Megan's 10 Months!!

Megan is 10 months old and it seems like time just keeps flying! She is becoming more and more playful and her own personality is really coming through.

Sleep:
Ugh, to everyone who told us we won't have another sleeper like Jade...I hate to admit it, but you were right. She started sleeping the whole night when she was about 8 weeks old and I thought we had another sleeper, boy was I wrong. Megan continues to get up 2 times a night. There is an occasional 1 time a night, but that doesn't happen very often. Most of the time she is up around 11:30 and then again anywhere from 2:30-5. I try to feed her more during the day so she doesn't get hungry at night, but it doesn't quite work. Megan is in bed around 7/7:30 and wakes up between 7 and 8.  We had a couple nights where she would just lay awake as we tried to rock and rock and rock her. We think it might have been because she took bad naps those days. Those nights were horrible. She would just lay in our arms wide awake. If you tried to put her down, she would scream, she wouldn't let you sit down and rock her...let's hope you don't have those nights anymore! We've also had a couple nights that she's been really ornery to get to sleep for the night. Let's hope that doesn't become more regular either! We have completely quit trying to take 2 naps a day. As long as she is kept busy and entertained, she is fine staying up until 12/12:30. She takes one 3 hour nap a day. It's actually really nice to have her take one long nap as opposed to 2 shorter naps. It really works out with our schedule much better!

Feed Me:
Megan continues to be a not very good eater. As of today (1-15-14), she is exclusively bottle fed. I gave up the morning feeding right after the new year, followed by the night feeding, and now it just doesn't seem like I have much during the night to give her. And to be honest, those teeth of hers don't feel good! When she eats, she needs to have something in her hands and be distracted. It's almost like she has better things to do than eat. If I let her, she would eat like 2oz and then be done for a little bit and then eat again. I pretty much force her to eat 4-5oz at a sitting. I have to change toys in her hands, turn on the TV, etc. to get her to finish a bottle. Some go down easier than others, but it's never easy. The same holds true eating table food. She has her own spoon and usually some toy to play with while she eats. She continues to get a bottle every 4 hours or so, eats 2 TBLS of cereal with a fruit or vege at lunch and dinner. Sometimes she finishes the whole container and sometimes she doesn't. She loves yogurt and is really starting to like "real"food that she can feed herself. She likes the puffs, graham crackers, and cheerios. Again, it can be a real struggle to get her to eat at times so it makes it really hard to tell if she is full or just being ornery. I'm trying to teach her the signs for "all done" and "more," but we seem to be going nowhere fast. She's really not into it and screams sometimes when I grab her hands to help her sign. Oh, she has a mind of her own! For her night feedings, I pretty much have to shove the bottle in her mouth to get her to realize what it is and then she drinks a bottle pretty good. Ugh! You test my patience at times Miss Megan!

Milestones:
Nothing new to note here. She continues to call Nate Dada and is doing it more and more. She is getting closer and closer to walking, but still is not walking on her own. She just takes a couple steps before falling. I think she just wants to run and not take the time to learn how to walk first.

Favorites:
Jade, yogurt, Mickey Mouse, playing Hide and Seek, chasing Jade, walking while holding onto something. It's fun playing hide and seek with her! When we hide she gets super excited when she knows Jade and Daddy are about to find us. She kicks her legs and gets a big smile on her face and usually ruins our hiding place by making noise.

Weight: 17.8lbs
Height: 27"??? that's a complete guess
Clothes: She is still wearing 6-9 month clothing and not really growing out of many of them yet. She fits into some 12 month shirts, but the pants are still pretty long.

Pictures get harder and harder to take each month!!

The blocks with paper on them are way more interesting than whatever Mom is doing to try to get me to look up.

Huh? I will look just this once, but I'm not going to smile.

Megan is usually so smiley and then I get a camera out and she just stares, maybe next month will be better.

Christmas 2014

Holidays are always busy, crazy, fun, exciting, stressful.... I love the holiday's but am excited for things to get back to a routine as well. This year was no different than the past years, we headed to Grand Forks. We headed up the morning of Christmas Eve with the truck pretty much filled to the max. We had already had my Mom take our presents up north so we didn't know how we were going to get everything home. I think we could rent a small bus and still fill that with everything we "need." This trip, we stayed with Noland's 2 nights and my parents 2 nights.

Christmas Eve:
Church was at 4, so we needed to get naps in quick. We unloaded everything and packed into the basement of the Noland's. Lee, Jenna, and their new baby Levi were already there so we filled the rest of the basement. We met my parents and Grandma at church. This was the first year my Grandpa wasn't able to join us for Christmas as his health has him in a nursing home in Mayville. My brother was also missing because he is working for the second year in Phoenix. After church we went to my parents for the infamous Lutefisk and lefsa Christmas Eve dinner. The girls opened some presents before dinner while we awaited the arrival of Ron and Linda. Megan ended up missing Christmas Eve all together. She didn't nap well and needed to go to bed. After dinner, Jade and I handed out presents and the unwrapping of all gifts began. I think Jade got her hand on every present to "help" unwrap! She had a blast. She wanted all her gifts to be taken out of the boxes right away. There was no waiting. We finished with gifts and hurried back to Noland's to get the kids to bed.

Christmas Day:
Santa came to the Noland's! Once everyone was up, we had breakfast and began to unwrap more gifts. Again, Jade had to have her hand on most presents! Once finished, we had brunch and relaxed for the day!
Present review: Jade got skates from Santa, books, dolls, barbies, Sophia the first stuff, movies, games. Megan got toys and books. Nate got clothes, slippers, money. I got clothes, money, a new coat, cookie jar and apron.

The rest of the holiday fun:
Nate went out fishing the day after Christmas in their new ice house, so I packed up the girls and I to go to my parents and spend some time. Jade had a fever on Christmas and Megan seemed to have a little cough. I was hoping they weren't getting sick, but also didn't want Levi to get sick. Speaking of Levi...he is a great baby. Lee and Jenna got lucky. I don't think I heard him cry once! He seemed pretty content! I took Jade swimming one morning at the fitness center up there. It takes her awhile to warm up to swimming and become daring enough to not hang on to me, but I think she had a great time. Nate stayed one night out at the ranch and then came to my parents house when he got back. We were able to play at the Halstenson's for a night too. I can't believe how big their boys are compared to Megan. They are about 6 weeks older than Megan, but are just huge compared to her!

New Years:
For NYE, we headed to Bemidji to spend it with the Aube's. Talk about a packed house there! There were 13 adults and 4 babies under the age of 9.5 months and Jade at age 3. Almost everyone stayed the night there too! This was our first night staying with the four of us in one room! We stayed with all of us in a room when Megan was a baby and didn't have a bed time...but never have since she's not such a baby anymore. We were nervous about the girls waking each other up all night, but they did great. We got to Bemidji at nap time and of course neither kiddo wanted to nap. Jade ended up not napping and just going to be early and Megan was able to get a short nap in. We aren't sure what Megan's deal was, but she was up from 10:30-2. Neither Nate nor I could get her to go back to sleep and when you're sharing a room and house with a bunch of other people, you can't just let her cry so we had to wait for her to finally fall asleep. The best part of it was that both kids slept until about 8:30. Aube's had smoked a pork roast all day and it was fantastic. The "party" was held in the man cave which worked out great with all the sleeping babies. There were probably 80 games of ping pong played that night! I unfortunately rang in the new year rocking Megan...but I'm sure there were toasts made in the man cave! We headed back home in the morning after breakfast.

It is so good to be home! Christmas decorations are down and the house is back to normal...

A quick year in review:
February - closed on our new house in Fergus Falls
March - Welcomed Megan Grace to our family
Spring/Summer - landscaped around the house, bought a boat, "bought" a paddle board, went to a couple weddings, hung out at Arrowwood Resort while Nate worked
July 4 - Spent the long weekend at the cabin with the whole Noland clan
August - Had our first Noland summer bash party
Fall - Nate hunted, Jade started ECFE classes
Winter...still waiting for snow!

Happy 3rd Birthday Jade!

I find it amazing that my first baby has turned 3 already! Time is just flying by, but we are loving each new phase...well most new phases. We could of course deal without the temper tantrums and the talking back, but I just think each year gets to be more and more fun.

This year we celebrated Jade's 3rd birthday the weekend before her actual birthday with just our families. Mike and Jean were down the night before the party to baby sit the girls so we could go to Nate's Christmas party. My parents came down Saturday and brought my Grandma. We of course had to have a Frozen party! We ordered a cake from the local bakery and found some fun decorations at Walmart. I have to admit, I took the easy route on the food and didn't do all the cute stuff I found on Pinterest. We served taco in a bag, chips and salsa, snowflake sugar cookies, Sven poop (puppy chow), Elsa's frozen hearts (chocolate covered pretzels), and birthday cake!

Throughout the day, Jade was telling me that this was the best day ever and the best birthday ever! Made me feel pretty good and I'm glad she was so excited to celebrate. All she kept asking for for her birthday was balloons, so anything else was a bonus. Nate came home with about 13 different balloons! and her cake. I think that made her day right there.

Jade is not very fond of getting sung to so she had to hide her face during the birthday song and for some reason has no idea how to blow out candles. I guess I didn't know that was something that is hard to do. Yes, we know she's not 33, but Nate didn't know I already had bought a number 3 candle and bought another one when he picked up the cake so we used both of them.

Next was time for presents! That was super fun for her. She got a bunch of dress of clothes, an Anna doll to go with her Elsa doll, a doll house, magnet blocks, a movie, a puzzle...

Anna Doll

Anna Dress

 

Elsa Dress

Doll house

Balloon avalanche on her actual birthday!

Jade loves Princess's, Fairies, anything that goes along with the movie Frozen, running around the kitchen island, playing hide and seek, and playing dress up. She does a great job talking and enunciating. She is able to name common colors, can count to about 13 before needing help, can sing the alphabet, spell her first name, tell you her whole name and what month her birthday is in.  She struggles leaving me in unfamiliar places and sometimes familiar places. She has always been a Mama's girl and continues to be one.

I saw this next part online and I am going to start it this year and try to remember to ask her these questions every year...
Jade's 3 year old Favorites:
Color: Red (although the color changes almost every time you ask her from red to pink to blue to green)
Activity: Play
Food: Macaroni and Cheese
Animal: Dog (this also changes as she is not a real animal lover right now)
Song: Let It Go - from Frozen
Movie: Frozen
Show: Sophia the First
Candy: M&M's
Toy: Elsa doll (this also changes)
Best Friend: Megan (this made my heart so full! I hope that's her answer to that every year!)

Megan is 9 Months Old!

Megan oh Megan...you're 9 months old. Where has the time gone!? She is full of personality this month and becoming more and more mobile. She gets into more "trouble" than Jade did, so we really have to watch her. I never understood why they had straps on everything for babies. I totally get it now. For example, I never understood all the straps on highchairs, but completely understand it now. They can climb right up out of them. Megan is starting to understand what we are saying and it's really fun! She "says" so big. Knows what come here mean. Seems to somewhat understand what "no" is, but likes to test her limits with that one. Knows who Mama and Dada are and will look at us if we ask where the other one is (not always, but does it occasionally). She is able to turn pages in books when we read and loves to read our pop up books to see the story "pop out."

Sleep:
Megan goes to bed at 7/7:30 and wakes up for the day usually around 7:30/8. She is still getting up 2 times a night most nights. She wakes to eat usually around 10:30/11:30 and then again anywhere from 1-5. My body must be getting used to it, because I don't get as tired during the day as I used to! She naps either one time for 2-3 hours or 2 times for 1-2 hours each nap. She has a hard time napping when other things are going on. She wants to be a part of everything. She usually does pretty good on one nap though. If she takes one nap she usually sleeps from about 12:30-3:00ish. If she takes 2 naps, she naps a couple hours after she wakes up for  1-2 hours and then again around 1:30/2 for an hour or 2. She is getting easier to put to sleep, but she is still not as easy as Jade ever was. We are finally getting her figured out. Most of the time she likes being rocked to sleep, but there are times that she just wants nothing to do with being held and you can lay her down and she cries herself to sleep in 5 minutes.

Feed Me:
Megan continues to eat every 3-4 hours for the most part. She can go longer without food, but it seems like we have so much food we try to fit in, in a day that we give her something that often. She nurses throughout the night and her first and last feedings of the day. She gets a 4-5oz bottle around 11:30 and then eats a solid lunch with us at noon. She usually eats 1-2Tbls of cereal with water or milk and half a container of fruits or veges. Then she has another "snack" usually around 3:30. She doesn't eat much at this feeding, 3-4oz bottle. At 5:00 she eats her next solid feeding of 2Tbls of cereal and half a container of fruit or vege baby food. She nurses at 7 for the last time before bed. I have stopped pumping during the day all together about a week ago. Megan is not a big eater and is a very distracted eater. When she has a bottle, we have to give her something to have in her hands and when she eats solids, she gets her own spoon to hold onto while she eats. She LOVES yogurt, just like her big sister. We go through tubs of yogurt in this house! She hasn't really been into more solid foods like puffs and yogurt bites, but we will keep trying them.

Milestones:
11-19-14 - Is able to crawl up stairs without a problem!
11-28-14 - Said Dada and looked right at Nate when she said it. It doesn't happen often, but she did do it!
12-12-14 - Started cutting her top two teeth at the same time.
12-13-14 - Took a couple of unassisted steps to me. She was in some control while doing it. Took two steps and then fell into me. I don't think walking is too far off in her future.


Favorites: Playing peek-a-boo, following and playing with Jade, wrestling with me and Jade, chasing her Dad and Jade, crawling into and onto anything she can, crawling up stairs

Weight: 17lbs   Length: 26 3/4"

Clothes: 6-9 month 

How big are you? So BIG!!

Playing with these blocks is way more fun than posing for a picture Mom!

What? I'm not supposed to rip the paper off the blocks?

Big girl showing of her pearly whites.

Megan is 8 Months Old...WHAT?!

Finally Megan is becoming more of a human! I mean that in the nicest way possible. Yes, babies are cute and lovable, but for close to 8 months all she did was eat, poop, sleep, and cry (yes, I am exaggerating a little). She now is mobile and laughs and jabbers and is getting to the stage that Nate and I really enjoy. Even Jade seems to be excited her sister is on the loose, as long as she keeps her hands off her toys! She does a great job playing by herself and when she is done playing with one toy, she is able to move onto the next without my help! She loves to follow her sister, watch what Jade is doing (and try to help Jade), and climb. Jade was so laid back compared to Megan. I can't count how many times Megan has bumped her head or tipped over because she thinks she can walk or stand on her own. Megan and Jade started crawling at about the same time as each other and I always said that Jade would walk before she became a good crawler. Well, Megan is pretty good at crawling and is really trying to walk. She gets this look of concentration on her face like she really wants to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. I know I say this every month, but Megan LOVES Jade! Wherever Jade is, Megan is not far behind. She even can crawl into chairs so she's sitting right next to Jade. Jade can still make her laugh without doing anything at all. I hope they will always be best friends!

Sleep:
She is getting better at sleeping for the most part. We have some nights obviously better than others. She is still waking to eat 1-2 times a night. The times are pretty much all over the place. Usually around 11/12 and then again at 3/4ish, but it does vary. I knew we wouldn't have another Jade that slept all night every night, but I sure wish we did. I would even be better if Megan had more of a schedule so my body could get used to it. She still goes to bed around 7/7:30 and is up anywhere from 6:30- an occasional 8:00. She does wake up and go back to sleep on her own too. Sometimes she really doesn't want to be rocked to sleep, I will lay her down awake and she whines for a minute and is asleep. This would be ideal!! We left the girls with my parents for a night to see Garth Brooks and she did awesome for them. They laid her down and then she didn't get up until 6! She does best with 2 naps, but sometimes doesn't get them in because we aren't home. She still won't sleep places because there is too much going on. She will fall asleep in her car seat on the way home from places, but wakes up as soon as I open her door. She naps around 9-10 for 1-2 hours and then again and 1-2 for 1-2 hours.

Feed Me:
We've tried a few more vege's and fruits. Doesn't seem to hate anything yet. I haven't tried anything green yet...I hate the smell of those. She is not a big fan of cereal. I usually mix a fruit or vege in with her cereal to get her to eat it. Sometimes it works and others it doesn't. She doesn't eat much in comparison to Jade. She actually has decreased the amount of solids she eats since we started solids. She started taking a bottle better and then stopped eating solids great. I'm sure she's getting more milk now so isn't as hungry, but I still feel like she should eat more. Oh well. She loves yogurt! She still gets for bottles/nursings a day, eating every 3-4 hours. She nurses in the morning and at night and gets bottles during the day. I am still pumping once during the day. We have not even started into the stash I have in the freezer. I think I could  probably stop pumping during the day and start getting into the stash as we have plenty of milk frozen. We are still attempting solids after her lunch bottle and at night when we eat dinner. She nurses at 8AM and 7PM, then bottle around 11:30 and 3:30. Solids at noon and 5/5:30.

Milestones:
11-10-14 Started crawling into things and onto things. She will climb into Jade's chairs, into shelves, on stools, and anything else she can get on/in.
11-13-14 Started crawling on hands and knees instead of army crawling.

Length: ?? Weight: maybe around 17 lbs, I forgot to weigh her
Clothes: 6-9 months. Pants and sleeves of shirts are still pretty long for her.

Loves: Following us everywhere and putting anything she can find into her mouth. She makes sure I do a good job cleaning the floors...she finds the smallest crumbs on the kitchen floor and carpet!

Always has her hands or something else in her mouth!

Happy girl! We ditched the blocks because they were a distraction.

This is why they made straps on things like highchairs...we never had to use them with Jade. It's a whole different story with Megan.

Halloween 2014

I love holiday's with kiddo's, especially as they get older! We have had a great time making Halloween decorations and treats this month. We decorated the mud room one day to scare Daddy as he came home with "Bluzzery" the witch and 2 spiders we made out of paper plates, paint and construction paper. We also have made countless pumpkins at home and at ECFE (early childhood and family education class). We baked Halloween cupcakes, made pumpkin bread 2 times, created spiders out of Oreo's, M&M's and pretzels, and spent Halloween making sugar cookies. Jade also got to eat a grilled cheese sandwich in the shape of a bat for lunch. She ate that faster than I have ever seen her eat a sandwich. SOO much FUN!!

Because the neighborhood we live in has such big lots and long driveways, we have a trick or treat hay ride. There were 3 4-wheelers with trailers and hay bails to drive us around our neighborhood. Jade had a great time with this! There were 20ish kids ranging in age from about 18months to probably 13ish and then a handful of adults riding along. We brought a blanket along to sit on and enjoyed the ride from house to house. Jade decided she wanted to trick or treat at the first house by herself and just follow all the kids. That was the only house she did alone other than ours. I think there were just too many fast moving kids. The older kids would run to the door and then run back to the trailer. Jade was a little overwhelmed by this. I think she had a blast trick or treating. She kept talking about filling her pumpkin "all the way to the top." We trick or treated for about an hour and then had Nate pick us up at the last house in our neighborhood. The older kids went on to the next neighborhood. Jade dressed up as one of her favorite princesses this year, Sophia the First. All week, she kept telling me I was going to be a fairy. I didn't have a fairy costume, so asked if I could be Sophia's Mom and wore a bridesmaid dress from my Mom's wedding. She thought it was fun to have me dressed up too. Megan was an elephant just like Jade was on her first Halloween. Poor Megan is just going to be whatever Jade was for the first few years!

We also painted pumpkins early in the month and then carved them this week. I found a Disney kit, so we had a Minnie Mouse pumpkin and a Daisy Duck pumpkin.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Sophia the First doesn't like/want to get her picture taken.

Sophia the First and Sophia's Mommy...Queen Miranda.

She hates hats! It was pretty funny watching her get mad and pull the hood off!

Our little elephant.

Some of our art projects.

Megan is 7 Months Old!

Time flies in these little ones lives! I have to admit, I love when these little ones become more animated and start moving. Babies are great, but I just love watching them get older and discover new things!

Sleep:
Megan has turned a corner from the last month I think. We put her to bed before Jade. Megan is usually sleeping by 7:30, if not earlier, which gives me a half hour to hour before Jade goes to bed. She still gets up one time to eat in the middle of the night to eat. On a rare occasion she will sleep until 4-5, but is usually up between 1-3 to eat. She goes right back to bed, so I can't complain too much. She usually is up for the day around 7/8:00. She is doing a better job of going back to sleep in the middle of the night on her own. Nate was on his own with the girls on October 15 and couldn't get Megan to go to bed for him so he let her cry. That was the best thing that he could have done for us! For a few nights after that, I would rock her to sleep and then put her down. I usually rocked her for 5-10 minutes and laid her down. She would wake up when I laid her down, but she would go right to bed. Yesterday, (Oct. 21) I laid her down at nap time without rocking her or anything and she was sleeping within 5 minutes. We did the same for her at bedtime and it worked again. Megan might turn into a great sleeper! It still depends on the day as to how many naps she gets in and what her temperament is like. I would say more days than not, she just gets one long nap in around the same time as Jade...from about 1:00-3.

Feed Me:
Solids are going great! She loves everything but peaches. We just tried peaches and she doesn't seem to like them much. I think her favorite is pears. We have tried sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, pears, peaches, apples and bananas. We are also having her eating oatmeal. We have oatmeal and fruit at lunch and then oatmeal and vege's at night. She is taking vitamin D per the recommendation of the pediatrician for breastfed babies. She still eats 4-5 times daily. She is getting one bottle almost every day. She does pretty well with it when I feed her, but doesn't eat more than 4oz at a time. I don't know if that's really all she needs, or if she just doesn't care for a bottle. I've tried a sippy cup again, but it ended up everywhere again.

Milestones:
10/10/14 - Pulled herself to a stand.
10/12/14 - Started to use her hands and legs to scoot. She is still on her tummy scooting, but pulls with her arms and pushes with her legs. She gets better and better at this everyday.
10/18/14 - Is getting her two lower front teeth. The lower left has broken the gum line and I can see the other one coming right behind.

Length: ??  Weight: 16lbs
Clothes: is wearing 6-9 month clothing for the length. She has plenty room in the body of outfits, but needs the length in the pants over 3-6 month clothing.

Loves:
She loves to laugh and smile. Jade continues to be her favorite. Jade just sits there and Megan will laugh at her. I've let Jade be a little more rough with Megan and Megan really seems to like it. Megan loves to get into everything she's not supposed to...puzzles, card games, Jade's bubble magnet book. She seems to play with toys more than I remember Jade playing with. If I leave the room and Megan in one spot, she's usually right next to Jade when I get back. Jade doesn't really like it all the time, but I think it's pretty cute. She loves swinging at the park. She is becoming a better traveler in the car. She used to scream!!! She made it all the way to Grand Forks awake without crying. She did pretty good entertaining herself until about Fargo and then I had to rotate toys.

Getting pictures with blocks gets so much harder now!

I completely gave up on the blocks here!

Jade loves being a big sister most of the time. Megan is so big sitting on Jade's lap!