GO STEELERS!

I'm posting this today because I may not have time tomorrow. Between the normal daily stuff and then my sister, brother's girlfriend, possibly my BFF, and I are going to try to see Twilight again in the afternoon and then I'll be getting a few things ready for the mini Super Bowl "party" we're having at my in-laws'...it will be a pretty busy day.

Anyway, I have a few pictures to share, but I can't post them....gotta give you links because they're too big to put on here. I made them on www.picnik.com (same site I did my header on). I love this site!

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk178/JenDZR99/RyanandBrookeSteelersCollage.jpg

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk178/JenDZR99/RyanSteelersCollage.jpg

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk178/JenDZR99/BrookeSteelersCollage.jpg

Problem solved!

Thanks to Amie, a friend on one of my mommy email loops, it seems we've found a way to get Brooke to drink more formula! Amie asked what flow nipples we were using and said that maybe a faster flow would do the trick because it worked for her daughter when she was a baby. So we got the Level 2 nipples Tuesday afternoon and it's really, really helped! She went from drinking 3-3.5oz. and then 20 minutes later *maybe taking another half an ounce to an ounce, to drinking 5-6oz. at one time without stopping! I'm just so happy that this has helped so much and I'm hoping she keeps it up : ). She drank 25oz. total for the day yesterday, when previously she was lucky to drink 20oz. on a good day. YAY : ).

Wordless Wednesday

Because I'm sick of winter/snow/ice and wish I were there, here are a few shots from our first family vacation when we went to Virgina Beach, VA when Ryan was almost 2.

The view from our balcony.

Perfect postcard pic!

NO, he was NOT drinking that! LOL.

On a dolphin watching cruise, before we left the dock.

Catching the sunrise our last morning there.

Gorgeous.

Mr. Miracle

I got some really good pictures of Ryan today, which like never happens anymore, so I thought I would share!

Happy 10 Months, Brooke!

Another month has come and gone. Only two months away from the big "ONE". So hard to believe....

Brooke is working on becoming (more) mobile! She now gets up on her hands and knees. She also has been working very hard on (somewhat) gracefully going from sitting to all fours. And I think she's getting pretty close to being able to get up in to a sitting position on her own. She will army crawl short distances, but only if there's something somewhat close that she REALLY wants. Otherwise she just rolls to get to where she wants to go. Hey, whatever works, right? ; )

I just updated on her eating in my post from earlier today, so we'll skip most of that. I do want to add that she LOVES the Gerber Fruit Puffs and does great with them. She can pick them up in her fist, but hasn't yet figured out how to get them in to her mouth from there, lol. (So we put them in her mouth for her, but let her practice with them, too.) It will be nice when she figures out the pincher grasp! She loves baby food and has eaten a good bit of table food recently, too...she definitely prefers that. You can no longer eat in front of her without giving her either something off your plate or a fruit puff or cracker, etc.

She is a social little creature and loves attention! She's a big flirt and is always smiling and squealing at people. She absolutely lights up whenever she sees her Daddy....and Ryan, too! Yes, I think I come in 3rd in her world, lol. Well, sometimes anyway.

She loves to be down on the floor to roll around and play now. Unless she's tired. Then she's very clingy!

She's made me want to rip my hair out at times, but I can't remember what life was like without her! : )

On to the pics!

Monday Mumblings

This will be a mish-mash post, since I've been slacking on blogging...little bit of everything.

First, I just want to mention that the kids and I are back home. I don't really want to post details on the situation here, but just know that we are all doing fine : ).

Ryan went to the dentist for his 6 month check up on Thursday and got a good report! It's good to know that even though his teeth don't look the greatest, that they are still "holding up" and there's no decay issues or anything like that. The dentist said usually we would know by now if he was going to have problems with his baby teeth, so hopefully we're in the clear. The discoloring of his teeth (if you've noticed...you probably have...they definitely aren't pearly white like most kids' teeth) is due to his prematurity and some of the meds he received in the NICU to keep him alive. His permanent teeth *probably weren't affected, but the dentist said we can't know for sure until they come in.

Brooke's sleeping at night hasn't really gotten any better. She slept 4 nights in a row with only waking up for her blanket, me giving it to her, and her going right back to sleep. But now she's back to not going right back to sleep most of the time. Sometimes she's hungry, sometimes not. Still haven't quite figured it out. She gets her last bottle usually around 8-8:30. I think I may start staying up until 10:30-11:00 (a little late for me, lol) and waking her up enough to drink some more and see if that makes any difference. Her last bottle used to not be until around 10:00, but now she goes to bed earlier.

As far as her eating, I'm really trying not to worry about that. Her average these days is 20oz. a day. If I wake her to eat before I go to bed, that may get a little more in her, too. She sure pounds down the baby food at times, though. She's just not wild about the formula, I guess. I did find that sometimes when she's "done" drinking her bottle (usually after 3-3.5oz....that's pitiful), if I give her a few of the fruit puffs, that she will sometimes drink an ounce or so more. So we've been doing that trick with her. Doesn't always work, though. I'm so anxious to see what she weighs next Wednesday! I'm sure I do just worry too much. She's obviously growing because she's fitting nicely in her 6-9 month clothes now (thanks mostly to her length), but she's also not a super skinny build, either. She has a little meat on her bones, lol.

I know I mentioned before about reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer and wanting to go see the movie. My sister and I have both been wanting to see it really bad and we decided to wait until it came to this one movie theater here where you can get dinner AND a movie for a great price. They always get the movies after they've been out at least a few weeks. We FINALLY got to go yesterday. It was me, her, her boyfriend, and our brother's girlfriend, Kayla. Kayla had already seen it, but she wanted to see it again. One of my sister's friend's was supposed to go too, but wasn't able to make it....but she'd already seen it as well. Anyway, we ordered our food (then they bring it out to you) and settled in to watch and the dang movie would NOT focus! It was soooo blurry. They kept trying to fix it, but couldn't get it to work. So the lady came out and explained what was going on and apologized and said she would have to get a new one delivered tomorrow (today). She said they would give everyone free passes to come back, but they would keep playing it the way it was if anyone wanted to stay. A bunch of people stayed, but we didn't. It was giving us a headache after only 20 minutes. So we're hoping to go back next weekend and we better be able to actually see it!

Brooke turns 10 months old today! (Hopefully I'll get that post and pictures up later.) I told Ryan this morning that today she is 10 months old and he sighed and said, "But *I want to be 6 years!" I told him he won't turn 6 until August and he said, "Oh." (By the way, he *does know when his birthday is.) Why do they want to grow up so darn fast???? :*(

Wordless Wednesday

5 months

almost 10 months

Not hungry

Has anyone reading had a baby that just did not seem to have much of an appetite?? This is Brooke (and it was Ryan, too, but I actually think Brooke is worse from what I can remember of Ryan). She can go 12 hours over night without eating and then get up the next morning and take *maybe 4oz. Then her 2nd bottle of the day, which is usually 3 hours after the first, she is even LESS interested in. Just now I tried feeding her after she drank a measly 4oz. at 8:30 and she took 3oz. and is done. She normally eats every 3 hours during the day and if I'm lucky it totals out to about 25oz. total for the day. Yesterday she only drank 19oz. all day. I've tried going 4 hours between feedings and it does not phase her at all to wait that long and she doesn't drink any more that way or seem any hungrier. Feeding her that way only equals out to 4 feedings a day (like 8am, noon, 4pm, and 8pm) and usually ends up in her drinking less than she would eating every 3 hours. She just does not increase her amount EVER, even if she goes 5 hours between eating. With her slow weight gain in recent months this has me a bit concerned and it makes me uneasy that she just seems so NOT hungry. She can be a real pain to feed most of the time, too. She is VERY easily distracted, even when nothing is going on. And then she'll stop eating and does not care to finish. I just don't know what to do with her! I know I can't make her eat, but I'm worried about her weight gain : (. I hate that I worry so much about this, but I don't know how to NOT worry : (.

Shocked!

After a sucky Friday night, Brooke slept straight through the last 2 nights! Well, pretty much anyway. Saturday evening, Doug's parents had their annual New Year's party, which started at 5pm. I had originally planned on being home around 9 to get the kids to bed, but Brooke ended up taking a late nap from 7-7:30 because she missed her late afternoon nap. So we ended up staying a little later and got home around a quarter to 10. She was asleep by 10:30 and she didn't wake up until 6 and then I just gave her blanket to her and she went back to sleep until 8. Then last night she was in bed at 9. She woke up fussing around 1:30, I think it was, and again I just gave her blanket to her and she went back to sleep! She fussed again around 7, but didn't fully wake up and here it is about 20 minutes until 8 and she's still sleeping : ). So I think that's 4 nights out of the last 9 nights that she's slept straight through! Dare I say that maybe she's getting back in the groove of things, slowly? I sure hope so! It would be really nice if she's consistently sleeping straight through on a regular basis by the time she's a year old : ).

Another sucky night

I should have known that Brooke would not sleep as good last night as she did the night before : P. She went to bed at 8:30 and woke around 9. Gave her her blankie and she went back to sleep. I went to bed a little after 10 and was woken up by her at a couple minutes until midnight. I tried giving her the blanket, but she was having none of that. So I picked her up and snuggled her back to sleep. Laid her back down and of course she woke up 5 minutes later. By this time it was going on 12:30. I decided to see if she wanted a bottle. She ended up drinking about 4oz. Got her back to sleep and laid her down and she woke AGAIN. We did this 3 more times and she FINALLY went to sleep and stayed asleep around 2am. Then I woke to her AGAIN at 2:30...she let out a little cry like something scared her or something (bad dream?). I didn't get up right away and she ended up just getting her blankie and going back to sleep on her own. I woke at 8 and thought she was still sleeping, but when I got up and looked at her, she was just laying on her belly, eyes wide open, sucking on her thumb quietly. LOL. As soon as she saw me, she got a big smile on her face. And well...that made the sucky night worth it. Almost....lol. I swear to you, she slept better when she first came home than she does now and I can't figure it out!!!

New Header!

I made it myself at http://www.picnik.com/ (VERY cool site!). What do you think of it? : ) I do need to get a better pic of Zachary on there...that one is a picture of a picture, but it will do for now.

I also just wanted to tell you that Brooke slept for almost 12 hours straight last night! She went to bed a little after 9 and woke up around a quarter to 9 this morning. I woke up around 5:30 this morning and couldn't believe it when I realized that she hadn't been up AT ALL. I can't believe she didn't even wake up shortly after she went to bed because lately she does that every night (except last night!). I'm not expecting her to sleep straight through again tonight....but it would be very nice ; ).

And this just goes to show you that what a baby eats before s/he goes to bed does not necessarily mean they will/won't sleep straight through. Normally she drinks about 5oz. before going down for the night, but last night she only took 3.5 before going to sleep and I couldn't get her to wake up to eat anymore. So there ; ).

Brooke's 9 month check up

Yesterday afternoon Brooke had her 9 month visit. She weighed in at 14lbs. 14oz. and the nurse measured her at 27in. (but I think she's more like 26.5in.). Her head was, I believe, 46cm. Those measurements put her in the 10th percentile for length and not quite on the chart for her weight or her head. She's a long little thing!

Remember last week I posted about her synagis appointment and I was a little concerened that she'd only gained 5oz. in 4 weeks? Well, yesterday's weight put her at a 4oz. gain in one week. So no worries anymore (at this point, anyway) : ). Her next synagis appointment is on the 4th and hopefully she'll have another nice weight gain : ).

The doctor was pleased with her development : ). No concerns at this point! Poor baby had 3 shots. She was pretty fussy last night, but I think it had more to do with the fact that she didn't get much napping time yesterday.

Her sleeping habits are really sucking these days! For the longest time there I thought she was going to start sleeping through the night consistently, but that went out the window over a month ago. She now wakes at LEAST once a night 9 times out of 10. Sometimes she goes right back to sleep and stays asleep and other times I'm up with her for an hour or more trying to get her to stay asleep. She isn't fussy when she wakes up, so I don't know what the deal is. Sometimes she seems hungry and will drink some of a bottle, but other times not. It's extremely frustrating, though. She slept through the night Saturday night for the first time in a LONG time and I got pretty excited, but it seems it was a one time thing : P. Last night I was up from 1 to 2 with her. She actually woke again at 2:30, but surprisingly went back to sleep without my help. I just wish I could figure out what the deal is!

So I uploaded some pictures and they uploaded out of order (not that it really matters, I guess).

Ryan drew this the other day. He loves to draw and write on his Doodle Pro, but not on paper : /.
E.T.A. - I wrote the word "snail", not Ryan...he can write, but not *that good yet : ).

Brooke after we got home from her appointment yesterday. She was wiped out.

Ryan had crazy hat day at school yesterday. He did not already own a "crazy hat" and I wasn't going to buy one just for this. Then I was in the craft section at Walmart the other night and saw these foam visors ($0.78) and sticky foam things ($1.97) and thought that would be perfect : ). Of course I had to get the sports balls for him ; ). And this shirt is also from Walmart (got it a couple weeks ago)...SO fitting for him. It says "Any Game Anytime". LOL.


Brooke on her hands and knees the other night. She used to not be able to hold this position, but she can now! Probably won't be long before she figures out how to motor that way, lol.

We're in for it now!

Brooke learned how to army crawl a few days ago and each day she's been utilizing it more and more. LOL. On Sunday she was going after the dog at Doug's brother's house when we were there for the Steelers game and she likes going after her big brother's bowling pins, lol. And Friday night she got up on her hands and knees for the first time and rocked for about 30 seconds. She was SO proud of herself! It won't be long now and she really will be in to everything!!

I'll leave you with a couple pics I took of the kids in their Steelers garb on Sunday. Go Steelers!!

Brooke's 9 month pictures

We finally took Brooke for her 9 month pictures last night. I waited because, Mary (the one who always does our pics now) was on vacation until the 5th. But then we got a call yesterday afternoon saying that she was leaving early and wanting to know if we wanted to come in early, reschedule, or have someone else do them. We opted to take the chance and have someone else do them. It ended up not being a bad decision : ). I wanted to get some pics of Brooke and Ryan together finally, but Ryan was not cooperating at all. Brooke did awesome for all the pictures, though, and it made it very hard to choose!!

If you want to see Brooke's 6 month pictures to compare, click here. She's changed alot and gotten a ton of hair since then!

Don't you just love Ryan's "smile"? :::sigh:::

She looks SO ornery!

She kept grabbing for the "tickler" thing the lady was using to make her smile, so her hands look kinda funky in some pics, lol.

She loved the canopy!

I so LOVE this pic!

And this one!

She looks so grown up in her little jeans :*).

Love this one, too!

She went for her 3rd synagis shot yesterday...well, actually she has to get one in each leg now because the dosing goes by weight and there's too much medicine for one syringe now. She cried, of course, but not for long. And as you can see from these pics, it didn't affect her mood the rest of the day! I'm a tad concerned about her weight. It was 14lbs. 11.5oz., which is only a 5oz. gain in 4 weeks from last month's appointment. We didn't see the doctor, though...it was only a nurse visit. I'll probably ask about it at her 9 month visit, which I still have to schedule! I'll have to get on that today.

Perspective...

I was going to save this for 'Wordless Wednesday' tomorrow, but I'm too impatient : P. Below is Brooke's hospital picture and a picture I just snapped a little bit ago. In both pictures, she's wearing the exact same hairbow.

WOW : )