me and Leila decided to have some fun with it when I was done.  Anything to break up the monotony of being stuck inside all the time!

 January 18
Ellie likes chilling on the floor...sometimes!

 January 19
Leila is starting to make silly faces, especially when the camera is out.  Such a ham!

 January 22
We were all sitting around the family room when Leila decided she wanted to play with her doll.  She grabbed one of Ellie's bottle and then asked me for a burp cloth.  She fed the doll, burped her, and then said that the baby had pooped and needed a diaper change.  She then proceeded to play pattycake with the doll and eventually put her to bed in Ellie's bassinet.  She's a quick study!

 January 24
We've been noticing that Leila has been feeling a little neglected since Ellie came home and that she is constantly wanting more time with me, so we decided that me and her needed to do something special, just us.  We went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity and ended up getting an annual pass for the two of us so that we can have an "out" more often.  One of her favorite areas this night was the vet.

 January 25
Leila loves Ellie and is super gentle with her.  But she also likes to make sure that Ellie isn't the only one getting attention.  I pulled out my phone to take a picture of Ellie and Leila went and layed down next to her and said, "take a picture with Ellie!"

 January 28
Daddy was watching Ellie while I took a much needed break and while I was gone, he sent me this picture.  Don't you think she looks like him?

 January 30
I swear, this girl is always happy and I love that she is getting more and more alert and aware of what is going on around her!

 January 31
Said goodbye to 2014 wearing her Christmas PJs.