The Hill Family Saga

I can’t believe my little girl is 4 months. It seems like time keeps flying by faster and faster. Can’t she just stay small forever?... We are loving every minute we are blessed to have with her. She brings so much joy into our lives and we can’t even imagine life now without her. Yes we do have our stressful times, but all-in-all she is an amazing little girl and we love her to death!

Looking at Mommy, refusing to smile

Her best buddy Apollo joining the photo shoot

It is amazing how much she continues to change month after month. I keep expecting the changes to slow down as she gets older, but I am pretty sure she is still in full force changing every day. And I love it! We had our 4 month check-up the day before she turned 4 months and the doctor said she is doing great. According to their stats she is 14lbs 12oz (85^th percentile, though if we went by the 15lbs. 6oz she weighed on our home scale, she would probably be a much higher percentile), 25.75 inches (95^th percentile), and her head is 42cm (75^th percentile). The doctor even said she is ready for solid foods if we are ready to start them with her. However, we are going to pass on this for now due to a family history of many allergies. She is doing fine just on mommy’s milk and unless that changes the plan is to exclusively breastfeed until she is 6 months. (which is technically the new recommended age to start solids anyway)

One of her new favorite games is to play superbaby

She is getting so big. I feel like every so often Ben and I will look at the other who is holding her and just be in awe at how much bigger she looks in our arms. One cute time was when Ben was feeding her a bottle for the first time in a while and he was amazed at how much bigger she was as he was feeding her; she was much different than the last time he had fed her over a month before.

Sometimes this is one of the only ways she can hang out with Daddy while he studies

She is developing quite the little personality. Most of the time she is such a happy baby and she is quite the entertainer when she gets going with all her crazy noises. She has definitely discovered her voice this month! We hear lots of growls and squeals and giggles pretty much daily. One of her favorite things to laugh at is the puppies when they start fighting and going at each other or when one of us pesters Apollo to get him going. She loves it and we do too because her giggles are so stinking cute!

She loves it when Apollo gets on the floor to play with her

This month was another month full of firsts. As I said before she is giggling a lot and that really got into full force this month. She also loves to grab at your face when you are holding her, which can sometimes mean lots of finger prints on my glasses. J She has sat in her high-chair like a big girl while we eat dinner this month and she does great. She gets to chew on toys for now, but before we know it she will be eating with us too! She has begun grasping for toys a lot more and spins round and round in her jumperoo. We also began using cloth diapers with her this month and she has done great with them and mommy loves them too!

She has already taken quite the interest in reading books.

Jumperoo time

We love our evening walks and so does Alethea

Her very first cloth diaper, a Zinnia colored BumGenius 4.0!

Hamming it up in her high-chair

On her very first picnic at Wannamaker park

This month has marked an increase in mobility too. She is now rolling from her tummy to her back in both directions as well as from her back to her belly in both directions. It is quite funny to walk away for a sec and return to find that she has rolled from the middle of the floor off her blanket and gotten herself stuck right up against the bottom of the couch. (She hasn’t quite figured out how easy it is to just roll herself away from something that’s in the way.) Mobility has also meant crazy sleeping positions too because she no longer just stays on her belly to sleep for naps. It is quite the entertainment for mommy so far.

Another big first is that she is now putting herself to sleep. This is a huge step for us because getting her to go to sleep has always been quite the struggle. Thankfully this month we have discovered that it is actually much easier to just let her do it herself. I was really worried to try this because I was quite ready to let her cry it out yet. However, it turns out that she cries a heck of a lot less (often times not at all) putting herself to sleep than she does when we try to get her to go to sleep with our help. (My mom said I was the same way and just wanted to be left in the crib to talk myself to sleep.) As a result, both mommy and Alethea are much happier for naps and bedtime. Putting her to sleep is no longer a dread, and she does great! Now if we could only get her to get back to her 2hr napping days. Many days lately she is too excited to get up and only sleeps for 30-40minutes. Thankfully she wakes up happy and squealing most of the time, but mommy still doesn’t get a whole lot done during naps anymore.

"Hi mommy, I'm ready to play!"

Two super fun firsts happened this month with regards to water. We definitely have a little water baby on our hands. She has been going to the pool at our friends the Smith’s house every Thursday and she loves it. (Plus she loves hanging out with her buddies Molly, Sarah, Adley, and Eli.) And we also took our first beach trip this month while my cousins were in town. She absolutely loved the ocean and got quite the kick out of the waves crashing into her.

She loves the water as you can see

and now we have a raft that she scoots around in too

She walked all over downtown Charleston with her Uncle Lee

Loving being with her buddy, cousin Emily

The beach!

She is a regular old beach bum :-)

This month has been marked by many fun events too. We got to go to work and see Ben get promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade. She did great and everyone enjoyed meeting her. And yet another wedding occurred. She wore her garnet dress to go see her Gaggie and Jerald get married. We were also blessed by a visit from Mamaw and Papaw as well as Uncle Cody and Justine. She loved handing out with them and enjoying lots of family time for a few days.