4 Months!

This past week, Mila turned 4 months old.  

Age: 4 months

Weight: 11.1 pounds

Length: 22.5 inches long

Appearance: light brownish hair, deep gray eyes, two teeth beginning to poke through on bottom gums

Sleep: short naps during the day, 1 - 2 hour stretches at night (still!)

Eats: mostly breast milk, some formula if needed

Can: look at people, laugh/giggle, roll from tummy to back, grab objects, drool on everything

To celebrate, she started TEETHING!  Yikes…I was not ready for that.  

It's no wonder she's been a drool monster lately and quite the fussy monkey (especially at night).  I had to do a quick search for some of our teething toys, since I didn't quite expect this stage for another month or two.  It makes me a little sad to see the gummy smile go.  I don't quite feel ready for this transition.

However, I have to say that the three to four month mark is pretty fun, besides the lack of sleep (get the hint, Mila; babies need LOTS of sleep and so do their parents!).  Mila has learned how to roll from her tummy to back.  She makes me laugh when she does this because even though she's been doing this for a few weeks now, she still looks surprised when it happens.  It's as if she's thinking, "whoa.  how did I get here?"  

Mila gets carried around a lot.  When I'm out running errands, I mostly use the Ergo carrier since she'll sleep in it and then I can use a shopping cart or have both of my hands free.  But, we also carry her around the house since she is pretty social and doesn't like to be "left" somewhere (even if we put her down on her play mat for a few minutes).  She'd much prefer to be held, bounced, and sang to, if possible.  Typically, she's content in her bouncer or playmat for about 10 minutes, which allows me to get a task done or at least started.

Of course, leaving her in her bouncer makes her fair game for her sister's creative play:

Fortunately, she didn't seem phased by her sister's rendition of a diaper hat.

I'm so glad that Mila is beginning to smile at people and respond to sounds and faces.  It makes my tired self grateful for this sweet response and makes the long nights worth it.

She is a social one and likes to be in the middle of the action.  I was putting away groceries one day and she was happy as a clam to be in the middle of it all.  And yes, I know that it's a big no-no to use the Bumbo on the counter, but I was right there emptying the grocery bags so she was never left unsupervised. 

I'm going to write a more detailed post about it, but we are cloth diapering again, just like we did with Ruby, however, I am using a different diapering system.  Again, details to come later, but she sure does look adorable in the cloth! 

She loves watching her sister!  During one of Ruby's outdoor speech sessions, Mila and Gunnar supervised nearby.

Really, she just loves to just look around and see what's going on everywhere.  Hi cutie!

Cuteness alert! This is one of my favorite outfits on her and it's perfect for the 90 degree days we've been having.

This is the look she gives me when she's supposed to be sleeping but doesn't want to.  

Noa is betting that she is going to have brown hair and brown eyes.  I'm not so sure yet, although Ruby's eyes were clearly blue at this point.  I'm hoping that she at least gets some blondish hair, but I think that's because I want her to look like Ruby.  I want them to look somewhat alike so that they look like sisters.  

She does love her big sister!

As needy as she can be at times, Mila really is a sweet baby and I can't get enough of her smile or the sweet cooing sounds that she now makes.  I am so proud of how much she has grown and developed so far.  It's going to be fun to watch her blossom into a little girl…but not just yet.  Let's keep her as a baby for a little while longer. 

Learning Limits

I took an unplanned hiatus from the blog.  You probably noticed.  :)

Becoming a mother of two has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  I am constantly tending to the needs of my kids (both of who are simply at a needy stage in life right now), the dogs, Noa, the house, and trying to fit in me time as well.  Trying to lose the baby weight, get a little exercise,  cook healthy food, and prepare for the move have also been pretty important tasks in my personal life right now as well.  But, at the end of each day, I realize that I just can't do it all.  Something has to give and usually it's more than one thing.  I was just telling a friend that some days I'm just trying to survive.  I have to keep my kids fed, healthy, and (hopefully) happy.  I want them to feel loved and taken care of.   This is more challenging than it sounds and I'm still trying to find that balance and learn my limits.  At the end of each day, I end up exhausted, with piles of folded laundry to put away, lingering birth announcements and thank yous to mail, e-mails to respond to, and stacks of mail to sort.  The last thing I have energy for is reliving our life through the computer.

Speaking of which, we are down to one computer (Noa's is essential dead without a power cord and is slower than a snail). His work projects and move-related work take priority over blogging.

The truth is that I love the blog.  I love having a place to keep a record of our lives and the opportunity to share it with our friends and family.  It doesn't show a complete picture of our life, but rather the highlights - really the things we want to remember.  I do wish I could write more, share more pics, and go into the details of our life, but the reality is that I just can't right now.  

I'm still going to keep the blog.  In fact, I'm *hoping* to go back and write some back posts from the past couple of months, but I know that I cannot blog every day, or every other day for that matter. Yes,  I love the blog, but I love my family more and right now, they need me more than the blog does.  My goal is to blog at least once a week and then maybe once the kids are a little bigger, I can blog more often.  And when it comes down to the nitty gritty, the blog is for sharing our lives and sometimes it just takes longer to get it all out there.  

In the meantime, here are some fun photos from the past week.  

Newborn/Family Photos

I'm catching up on some "old" topics that I didn't get to cover on the blog when Mila first arrived.  Between feeding, sleeping, and visiting with family/friends, the blog ended up on the back burner as far as priorities go.  I may be a couple of months behind, but I'm learning that things will get done when they get done - whether that's right away or eventually.  I know you won't hold it against me, right?

Anyway, we did a professional newborn shoot with a local photographer named Tara several days after Mila was born.  Since I knew that Jess wouldn't be coming out until May, I knew that I wanted those early life shots of Mila, as well as some family pics.  I found out about Tara through a Navy friend and wasn't disappointed.  She spent three hours with our family, which allowed me to nurse and change Mila frequently.  Plus, she was great with Ruby and let her play with the photo props and other toys.  Tara takes the photos on her parents' property, which is located right on the water and has horses, goats, and lots of beautiful trees and flowers.  I could have spent all day there!

I'm really pleased with the photos.  Now, I'm just trying to decide which ones to frame!

Ruby loved this little bench.  As soon as we got there, she went right over and sat on it, so it didn't take much convincing for her to pose on it.  We did, however, hover very closely when she was holding Mila.

Mila slept most of the time.  Tara was great about warming up the space beforehand with a space heater, so Mila was happy as a clam.  The rest of us were sweating in that heated room though!

Close up!

Mila's birth stats:

After some indoor shots we headed outside to take advantage of the beautiful property and clear weather!

Three generations of girls!

The Hammer Family, circa 2014:

Daddy with his girls.  I love, love, love Ruby's smile here.

This is my mom's favorite photo from the day.  Besides the obvious charm, I love it because I got to use one of the gifts given to Mila (the handmade hat).  Don't worry, it was very safe - I was actually hiding right behind the tree with my hand on her.  She looks like a little wood sprite here.

There were a couple of old trucks to pose by.  After seeing how this one turned out, I kinda wish we had an old truck on our property for more photos.

Nearby was an old rowboat and Ruby ran right for it.  I just love how these individual shots came out.  Ruby was so happy (honestly, she got a huge kick out of the old leaves in the boat).

Noa and Ruby taking some time off from the photo shoot.  Ha ha - Tara captured them anyway!

Baby feet!

Mila fiiiiiinally opened her eyes.  We tried doing some naked shots of her, but she would have nothing to do with it.  Exposed feet seemed to be more her style.

This was a random, unplanned shot as we were beginning to leave.  I just melt when I look at it.

Easter & Anoli

"Auntie" (as Ruby calls her) Anoli traveled out for a visit over the Easter holiday.  Often, Ruby talks about Auntie in her play.  For instance, she likes to use one of the dog beds as a pretend boat and will often tell me that she's taking the boat to Auntie's house.  It's pretty cute.  So, having Auntie here in the flesh was a huge highlight for Ruby.

I think they were both thrilled to spend time together.

But this visit wasn't only about Ruby.  Anoli was also there to meet her newest niece and help me around the house with two littles around.  Anoli discovered the phone-playing-music trick with Mila: when Mila gets fussy, she seems to like being swaddled up and rocking (haha…no pun intended) to music.  Anoli and I would take turns grabbing a phone with Pandora playing and rocking Mila to calm her. 

She was super helpful around the house and I was actually able to get some projects done (feeling accomplished - woohoo!!).  But it wasn't all work.  Easter Sunday (which occurred in the middle of her trip here) was a day of worship and fun.  We began the day with the discovery of the Easter baskets!  Ruby loved her Easter basket, which was overflowing, thanks to Auntie and Oma (from afar).

Mila's was smaller, but appropriate for a newborn.

We attended our church's early service and then headed to the Lander's house for Easter Brunch.  I'm so glad Anoli was in the family photo this year.  Mila is hamming it up for the camera by sticking out her tongue.  Guess there's always one in the group!

Me, Ruby, and our gracious host, Connie.  We celebrated Easter at their house last year, so now we consider it a tradition.  Now we just have to figure out how to keep up the tradition with this whole moving-to-Spain thing.

Since it was wet outside from a recent rain shower, we had an indoor egg hunt.  Ruby LOVED it!  I could barely take a photo of her, she was going so fast.

Most photos came out like this, a complete BLUR!

It was so different from last year when we had to convince her to pick up the eggs.  This year she was so excited to find them and put them in her bucket.  I tried to get a photo of her with them, but she couldn't pose without giving me an overly cheesy smile due to her excitement.

Later, Ruby and Noa spent some time playing with her favorite toy at the Lander house: the ambulance.  Seriously, she loves this thing.  Hmmm…maybe we have a future EMT on our hands??

Oh, and I can't forget a pic of Mila in her Easter best.  She wasn't too keen on the idea of photos either, but at least she wasn't crying in this shot! Oh, and yes, the clothes are huge on her.  They are size 0 - 3 months and she's swimming in them.  I guess Team Juloa will always make small babies.