Sydney is Six Months!

Sydney turned six months on tax day (April 15th). She is a pretty serious baby. Her smiles are rare and giggles rarer. But she's starting to come more out of her shell and will give her parents big grins, squeals, and on the rare occasion, a giggle. Her bottom right tooth is sticking through and the the left one looks like it's going to cut through at any moment. She eats rice cereal only so-so and hasn't really liked any of the veggies we've tried yet. She's also not sleeping through the night yet but that's a whole different story. :) I got this cute picture the other day while Chris was reading her a book. I have a similar one of Max.
We went to the little water park/play area in the middle of town the other day. Doesn't she look adorable in her little sundress and hat?

She is so frustrated she's not crawling yet. I got a couple of pictures of her trying the other day. She's starting to squirm forward a little but nothing definite yet. She learned to sit up about a month ago though so that has helped with the boredom of being a baby that can't move. Especially with your older brother running around you all the time.

She likes her jumper when Max isn't trying to spin her in circles...

Her stats at 4 months:

Weight: 13 lbs. 50%

Height: 24 2/3 in. 55%

Head: 41.5 cm 55%

Her stats at 6 months:

Weight: 15 lbs. 3 oz. 30%

Height: 25 1/2 inc. 30%
Head: 44 cm. 90%

Just like Max, she's an orange on a toothpick :) Big head is supposed to be an indicator of intelligence, right???

The picture of Max with Chris: Cute, cute kids if I do say so myself.

(By the way, I know she looks like she's smiling in all of the above photos, but they are the five I got with a decent face out of the I don't know how many that I've taken of her!)

Max...

Last night Max had a cough so I gave him some cough medicine with some chocolate milk (nestle quik).
This morning Chris gives Max a sippy cup with milk in it and Max rejects it (read - throws a tantrum and yells). Chris thinks he's giving in and pours some Slimfast in with the milk, not just fake pours it either like we usually do but actually gives Max some. Max still rejects the milk (read - yells again at the top of his lungs) and points to the pantry. I see this and tell Chris I think he wants the Nestle Quik. Chris gives me an exasperated look and gets out the nestle quik. He pretends to pour some in the sippy cup with the lid still on. Max still won't take it (once again this involves yelling) and he points at the silverware drawer. I tell Chris that Max understands that you have to STIR the chocolate milk. So Chris gets out a spoon, with a look of "you've got to be kidding me" on his face, stirs the milk, puts the lid back on, and hands the cup to Max. Max smiles and starts to drink, happy as can be.
Chris says I created a monster.
I think we have a kid who knows what he wants, knows what is involved in getting what he wants, and knows exactly how to get his parents to do it. What can I say? I'm whooped. But wouldn't you be too by this face?

Sydney's Four Month Check

Sydney is four months (almost a month ago)! Two more months and she should DEFINITELY be sleeping through the night, RIGHT??? Sleep has been a real issue lately so it's on the top of my mind but maybe I'll go into that later.

I took Syd in for her checkup and the doctor said she had a little ear infection in both ears. So for the first time as parents, we gave our kid antibiotics. She's all clear now. Hopefully this isn't an omen of things to come...

Her stats:
Weight: 13 lbs. 50%
Height: 24 2/3 in. 55%
Head: 41.5 cm 55%

Average in everything and very perfect. She's rolling around when she feels like it and demanding to be held a lot. She doesn't always get her way but I can tell how much she got held by how much my back hurts at the end of the day.
She also demands you stand up to feed her a bottle. She doesn't care when I'm nursing her but for some reason likes to stand while you give her a bottle. She really has quite the little personality! Which you can interpret to mean she screams when you don't do what she wants and she has an opinion on everything :) We love you Sydney!!!

Funny Kid

Max is getting pretty cute with Sydney. He doesn't want to hold her but will sit on the floor next to her and reach out and hold her hand or touch her leg.
Yesterday at church, Chris was holding a sleeping Sydney and sitting on the end of the pew. I was holding Max next to him while the sacrament was being passed (a very quiet time of the program). A little girl, younger than Max, was going up and down the aisle and stopped when she saw Sydney. She reached over to pat her, not too softly I might add, and Max flipped out. He yelled "Baby! Baby! Baby!" in this angry voice before I clamped my hand over his mouth. Apparently, he does not like his little sister being touched. Funny thing is, he's the one who woke up Syd, not the little girl.
Another time Max was over at my friend's house with Sydney while I was out. My friend said he got very concerned when Sydney started crying pretty hard. She said he even went over to the door, like, Where's my mom? She'll fix it. He's a good big brother. Even if he did try to sit on her this morning.

Sleep...

It's 11:30pm. Sydney is awake. And I mean wide awake. As she is every night at this time. She always stays up an hour and 45 minutes after she wakes up. But no matter what time she falls asleep, 8pm, 9pm, even 9:45pm, she wakes up at 10pm almost on the dot.
Here's what we've tried: We give her formula at night to try to help her sleep longer. We've tried feeding her in her room with the lights off and still swaddled but she's just wide awake after she eats. About three nights ago I fed her and was able to get her to go right back to sleep. I tried again tonight and as she was drifting off to sleep, Max moaned in his room and it was enough to completely wake her up.
So here I am awake (Chris has early morning meetings) with Sydney who is as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. The thing is, she's always been a night owl. When she was first born I had to wake her up all day long so she wouldn't be up all night. And a week later she would be back to sleeping all day if I let her. I've constantly had to keep her days and nights right. So now she goes to bed around midnight, eats around 4:30am and sleeps until 9am sometimes. Tomorrow I think I will wake her up at 7 or so and see if I can't change the circadian rhythm a little bit and get her to go to bed earlier. But I'm out of ideas if that doesn't work. Any suggestions??

Quiet Book

A newborn is not the only reason I have been away from the blog lately. Back in September my friend Rachel asked if anyone wanted to do a quiet book with her. We all chose a page and then made that same page enough times to give each person a copy. We ended up needing FIFTEEN copies of each page. (!)
A page was front and back and if we wanted two books, we could do a second page. I chose the abc's, getting dressed, and colors for my pages.
This is what my pages all looked like at the end:
Below is an up-close look. The page folds in half so that the abc's are one page, the "closet" with clothes is on the left side, the person to put the clothes on is on the right, and the balloons are on the back of the person page.
Max likes it already. THANK GOODNESS because it was A LOT OF WORK!!!Below are all the pages we got minus two that are still coming from Virginia. I am working on sewing them together now and putting in the eyelets. Max is still a little young for most of the pages but he has fun looking at them. It's going to be great for church, dr's offices, and airplanes!

This is the cover I made.

If anyone is interested in a closer look at some of the pages, I can post individual pages. We also used this blog a lot for ideas and suggestions. http://quietbook.blogspot.com/ We did our books on heavyweight pellon instead of muslin though. I've talked to a few people lately who have just started doing their own. All I say is - GOOD LUCK! It's worth it when it's done!

THANK YOU RACHEL!! I never would have finished this on my own!

Sydney's Baby Blessing

We blessed Sydney on November 14.

The only good picture of us has her screaming, of course.

Mike Bain from the church, Corey, Travis, Grandpa Gappmayer, Chris, Grandpa Harbertson, and Greg all participated. It was so nice to have family in town and very sweet of them to come down to us. We had a great time.
Max had a fun time with his cousins. Here he is giving Lyla a kiss. Lyla wasn't as thrilled about it.

Grant is about 4 months older than. What a difference a few months makes right now! And Sydney looks so dark here compared to him.