Hard day's work

This is the scene at our house after a hard day's work:

What is she saying??

Hannah has been baby talking for awhile now, but just recently she's really discovered her voice. I can tell she really is talking with me, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is that she's saying! I do think that we have quite a chatterbox on our hands.

4 month stats

Hannah went to see Dr. Staublin today. Unfortunately, the appointment was during Hannah's naptime, so she was a bit fussier than normal. She did well until about half-way through when the doctor was examining her, and she started to cry. That wasn't even the invasive part of the visit! Can't blame her. Who doesn't get cranky when they are tired?!? Of course, she got shots again today. Only 4 this time, plus an oral vaccine. It took a second for her to register what was going on and that there was pain involved. Once she got it, her face turned bright red, and she turned and looked at me and screamed! She pretty much cried until we got in the car, where she fell asleep. She's been sleeping since. Poor thing. At least she won't remember these visits.

Her growth stats:

10 lbs. 8 oz. ( barely off the chart)

24" long(25th percentile)

15.5" head circ. (10th percentile)

I did ask the doctor if we should be concerned with her petite size, and she said she's happy with her growth, as long as it keeps moving up. Nothing to be concerned about. She's just a little one, like Mom and Dad :-)

Miss Hannah Rolls

Finally evidence that Hannah is indeed rolling now. She's been rolling all day long, according to Jason, who got to play stay-at-home dad for a day. Our baby is growing up!

We're rolling!

This was how I laid Hannah down this afternoon:

...and this was how I found her a couple of seconds later

Unfortunately, I wasn't looking at her when she did it :-( I'm hoping to catch her in the act next time. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of it in the weeks to come!

Church Picnic

2 posts in one day! I figured since Hannah is down for the night and Jason is out mowing the lawn, I should take advantag of my alone time and get this posted. Otherwise, who knows how long before it gets done.

Tonight we went to our annual church picnic. It started out pretty warm, but there was a nice breeze, which felt good. They never fail to put on an awesome spread. It was catered by the Beechwood Inn, and had all of the trimmings for a perfect summer bbq - pulled pork, bbq chicken, coleslaw, cheesy potatoes, cookies, brownies. Oh so good.

Enjoying the evening


We sat with the Meulenberg family






Of course, you just can't beat the games the games and entertainment. Growing up, our church picnics used to involve egg tosses, obstacle courses and relay games. Oh no, not at Remembrance. They had a big inflatable obstacle course and a climbing wall! The competitive spirit came out in Jason and Eric, and they just couldn't resist giving the obstacle course a try. It was a close race, but Jason beat Eric by a hair. I have the feeling that Eric is already in training for payback next year!

Eric sizing up the course


Jason tailing Eric, but he really did come out ahead :-)

The fire station down the street couldn't resist the free food, so they had a couple of fire trucks in the parking lot to view. They even had a hose hooked up to a fire hydrant and were letting kids spray out a "fire" from a little wooden building fascade. The two big kids couldn't resist the chance to try out the hose. I will say that at least they waited until the line of little kids dwindled down so as not to embarrass themselves too badly.

The guys showing off their hose skills

Here's what Claire thought of her daddy's firefighting skills

All of the activity wore Hannah right out.

Playdate

Hannah and I went to a playdate at our friend Leslie and Audrey's house. Leslie is a mom in the online mom group that I'm a part of. About once a month, somebody usually volunteers to host a playdate, so today, Leslie graciously agreed to host. It was so nice to spend some time with other moms and their babies/toddlers. There were about 8 of us moms plus kids, so a nice size group. Leslie had a great spread of breakfast goodies. After loading up the plates in the kitchen, we headed downstairs to play. Audrey was nice enough to let us play with her toys. It was just a perfect set-up.


We had such a fun time! Hannah is much more interactive than she was at the last one 2 months ago. She's still not playing a whole lot, but at least she was awake this time. I'm hoping that we'll be able to make more of them in the future.

Holly with Audrey (on the ottoman), her little man
Bosley, Christopher, and Olyvia (behind Christopher)

Missy, Erin (holding Brody), Gretchen,

and Christopher in the middle

Leslie holding Hannah, with Will at her feet

A fuzzy pic of Jen, mom to Will and baby Lena

Hannah at home on the playmat

4 months old!

Hannah is 4 months old today. Where does the time go?? Here are a few of the things she's up to these days:

*Pushes her chest up when laying on her tummy.

*Regularly rolls to her side (prefers the left), especially when she sleeps.

*Likes to relax with her hands behind her head (pic in a previous post).

*Grabs anything she can get her hands on. Particularly likes to pull her dresses up over her head.

*Likes to chew on her fingers, but no thumb sucking or pacifier.

*Loves to be sung to.

*Smiles, smiles, smiles, especially in the morning when waking up. How can one be so happy to get up at 5:30 a.m???

*Stands (with assistance!). Nice, strong legs.

*Finds patty cake hilarious! Always gets a big smile (and sometimes even a laugh) out of her.

I never thought that such a tiny person could bring us so much joy. Every day with her is precious. I can totally understand now how children are a gift from the Lord. We are so very blessed.

As a side note, I like to take her monthly pictures next to her bear for growth reference. However, as she's getting older, she's finding more and more interest in the bear, which is making it more and more difficult to get a good picture. See what I mean:








Priceless!

A weekend at home

It seemed a bit odd, but we were actually home this weekend. The past 3 weekends, we were out of town, so it was nice to finally stay home and catch up on things.

Of course, just because we didn't pack up and head out of town for the weekend doesn't mean that we hung around home much, either. We took advantage of being home and caught up with some of our friends. Friday night, we went to Brian and Sara's house for a cookout with them and our friends Eric, Jill, and Claire. As is typical, we enjoyed a nice feast - steaks, potatoes, and asparagus on the grill, pasta and tomato salads, homemade salsa, and chocolate/marshmallow bars for dessert. It was all so good!

Saturday night, we went up to Rockford to spend the evening with our friends Tyler and Jennifer. Again, we had a great meal - grilled pork tenderloin! Great minds think alike when it comes to food. Both Jennifer and I also had potatoes (salad and grilled) and bread (french and pull-apart). You can never have too much starch :-) Unfortunately, we had to leave a bit early b/c Hannah had a meltdown at bedtime and would not fall to sleep. Thankfully, the car ride home did the trick, and she was peacefully sleeping by the time we got home.

After church this morning, we just spent the day relaxing at home. Well, I relaxed. Jason worked on a paper for school. It was nice just to lay low for a change. Now, for the week ahead...


Daddy's homework helper

A day in the life of an almost 4-month old

After being gone 3 weekends in a row, we've just been hanging around the house this week. Here's typically what we do when we're home:



Hannah is happy most every day. She's so much fun!






These days, whatever Hannah can get her hands on gets taste-tested.



She still loves her play mat. The parrot definitely seems to be a favorite.



She and brother JJ are good friends and love to hang out together!



Of course, every girl needs her beauty sleep.



Yup, I think she has this baby thing down :-)

4th of July and more

It's been awhile since I last posted. Returning to work and Jason's classes have made it a little more difficult to keep up as frequently as I did before. I'll try to do better!

Last weekend, we made our first trip of the summer to Jason's parents' place in Lewiston. With the boat and a baby it takes about 4 hours to get up there, and Hannah did great! She slept most of the trip. To stretch our legs, we stopped at a cute diner in Grayling for lunch on the way up. Thankfully, the route to Lewiston wasn't very busy, but man oh man was Grayling packed. Lots of traffic heading to the Cherry Festival in Traverse City.

What a gorgeous weekend we had! You just couldn't ask for better weather. Friday night, we all went out to eat at the Lewiston Lodge, a restaurant on one of the Twin Lakes (I can never remember if it's East or West).




Grandma and Grandpa Davis with Hannah at the Lodge


Earlier Friday afternoon, Jason and his dad took his boat for a spin. Unfortunately, something wasn't quite right with the motor, so they took it to the marina first thing Saturday morning. Turned out it was a simple fix. After they got back, we packed up (you can never do a road trip w/o packing up anymore!) and headed to Traverse City. I've never been to the Cherry Festival on a weekend or seen the Blue Angels, so now I can say I've done both. The air show was pretty impressive. Only once did Hannah cry b/c of the noise. After that, we held her to cover her poor little ears.

Holy cow, were there a TON of people, though! It took us over an hour to get out of TC. Again, Hannah was a real trooper and did great in the car. I'm sure it helped that Grandma was sitting next to her and entertained her until she fell asleep :-)

Like father, like son

Ready for a day in Traverse City

After we got back on Saturday night, Jason's parents volunteered to babysit Hannah so we could go out. It was so nice! We had dinner at a steakhouse. Up north elegant would be a good way to describe it. The prime rib was oh so good! Afterward, we stopped at one of Jason's dad's favorite watering holes for a few minutes. When we learned that fireworks were at Garland Resort, just down the street from Jason's parents' place, we headed over there. We caught some of the fireworks and then grabbed a table inside the bar where we listened to Jason's parents' favorite band - Jeff and Sue. It was such a fun night!

We headed out fairly early on Sunday. With the weather being as perfect as it was, it was hard to leave but with a 4-hour drive, we just couldn't stick around too long. It really was a nice weekend.

In other Hannah news - She's also really into grabbing now, especially her brightly colored toys. We have one toy that hangs from her car seat, and she's been holding that when she falls asleep in the car. So cute! Her arms are definitely getting stronger, too. When she lays on her belly now, she pushes right up and looks all around. It's amazing how much her strength has increased in just a couple of weeks.

Yup, she's grabbing everything, including her clothes (notice the bird "purse" over her arm!)

I think she's going to be rolling before we know it. She's recently started kicking her legs over to the side, as if she's in the beginning of a roll. She just doesn't have the momentum yet to get her over. She's really been kicking her legs up in the air a lot more, too. It's as if she just found them :-) We'll keep you posted!

Smiles and frowns

The smiles that melt my heart...





















...and the frowns that make me laugh!