9 Month Appointment

This past Friday Sara Kate (finally) had her 9 month doctor appointment. It has been rescheduled twice, the original appointment was the day Chris and I were both sick (and it was a snow day), and the second was a weather cancellation from the last snow. Anyway, here are her 9 month stats:

Weight: 19 lb., 4 oz. (50th percentile)
Height: 27.24 inches (30th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17.4 inches (50th percentile)

Looking back at her 6 month stats, she was in the 75th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for height, and 50th percentile for head circumference. Once again the doctor mentioned breast fed babies gain less in the 6-12 month time frame as compared to the first 6 months of life. This appointment was primarily to check her iron levels, and it was a blood draw from her big toe. She did great with the original prick, then when they put the tube up to collect she got a little fussy. After 5 minutes the results were back, and her iron levels fell right in the middle of where they should be...think the nurse said 34-40 was average and hers was at 36. So yay! She wasn't supposed to get any shots, but we never got her the booster for her flu shot so she got that, but she did great. The doctor checked her out as well and said she's perfectly healthy and to keep doing what we've been doing. Well actually she's not perfectly healthy...she apparently has bronchiolitis. She's had a cough, congestion, and a rattling in her chest for a week (which had me a little concerned), and after listening to her chest he said that's what she has. He said it was a little virus and it would run it's course. I had him check her ears too because after my bad ear problems as a child I'm just convinced that she's going to have problems, but so far so good. She had a little fluid in one ear but it wasn't infected. As far as being sick, she acts fine, although her eating and sleeping has been quite off the last week. As of yesterday it seems like we're getting back on track there. Unfortunately I have no pictures to document her 9 month appointment because I was there with her by myself. Kind of hard to do everything they needed me to do and take pictures at the same time. Oh well.

What else have we been up to? Well, I mentioned Sara Kate's sleeping has been off and I think she was just getting into a habit of crying in the night and needing me to rock her back to sleep. We also stopped the nighttime swaddle, which may have had something to do with it. But after a very rough Friday night, we decided to let her cry it out on Saturday night (which was hard) and after one crying episode of 30-40 minutes, she was over it and slept the rest of the night. Last night she cried about 5-10 minutes one time and slept the rest of the night, along with sleeping in until 8:30 this morning!!!! Go Sara Kate!! So maybe we are moving back in the right direction there. When I went to get her this morning she was just hanging out in her crib playing and talking to herself. She had also wiggled herself into the corner. Silly girl.
In other Sara Kate news, she's still thisclose to crawling. You will all be surprised when I can actually post that she's crawling. Ha! She's getting on to both knees and bouncing fast. She tries to move her hands forward and she doens't get moving her knees forward so she slides onto her belly.

Going from sitting to knees

On both knees trying to move forward

Can move hands but not knees so she slides onto her belly She is a PRO at moving backwards, though!!! One night I went to the bathroom and she had backed herself all the way to the back door. And she was mad because she couldn't go any further. Nice!
Anybody want to see a little more cuteness? Ok!! :-)
Giving kisses
And here's one more. After looking at this picture, I don't think she looks like me at all! And I don't think she looks like Chris, although I see little things where she resembles him, like her chin and her thumbs. I guess she's just a perfect mix of the 2 of us, and that's just fine.
She was being silly but we could not get her to smile for the camera!
We are forecasted to get a major winter storm tonight, and of course, I'm supposed to start my new job tomorrow. They are talking ice plus 6-10 inches of snow. Fantastic.

To answer a comment here and question there, unfortunately, I'm not moving to Fayetteville. I'll still be in Bentonville, but I'm actually going back to my old office, which we had move out of when I was on maternity leave last year. I'm really excited about that. I'm going to work for the Benton County Conservation District. I'll be doing a similar job, in that I'll still be writing nutrient management plans for farmers, but it'll be in a different part of Benton County and I'll get additional training with NRCS (federal agency) along with working closely with them, which is a great foot in the door (possibly). I wasn't looking for another job, but this opportunity literally fell into my lap. I'm a believer of things happen for a reason, and I felt this was an opportunity I had to take. So that's the story! So if I get a snow day on my first day of a new job, maybe I'll try and post tomorrow! :-) Would that be some kind of weird omen or something? Ha! And if I don't get a snow day but the weather is bad, pray for safe travels to the office!!

Weekend Wrap Up and Happy Birthday, Meme!

After hanging out at the house for a couple days because of the snow that came through, we've had a busy weekend! Friday night Chris and I went to a show at the Walton Arts Center...it was Parsons Dance Company with East Village Opera, and it was excellent!! Modern dance performed to rocked out opera music...sounds weird but it was really cool! Chris even enjoyed the dancing, along with the singing, of course. While we were there, Meme and Poppa took care of Sara Kate, and they had big fun. Sara Kate has a new favorite toy at their house...it's like a gumball machine/slot machine with balls in it. She learned how to pull the lever to release the balls and put them back into the hole. She even had big fun playing with that yesterday. We have no pictures from Friday, oh well. Now, onto Saturday! It was Chris' mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Meme!!), and we had a great time over at their house celebrating with her. She wanted to hang out with family and enjoy some lunch and that's just what we did. Jenny and Chris prepared an excellent lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, we played some Wii, and just enjoyed time together. Meme didn't get her wish of Sara Kate crawling, but she's still just thisclose. She can move herself backwards like a pro, she just can't figure out the forward motion. Oh well, it'll come.

These girls are so sweet! Hannah just loves Sara Kate and every time they get together it's so fun to see them interact more and more.

Here's a picture of the gumball/slot machine toy. Probably makes more sense seeing it! :-)

Bubbles are fun, too!

The lunch preparers! Ya'll, Sams Club has some awesome soup! We had some wonderful Tomato Basil soup, and the Baked Potato soup was good too, although it was no home-made potato soup! :-)

Lunch time...dark picture, my bad!

Proof that Sara Kate actually has hair!! Look at it! :-)

The girls helped Meme open her presents!

Then time for more play...

Practicing her archery...

And crawling practice...ha!

You may be wondering about the dress Sara Kate is wearing...or you may not, but it's so stinkin' cute I must discuss it! Sharon and I were at the fabric store back before Christmas looking for material for Christmas dresses for the girls. Sharon saw this and thought she could do something with it. The penguin was actually material to make a pillow out of (a front and back). We matched some background material, and this was the result. Absolutely adorable! They even had a little penguin for Sara Kate and a bigger penguin for Hannah. These girls have one talented Meme!

Front

Back

Ok, back to the weekend...last night Chris' band (Wade's Not Coming) was playing and so we left Sara Kate with a sitter (for the first time at night) and I went to meet up with some friends and hear them play. My plan was to get Sara Kate to sleep before I left, but she was having none of that! I passed her off to Ali to rock to sleep (because she was very close, just fighting sleep) and she did NOT want me to leave. So she cried. And I changed clothes and I could hear her crying. It made me feel bad to leave, but Ali handled it and got her to sleep. I stayed out way too late and am super tired today (after going to bed at 1 and sleeping until 3, then being up with Sara Kate from 3 to 4:30, then back to sleep from 4:30 to 6:30...yikes!), but oh well. We had church, said goodbye to Chris' dad, and have been hanging out at the house playing and napping. Hopefully Sara Kate will sleep a little better tonight (she has a cough that kept waking her during the night) because I have a super busy week this week and sleep would be appreciated! :-) This upcoming week closes one chapter for me and next week will start a new one. I'm talking about a new job...ahhh!! Maybe I'll write more about that later. Anyway, wish me luck on wrapping things up this week. Hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great week!

Real Snow!

Sometime during the night a winter storm pushed into the area, and we woke up to a blanket of white. It was snowing when we woke up and snowed until noon or so. I didn't even realize it was supposed to snow like this until Tuesday when one of my farmers mentioned it! I would call this Sara Kate's REAL first snow! Not only did the front bring snow, it brought in FREEZING temperatures! I went out to take these pictures and man, was it cold!

I took a ruler outside at some point this morning and measured, and we had about 4 inches. Late this afternoon we ventured to Chris' parents house and let Sara Kate 'play' in the snow for the first time.
Aunt Laura sent Sara Kate this outfit when she was still in my belly and said this was a 'snow day' outfit. I've been waiting patiently to put her in it and take her picture while sitting in the snow! She didn't really know what to think. It may have been that she was so bundled that she couldn't move, therefore, she didn't know what to think. Ha!

We tried throwing it at her.

I let her taste it.

She liked it and wanted more! She even tried bending over to get her face to the ground to get more but she was too bundled to bend. Ha!

Family picture time!

I was so glad to finally get to experience some snow with my favorite girl!

Happy Birthday, Cody!!

Today is Cody's 5th birthday! Of course, with a shelter dog you never actually know, but we adopted him on March 16 and they said he was 8 weeks old, so we've always said his birthday is January 16. This was him the day we brought him home. So cute!

We went to the shelter looking for an older dog, and then checked out the puppy room. And then we saw him and were smitten. He's a lab/border collie mix, and he definitely has characteristics from both breeds! Some herding (collie), a little attitude (collie), very smart (both), but the one interesting thing about him is that he hates water. We cannot convince him to get into the kiddie pool in the yard in the summer. He'll tolerate a bath once we get him in the tub/pool.

Poor guy was a mama's boy and his world got rocked when Sara Kate came into the picture. He's ok around her, although the Border Collie in him makes him a little more skittish. He sniffs her, and will give her little kisses, and will let her 'pet' him for a little bit, but once she starts throwing food on the floor, he will become her best buddy. And I think they will be buddies when she gets older. He's the protective type so boys, watch out! Ha!

So Happy 5th Birthday, Cody! You can be a pill with your obsessive barking and you can act like a little girl with your whiny barking, but you are a part of our family and we love you!

I Get Around!

Hope everyone had a good week. After getting over our stomach bug, or whatever, our week has been pretty uneventful. It's been super cold though, like temps around 0 with negative wind chills. Brr!! Today was much warmer (mid 50's) and we took advantage of it and went for a walk at the park. Of course by the time we got there, the sun was behind clouds and it had cooled off. Oh well, it was a nice thought. I wanted to hop on here and write a few things I was thinking about. First, I got a GREAT picture of Sara Kate's teeth this week!! Excuse the food and water all over her face! She had just finished dinner, and she is really into splashing water from her sippy cup all over the place. So without further ado, here are Tom & Jerry...or Batman & Robin...or Lucy & Ethel...or how about right bottom tooth and left bottom tooth. :-)

In other Sara Kate news, she is seriously thisclose to crawling. Seriously. She was cracking us up last night. If she would get her dang foot out from underneath her, she'd be off. She's rocking onto her knees, and scooting backwards, and doing the butt scoot. If we try to move her foot out, she just falls on her belly. But then she pushes up, and tries to get her knees under her, and scoots around on her belly. Then she gets tired and rolls onto her back. Funny kid.

Ok, and this picture is just funny. Note the dog. Giving her a proper hello. Nice.

Meme's birthday (Chris' mom) is on Saturday, and she said a couple weeks ago that for her birthday she wanted Sara Kate to crawl (or she said something like that). Maybe?? If not, it maybe not long after that!

Snow

Yesterday (Monday, actually Sunday night), we had our first real snow event of the season. I was getting so jealous of seeing Facebook posts from El Dorado and friends in Mississippi about all the snow they were getting! I was dying for Sara Kate to experience her first snow!! Chris' mom was coming over for dinner Sunday night and about that time it started snowing here. She wasn't here that long, maybe an hour and a half, but by the time she left she had a hard time navigating the 3 miles back to her house. She called and said there were already a couple cars in the ditch. By the time we went to bed the roads and ground were covered. I didn't expect anything major because the local news said a bigger opportunity for snow would be Monday afternoon/evening going into Tuesday. So big surprise when we got enough for schools to be canceled! However, my plans to experience Sara Kate's first snow with her got deterred about 1:30 in the morning, when I woke up sick to my stomach. I was up all night hugging the toilet (sorry for the visual), and I stayed in bed all day on Monday. Come to find out Chris started feeling bad yesterday and my brother was sick also so we think maybe we all had a bout of food poisoning (Chris cooked dinner for the 3 of us Saturday night). Who knows, but it is kind of ironic. Chris' mom was kind enough to come take care of Sara Kate yesterday afternoon so Chris could rest...big thanks to Meme!! We love you! By the time I finally got up, the snow was pretty much gone and the snow we were supposed to get yesterday didn't really pan out for the Fayetteville area (north of us got it enough to be out of school today). It was snowing this morning before we took Sara Kate to daycare so we took an opportunity to take her picture. Excuse the way I look, please. :-)

We both took the day off today to rest before we hit the ground running tomorrow. And as for playing in the snow with Sara Kate, it'll have to wait until next time. Hope all you guys that got big snow events had fun!