More rolling!

Haven rolled from her stomach to her back today for the first time! I need to get a video of her during tummy time, she is sooo funny!  She goes so crazy "swimming" and then tries to push up on all fours and then goes back to "swimming" and so on!  I think she is going to be on the move way sooner than I'm ready!!

Opening Doors!

Haha! With everything Venily CAN do, it always surprised me that she never learned to open doors yet... until this morning! :(  She was in a time out in her bedroom and came up to me!  I was so surprised that I thought maybe I hadn't shut the door all the way.  I had her go back in there and show me how she got out.   She opened it right up!  Luckily we still have all the door safety things on every other door but hers from the last time Landen was over! :)

Part of me wanted her to never learn how to do it, but there was another part of me that thought maybe I should try and teach her in case she was ever in a dangerous situation and needed to get out of a closed room!  Guess she made that decision for me!


[And completely off topic with this post, this is what Venily said to me this morning at breakfast: "Mom, I got milk on my pants, but you don't need to worry about it!"  The things she comes up with, she cracks me up!]

I HAVE THE MOST EXCITING (non baby related) NEWS IN THE WORLD TO SHARE...

I had thought that my 2 sickeningly gorgeous girls couldn't get any cuter.... apparently they could, BOTH of my gorgeous little girls got their EARS PIERCED TODAY!!!!  Can you even believe it?! 


I have literally been begging Jason since BEFORE VENILY WAS BORN!!!  I have always imagined myself a mother to little girls with their ears pierced!  It seems unnatural to me that someone would be AGAINST it, but Jason was dead set on them never getting them pierced!  Well, I worked my magic and finally convinced him to grudgingly let me get it done!  The girls had some money left over from Christmas and I researched around.  I found a place that had 2 qualified, experienced ear piercing people and I found out when they were both working at the same time.  They both got both ears done at one time, so it wasn't bad at all!  Both girls just cried for a second and then were as happy as could be!  We even went right to Music & Me class afterwards and both girls had a great time!  Venily was showing off her earrings to EVERYONE, LOL!!!!  She is so proud of them!! [Side note: Venily is NO longer shy at the library at all!  She is actually really outgoing now!!]


I AM SO ECSTATIC!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Rice Cereal!!

 

 

 

Mmmmmm!  She loves it!!  Her first solid food was a success!!!  She was really excited to finally get some "real" food! :)

Haven is 4 Months Old!!

Haven's 4 month well check went great today!  She is very healthy and the doctor and nurse were laughing at her growth charts, lol!  Her weight and head circumference are still high, but they are starting to taper off a bit, but her height is continuing to skyrocket! :)  She is able to do everything she is supposed to, plus way more!  And the doctor gave me the green light to start her on rice cereal, but I don't have to until she is 6 months old.  I want to start today though, we'll see how she likes it!!  The doctor didn't see any indications of teeth coming soon, so hopefully we get to hold off on that, Venily didn't get her first tooth until she was almost 8 months, so I'm hoping Haven doesn't either!  She had 3 immunizations today and just cried for a second and was all better once I picked her up!  Next appointment is at 6 months.

Here are her 4 month stats:

Weight: 16lbs, 4oz
Length: 27 inches
Head Circumference: 41.5 centimeters

(Venily was 15lbs, 4oz and 25.5 in)

Clothes size: mostly 9m & 12m (I squeeze her into a couple 6-9m things as well!)

Diaper size: 2 

Shoe size: 2 (I think... not that I ever put her in her millions of pairs of shoes!)

SLEEPING: 9-11.5 straight hours a night!  We had a few weeks of waking 1 and sometimes 2 times a night and now she is back to sleeping 11+ hours straight again! :)  She gets soooo tired in the evening though!  Sometimes she goes to bed for the night at 5:30pm, so I try to keep her up as long as I can!  Even then though she usually wakes to eat around 5:00am and then goes right back to sleep for me!  She takes 2-3 really good naps most days!  And she is still putting herself to sleep which is my FAVORITE thing ever!  Haven and I both like sleep, which is awesome!  Venily STILL would rather play than sleep anyday!

EATING: Still exclusively breastfeeding!  We started trying a sippy cup this last week too!  We have one sippy cup session a day... she only takes about an ounce from it.  She likes it and can latch on and get it going good, but a lot more comes out at a time than she's used to, so she has to take a lot of breaks to breath and then latches back on, haha.

WE GET TO START RICE CEREAL TODAY!!!  I'm so excited!!  And I have 8 different baby food to start trying after her cereals! :)  I'm looking forward to firmer (though not as nice smelling) diapers... maybe we won't have so many blowout diapers, lol!  I am NOT looking forward to colored spit up though, I'm going to have to wear a poncho and cover my house in sheets to keep everything from getting stained! :(

PLAYING: Her favorite toys are anything she can grab onto and put into her mouth!  She LOVES her carseat mobile, her rattles, and teething rings and her excersaucer.  She also could play with Venily for HOURS!!  She loves her so, so much! ♥  She loves splashing in the bath and rolling around on the floor with her toys!


I'm really impressed with how content she is solo playing as well!  Sometimes I put her on the ground with a few toys and forget she's there b/c she just plays there happily until I or Venily come play with her!!  She's such a laid-back, content baby!  It definitely makes being a mom of 2 very easy!  I can help Venily out with stuff and Haven just patiently waits her turn!  You have to love her!! :)


APPEARANCE: Still has very blue eyes and very little hair! She is chunky, but VERY long as well!!! :)


SPEECH:  She talks A LOT, just like Venily did.  She is always telling some kind of story.  She does a lot of vowel sounds, her "monster" voice, and loves to squeal and laugh!  The only real consonant she does is "g".  I can't wait until she gets her "b's" and "d's".  And of course I can't wait for "m's"!!



MOVEMENT: She rolls from her back to her stomach (though not as much as she was doing it).  I still haven't gotten it on video.  I have some cute videos of her trying really hard, but I can't seem to get my videos on photobucket anymore to put up on here!  She hasn't rolled from her stomach to her back yet though (which is funny b/c that's the easier one to do, the doctor says that usually means that she'll be rolling to get to places before she starts crawling).  She also spins in circles and schooches around a lot!


AT 4 MONTHS...

Haven's LIKES:
* Daddy (she cracks up if he even so much as looks at her and she follows him with her eyes as he walks around the room!)  I knew she wouldn't be a Mommy's girl for long!  Though she still does love me and Venily as well!

* Story time, Music & Me, and her playgroup!  She loves getting out of the house and seeing other people and kids!!  She's definitely a people-watcher!

* Reading books!  When I read books to Venily for her nap and bedtime (if she can stay up that late!) Haven always tries to outread me!  I love it, she loves to talk!!!  She talks over me the whole time, I really want to get it on video! :)



* LOVES her saucer too!

Haven's DISLIKES:
* Being tired!  You can definitely tell when she's tired!


HAVEN/ VENILY COMPARISON: (Venily at 4 months)

Pics: Venily at 4 months!  I can still see a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences too!  The biggest difference is head shape.  I think Haven's head shape is much more similar to mine and Venily's is a lot more like Jason's.

WE HAVE A SUPER HUGE SURPRISE TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have literally been dancing around my house the last 2 days because I'm so excited!!  I'm really hoping I can sleep tonight.  I'm not even joking! :)  I'll share it with everyone tomorrow, so check back!!!!!  :)

Haven's 3 Month Pics!

She was really tired during the shoot, but I still love how they turned out!  Thanks again Jacki!!!

I'm so proud of her!

My little Venily is growing into such a big girl!!  She still amazes me each and every day!

• She can recognize almost all of her capital letters now and knows at least one word that starts with each letter and some of the sounds that the letters make!  We are going to start with lowercase soon!
• She says "May I have a piece of gum, please Mommy?" (or insert any other request).  Every time she wants something!  You can't refuse her when she's so polite and she says it in the sweetest little voice ever... you just can't!!  She always says thank you for even the smallest little things as well, I love it!  And she gets so excited for anyone else when they do something good.  Like today at lunch I was eating and finished my peaches... and she goes "GREAT JOB, Mom!!!  Wow, you ate all your peaches!  You're AMAZING!!!".  I got the same response after I finished each other thing on my plate as well! :)
• And look at this coloring she did today!!  She's getting really good at staying in the lines! :)  (She did all the blue, I did the purple)

Yep, I love that girl!


**Haven will be 4 months old tomorrow and has her 4 month well check and shots tomorrow morning!  I'll have her 4 month update after we get back! :)

Graco Recalls Strollers Due to Fingertip Amputation and Laceration Hazards

Graco Recalls Strollers Due to Fingertip Amputation and Laceration Hazards

John Mayer! ;)

Jason read Venily her books for her nap time today and one of the books he read was "The Wild Little Pony."  In the book there is a baby pony, a mommy, and a daddy.

Later on Jason asked me, "What does it mean that Venily kept pointing to the Mommy horse and saying that the Mommy horse was John Mayer?!." (FYI- Venily listens to John Mayer ALL the time!!)

Me: "I have no idea!  That's weird..."

(a few seconds later)

Me: "Oh my gosh, she meant that the Mommy horse is a Mare!!"  LOL!

I love 2 year olds!!!

1 Year Ago Today...

We found out I was pregnant with Haven!!  I can't believe that was a YEAR ago already!

See story here! :)

I made the mistake of looking through my pregnancy pics the other day! :(
It seems so long ago that I was pregnant!  And no, by me saying that I WANT another baby, that does NOT in fact mean that I we are TRYING for another baby!  Oh how I love how people like to spread rumors!

I still have the positive pregnancy tests from Haven in my drawer and I look at them every so often and all the feelings from seeing it positive the first time come right back to me!  I just can't bare to throw them away... lol!

Every time...

I leave the room with Haven on the floor on her back.... I come back to her on her stomach (and usually facing the opposite direction from turning around so much)!!! :)


But every time I try to get it on tape, she won't do it!  She'll come soooo close, but not go all the way over!  I will have a video to post soon though! :)




And Haven had her first Music & Me class today (well at least the first one OUT of the womb!)!  I figured she'd just sit there, but she had as much fun, if not MORE fun than Venily, haha!  She was cracking up the whole time and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the musical instruments!  She really enjoyed story time yesterday as well!  She was telling her own stories while Mrs. Joy was telling hers, lol!  It was so cute!!!  I'm thinking about bringing both of the girls to a playgroup tomorrow (if I can get Jason to let me go!)! :)

Haven is 3 1/2 months old!!

She is such a BIG girl!!  I had to go through her stuff AGAIN and take out a lot of her 6-9m stuff that was way too small (like several inches short on the arms and legs!!!) and add in a lot of 12m stuff that she fits perfectly in!  (though I'm definitely remembering that different brands mean very different things!  Gerber, Children's Place, Disney and some others she's officially in 12m though!)!  I actually feel RELIEF when I put her into something that's a little big on her, LOL!



Our perfect plans to have another fall daughter so that all of our clothes fit the same seasons isn't working out as well as planned, lol!  But luckily for her we have a LOT of clothes and she is not having any problems finding any to wear!  :)



She ABSOLUTELY loves to be on the floor right now!  And LOVES to roll back and forth from side to side all the time and sometimes go over!  Venily didn't roll over until much later!  I'm afraid that she's going to want to be on the move ASAP!  She is always turning around in circles while laying down and I find her in the craziest positions when I go to get her when she wakes up from naps!!


She LOVES toys and is grabbing like crazy at all her toys and of course bringing everything right into her mouth!!  She is always biting something!  She bites on my fingers sometimes and it HURTS!! haha!  I love it when she crams 8-9 of her fingers in her mouth all at once! :)



Sleeping at night is hit or miss now!  Sometimes 11+ hours, sometimes waking up 1-2 times a night to eat!  She went so many weeks with sleeping so long through the night, I thought for sure she'd keep doing it, but I guess not!  She ALWAYS wakes up the happiest little thing in the world though!  I can not think of any other way I'd like to wake up than seeing her gorgeous little face and permanent giant, gummy smile!!  It's contagious!! :)  I always think that her cheeks must hurt from smiling so hugely for so long, but gosh how I love it! :)


I bought her cereals and food to start when she hits 4 months!  We're excited!!!  She goes crazy for her flavored Tylenol and I let her lick my apple the other day and she went NUTS, haha!  She also opens and closes her mouth when she sees us eating, so I know she's definitely ready!  I can't wait... just a little over 2 weeks left!

A Day in the Life of Haven Araya!

(At 3.5 months old)
Man, it's a lot of work to keep track of all of this stuff! :)  I wrote Haven's schedule down for the day since it's been 5 weeks since the last time I did it!
 

7:05 pm-1:05 am - SLEEP! (6 hours) 

• fed
  

1:15 am-4:15 am - SLEEP! (3 hours)

• changed diaper (wet)
  
• fed (I wanted to try CIO, but Jason got home from work at 3am and wanted to sleep!)
  

4:30 am-7:05 am - SLEEP! (2 hours 35min) 

7:05 am - Woke up

• fed her

7:15 am - PLAY TIME! 

8:30 am - changed diaper (wet)/ played

8:50 am - changed diaper (BM)

8:55 am - Fed

9:05 am- 9:50am - SLEEP! (45 min)

10:05 am - Fed/ Played

10:55 am - Changed diaper (Wet)

10:55 am- 1:00pm - Out of house! (awake/asleep in carseat) (about 1 hour sleep?)

• 12:05- changed diaper (BM)
  

1:00 pm- 1:50 - SLEEP at home!(50 min)

1:50 pm - Woke up! Played

2:10 pm - Fed/ Played

2:45 pm - changed diaper (BM)/ Played

4:10 pm- 4:50pm - SLEEP (40 min)

5:05 pm -Fed/ Played

5:40 pm - Fed

5:50 pm - changed diaper (both)/ Played

6:55 pm - Fed

7:05 pm - Sleep!

I am not enjoying this 'waking twice a night' stuff!  I'm not sure what to do!  I know I'm not supposed to feed her, but I just keep thinking "what if she's hungry"?!  She can obviously go through the night without eating b/c she did it for WEEKS and WEEKS (and still does every couple of days), but I always end up giving in so I can go back to sleep!!  I'm afraid that I'm going to fail sleep training again, haha!  I'm going to ask her doctor about in on the 26th at her 4 month appointment!

I felt that today was pretty typical... she took a lot of shorter naps today though, I feel like usually she combines a lot of those (which I prefer)!  A lot of times her spitting up wakes her up from her nap! :(

Which means that in 24 hours...
* She slept for 14hrs, 50 min!!
* I changed 7 diapers (3 wet, 3 BM, and 1 both)!
* I fed her 9 times! 

* And I didn't count how many times she spit up!  Probably about 10 times or so!  It's so much a part of my life it barely phases me anymore, haha!

This was her 24 hr stats 5 weeks ago:

* She slept for 16hrs, 10 min!!
* I changed 8 diapers (4 wet, 2 BM, and 2 both)!
* I fed her 11 times! (she usually only takes one side at a time, only a few times of those did she take both sides)
* And she only spit up twice!! Both times while laying in her bassinet and both times after not burping well after a feeding!! :)

I'm actually kind of surprised at how similar these two are!  But she is sleeping a little less, getting changed a little less, and eating a little less, so I guess that's good! :)

Haven's 1st Movie!

Haven, Jason, and I saw Avatar in 3D yesterday and Haven did GREAT!!!!   She had to sit there for 3 hours and slept for 90% of the time in my arms (which she normally never does)!  When she woke up she made one little sound and I quick fed her and she was good to go!  I had to change her one time, but luckily I have a lot of experience in fast-changing babies and didn't miss anything in the movie!  Then Haven watched the last like 10 minutes of the movie and was really interested, even though she didn't have a tiny pair of 3D glasses on! :)


And the movie was INCREDIBLE!!  The 3D was AMAZING!!




The only movie Venily ever went to was "Horton Hears a Who" when she was 6 months old, and SHE slept through the whole thing too!

Haven's New Trick!

Haven has been rolling over from her back to her stomach all day today!!! :)

My Little Haven-Lily!

Officially fits in 12m Gerber sleepers and has been wearing them the last couple of nights!  She has a bunch of 6 month ones and I knew they were getting way too small, so I tried the 12m ones, and they fit perfectly! :(  She is wearing some other 9m and 12m clothes now as well... and she is only 3 months old!!!  I feel like I am CONSTANTLY going through all of her clothes and taking everything out that doesn't fit any more!


In other Haven news, the last 4 nights in a row she has no longer been sleeping her usual 11+ hours straight!  It is now more like 8 hours, wake to eat and then sleep for another 4 or so!  I know it's nothing to complain about, but I was really getting used to the 11+ hours, haha.  I think she is going through a growth spurt!  I've been pumping the last couple of nights right before I go to bed and I'm not getting nearly as much as I used to!  I think her waking to eat is probably to increase my supply, I'm hoping the pumping will help as well!

New Year Resolutions

Last Year I wrote a New Year Update (see here) and had the following resolutions:


-nailed this one :) I consider myself an awesome mom, it's my JOB after all and I always put 110% into everything that I do!! I take it very seriously! ♥

-yep, no problems with this one either, I was able to check this one off my list after the 1st of the year! :)

-I definitely tried and will continue to do so!

-And by that, I meant GET organized because we had just moved into our new house after having everything in boxes for 8 months! I am VERY happy with how far we have come from January 2009 to January 2010!!!! I can't even tell you how many HOURS I have spent going through boxes and organizing and reorganizing things! My new Xmas present has helped out tremendously with our bedrooms now as well! I still have more to do though!

-I didn't exercise DAILY, but I did a pretty good job, especially while being pregnant 75% of 2009! I had my weekly yoga class, I walked a lot, and started a routine with Exercise TV that I stopped only because I severely injured my neck for a month (it was so bad, I'd cry daily and was very close to going to the emergency room a couple of times!) and it is only now better, but I plan to start my routine back up now!



This year's resolutions are very similar!

• Continue to be the best Mommy ever! :) I would like to ESPECIALLY work on my temper as we enter the "Trying Two's" and all the sassiness that comes with it (a post for another time, lol!). And I want to make a continued effort to spend 0ne-on-one time with Venily doing various learning activities and arts & crafts projects!
• Seriously research and get everything in order to prepare for an adoption and/or convince Jason to go for "one more"! :)
• Relax more! Don't know when I'll have the time, but I will try! :)
• Finish up the rest of my organization! This includes a few boxes I have to go through, doing something about my TREMENDOUS picture problem, and FINALLY doing the scrapbooks that I have all the materials for, but have yet to even start!!
• Finally get pictures up on my walls! Someday...
• Exercise daily! I'll definitely keep doing exercise TV, and I really want to go hiking a lot with the girls when it gets nicer out! And depending on how Haven does, I'd like to go back to my yoga class- it'll be nice to do some of the positions I never could while pregnant!

I hope it goes well! Good luck to everyone else with their resolutions!