Friday, January 20, 2012

Six Months (a few days late)



River, you are 6 months old (January 14, 2011)! 







You weigh 17.2 pounds. You are 26.5 inches long.                                                                You wear a size 2 diaper. You wear a size 2 shoe. 

You are in mostly 6 months clothes, but some 9 months and some 6-12 months 
(and of course, the occasional 3-6 month... why are clothes sized so differently?)

Eating... well, it depends on the day. You've had colds and congestion for the better part of the winter and it really makes bottle feeding harder. When you can't breathe our of your nose and are gagging on congestion taking a bottle just ain't happenin'! Add that to severe GERD and it's a slow go. Back at Thanksgiving you were taking 2-2.5 ounces regularly (but were extremely fussy... like cry at least half an hour of every hour.) When you got the first cold it just went downhill from there and we eventually stopped offering the bottle for a couple of weeks. We have finally built back up to taking 1-2 ounces with each feed. You do wonderfully if you are well rested and not having stomach pains, but that doesn't happen with every feed. We're working on it. I know one day you will conquer this and this must just be part of the story God is writing for you. I've been giving you very, very small tastes of applesauce on your paci occasionally. I think we're still months off from solids. You're taking 6 ounces every 3 hours, but sleep through the night (so about 5 feedings).

You're sleeping pretty good... usually waking up once a night either around 3 or 5 and sleeping till 7 or 8. Sometimes you sleep straight through till 8. We JUST stopped swaddling to sleep (unless you're really irritable or can't settle down) and you sleep just as great not swaddled. 

You've been so social lately... babbling and gurgling with lots of smiles (save for the last couple of days where you've been really fussy and gassy). You do pitch an ugly fit... raring back, stiffening up, and holding your breath. You are a mess! You had an MRI done about 3 weeks ago and the anesthesiologist made sure to come out and tell me how you held your breath for a solid 30 seconds when they were messing with you. No news to your mommy! I feel like most of these fit's are related to GI pain and hope we can find a doctor that is helpful soon. We hate to see you hurting. 

You've gotten much better at riding in the carseat and easier to take places. I wear you in Aunt Kel's Baby Bjorn a lot... we're going to have to find one that holds a higher weight to buy since Aunt Kel will be needing hers back soon for Baby Boy!

Developmentally... holding head up and rolling over like a pro when you are mad about something. When you're happy you hold your head up for a few seconds on your boppy. You're mostly holding it up when you are being held against someone though. We are proud of you.

We love you, River!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

2011 in pictures


2011 was a wonderful, blessed, long, hard year for us. We were extremely blessed, but also walked through some really sad times. Life, right? I'm looking forward to seeing what 2012 has in store for us. Here are some of my favorite moments from 2011.

January 
Briley had a big announcement to make last January :)

B's first big snow :)

February and March
I can't believe it, but I actually have ZERO pictures from these months... sad! Big events were celebrating our cousin Reed turning 2 in February and we found out we were getting  a baby brother too!

April
B dyed Easter Eggs for the first time

We did a  lot of playing outside and swinging!

May
One of the only pictures I have while pregnant with River... I am HUGE here, but I still had till August to go to (even though we only made it to July).

June
A very special little girl turned 3!

Partying at Chuck E Cheese with her cousins, Reed & Browning

July
4th of July- the kids played for HOURS on the giant water slide


 And Mommy parked herself at the bottom and didn't move nearly all day. I was MISERABLE and ended up in the MEU that night.


 Hmm? And what else happened in July? Oh yeah, this sweet boy made his (early) arrival and we settled in a for a long NICU stay with many up's and down's. 
Welcome to our world, River!

August
 Our 5th Anniversary... spent in the NICU at Children's

 And we took LOTS of wagon rides at Children's Hospital

September
 Somebody broke out of the NICU to come HOME!

 Only instead of home... we hightailed it to the beach for our first family vacation as a family of four. TEN WONDERFUL DAYS!

October
 Happy Halloween from Briley at Boo at The Zoo!

 Our little football's first Halloween 
(and Mommy's first homemade costume)



 Life at home

November

 The month of November looked a lot like this for us... lots of renovating!



 More :)


 Attempting a family pic... Daddy cropped out and B being crazy!

December
 River

 Santa came!

 Seeing Santa had visited!




 

Blog Template by BloggerCandy.com