Nine Months and Narcissism

 It's already time to post a monthly update on little Miss Sprout?!?  I am seriously freaking out now - I want to hang on to the "babyness" as long as possible.  Is that so much to ask?  I can't help it that she is just one stinkin' cute baby! 

With this sassy little one, there is no need for any other entertainment in our house.  Little Sprout knows that she is the center of attention and feeds off it.  She wakes up every morning cooing and chattering, just waiting to get to her audience at the breakfast table.  If no one deigns to pay attention to her, she demands attention by throwing food and chanting her name.

Yes.  You heard that right.  She knows her name and can say it.  Repeatedly.  Our fourth child's first word is "Anna."  She knows the world revolves around her!   See for yourself here. 

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Hummus Baby

the girl likes her hummus. . .

linking up at 5 Minutes for Mom...

Eight Months - Why Does Time Fly By So Fast?

 I feel as if I just wrote about her turning seven months old!  Time is certainly speeding along, and this momma is clutching at its heels and begging it to slow down just a little bit.  This time around, I am really savoring all the moments that I know from experience don't last.  Even when she wakes me too early in the morning, I eagerly take her from her crib, smiling at the sweet chubby legs dangling over my arm.  Her two-tooth, wide grin gets me every time.  I impatiently wait for her to show it off again.  Everything about her - her squishy tummy rolls, her drooly face, her loud baby chatter, her hilarious cackle - is precious to me. 

I am happy to report that Little Sprout is FINALLY drinking formula!  It took a lot of effort and countless bottles thrown across the room, but she now will drink either Target's Up and Up Gentle formula or Costco's Kirkland formula.  At least she's frugal. :)  She weighs just about sixteen pounds - still petite for her age.  And if you look closely at that cheesy grin, you'll see two tiny teeth emerging from her lower gum.  They popped out last week.

This girl is so full of life!  Naptime is a battle every day as she just wants to stay out with her brothers and sister and party!  She is sleeping better at night, only waking once or twice during the night now.  We were blessed to have a friend drop off several baby and toddler toys for her.  Now she has toys just for her, although she still gravitates to the Hot Wheels and Barbies. 

Ah, I adore her so much!  Can you tell?  In the midst of the busyness of playing with and working with my six-year-old, five-year-old, and four-year-old, it is relaxing and just plain fun to have a baby around.

I think we'll keep her. 

Little Sprout is Seven Months

Little Miss Sprout has turned seven months old today.

The pictures speak for themselves - this little gal is way ahead of herself in motor development.  She is pulling up on anything that she thinks will support her and is taking shaky steps all around the furniture.  Occasionally she will venture out and try to walk without any support, but this always ends in a faceplant.  We had to make a trip to IKEA to get a special baby gate to fit across our stairs.  Now you can hear me hollering a million times a day to "don't forget to close the baby gate!  We don't want your baby sister falling down the stairs."  Of course, at the rate she is going, I wouldn't be surprised if she had the skills to rappel down the stairs. 

Unfortunately, momma's milk is gone.  I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks trying to get this girl to take a bottle, a sippy cup, a regular cup, a medicine dropper, anything to get more hydration and more nutrition into her.  She is quite stubborn - I have no idea where she gets that from.  Currently the combination of coconut milk and a certain kind of bottle seem to be working okay.  Night time is the hardest.  Miss Insomniac gets up at least two to three times during the night and expects to be brought into bed and nursed back to sleep, essentially.  Now I'm shoving a bottle in her face and begging her to go back to sleep.  It's not fun.  Emotionally it has been hard on me.  I am sad that this bonding time with my baby girl is gone.  I am however very proud that I was able to breastfeed her for almost seven months. 

Who needs TV when the kiddos have a charming baby sister to chase around and watch all of her amusing antics?  Despite the feeding and sleeping troubles, I would say that this baby is the most fun one we've had yet! 

Little Sprout is almost fifteen pounds and is wearing 6-9 month clothing.  She is tiny for her age, but she still sports some fat rolls that are beyond adorable.

On to eight months!  I wouldn't be surprised if she were walking by then!

One Third of One Year

That's the amount of time we have been blessed to have this cutie hanging out with our family. Like her middle name, she surely does bring us a lot of joy! I am in awe some days that God found me worthy to be her mama. And then there are the days in which she screams pretty much all day, and there is no awe, no joy, no wonder at it all. Ha!

At four months old, Little Miss Sprout weighs about 13 1/2 pounds and is one chunky monkey. She is working hard on maintaining that double chin and her adorable squishy thighs by eating all the time and keeping her mama busy. I am pleased to say that I am still nursing her, which feels like a great accomplishment after failing miserably with both boys.

Her favorite activities include eating her fists and her feet, which she discovered a few weeks ago. She also loves watching her siblings play and enjoys beebopping around in her exersaucer. Daddy has discovered that our newest little is very ticklish, and we get such a kick out of hearing her little cackle. The girl never stops moving, I tell you! Even in her sleep, she scrambles all over her crib and ends up snoring on her tummy. And yes, I know it's "Back to Sleep" but what is one to do when her baby automatically flips over onto her tummy every time she is laid down?

Little Sprout definitely looks interested in the food that I serve up to the rest of the family; so perhaps in her five-month report, I'll be sharing all about her reactions to "people food." Until then, she can slow it down a little! I am in no hurry for my baby to get older!

Tres Cute

Well, the Little Sprout officially turned three months old yesterday. Don't ask me where the time went, but our little sweetheart seemed to turn into a "not-very-newborn-anymore" overnight! I am trying to enjoy every second of this all-too-brief phase in her life.

She weighs in now at a little over twelve pounds; so she is still mostly sporting clothing in the 0-3 month range. The sweet knitted cape in the photos was made especially for her by a dear lady in our church.

We have many pet names for our newest family member, but lately I've taken to calling her "Fuss-Bucket" and "Chunk-Bucket." She can be quite the cranky one, especially at 5:00 pm and following. A few mild cries will quickly turn into wall-shaking screams if she is not attended to immediately. She really isn't happy unless she is surrounded by family that is paying attention to HER. We may have to rename her the "Drama Princess" for blogging purposes. As for "Chunk-Bucket," the poor babe spits up. A lot! She eats and is hungry an hour later because she spit up most of what she ate. We have been having to supplement with formula to help her with this. It took several brands, but apparently Similac Sensitive is doing the trick, at least for now.

As I mentioned in the last post, Little Sprout is now rolling over and doing it all the time. Many times it is to get some toy she can't quite reach. The girl loves her toys, in particular a giraffe rattle and some musical car keys. Although, she is currently shaking her fist at the giraffe and screaming, so I am not sure if that happy relationship will continue.

I love this age, even with the extra fussing and spitting. The smiles and constant baby chatter make it all worth it. happy three months, Fuss-Bucket!

Warning: Cuteness Overload

Thanks for all the prayers and kind thoughts. As a whole, we are doing much better. We are still waiting on test results, though, so until we get those, sweet Hosanna has to keep taking the bottle while I pump. So not fun.

Meanwhile, I realized that I had 172 pictures on my phone - apparently I use it a lot more than our actual camera to capture moments around the house, especially of our new addition. Here's a few (okay, more than a few!) pics of little miss Hosanna Joy to show how much she's grown over the past month:

*waiting at the hospital in January to have an ultrasound to test for hip dysplasia*

*first smile at just a month old*

*love this face*

*getting ready for church at one month old*

*playing with Daddy - of course she adores him*

*another church photo (and the lock screen on my phone, I love it so much)*

*she is definitely not a leave-her-in-the-swing-or-bouncy-seat baby - she wants to be with me. all the time. so here she is in the laundry basket...*

*found these antennae at the store on clearance and couldn't resist*

*trying on her piggy hat*

*hooray for the bumbo - she loves to be upright due to her stomach issues so the bumbo works wonders for us*

*just last night, after she screamed for an hour and I couldn't get her to calm down. We finally put her in a warm bath, and this was the instant result.*

I promise not to make every post about the baby; in fact, I'm working on some "interviews" with the other three kids, and maybe I'll worm in something about the Nerd too. Still, these pictures are just too cute to not share with the world, am I right?

One Month

Well, I forgot how much a newborn changes the routine and schedule of a family. I forgot how many times I have to stop whatever activity I'm engaged in to feed her and change her. Homeschooling and housework and kid time have to fit in around her schedule. So suddenly, computer time is not so much a priority. Still, I have to find time to make sure all the important moments are recorded. So, a week late, I present to you our one-month-old:

Like her big brother Spud, she is very much a morning person and quite cranky in the evenings. She is already developing her own personality, amusing and delighting us with the cutest facial expressions. Little Sprout weighs a little over ten pounds at one month old and is filling out 0-3 month clothing well. Sadly all the newborn outfits have been already tucked away.

I am trying my best to relish every moment of the "littleness" as I know it will fast be replaced by toddler chubbiness. :)

Hosanna Joy's Birth Story

Okay, so it took me a while to get this posted - a month after the sweet baby girl was born, in fact. But here it is - the story of the arrival of baby number four to our family.

When my estimated due date came and went, I posted this picture on Facebook. I was so ready to have that baby! The nights were miserable with painful Braxton Hicks contractions, and the days were endless. I had not been able to make any firm commitments to attend any of the various Christmas functions we had been invited to since we had no idea when Little Sprout finally would make her appearance. The day after my due date, I attended a Ladies' Christmas Ornament Exchange Party for my church and stopped counting how many people asked, "Oh so you haven't had that baby yet?"

On Friday evening (December 9), after doing several laps at the mall and Target and only ending up with swollen ankles and an aching back, I saw online that there was going to be a lunar eclipse in the early morning. Not only that, but a full moon was scheduled for that Saturday night. I'm by no means superstitious, but both of my boys had been born during a full moon - so I was hopeful. Unfortunately, it was entirely too foggy in our area to view the lunar eclipse that morning. I had even set my alarm for 4:00 am to see it! That morning, I could barely move because I was experiencing some intense lower back pain. I had had this pain off and on during the pregnancy. I was bummed because I wanted the pain to at least be productive contractions! We decided to go out with the kids for a little while, but I was exhausted and hurting. The back spasms kept coming and I just wanted to go home and sleep. Our Sunday School class had a Christmas party scheduled for that evening. We had not planned on going because we thought Little Sprout would have arrived by then. I didn't really feel like going but thought it might be distracting and help keep my mind off the whole "when is this baby going to come?"

While dropping the kids off at childcare before heading to the party, the back spasms started getting much more intense. I could barely breathe when they came, nearly doubling me over with pain. A friend suggested that I might be in labor, but since I had never experienced back labor with my other babies, I was reluctant to think this might be true. I was also really tired of false labor! At the party, everyone was merrily eating and talking. I could barely take a bite before I would feel that "stabbed in the back" pain, and I would have to sit there and force myself to breathe through it. The Nerd convinced me to start timing the back spasms, in case it really was labor. They started becoming very regular, about ten minutes apart and lasting forty seconds to a minute. I still insisted on staying at the party for the gift exchange :) At this point, I was having trouble focusing on anyone or anything. We left the party and went to pick up the kids. Although I was against it, the Nerd called the hospital to let them know I was in labor. By this time, the contractions were 8 minutes apart, but I was sure the nurse was just going to tell me to wait it out until they got closer together before coming in to the hospital. However, she told us to come in right away.

My in-laws came and got the kids, and we headed in to the hospital. While walking to the labor and delivery floor, I had to stop every couple of minutes and work through a contraction. I remember thinking that I had never experienced such painful contractions in either of my previous deliveries. I looked out the window while we were checking in and noticed the full moon. It wasn't long before the nurses had me settled in a room and hooked up to the monitors and IV. The Nerd started setting up his cot and letting people know I was in labor. We knew from previous babies that my labors were long, so there was no need to rush things. The midwife came in to check my cervix and announced, to my great shock, that I was 8 cm dilated and would be delivering the baby within the next couple of hours! Everything started happening so quickly at that point. I asked if I could still get an epidural to help with the back pain. The anesthesiologist told me that he could give me an epidural but that it wouldn't be able to take full effect since I was so close to delivering. It took him two tries (ouch!) but he finally got it in. At that point, any relief from the back pain was welcome! Apparently Little Sprout was positioned right up against my tailbone and the pressure was causing the back spasms. At midnight, I was ready to push, and after 45 tiring minutes of pushing, this adorable little girl came into our lives and stole our hearts instantly:

I wasn't able to hold her right away. Her lungs had a lot of fluid in them; so she had to lay flat in the warm bassinet for a while in order for her muscles not to work so hard to breathe. But oh! When they finally placed little Hosanna Joy in my arms, my heart swelled with happiness as I looked at my brand-new daughter.

She looked just like a girly version of our Spud. Her head of dark hair amazed and delighted us.

The Nerd was instantly smitten - another Daddy's girl has joined our family!

When the siblings were able to come visit later that morning, the Beast would not leave her side. The others got distracted by flashing buttons and curtains and nurses that gave them ice cream. The Beast held his little sister with great pride and showered her with kisses.

The Spud was pretty excited too! Look at that face!

We had an amazing stay at the hospital - our nurses were wonderful and everything went so well. But we were more than ready to take our newest addition home that Tuesday morning. She fits into our family like a glove - now just a month later and none of us can imagine our family without her.

Welcome, Hosanna Joy! Our family was not complete until you arrived, and now our lives are even more full of joy. :)

Newborn Sweetness

Sometime between one sleepy feeding and another stealthy diaper change last night, I looked down at our sweet Anna and realized that the newborn look was starting to fade away. At that moment, I groggily determined that I would find some time the next day to capture that "new baby" look before it disappeared. (Now if only there was some way to capture that new baby scent!) After a long morning nap, Hosanna was in a good mood; and I quickly pulled out the camera for a photo session:

I honestly can't get enough of her! She has been kissed and cuddled endlessly by all the members of our family, although I am pretty sure Daddy would win the prize for person-most-infatuated-by-the-new-baby. I am so glad I was able to catch some of those cute little newborn expressions on camera!

Best. Christmas. Ever.

This Christmas was definitely a little chaotic. But I consider it our best Christmas ever. (so far, of course.)

Because the kids took such care in making and selecting their cookies for Santa. And because I got to watch them anticipate the magic of Christmas in a way that only a child can.

Because they posed in their new Christmas jammies. (And because this year I think we got the cutest ones yet!)

Because we were blessed with an abundance of loot. :) And because it helped wile away the last days of pregnancy by choosing the best wrapping paper and eagerly anticipating the kids' reactions to all the gifts we chose just for them.

Because we could take time to sit down and remind ourselves of the real reason behind Christmas. And because it's such a powerful story - I can read it to the kids all year long and remind them that although Santa's a lot of fun, Jesus changed the world that night!

Because we got new matching Christmas stockings for the kids this year. (see Hosanna's peeking out behind the Spud?) And because I got to see the simple joy on my kids' faces as they pulled out Christmasy chapsticks and "grown-up" electric toothbrushes.

Because, this year, the Spud really "got it." He ripped into each present with great excitement, screeching what it was at the top of his lungs. Because he was the first to check to be sure that Santa had eaten his cookies and drunk his Pepsi.

Because my sweet girl showed genuine appreciation for each gift. ( and took this cute little fellow to bed with her that night!)

Because my kids spent the entire day experimenting with their new toys, taking baths so they could try out their new bath sets, and cheerfully playing together. Those are picture-worthy moments!

But, most of all, because we received the best Christmas present of all this year - the present of a new family member, who just so happens to be cute as a button. We are all thrilled with this gift and thank God that He saw fit to bless us with such a wonderful bundle of joy.

Christmas 2011 was a blessed day for us! I hope your Christmas was equally full of joyful memories!