The Hill Family Saga

18 May 2014

11 months down, 1 to go before our baby is 1!

Weight: 20lbs (weight taken the weekend following stomach bug so may have lost weight)

Height: 29.75 inches

Clothing: We are in all 9-12 month, 12 month, and even some 12-18/18month clothes. He finally got to move into his summer wardrobe pretty much full time and it is a good thing since he is already beginning to outgrow some of it.

love me some baby in shorts!

Diapers: He is still on the medium rise and going through 6-7 diapers a day. Yet another month of diaper sprayer overuse, lol. He had another mild stomach bug as well as teething poo so we have been spraying diapers a lot more than ever.

It's more comfy in just a dipe and a T

Eating: He is still eating three meals a day as well as 4 nursing sessions. He is a very inconsistent eater. One day he will chow down on something and then the next time I serve it he spits it out. He is getting really good at feeding himself and we are even beginning to work in the spoon and fork for practice. His appetite has also been inconsistent which I think is due to some stuffy nose, tummy issues, and teething. He is still minimal on the grains, although he did get to try Alethea’s cheddar bunnies this month and is quite the fan of them. I didn’t really do a great job of keeping track of new foods this month, but I know he tried cornbread, brussel sprouts, figs, pasta, whole eggs, ham, a small amount of peanut butter (in a smoothie), and I am sure there is more, but I can’t really recall any specifics.

Yogurt face

Friendships: He is becoming more and more aware of those around him and we find him watching other kids play even more (especially bigger kiddos). He and Alethea are becoming best buddies more and more each day. He now crawls to follow her pretty much all over the house and in the morning when she wakes up he crawls to go open her door when I say “let’s go get Alethea”. I see a great friendship in the making there!

They love to wrestle

He will follow her anywhere just to play

Snuggles

Mobility: He is still mostly crawling, but now he is actually crawling normally 75% of the time. He has even experimented with bear crawling outside to avoid hurting his knees. On May 7^th he took his first steps and it has been a gradual increase in bravery since. I think he will still take a while, but he is getting more and more comfortable with taking a few times. Once he gets the balance stuff figured out he will be off to the races because he is super strong. He just hasn’t figured out that he can’t lung forward and expect to stay on his feet. J He is also quite the climber these days. He has figured out stairs, stools, and toy chairs so it is not uncommon to find him elevated these days. Thankfully he has figured out how to safely get himself down from one level up, but the stairs are still a hazard going down. Until he can walk, we won’t really even try to work on that skill though.

on the move

stairs are way too much fun!

Sleeping: He has finally been back to normal sleeping habits and gotten rid of the night cries for most of the month. Yay! Mommy and Declan are both happier as a result, lol. He is taking 2 naps still, but more and more of his morning naps have been on the go lately and I think that is only going to become more common. If he is in his bed, he will still take anywhere from a 30 minute to 1.5 hour nap in the morning and 1.5 to 2.5hr nap in the afternoon. Alethea dropped to 1 nap just before a year, but I am not ready to do that with Declan because then I will lose the luxury of them napping at the same time in the afternoon. J He typically goes to bed between 7:45 and 8:15pm and gets up between 6:15 and 7am. It’s typically only about 10-10.5 hours a night, but at least it is a solid stretch these days.

taking a nap on Mamaw and Papaw's boat

Playtime: He is becoming more and more interactive with his play. He is to the point where he actually wants to play with someone and isn’t always content to play solo. Thankfully he is still excellent at solo play though. He discovered his ability to blow a whistle/toy trumpet and make noise this month and he loves it. He will crawl around with one of them in his mouth intermittently making sound. It is pretty common place these days to have him crawling around with something sticking out of his mouth, lol. He is up on two feet much more lately and really wants to walk along things to get where he is going so that can sometimes limit his play if he is set on being upright. He loves to play outside and just be in the fresh air. Balls are a big hit too. He still loves to jam to music and I am sure he is really glad I finally put more batteries in a few of their musical toys. It is very common to look over and see him swaying or bouncing to music. He also likes to clap, not always to music, but he enjoys it. He loves to put objects in and out of cups, bowls, and drawers, etc. He also has begun trying to stack objects.

He loves to climb on things now and take all the buckets off our shelf

He loves to play outside

Communication: He is developing quite the personality. Most of the time he is pretty chill, but he definitely is vocal when thing are not going his way. We are about 50% on the communicating “more” at meal times, but that is really probably more on me because I haven’t work with him a ton on it. He doesn’t really yell at me for food a lot, but more just makes an “uhhh” sound to let me know he wants/needs more. He has also definitely learned to work his pucker lip when he is sad and it is quite adorable.

Teeth: No newbies this month, but he does have his top two front teeth on the verge of coming in any day now. So, for now, he just has 2 teeth.

Random: He loves being tickled and has the cutest belly laugh. He tries to do pull ups on the handle for our freezer drawer. He watched Mommy and Daddy compete in their first half-marathon and was a trooper. He also experienced his first Easter and Easter egg hunt. He went on his first boat ride at the beginning of May. He loves to make a scrunchy face and really enjoys having a scrunchy face competition with Alethea. He had his baby dedication at church on Mothers’ Day and all of my family was able to come in support our commitment to raise him to become a godly man. He skyped with Grandma and Boppa for the first time.

Easter

Egg hunt...he really just watched

climbing a tree after Mommy and Daddy's race

Captain Declan

That face!

Baby dedication

Mother's Day

Skype!

Sample Schedule):

6:30ish wake up, nurse, then play (I try to leave him to play in his bed until

7 when possible, but we usually only make it til 6:45)

8ish: breakfast

9:45 – 10:30/11ish: nap, then nurse and play (only 30 minutes if we are out)

12:30/1ish: lunch

2:30-4/4:30ish: nap, then nurse and play

5:30ish: dinner

7:45ish: nurse and in bed by 8ish – with the nicer weather and family fun, we had been getting him to bed later more often, but this is our typical.

30 April 2014

April Update

April was a month of celebrations. We started out the month with celebration of 9 years since Ben and I began dating on April fools day. Thankfully it was no joke that day! Then my little brother and his wife welcomed their daughter Olivia into this world on April 4^th. She is absolutely precious and I am so thankful that we got to be here in Louisville and visit them in the hospital!

Meeting Olivia in the hospital :-)

We also participated in some of the festivities leading up to the Derby. Thunder over Louisville was a really neat fireworks show over the Ohio River. Ben and I had fun going on a date to see what it was all about. The kids and I also went on a tour of the floats that would be in the Derby parade. That didn’t end up being all that exciting, but it was fun to see what it was all about. The biggest part we participated in was the Derby half-marathon. Ben and I were able to run it together despite Ben’s plantar fasciitis along the way. We even finished right around 2 hours! Plus my parents were able to bring the kiddos so they could catch a glimpse of us on the home stretch and we could celebrate our finish with them. This was a big bucket list item for me and it was soooo fun!

mile 10!

Post race!

Next we celebrated Ben’s birthday. He turned 29 on April 14^th. We celebrated with a small bit of fun at home, just the four of us. Ben wanted a pan seared steak and so we had that with some yummy grits, followed by a yogurt parfait per his request. The only casualty was some grease splatter burns on my face, lol.

bday dinner

and dessert

This month was also a celebration of the resurrection of Christ! We were able to go to church and celebrate the sacrifice Christ made so we can have life through him. We also had fun celebrating with family with a yummy lunch, then Easter egg hunt for the kiddos, and a dinner party with friends from church.

attempted family photo

egg hunt

giggles with Mamaw

A few other miscellaneous things about the month were that we found a great source of beef and split a ½ cow share from a local farm about 5 minutes down the road. Yum! We have so many different cuts and it is all grass fed and hormone free. I also got my hair chopped for the first time since before Declan was born and we purchased my early birthday present (DSLR camera).

Beef!

haircut

first pic with my new camera

Since I am behind on updates, here is just a brief update on Alethea. I made a few notes about her so I at least know these were April happenings. J She is beginning to ask more and more about Jesus and God. We watched a Bible story keepers show about Christ’s days leading to his crucifixion and she is always asking questions about those days. She also learned about his resurrection and made a really neat craft at church that helped her to grasp his death, burial, and resurrection 3 days later. It is so fun to see her excitement for learning about her Savior. I look forward to continuing to teach her about Him and seeing her accept His salvation and develop her own relationship with Him!

Blue-eyed, curly-haired cuteness!

She also is pretty much obsessed with talking about the future. Whenever we tell her she can’t do something, she asks if she can do it in the future. Or she will just simply ask if something is going to happen in the future. One night she even asked Ben where the future is and when he didn’t answer right away she said, “is the future in our hearts?”. Lol, Ben wasn’t really sure how to respond, but he just went with yes for now! She loves to know what is going to happen next or what we are going to do later. This makes for a lot of questions, but it is cute to experience the excitement about the future with her. Now we just have to work on contentment in the present.

Oh the struggles of being 3, lol!

One last fun thing about Alethea involves her love for books and reading. Whenever there are choices on the back cover of a book to get books by the same author, her first question is “can we get this one, this one, this one…..at the library?” Thankfully, she is content with the response of “we will have to see if they have them the next time we are there”. Also, thankfully she doesn’t usually remember she asked about them because I don’t always remember to look. J

artist

bookworm

April was yet another blessed month. That’s all for now!

18 April 2014

The big 10!

Weight: 20lbs 3.2oz

Height: 29 inches

Clothing: He still has a few 6-9 month/9 month pants that fit well enough to wear until the pants weather has completely gone, but for the most part he is wearing 9-12 month or 12 month clothes as well as some 12-18 month shirts. We had fun at a consignment sale so he is all set on summer clothes and I love seeing his chunky thighs in shorts!

Love him in shorts!

Desperate times call for desperate clothing choices ;-)

Diapers: He is still on the medium rise and going through 6-7 diapers a day. This month included a lot of diaper sprayer use. Ever since his stomach bug, and possibly due to teething, he has been a nasty pooping machine and his diapers have needed lots of spraying. He also ended up with an infection on his man parts because of all the irritation from pooping, but thankfully we got some cream to solve that problem.

Gotta love a baby in a diaper and shirt

Eating: He is still eating three meals a day as well as 4 nursing sessions. He has been very sporadic with his eating, but never really seems to chow down a ton yet. New foods this month included peaches, wheat germ (in homemade granola), coconut, dates (in homemade granola bars), asparagus, cauliflower, mushrooms and spinach (in smoothies). His favorites include oatmeal with chia seeds and milk, cheese, grapes, blueberries, carrots, zucchini and yellow squash, and sometimes green beans. He doesn’t really seem to eat a lot of grains at this point, but for now I think that is okay. The only puree he gets is still the smoothie I make him and put in our reusable squeeze pouches.

Eating can require a brow swipe or two :-)

Friendships: Alethea is his best buddy. They have begun to play together more and more. It is not uncommon for me to find them playing together in one or the other’s bedroom while I do the dishes. He follows her any time she leaves the room and is getting quite quick at the pursuit! We have joined a play group so he has had opportunities to play alongside several kiddos right around his age, but not much interaction yet.

Sometimes the result of playing with his sister can be interesting

Mobility: He is still not crawling in the traditional way. He prefers the bear crawl/normal crawl combo still. We also think he is just being lazy about the whole walking thing. He has incredible balance and transfers from object to object with ease. He is even climbing up to stand/kneel on low to the ground objects. We used to be able to get him to walk while we hold his hands, but now all he does is giggle and raise his legs in the air when we do that, lol. To his credit, he isn’t as much of a dare devil as his sister so he may just be timid to start walking for a while. He can stand independently (only on his own choosing) for a few seconds at a time. He still pushes anything he can pull up on around the room and is actually getting to the point where he can shift directions much of the time when he runs into something. He is very motivated by the opportunity to play outside so this usually puts his crawling or pushing of objects into hyper speed so he can get out the door before it gets closed.

So proud of himself

Just pushing a chair :-)

Busted!

Sleeping: He is still taking two naps a day and slept through the night for the first half of the month, but then put me through some craziness at the end of the month. He went through an almost 2 week phase of waking up sometime between 3am and 5am and screaming for up to 2 hours. He didn’t want to nurse or be held, but he didn’t want to be put down either. It made for some crazy days, a few of which he was up for the day at 4:45am. Thankfully the last 2 days of the month he was back to sleeping through the night and hopefully he returns to that pattern for a while. Naps have become pretty entertaining because he has been falling asleep in some pretty funny positions due to the fact he plays/rolls around until he is out cold.

Love his sweet sleeping positions

Car naps can be a lifesaver

Playtime: He still loves to play with anything he can pull up on and anything that Alethea is playing with. He has started to really enjoy placing objects in and out of containers as well as put lids on and off of containers. He has also taken a liking to stacking objects. He still loves music and sways back and forth any time he hears it. It seems like he always has something in his mouth and will often carry things around in his mouth like a dog, lol. He also loves to bang on things and growls/squeals as he does it. He loves to throw/dump things too. He loves to flip through the pages of books and he loves to then throw them down to the ground when he is finished with them, lol.

Just a little light reading

Communication: He is still babbling, but he seems to be more intentional about his communication rather than just making noise for noise sake. (Though he still does his fair share of just making noise just for fun too.) He definitely makes sure to vocalize when he needs more food or when he is done and we are working on using sign language rather than simply yelling at me, lol. He also has started to communicate his frustration with not being able to reach or do something and it’s actually quite cute. Alethea has pictures on the wall with stickers on them and they are just out of his reach and he will make noise while reaching before sitting down and pouting while looking at me. J

Teeth: His 2^nd tooth on his bottom front right poked through on March 25^th, 2014. He is drooling a bit more and chews a lot, but doesn’t really seem to be bothered by teeth.

Random: He loves to tip his head back and squeal when being held or when swinging at the park. It has made for a few scary moments if we aren’t quite ready for him to throw himself backwards. He got to go to his first race and watch Mommy and Daddy run a 10k. J He finally really enjoys his baths and really gets into splashing and playing in the water. He loves to climb into Mommy and Daddy’s shower to play, thankfully not while we are showering. He absolutely loves music and starts swaying or bouncing whenever he hears it.