She's a chunk!

Today's was Hailey's 2 month well baby check-up. And it official, she is a chunk! Here are her stats:

Weight - 12 lbs 13 oz

Height - 23 1/2"

That puts her in the 96th percentile for weight and 93rd percentile for height. It is no secret that Trumbull's are tall so that is no surprise to me. For those of you not familiar with the percentile deal, it simply means that she is heavier than 96% of babies her exact age and 93% taller. It really doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things because it fluctuates from month to month, year to year. But I do have to laugh when Emma was at 100% in her height at one point! I knew she was tall but geez! Anyways, Hailey is a picture of good health. The poor baby did have to have 4 shots today. The sad thing about that is within the next week or so, the doctors office will have a combo shot that would have all 4 of those vaccines in 1. I could have waited but I am not nice like that! The other 3 kids had to have all those pokes too! :) And for those of you that may have been wondering, that little red spot on her cheek is called a hemangioma. In layman's terms, it is a strawberry birthmark. It will eventually go away (I have heard by the age of 2, by the age of 7 and by the age of 10) or we can opt to have it removed. But the doctor would like to just leave it alone and let it do it's thing. I really love our pediatrician because he will not just prescribe a medication to a child and he won't just to a procedure if it isn't necessary or if it is too soon. I have always been one to not just take a pill but to wait until whatever the issue has become unbearable. I like that my kids live by that principle also. I know that they can take an antibiotic and it will work because they have not taken it so much they are basically immune to it. Wow kind of got sidetracked there for a minute!

I was glad that she is at the height she is because the Baby Bjorn explicitly tells me not to move the baby further down my chest/abdomen until she is at least 23.5 inches long. I put her in it the other day and her head was right at my chin. Not comfortable! I put her in it tonight while we were at Kayla's open house at school and it was much better!

8 Weeks

WOW I cannot believe it. Hailey is 8 weeks old already! And of course they have just flown by. We have watched Hailey go from that distinct newborn look of a wrinkly baby to having chubby little cheeks and wide eyed expressions. She smiles at us and will coo and try to talk to us now. You can tell she really has a lot to say. I watched her interact with Nana today and it was awesome. As my mom held her and talked to her she just wriggled her little body and would raspberry right back at her. And of course, give Nana the occasional smile. Everyone thought for sure that because Hailey was the 4th child she would be a quiet, mild baby. Boy were they ever wrong! It is quite the opposite actually. Because she is the 4th child she has to make sure we know she is there! She is probably my most demanding baby out of all of them. If she wants to be held, she will make sure you know. If she is hungry, she will make sure you know. Lord help us all when this baby can talk! Who knows what she will be saying to us.

Kayla is a great help with Hailey for sure. About the only thing she doesn't want to do is change a poopy diaper. She likes to help me give the girls a bath and washing Hailey is her favorite. If Hailey is crying, Kayla will go get her out of bed (or wherever she is) and hold her or come find me if she isn't sure what is wrong. But you can also tell if it is too much for Kayla because of the look she gets on her face. I had asked Kayla to keep an ear out for Hailey one day while I was in the shower and Hailey decided that it was a good idea to cry pretty much the entire time I was in there. So when I come out, Kayla is standing up rocking Hailey (this was pre-rocking chair - we all got tired of being a human rocking chair so Nana gave us one of her glider rockers) and her eyes are glazed over and she has this panic expression. She didn't realize she could have come to tell me Hailey wouldn't quit crying so that I would get out! But I am very grateful that she was on summer vacation for the first several weeks. I don't know how I would have done it without her!

Elijah is just in love with his new baby sister. He loves to hold her too. Most of the time he can lay her on his chest and she will just lay there quietly. He will also pick her up if she is crying to calm her. Of course he isn't too interested in bath time or diaper changes or dressing her up. But he does enjoy feeding Hailey her bottles. He just knows that he and Hailey are going to have a special bond.

Emma has handled having to share attention way better than I had expected. The only trouble we have with her is that she doesn't understand what it means to be gentle with Hailey. So she will try to make Hailey hold her hand while I am feeding her. And she likes to rub Hailey's head but will eventually end up patting her a bit too hard if I don't watch her! But she does sometimes ask us to hold her "Like Hailey" which means to cradle her in our arms. She especially likes that after her bath. But I think most of the time she forgets Hailey is even there.

So I have one week left of maternity leave and I am trying to make the most of it despite a million appointments and activities for the big kids this week. I will certainly miss spending the days with the little girls. I know Nana is looking forward to having her Emma back and now she gets to form another special bond with Hailey. I do feel blessed that I have my mom to watch the girls instead of having to send them to daycare. The good news is that for the last 2 nights Hailey has slept for 7 hours. Up until then, she was waking up typically at 3 and 5. Emma did the exact same thing - started sleeping at longer stretches right before I went back to work. It's like they just know.

Smile!

Hailey will now smile at you when you talk to her and play around with her (as much as you can play with a 2 month old). It is very cute and, naturally, very big! She will also try to talk back to you by cooing in her throaty little way. I tried with all my might to get a picture of her smiling today but she wasn't cooperating with me. As soon as I can snap one, I will post it on here!

Fall Soccer

Eli had his first practice this evening for the fall season of soccer. His coach seems to be a really nice guy and way more on top of things than his last coach. Just the fact that they are starting practice when they should be is huge! His first game will be sometime during the week of Sept 2nd. Schedules should be out within the next week so I will have more details then. I didn't get any pictures of him practicing because I didn't take my camera! Oh well there will be lots of games to get pictures!

First day of school

I can't believe it! Today was the first day of school for the kids. Kayla started 7th grade and Eli started 3rd. Man alive! These kids grow up so fast! They both had to get hair cuts for their first day and I was even nice enough to let Kayla get highlights. So daddy took her last night to get a kit to do it at home and we did it this morning before she went.

Eli had the chance to meet his teacher last week at an ice cream social that they do every year. So he knew where to go and who to look for. I love going to those things because the kids can visit their teachers from previous years and see what has changed over the summer. One year it was the summer of weddings and divorce's. I couldn't believe the amount of name changes! But what was really funny this year was the looks as I walked by with Kayla and Eli and then Emma in her stroller and Hailey in the BabyBjorn on my chest. I was told by a couple of the teachers there that my family is giving them some job security for the future! I never thought of that but hey if it helps!



Needless to say it was a quiet day without the big kids around. The dog moped and spent half of his day on the floor of Emma's room (the cone won't allow him to get up on the bed because of a rail) and the other half near the front door waiting for them to come home. I think Emma enjoyed the one-on-one time with me while Hailey slept this morning too. She spent most of her time on my lap!

Here we go again

Well Malice did it again! He managed to break the cartilage in his other ear this time. This dog is a mess these days! He is on prednisone for allergies and hives, Cephalexin for infected hives that he has scratched until they become a sore, and an additional dose of the Cephalexin to make sure his ear doesn't get infected! Oy! So since his ear has to be doctored again, he has to wear the dreaded cone so he can't scratch at it. But don't think that stops him from trying! There is nothing like the sound of claws against that plastic at midnight! Oh and since the prednisone didn't take care of all the hives, he is probably going to have to do another round of it and then go on a regular allergy medicine. It's like having a 5th child.

For some reason he thinks it is OK to sleep on the couch all of the sudden. And not only does he just get on the couch at his leisure, he lays on the back cushion pushing it forward.

Oh and it is almost as though the cone acts as a sound barrier for him. You can yell at the top of your lungs and he still won't hear you until you get right in his face and talk INTO the cone.

Sky Sox

So apparently we haven't done our parental duty with Eli by taking him to a baseball game of our local team the Sky Sox. Let alone the Rockies! Well the kids participated in the Summer Reading Program at our local library and the final reward was 2 tickets to a Sky Sox game. So we decided to have a night with just JR and I and Kayla and Eli since that is a rare occurrence these days. I don't know that Eli would want to go back because he didn't seem to really find it very exciting. But at least now he can say he has been to a baseball game!

Kayla and Eli at the beginning of the game

Can she be any more of a teenager than this?! Talking on the phone during a baseball game!

Eli being goofy

Zoo trip with friends

We decided to meet up with my friend Valerie and her daughter, also Emma's BFF, Morgan at the zoo. It ended up being a fairly nice day, not too hot not too cold and was overcast so we didn't have to deal with the sun. It was a trip with just us girls because Eli stayed home and hung out with JR.

Emma did actually try to feed the giraffes this time but she was still a bit nervous about it. I don't know that she has a favorite exhibit because she is so quiet as we go through looking at the animals. She must be just taking it all in and one day will know what she loves the most! Of course my favorite exhibit is the primate house. The silver back gorilla is such a fascinating animal to me. I can't wait to see how Hailey will eventually react to everything at the zoo. For now, she just gets to go along for the ride in her stroller!

Kayla and Emma at the cool giraffe exhibit.

Emma checking out the big fat pig in the petting zoo exhibit. She did pet it for a split second and that was enough for her!

Emma and her BFF Morgan

Standoff

Who do you think will win?

Puppies and kids

Not sure how either of the kids managed this one since these puppies are so mobile now but they pulled it off!

Just to give you an idea of how tiny these guys are, my mother put up gates at both entrances to her kitchen so the puppies can play on the linoleum floor for easier clean-up. One of the gates goes between counters and the puppies are so little that they can go underneath the counter and escape. So she puts a can of beans in that hole to block them in! Too cute!

Lovin' It

Nana, the kids and I all went up to the Outlets at Castle Rock on Tues to check out the Carters store to see if they had anything good on sale and because Nana had never been there. Of course she couldn't resist buying cute outfits for her grand kids either! 1 of the outfits that she bought from Carters for Emma and Hailey were the same. I can't resist matching outfits for the girls and obviously neither can Nana! Kayla is lucky they don't have the same thing in her size because I would make her match too! :) And since we had cooler weather for a couple of days, they got to wear the outfits since they were pants. Oh and Nana has found a new place to Christmas shop now! She found herself some great deals at a kitchenwares store. It started to rain quite hard so our trip was cut short (plus we had already been there for 3 hrs or so) so I sent a map home so she could see all the stores that are up there. I think we only went into 5 stores so we hardly brushed the surface of what they have!

That look on Emma's face is just too cute! And see that mini mohawk of Hailey's....her hair does that on it's own after her bath.

Emma loves her little sister and I think Hailey is gonna dig Emma too

It's so funny to look at these pictures and see Emma look so big next to little Hailey

All the kids....it was hard to get a good picture because Emma wasn't happy that she couldn't hold Hailey anymore.

Busy!

It has been a while since I have had the chance to do a post because we have apparently been a little more busy than I realized!

On Friday the 25th was JR's birthday. We took him out to dinner and made him birthday brownies. Though his dad gave him a homemade cheesecake which tasted way better than our box brownies so that really ended up being his birthday cake!

In the meantime, my step brother and his family came home from Alaska (he was in the Army) and was spending the week here before moving on to Delta to live there. So we spent some time with them and went to a couple of parks so the kids could all play together along with his mom and my nephew. My step brother's birthday was the 28th so the entire family plus a couple family friends all went out to dinner. Was fun times for sure!

So now we are just going to take it easy for the next couple of weeks before school starts here. Kayla is very much excited for it, Eli, not so much!

Hailey is getting fatter by the day. I took a couple of pictures that I would have loved to share last night but for some reason my other camera is starting to act up so I lost the pictures! Ugh! She is still waking up twice a night but she is doing good on her routine/schedule. And Emma is still doing great with her. Hailey loves to lay on her brothers chest in the morning after her bottle while I eat breakfast with Emma. And of course Kayla is always a HUGE help with both the girls! I don't know what I would do without her!

Emma is pretty much talking in full sentences now. It is sometimes entertaining to listen to her try to form it. She will repeat the words until they come out sounding just right to her. It may take her 5 tries but until it's perfect she will not quit! And for the most part, you can understand what she is saying. Of course there is still the occasional word that you just can't make out though.