28 Weeks - 2/21/12

Natalie is 28 weeks.  Another photo shoot down without a smile.  Oh well, some day I will learn to get up early and do it in the morning.  Ha ha!!! Not gonna happen.  I went through all of her clothes and paired onesies and pants together so we can wear some of this stuff at least once.  This onesie has a little devil and says "Mommy's little Devil."  Natalie is doing much better this week.  She was still coughing at the beginning of the week but that has pretty much gone away.  Still kind of congested but that always takes a while to get rid of. 

She is sitting up pretty well with just a little help.  We are very close to her being able to do it all by herself.  Not that I am rushing anything.  She is grabbing anything in her reach and putting in her mouth too; glasses, iPhone, block, teethers.

Rocky is always feeling left out.  So I have to take a couple of photos. 

Rocky always gets the abuse.  He did not especially like having Natalie on his back but that's his dad for you.

He loves sniffing her and licking her toes. 

This is a cute series of photos of Chris and Natalie.  She is starting to sneeze. 

Here she sneezed.

Daddy is not happy!!

All better.

Woah!!

Here's my smile.  For the past couple of weeks, we have tried to go out to dinner with our friend's Drew and Becca.  They have a daughter, Riley, who is 5 1/2 weeks younger than Natalie.  With sickness running rampage in their family and ours, we haven't been able to do it.  Also, nighttime as you have guessed with the stone faces we get is not the best time for our girls.  We decided finally (why did it take us this long to figure out) that we should go out for breakfast.  We did this morning and we had a success!!! 

This is soo hard to leave on Friday mornings.  So jealous!!

Mommy and Natalie time on Saturday while Daddy played disc golf. 

Grammy and Grampy Rancourt came to visit on Saturday.  They hadn't seen Natalie for a while so the came up for the day.  I found some new teethers for her to check out so here she is with Grammy.

Rocky loves when Grammy and Grampy Rancourt come up to visit.  He gets soo much love. He needed extra love this weekend.  On Friday, Chris was going to wrestle with Rocky and pulled him on his back legs and he proceeded to make the most awful, pathetic noise I have ever heard in my life.  We think he may have pulled a muscle.  Don't think anything is broken but just sore.  He walked and jumped on the couch later.  We have upped his metacam (for sore muscles) to every day for a while now.  Poor thing.  He will be 8 this summer.  Can't believe it.  We have had him for 6 years later this year.  Love that guy.   

We got no snow from the "Storm" we were supposed to have Friday and Saturday.  It has been super windy and kind of chilly.  This has been a weird winter.  I remember last winter we had huge snow banks that I could barely see out of my driveway.  This winter we got hardly anything and it is all gone now and has been for about a month now.  If we get something, it is gone later that day because it gets to about 45-50 during the day.  Weird. 

We are doing well.  I think sickness is gone from the house for now.  Hopefully it is for everyone else.  Not fun for a while.  Chris took third in his tournement this weekend.  He is planning on doing a whole tournement schedule this summer.  Should be fun. 

Hope everyone is well.  See you next week.

27 weeks 2/14/12 Happy Valentine's Day!

Natalie turned 27 weeks on Valentine's Day! This outfit was courtesy of Grammy Rancourt.  One thing you can't see is the onesie that she has on has a bulldog that says adorable on it.  Do we love our Rocky?

She was not all that happy with this photo shoot.  The pictures below were from earlier in the day.  These are taken at night and she is about spent at that time.  Very hard to get a smile out of this girl. 

Someone was feeling left out so he came over to visit.  Can't resist getting him in the shot.  She was looking so intently at him.

Here they are looking at each other. 

Natalie did pretty well over the weekend.  We went back to the doctor's on Monday.  He felt her head and thought it was pretty much the same.  She developed this pretty nasty cough on Sunday, so he checked that out.  He tried to check her ears but didn't work so well.  There was a lot of gunk in there so the nurse came in to clean it out.  Now my girl does not like to have her body forced to do anything, so you can imagine how she felt when mommy had to hold down her arms and head so the nurse could pour water in her ear and get all the goo out of there.  She was not happy.  It was not a good time for any of us.  Grammy Jean was with us.  She was SOOOOO upset.  It doesn't hurt just very uncomfortable and weird.  We got through it and the doctor checked her out and said she had a mild ear infection so had to be put on amoxycilin.  When I went to fill it at the pharmacy, the girl asked what flavor.  There were about 15 to choose from.  I chose grape.  Yech!! Does that stuff stink.  All you smell after you give it to her is sickly sweet grape.  Nasty.  Can't imagine how it tastes.  No, I can by the horrible face she gives us twice a day. 

She's getting really good at holding herself up.  I am helping a bit but she's getting there. 

Her favorite thing to look at is the blinds in our room so she's looking at that and Mom's looking at the camera. 

We did ok until about Tuesday night into Wednesday.  The doctor had mentioned something about lack of sleep as something to look for in regards to the head issues.  She has been consistently sleeping through the night for months now.  She woke up Wednesday morning at 1:30am and ended up nursing as she wasn't going back to sleep.  Also, at day care she didn't nap like she normally does.  On a normal day, she has a 1-2 hr nap in the morning and one in the afternoon.  Wednesday she only had 30 minute naps in the am and pm.  I was a little concerned because of what the doctor had said so I called them when I got home from work.  We went in to the doctor's office and he checked her out and felt that the lack of sleep was from the sickness and not from the head issues.  He also said that since the ultrasound was normal and she is acting like what a 6 month old should act that we shouldn't be concerned with this unless something drastically changes. 

This is what happens when dad takes her out.  She gets socks for mittens and that blue striped thing she has behind her is a cloth napkin he is using for a burp cloth. 

The rest of the week was good.  Dad and her went discgolfing on Friday. She also finally got her shots on Friday too.   

She fell asleep by hole 5. 

 Friday we tried some avocados with rice cereal.  She really liked it this time.  That's good because we have something else for our arsenal.  So this weekend we were supposed to visit our friends Brian and Kirsten in Scituate, Ma.  Their son, who is 3 1/2 months, was just getting over a cold and Kirsten and Brian both came down with ones so we decided not to go. Saturday we were going to go to Manchester to check out some more sofas.  Well, that didn't work out.  Natalie woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  Normally she wakes up and gives you a big gum eating smile.  This morning she woke up crying.  She was not happy and would not even nurse.  I think it had to do with the cold and the shots.  Her legs hurt.  We gave her some tylenol and later she felt a little better.  We went out to a local store in Dover and made it through that without a melt down.  Later, I left and Chris sent me this photo:

I think she was feeling better. 

Sunday, I was supposed to go visit my high school girlfriends but that didn't work out either because of sickness.  Chris had signed up for a disc golf tournement in Limerick, ME.  He decided to go up a division.  He thought he didn't do very well, and ended up taking third out of 16 people.  Pretty good for having a cut on his throwing finger from changing his daughter's diaper. 

Great Aunt Beverly made her some hats.  This one is really cute and fits her really well.

This one is a little big and we will grow into it.  But cute none the less.

Just thought this outfit was cute.

This is the earlier in the day photo I mentioned before.

There's the smile. 

ROCKY!!!

We decided to get rid of our stinky couch that has a tear in it and also replace the one that the dog sleeps on because it is also gross.  So we have been sofa shopping.  This was taken at Bob's in Seabrook.  Why would you need something this big?

This is Bob's in Manchester.  Can't wait for her to get bigger so we can get this for her.  Just her size.  So cute!!! Cup holders too.  Must have with little ones.

Chris' parents requested a gate for the loft area in there house.  They wanted it to look like the railing which is why they didn't want a store bought one.  It came out really nice and works well.  Shhh don't tell Kellan it is for him mainly.  They told him it was to keep Rocky from going down stairs.

We have made it through another week.  Natalie is feeling better now.  Still coughing but way better than she was earlier.  Hopefully everyone else starts to feel better.  We are doing ok.  Rocky had some time off from us because we thought we were going away for the weekend.  He had some fun with Kellan taking some walks but I think he was excited when I showed up yesterday.  He has been sleeping on his sofa since we got home yesterday.  See you next week.

6 months 2/9/12

I can't believe that Natalie is 1/2 a year.  The time has flown by.  She is getting so big and she is so much more animated and interacting with us more.  She has started to enjoy some tummy time and has rolled from her stomach to her back by herself.  Any day now she will sit up on her own as well. 

This is Chris' new thing.  He pulls his hand back from her face and then towards her face.  She really likes it.

Here she is with the bear.  Now she grabs it and puts it in her mouth.  She is finally bigger than the bear.

Here is another photo of Mom and Natalie.  She loves looking at herself in the camera.  She will stare at herself for a long time. 

My former coworker Mary B. gave us this cute outfit.  I had to have her wear as it was 6 months and she is growing like a weed.

Last Sunday, we were up in Alton for the Super Bowl.  We were heading out for the night and I found a cowboy hat there and put it on her head.  So cute!

Friday was her 6 month appointment.  We were expecting to go in and to hear good news and be on our way but we got a little scare.  They kept checking out her soft spot on top of her head.  They asked a lot of questions about having a fever, throwing up, acting different which she hasn't done any of.  She is always checking everything out, tracks everything, very happy most of the time.  They said there was some more pressure at the top of her head so they wanted to get it checked out.  We had an ultrasound of her head and everything came out normal.  They said that she should get more fluids.  She has been going a lot longer between feedings and sleeping through the night so she is not getting as much milk as she was previously. They said to watch for the signs I mentioned before through the weekend and we go back on Monday to check it again.  So far, Saturday evening, she has been the same cutie pie as before. 

On a more positive note, she weighed 16.9 lbs (60th percentile) and was 25"(45th percentile).  Her head is still pretty large.  It is in the 90th percentile but they said she is still growing like she should.  The doctor really said that other than the pressure, she is really a healthy, happy girl and sometimes this just happens.  If everything is normal on Monday, she will most likely get all of her shots then.  They decided to hold off Friday so that they wouldn't adversely affect her situation.  

She had a pretty rough day because of the timing of the appointment so the rest of the day was a fun day with dad.  He took a few photos of the day.

Here she is chillin on the boppy with her favorite toy!

 

Bath time because we had so much goo on her head.

There's my smiley girl!!

Friday night, Chris and I attended a retirement party for a guy he used to work with at Fish and Game.  Chris' parents came over to babysit.  Grampy Dan was with her for about an hour by himself and they survived.  She was getting fussy and as soon as Grammy Jean showed up she was fine.  He was not impressed.   They did well for the rest of the night.

Today, we tried some sweet potatoes and the high chair.  If there was any doubt about this child being ours, this should seal the deal.  This kid has a sweet tooth.  She didn't really like rice cereal until cinnamon and applesauce were put in it.  She likes bananas.  Not so much for the bland avocadoes and peas.  Now sweet potatoes she absolutely loved.  She even took the spoon in her hand at one point and directed it to her mouth.  She ate most of the bowl.  It was a hit!  The doctor on Friday had mentioned that it would be a good time to start meat.  When he first said it, I thought he was joking.  MEAT!?! He said that I am not producing much iron any more so we need to supplement her diet with iron.  One way to do this is the rice cereal and the other is meat.  He suggested cooking up some chicken and adding it to sweet potatoes.  Had to try sweet potatoes by themselves and then maybe some chicken later on.  I am still not giving up hope on the avocado and peas so we will keep trying on those.  Life is sooo exciting around here. The little things make us so happy.

While we were taking her 6 month photo, Chris took her over to hang out with the dog.  She is getting really good at petting him although sometimes she grabs on to his folds, which he doesn't particularly like.  I have been trying to show her how to gently pet him and guide her hand over it as well.  She will get there.

My two babies!

Otherwise, everything else is good.  Chris had a cold this week that Natalie had last Saturday but he is much better than he was at the beginning of the week.  I am doing well.  Rocky's eye issue is pretty much gone.  He doesn't produce tears in one of his eyes so we have to give him drops.  We were bad parents for a couple of days and forgot to do it and scar tissue formed on his eyeball.  We got a cream to put in the eye along with the drops and now it is like he didn't have anything.  It is like he is a new dog.  He just got off a round of antibiotics so he is actually somewhat healthy for now.
Hope this finds all of you well.  We will update on Natalie's head next week.