Little S is 6 months old!

So hard to believe our sweet Sterling is 6 months old, half way from being a year old!!!  This girl has got to be the sweetest baby who ever lived and we absolutely adore her!  

Sterling was BUSY this month!!  Here is some of what she was up to:

We gave Sterling her first solids this month, some rice cereal, and she has also had bananas.  She doesn't really appear to love or hate it, she does eat well though. 

We started putting her in her walker this month and she likes it but only for short periods of time.  Then Brayden wants "Brayden's turn" and gets in this thing and runs around the house!  

Sweet girl is still getting kitchen sink baths!  We usually have to wake her up around 8:00 pm from her evening nap, then its a quick bath and her last bottle of the day.  She is usually in bed for the night around 8:45.  She is such a good sleeper now and we usually don't hear a peep from her until the morning.  I usually feed her first bottle between 8-8:30 in the morning.  I can not even explain how wonderful it is for us all to be getting a full night's sleep, I missed it so so much!!!  

We had Sterling's 4 month well visit at 5 1/2 months (oops!) and this girl would not sit still to get weighed!!!

I am still pumping and Sterling is no longer nursing.  I pump five times a day and Sterling takes five bottles a day.  We are having to give her some formula at night so that she has a nice full bottle before bed but I will continue to pump as long as my milk supply will let me!

Here she is after she fell asleep taking her bottle, SO SWEET

Sterling had a couple more firsts this month:

First ride in the grocery cart seat!

First swim!  She kicked her little legs the whole time!!!

AND....Girlfriend is officially crawling!  Just after she turned five months old she started scooting around a little and has gradually moved on to all out crawling!  Now you never know where you may find her or which one of Brayden's toys she will have in her mouth!  All she wants to do is get down on the floor and practice her crawling and it is so stinkin cute because she is so tiny!  One problem is that she is a little too young to be crawling and not quite smart enough yet... she is always running into things, bumping her head, and falling flat on her face, poor thing!  She is almost sitting up by herself but still tumples over and hits her little head often.  She will sometimes kind of sit up on one of her legs in between crawling.

On the Go:

Can you tell that Sterling is ALWAYS smiling?  She is seriously the happiest baby and very rarely gets upset and cries.  She is such an easy baby and lately has been a great sleeper, eater, and in a great routine.

And a few more of my favorites from the month:

She loves her Sophie Giraffe

Poor 2nd child, gotta get a nap in whenever she can!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this sweet baby girl :)

Sterling at 5 months

Our sweet S is 5 months old!  We have gone through a lot of changes this month!  Here is what our girl is doing at 5 months:

*Sterling found her feet and loves to grab and play with them!  Just today she figured out that she can also put them in her mouth and suck!!!

*Just a couple of days into her fourth month Sterling started rolling over from her back to her stomach.  She now rolls, scoots, and pushes herself all over the floor and we never find her in the same place we left her!

*No kidding it is only going to be a matter of time before this squirmy girl gets to crawling!  She is already planking and getting up on her hands and knees rocking!  Doesn't she know she is supposed to learn to sit up first?!  She will lay on her stomach or sit there on her knees and make so much noise.  It is like she is frustrated that she can't get anywhere!  Hopefully once she starts crawling this will make her a little happier because she is no longer content just laying there on the floor.

*Sterling has gotten good at grasping toys and of course most of them go straight to her mouth.  I had forgotten about this stage and I am starting to have to keep my hair in a ponytail because she will grab and pull huge handfuls of hair!!!  We think she must be cutting a tooth because she is also drooling like crazy!

*Sterling is still sucking her pointer and middle finger on her left hand.  When she gets tired or when we put her down for her nap she will put her fingers in her mouth and her right arm over eyes, it seems so dramatic and so so cute!

She loves this Elmo of Brayden's!

*She spends a little bit of time in the bouncer and seems to enjoy playing with all of the toys that are attached but she doesn't bounce like crazy like Brayden did at this age

*S likes to sit in the bumbo and look at herself in the mirror

*I think it is so funny the way Sterling grabs at your face and pulls you towards her and just attacks you with her mouth, it is so sweet and funny and almost like she is trying to give you kisses!
*Since Sterling started rolling over from her back to tummy we decided to unswaddle her so she didn't get stuck!  We had about a week of rough nights when Sterling would roll on to her stomach and cry during the middle of the night.  Since then, Sterling will now roll on to her stomach almost immediately and stay that way all night long.  We also decided to go ahead and put Sterling up in her crib in her room finally because we thought we would all have better sleep!  We were right!  Since she has been sleeping upstairs in her room she has been going much longer stretches and I have been feeding her sometime between 4:00-5:30 in the morning.(this morning she slept until 5:45)  We also had to go ahead and leave her legs swaddled because she was getting her little legs and feet stuck between the crib slats!!!
*I had been having an incredibly hard time nursing Sterling.  She would latch on for just a few minutes, pull off, cry (like red face screaming crying) and want nothing to do with eating. Nursing sessions were taking close to an hour when I would finally give up and think she was just finished. At first I thought, well maybe she is either just more efficient or not as hungry...Then I decided to go ahead and pump to see if there was any milk left and there was.  I tried giving Sterling the expressed milk in a bottle and she downed the whole thing right away...  I had a really tough time at first realizing that S is just one of those babies who is not interested in nursing :( .  So now she is getting pumped breastmilk in bottles throughout the day.  She will still nurse first thing in the morning when it is pitch dark and she is still half asleep but I am no longer trying during the rest of the day and just giving her a bottle right away.  I have also started giving her some formula at bedtime in her last bottle of the day.  This was so, so disappointing to me because I had such a different experience with Brayden!  He was such a great nurser and went all the way up till his first birthday!  I am just glad that Sterling is at least able to still get all of the benefits of breast milk even if it is coming out of a bottle instead.  And yes, pumping is so annoying and having to prepare and clean bottles isn't much fun either!  But, even with all of that, I am spending less time than I was trying to force Sterling to nurse when she clearly did not want to!
*Sterling still gets a catnap on the go in the morning and then has a good 11/2-2 hour nap at 12:30 and another 11/2 hour nap at around 4:00.  She is also still taking about an hour nap in the evening before her bath and final bottle of the day.  We are still bathing her in the kitchen sink and she is definitely about to outgrow it!  I can't wait until she is big enough to bathe with Brayden!!

You know how I love to take pics of my sleeping babies!  Nothing sweeter!!!

Adores watching her Pup!!!

LOVE this sweet, sweet baby girl!  She is showing more and more of her personality everyday and we just adore her!

July 2013

We had a busy July!  here are some pics to help sum up the month!

We started July out taking care of Aunt Christi's dog Nash while she was on vacation.  The kids loved having him here and Mia loves having her buddy around!

These next two pics crack me up!  They are both really studying each other!!!

I think this is the first time Nash has ever seen crayons!  He thought they were  a toy or something to eat much like he does with all of the kids toys!  Brayden had SO much fun throwing the ball playing fetch with Nash

I love this!  They are both so tired and look around them at all of the  dog toys!!

Brayden STILL wants to play in this silly bouncer!  Look at Sterling in the background like "what in the world is he doing!?"

Spent a morning at kiddie park with friends:

SUCH a CHEESE!!!

Girlfriend's first time on a carousel!  Also my first time wearing S in the Ergo baby, she did great!

We took the kids to the Natural Bridge Caverns Safari, Brayden loved the animals!!!  They ate right out of our hands and it was so cool!

Brayden's favorite part was sitting in the front seat and "driving"

He just ran from goat to goat at the petting zoo

Brayden has started "helping" get Sterling up in the morning.  Luckily she doesn't get upset she just looks up at him smiling, like what in the world is this kid doing!??!

I LOVE that Brayden still loves to sit with us and cuddle!!!  He is such a lover :)

On to an even busier August!!!!