Posts Tagged ‘Hannah Michelle’
Getting to know you
Posted on: October 13, 2009
I’ve realized that I rarely write a post just about Hannah. Looking at my tags cloud, Julia Mabel is much larger than Hannah Michelle. So, I thought I’d take a post to tell you all things Hannah related.
As of today, Hannah weighs 14 pounds 3 oz (75% percentile) and is 25 1/2 inches long (90% percentile). Amazingly, she turns 4 months old on Thursday. That seems so crazy to me. It feels like time has literally flown by.
Hannah is a pretty chillaxed kiddo. Actually, in all reality, she might not be super chill, but compared to her big sister at this age, she’s way laid back. In fact, the other night I put her to bed when she wasn’t fully asleep. She started grunting and talking. I left her door open and figured for sure I’d need to go back in there. Nope! She just talked herself to sleep. Holy smokes! I’ve heard of kids doing that, but never, ever in my life have I experienced it. Totally amazing. 🙂
As far as sleep goes… well, I can’t really say. She takes some pretty good naps during the day. Overnight she sleeps 4-5 hours and then comes to our bed for the rest of the night. One thing is for sure, she is NOT an early riser. Which has worked majorly in my favor. I usually stay in bed till Hannah wakes up. If she’s asleep and it’s after 7, I go ahead and get up and let her keep sleeping. Rare is the day she’s up much more before 7. Now if we could only teach Julia to do the same….
Hannah is way smiley and very ticklish. It’s a lot of fun to tick her and just watch her laugh and squirm around. Especially with her way awesome baby fat rolls.
Speaking of fat rolls… this girl has some great legs! I love big chunky baby legs. And she’s got ’em! In fact, she’s already wearing 6-9 month clothes. Even without cloth diapers. With her cloth, she needs to wear up to 12 months, but can fit, tightly, into 6-9. Craziness. But I love it!
And least we forget – poop. Hannah poops like it’s her job, which technically, for a baby it kinda is. But my goodness! This girl knows how to dirty a diaper. Frankly, I’m totally okay with that, because man the more she poops the happier she gets!
Once you start, you can’t stop
Posted on: October 6, 2009
- In: Life
- 3 Comments
Julia has started talking.
A lot.
She’s been talking, but her vocabulary seems to have grown by leaps and bounds just in the last month. It seems like she’s adding a new word every day or two. In fact, this past Sunday she added, Sister/Sissy to the list. She’s never gotten down “Hannah”. She always says “Nah” or signs “Hannah”. I’ve been working with her on “HAN-nah”, but she seems to get more frustrated than anything else.
Sunday Julia was sitting next to Hannah and kept saying “sss”. I asked her “Are you saying “sister”? Is that your sissy?” She nodded yes and from there has started calling Hannah “sissy”. I gotta admit, I LOVE it! I was (still am) called “sissy/sis” by my family growing up and really wanted Julia to go by “sissy”. But it seems that Hannah will be “sissy”.
Speaking of Sissy…
Hannah is so close to rolling over! She keeps rolling onto her side, but can’t quite manage to get all the way over without help. I’ve been practicing with her; she’ll get on her side and I will start rocking her back and forth, then roll her over on her tummy. She thinks its a pretty funny game and gets quite a kick out of it. We’ve also had her sitting in her Bumbo seat. She loves it! We put her on the table while we eat dinner and she just laughs and spits up. It’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself. 🙂
- In: Life
- 3 Comments
Mental health that is.
And within the context of traveling with a potty-training toddler and a nursing infant.
We got back from Tennessee in one piece. We had a blast, but I was glad to be home and so were the girls. I never realized how challenging it must have been for my parents (i.e. my mom) to travel with 4 kids back and forth from Tennessee to Texas every year. Oy. I’m just tired thinking about it!
Highlights from the trip:
– seeing my best friend from junior high for the first time in 10+ years.
– going to Dave’s exhibit opening for Seven Deadly Sins.
– eating at Shoney’s with my brothers.
– eating a hot fudge cake at Shoney’s. All. By. Myself.
– having lunch with John.
– deck time.
– watching Julia run around half naked. All week. 😉
– going to the private opening of Twilight Visions – which is all about Paris.
– spending 24 hours with my best friend.
– having the best trip home in a long time.
Julia on the front porch with my family's dog, Buddy. You can't tell, but she has on no pants.... 😉
Dave has this skeleton for a shoot he's doing. Julia didn't bat an eye at her "lunch mate", except to get a little mad that he was in her usual seat.
Omi and Hannah. Beautiful.
For whatever reason, Hannah didn't sleep very well while we were gone. But, towards the end of the trip she started sleeping on Omi's bed and loved it. Must have reminded her of being at home on our bed.
- In: Life
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Quite the title, uh? 🙂
Since Mabel was born, she’s had cradle cap. We had it under control for a while last Spring, but since her hair has gotten longer I’ve just sorta stopped caring. It’s a little gross nowadays, cause at this point it looks like dandruff that’s flaking off. Well, last night I figured I’d give it one more go and bought some lotion just for cradle cap. I tried it this afternoon, and it worked pretty well. It took off a majority of the scales and I’m guessing if I keep up with it, she might actually be “flake free”.
This week I started spin/yoga and Body Attack. I took my first spin/yoga class on Monday. Can I just say I had my butt thoroughly worked, literally! It was good, but really hard. And then tomorrow night I have Body Attack. The name alone scares me. 😉 But, I’ve heard it’s really good and a great way to lose weight and tone muscle. I’m all for it then! I’ve got about 5 pounds to pre-baby weight and 15 to my “goal” weight and then 20 to my “ideal goal” weight. Wish me luck!
As for Hannah – I am still impressed with how far she can spit up and poop. Changer be warned if that girl poops while your changing her diaper. You will find that not only does she need a new change of clothes, so do you, the changing table and most likely the wall and carpet. Woo. And the spit up. Wow. It can fly five feet from where I’m standing. It’s pretty impressive. I wonder if they could make an Olympic sport out of it, cause for sure she’d get a gold metal!
We’re heading out to Tennessee this week. Wanna know what? Packing is a big ole pain. Having to pack for myself and two kiddos for a week long trip; making sure the house is clean, we don’t forget anything, we have all necessary toys/blankets/videos/etc to survive is a tad overwhelming. Not to mention that I’ve put off doing much of anything for the trip, making, I am sure, the next two days a little crazy. Ah, alas, that is life.
*Edited: I should also add, that God has really been teaching me to lower my expectations. This is really hard. I am daily having to learn (and re-learn) that having a toddler (who doesn’t nap consistently or well) along with an infant, simply means that nothing productive will get done during the day. I will start lots of things, but they will never, ever actually get finished. Like writing a blog – my average blog writing takes 3+ days. Crazy, I know, but true. I start a blog one day and finish it sometimes several days later.
Pictures
Posted on: August 14, 2009
This one makes me laugh - she was crying because I wouldn't give her the camera.
*Thanks Holly, for flipping my pictures!!
Random kiddo updates
Posted on: August 14, 2009
- In: Life
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Julia:
We’ve made it through 5 days of potty training with more success than failure! We’ve ventured out several times without any accidents. Wednesday night, on the way home from church she told us she needed to go potty. We had just passed the last gas station before getting on the interstate, so we pulled over and let her go in the grass. She thought it was a riot. I figure it’s good training for us on our trip to Nashville. Last night Jonathan and I went out on a date and dropped Julia off with some friends. On the way there she had an accident (which was more my fault – too rushed getting out the door before hand to remember to ask her to go) and then had an accident once she was there. But, hey, that’s okay. Also, today she started telling me again when she needs to go. Several months back she had been doing this, but then stopped. But since this morning she’s told me two or three times without being asked. Woot-woot!
Hannah:
Hannah had her 2 month appointment yesterday. She’s weighing in at 12 pounds! She hated the shots (obviously) but handling the aftermath like a champ. Yesterday I started her on no-swaddle during naps. This is a big deal in my mind. With Julia, she would never sleep without being swaddled, but would always manage to come unswaddled, thus waking up before she was really ready. But so far, Hannah has done well napping without the swaddle. Part of me thinks it might be in part to her sleeping with us at night – I usually unswaddle her when she’s in our bed and in the mornings she’s asleep in our bed for about an hour on her own, so the transition hasn’t been rough. I’m hopeful that Hannah will be napping and sleeping overnight unswaddled by four months (again – to most this might not be a big deal, but with me it’s HUGE!).
Jack:
Jack is a dog. There’s not much to report, other than he’s gotten a little pudgy in the middle over the last few weeks. About 4 weeks ago, Jack got a nasty hot spot on his neck. The vet gave him some steroids, warning that they might make him more hungry/thirsty. Um, yeah, Jack is really hungry. All. The. Time. At first I was feeding him whenever he’d seem hungry – never a good idea. We’re back to his normal feeding schedule, but he’s still pudgy. But, I have to admit, it’s kinda cute. 😉
Nicknames
Posted on: July 28, 2009
- In: Life
- 8 Comments
We’re a family of nicknames. Even as a kid I had a ton of nicknames (Liz, Lizard, Sissy, Bob – don’t ask). Anyways, Jonathan and I found it pretty easy to nickname Julia. Here’s just her short list of nicknames:
Jules
Mabs
Mabeline
Maby-baby
But for whatever reason, nicknaming Hannah has prosed some troubles. The best I’ve come up with is Hannah Bear. Some others are:
Hanners
Hanni
Mitchy
I wanna do more with her middle name (Michelle), but can only think of Shelly/Shell. I did come across Mitzi which I think is kinda cute, but it’s been hard to catch on to, which is a clear sign it’s not the best nickname.
So my blog reading friends, have you got some good nicknames up your sleeve for my little girl?
Intentional parenting
Posted on: July 27, 2009
- In: Life
- 3 Comments
Over the last few months, I’ve been really convicted on my parenting. I want my daughters to leave my house prepared to serve, live, love and grow with the Lord. But it can be overwhelming. A lot. I’m required to grapple with their sin nature while dealing with my own. That’s hard work. Yet, stronger and stronger the desire and urgency grows within me to capture their little hearts and lead them the right way.
One of my biggest fears in life is failure. Next to that is failure as a parent. Now, this may sound arrogant, but I’m not all that afraid of not being a “good” mom. I mean, I want my girls to look back and think I was good, but part of me feels like that will happen regardless (maybe because I’m that way with my mom). However, my fear of failure lies in not being a godly example as a parent. My fear is that Julia and Hannah would walk away from my house and not know, really know, the Lord. That is what scares me.
Jonathan and I have started taking steps to make our parenting more intentional, more focused. There are some major tasks at hand, but along with those are seemingly little things that my heart knows will make a difference. One of those little things is computer time. Since we moved our computer upstairs after the remodel, I found myself getting online a lot. At first it was to just “quick check something”. That morphed into checking something else, then something else and before I knew it, I was ignoring Julia because I was too distracted by the web. I slowly realized that I was showing Julia that my time online was more important than spending time with her, her dad, her sister and even God. So I made a commitment to my family, that in order to be more intentional in my parenting, I would only have a designated time to be online. I committed to only getting on 1) during naps (like right now), 2) when Jonathan is home and we are both looking at something together, and 3) during Julia’s blanket time.
I know it seems small, but for my heart it’s a big deal. It’s choosing to say no to self and yes to God and His calling on my life. And really, it’s quite liberating.
Coffee, friend or foe?
Posted on: July 13, 2009
- In: Life
- 4 Comments
Julia woke up this morning at 1:30. Didn’t go back to sleep till after 4. For an hour.
Hannah woke up at 3:30. Didn’t go back to sleep till after 5.
I originally woke up at 2:30 (since Jonathan got up with Julia). Fell back asleep until 3:30.
I have been up ever since.
Around 9:30 this morning I was in desperate need of coffee.
Got said coffee. Took the girls to the park to burn off any remaining energy Julia had.
Came home. Ate lunch.
Put Julia to bed around 11:30.
Put Hannah to bed around 11:45.
Me? Still awake.
Physically tired, but mentally awake.
Can’t sleep.
Wish I could.
Stupid coffee.
Coffee, my love.
I’m still trying to figure out if I love coffee or hate it.
Since the girls went to bed, I’ve cleaned the upstairs, started three loads of laundry, paid random bills, had a quite time, cleaned my bedroom and surfed the web.
Without coffee, I could be asleep right now.
Without coffee, I would not have made it through my morning.
With coffee, I got a lot of stuff done.
With coffee, I am wired.
Friend or foe?
Failure
Posted on: July 9, 2009
- In: Life
- 6 Comments
I’m failing.
I have always set high standards for myself. I expect a lot and want to be the best at everything. But, I will say that I am successfully getting my butt kicked by having two children. So much so, that my mom is coming back to Iowa for a few days.
Failure.
In the last four weeks, Julia has watched a shameful amount of tv.
Failure.
My disciplining is sporadic at best.
Failure.
Hannah has slept in our bed far more than Julia ever did. And I don’t see it stopping right away.
Failure.
My house looks like a tornado came through it. All day. Every day.
Failure.
I have not been the most grace giving, love showing mama.
Failure.
But God’s grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in my weakness.
Success.
God’s grace has saved me.
Success.
God still loves me. Even though my house is a mess, my oldest has watched too much tv, my youngest relies on a pacifier, my stress level is high, my emotions are on the fritz and even as an adult, I am having to call my mom to come rescue me.
Success.
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
A Wife Loved Like The Church 
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