Lenore at 3 Months

My pretty girl at 3 months 

And showing her personality at 3 months :)

Lenore is 3 months old now and is a very sweet baby girl. No doctor's appointment this month (at least no wellness-checks...hopefully no more sick appointments, either), so I took the measurements myself:

Her stats (percentiles from BabyCenter):

Height: 25 inches (in 90th percentile)
Weight: 16 pounds (above 95th percentile)
Head Size: 16 3/4 inches (between 90th and 95th)

What she's up to this month:

• Sleep has been rough on me. With the sickness of the past few weeks, she's started waking up 2-3 times a night (at like 12:30-2-5 or 1-3:30-6:15), and I've had trouble falling back asleep some nights in between feedings. I put her down between 7 and 7:30pm, and then I've been going to bed shortly thereafter (8 or 8:30pm) to try to get enough, but it's still been rough. I try to get her to stay in bed until at least 6:30am--sometimes she won't go back down after a 5am wake-up, though. I know I'll look back on these days 'one day,' but man. What I wouldn't give for a continuous night of sleep.
• She has the sweetest giggle. That helps. A little. :)
• She is having more 'active' time...in the Jumperoo, on the floor, standing on our laps, etc. She really seems to like to stand.
• I've started trying to do her naps in her crib this week. She was napping in her rock-n-play or her swing up until now, but her naps were only lasting 30 minutes or so. I'm trying to keep her in her crib for at least an hour--it's going well in the mornings and at mid-day, but not so much in the late afternoon. (Update: we're back to napping in the rock-n-play. Still trying to avoid/wean off the swing naps if we can.)
• We've both noticed that she seems more verbal than we ever remember Lewis being at this point. She coos and makes all sorts of noises, like she's ready to talk already.
• Breastfeeding is better than it was, but still not as it should be. I no longer have the toe-curling pain at latch-on, but I do still have a lingering, burning (raw) pain after we're done feeding. She will not take a bottle when we've tried on occasion, which feels very limiting to me. I've been reading about how to get her to take them, and it seems a lot of people say to keep offering bottles-only (no boob) for a day or two, and that she will eventually give into it (and then reintroduce the breast once bottles are established). If I can get my *(&$ together, I can pump and try that, though. I'm just having trouble finding time to do much of anything besides keeping the children out of trouble right now. I also dug out a different brand of bottle we used with Lewis, and a friend might bring a third brand over for me to try out...maybe Lenore is just unsure of the particular design? I had a friend suggest that last week, too. I'm not sure, but I really hope we can get her to take one soon so that I can maybe sleep through a couple of feedings and let someone else take over.
• She is wearing 6 month clothes.

Crazy Busy Life

Phew! Life has gotten so crazy busy this month! I feel like every day has been an uphill battle to some extent, and I'm hoping that things will calm down a little in the next months. I still need to write my Boise post, I realize. I had some free time a few weeks ago and had to wait too long for Dropbox, so the moment passed. I will do my damnedest to get it together, I promise.

After Boise, both kids had colds. Lewis had it worse at first (fever and runny nose), but then Lenore got fussy and snotty (not fevered, though). I ended up taking her in because she had an exceptionally fussy day of only 30 minute naps, and they found that she had a double ear infection! They put her on 10 days of amoxicillin, and by day 7, she was still a fussy pants, so I took her and Lewis in that time to be checked again. Sure enough, they both had double ear infections, so we switched to 5 days of Zithromax and went on our way. The last day of that was last Friday, and I think Lenore is better. Lewis still has a runny nose and cough, so we'll see about him. Needless to say, these past few weeks have been difficult around here.

On top of it all, Kevin got a promotion at work (yay, Kevin), which means he's been working more and has more responsibilities. It is great, but the timing of it has made home life a little challenging at this particular juncture. I haven't been able to get into much of a routine yet, so home-cooked meals have been meager and the house is a bit of a wreck (from the infant stuff + toddler stuff coming together). Sooo, on top of all of that, we've decided to move to a bigger house! Why not just pile it all on at once? New baby? Check. New job? Yes. Move? Why not?! We've clearly lost our minds. I met with a Realtor on Friday, and we are aiming to put it on the market in March. Life definitely won't be calming down anytime soon, but we'll at least have a proper bedroom for my parents and our friends to stay in when they come to visit. And we won't be tripping over toys at every turn if we can get some sort of toy room set-up.

I'll get the 3 month post up this afternoon. I have to wait for Miss Lenore to wake up so I can take her picture and do her measurements.

Christmas 2014

This was our first year to stay home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, in the 12 years we have been together. Our 'usual' routine was to drive up to my parents' house a few days before Christmas, do Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family and Christmas morning at my parents' house. Then we would pack up and drive (2 1/2 hours, if no stops) to our house to drop off and reload gifts, and then spend the afternoon/evening at Kevin's parents' house. All that running around clearly is too much with two little kids. It was too much for me before we had kids, too, but we didn't do anything about it--it's nice to start traditions of our own. I think it worked out well, even though we missed getting together with my side of the family. We did get to see them a few weeks before at Thanksgiving dinner, though. 

We made an Italian meal for Christmas Eve and went to the Episcopal church where Lewis goes to school. I thought taking both kids to the service would be a nightmare, but Lewis was pretty well-behaved, and Lenore slept through the whole thing (she sleeps a lot!). :) It was neat to see some of the same traditions at this church as at my parents' church--I might have started crying during the candlelit-singing of Silent Night at the end of the service, thinking of my family doing the same thing, missing my sister (we used to sing like maniacs, especially on Christmas Eve), etc. I felt very close to them, even though we weren't with them.

Here is video Kevin took of Lewis walking in to see what Santa brought for him on Christmas morning:

A Construction Train!

He wanted to set it up and play with it immediately, so we did that before opening his other presents (from Kevin and I and my parents).

We went over to Kevin's parents' house later that afternoon to have lunch and open more gifts. Overall, it was a nice day. Much more relaxing than in years past.

A few days later, from Kevin's phone:

Sibling Hugs!

Snuggle Time!

There are probably 50 other pictures similar to these on Kevin's phone. :) Lewis likes to hold his sister, a lot. Life is very full and busy and pretty wonderful right now.

The Polar Express and I Turned 34

While we were waiting for Lenore's arrival, my parents came down to stay for if/when I went into labor. My mom mentioned taking Lewis to The Polar Express ride in French Lick around Christmastime, so we decided to go for it. I bought him the book (which came with an audiobook) and the movie, and he and Kevin went to the Science Center to see it on the big screen sometime either before or after Lenore was born. (It's all a blur!) :) We listened to it in the car just about every time we drove anywhere, so that we were up on the story, and Kevin read him the book most nights at bedtime. Lewis could recite the book to you if needed.

We drove up to French Lick on a Friday afternoon and met my parents at our hotel for the night. They were sold out of the train tickets, so the only way we could get tickets was to book a package at this hotel with an indoor water park, so it became a whole getaway thing, which was great. We unpacked and got ready to go for our 5:30pm departure:

 They encourage kiddos (and adults) to wear pajamas, like the kids in the book. :)

 Waiting at the train station

 Lenore was there, too! 

She slept the whole time, of course. Maybe next year she'll be awake for it. :)

The conductor came through and punched our tickets like they do in the movie. 

I think Lew thought that was pretty cool, seeing punches/confetti flying everywhere. :)

They did a really great job of reenacting the book and movie details. Lewis thought it was pretty great--it stops at the North Pole and heads back to the station, at which time Santa comes aboard the train and talks to each child. Lewis' face, seeing Santa walking down the aisle, was priceless. He wasn't much into talking to ol' Mr. C, but he happily took a bell from Santa's sleigh (which is from the story) as a souvenir, which was pretty cool.

The next day, we headed to the water park at the hotel where we were staying. Lewis was tall enough to ride the big water slides with an adult, so we took turns taking him down and going down ourselves. Despite feeling like I might crash and seriously injure myself (they were FAST), we had a blast. We all switched off holding Lenore and riding the slides and/or lazy river. It was a really great set-up, and we'd like to go back sometime. After lunch, we headed over to the French Lick Resort to see their Christmas decorations, which were beautiful.

The next day was my birthday--the big 3-4! It's kind of a blur--I know there was cake and ice cream. I might have gone for a pedicure, I honestly can't recall! [Update: Kevin reminded me that we went out to dinner and to see Wild.]

 Getting some help from Big Lew

There are a ton of pictures that I haven't posted--of Lewis and Kevin raking leaves, visits with family at Thanksgiving and Christmas, etc. I could do a whole posting of pictures of Lewis and Lenore snuggling--Kevin has so many on his phone! I'm working on getting the pictures off of my phone so that I can post about our trip to Boise--it's just taking a while.