Thanksgiving (Part 2)

I can't believe I made a Thanksgiving post without posting a picture of Nicole with her Thanksgiving dress on.  She looks so cute in it.

Gobble Gobble

I've been trying to get her to try more foods, but she really doesn't like them much.  On Thanksgiving I had to get her to try Turkey, so I mixed it with sweet potatoes.  She did not like it at all.   Here is a pic.

Thanksgiving

There are so many things I'm thankful for this year.  Especially my beautiful and healthy little Nicole!

Since we have been in Virginia, we have been in a hotel and Nicole hasn't really been sleeping very well.  This has prevented us from traveling around to see all our family like we planned.  We had grown really tired of the hotel though and decided we should probably get out of town for the week of Thanksgiving.  We decided to go to IL.  Nicole did awesome on the flight.  She played on the first leg and then slept on the second leg.  Then she slept the whole drive from St. Louis up to my Dad's house.  It was a great day!  I have a lot of family in IL and I wanted to see all of them.  Nicole met so many people!

We had such a great week and Nicole was even good for the return flight.  She even started teething while we were gone.  She was really congested and I think we may have discovered she is allergic to cats.  Despite all that, she was great and everyone she met fell in love with her.  I love showing her off to people.  Her smile just lights up the room.

Enjoying Grandpa

Playing with Aunt Jackie

Kisses from Grandma

Uncle Dave and Aunt Marie

Nicole and her Cousin Drew

Christmas

I can't wait until Nicole's first Christmas! She is going to love it! I can't wait for us to move into our house to decorate for it. I updated our amazon wishlist to add stuff I would like Nicole to get. It is going to be so much fun. I've ready had fun buying a couple things. Here is a pic of one of them.



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Back to normal

We have been living in a hotel for over a month now. We have 23 more days before we can move into our house. Gradually we are getting settled in the new area. We love the area here. We both have our cars now and we both started work this week. I like my new office. The people are really nice and I think I will like the job. Shaun wasn't really sure where we was going to work and what he was going to do until Wednesday. He thinks he is going to like it though. He even have his own office.
Nicole also started daycare this week. It was rough for me to drop her off. I know she will like it, but I will just miss spending the day with her. She is always so happy and she has been so much fun. The daycare is great and she seems to like it. She is in a room with other kids under a year. This is really the first time she has been around kids around her age. I think having a regular routine is helping her sleep, too. She is getting much better when I put her to bed.
23 more days and we will finally be so much closer to a normal routine and life. We can't wait!!!



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Halloween

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. This year was tough because we are living in a hotel and we don't have any of our stuff. Luckily we have great friends who invited us over to their house to pass out candy. They also live in our new neighborhood, so we were able to see what Halloween will be like next year for us.

We didn't dress up, but Nicole dressed up as the cutest little skeleton ever! She had a great time checking out all the older kids that were dressed up. She did pretty well even though we kept her up past her bedtime.



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6-month pics!

These are a little late, but we had Nicole's pictures taken in Germany before we left. Some of them really turned out great. They really captured her blossoming personality. Here is one of my favorites! I just love her little smile!




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Growing up too fast!

These last few weeks, Shaun and I have been able to spend all day with Nicole. I don't think it could have happened at a better time! She is doing new stuff almost every day. She transitioned from scooting/low crawling around a room to actual crawling now. She climbs on everything she can. She can pull herself to standing. She can sort of balance on her own, but not consistently. She sits on her own really well now. She would rather be moving though. She is doing all kinds of fun stuff with her mouth. She clicks her tongue and she found out how to blow and she spits (which is really funny to us). She looks at us when we call her name. She will reach for us when we reach for her and she wants picked up. It is all so great to watch. She is such a happy little girl. She smiles all the time and loves to play. She really loves to watch bigger kids play. She calls out to them to get their attention, which is pretty funny. She also imitates sounds that she hears. We are really loving this age. Unfortunately we are going to start back to work next week and she will start daycare. She is going to love it though. The providers seem really nurturing and she will love to be around the other kids!



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Testing my blogging app on my iPhone

We don't have Internet right now except on our phones, so I wanted to see if I could update my blog from my phone. I hope this works well.



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New House

We found a house after a long search.  Shaun came to the area at the end of August hoping to find a house, but he only found one and he wasn't in love with it.  We put a bid in anyway, but the guy didn't accept it.  We decided to wait to get here to figure out what we wanted to do then.  After we arrived, we went to look at the same house.  I really liked it.  It was a great house, but I wasn't in love with the neighborhood.  It was  a huge development of neighborhoods and all the houses on the street looked the same.  The yard was kind of small, too.  We did like the house though, so we re-bid on it.  Then when we were doing the paperwork, our realtor asked us if we had a Plan B.  We realized we didn't, so we kept looking.  The next day we were looking around a neighborhood and found a couple houses that we hadn't looked at before.  We called the realtor and asked to take a look later that day.

We are so glad we did! We found a perfect house!  We originally didn't look at the house because it had a pool in the backyard and we don't really want to maintain that.  After seeing it and the house and the yard, we loved it though and now we are excited about the pool.  We put a bid in and the seller's accepted right away.  We are supposed to close on November 18th!  We can't wait!  We are living in a little apartment on base right now.  It is way too small for the four of us!  Here are some pics of the house.  Enjoy!

Nicole's Room

Shaun's "Man Cave"

Our room

I'll post more pics soon.

Here is a video of the yard:

Long overdue update

We moved out of our house at the end of September and moved into a hotel on base.  We flew out on the 7th of October.  It was a hectic morning.  We had so many things to do and Nicole wasn't sleeping very well, Shaun was sick, our washer and dryer in our room decided to go crazy beeping all night (until we unplugged them and left our clothes wet..ugh).  We made it on the plane though and Nicole did pretty well.

She took a little nap in the airport before we took off.

Then we settled her into her seat and fed her.  The problem with traveling with a little one this age, especially Nicole, is that she does not want to sit still.  She wants to be rolling around on the floor, crawling, walking (with our help), or doing anything aside from sitting in her carseat.  This made the flight exhausting for me.  I spent most of the flight trying to entertain her or keep her happy or getting her to take a nap.  It was a quick almost 9hr flight though.  Luckily, we decided not to get a connecting flight down to Virginia.  Instead we decided to stay in Baltimore for the night and then rent a car and drive down the next day.  It worked out perfectly.  Nicole and Roxy did really well.  We rented a minivan and packed it up with all our suitcases, Roxy's crate, the stroller and us.

We love the area so far.  It is really pretty and it has all the things we could want or need really close by.  We even have friends in the area already.  Hope you enjoy the pics from the trip.

My Two Front Teeth

Nicole is teething.  We've been able to see her two bottom teeth for months and we've thought she was maybe teething many times.  This last week they just all of sudden popped out.  Until today, they didn't really seem to bother her much either.  She looks so cute with her little gummy smile and I'll be sort of sad to see it go, but I'm also excited to see her grow as well.

Nicole Marie 6 Months Old

Nicole turned 6 months yesterday. It is amazing to think of how fast the time has gone by and how much things have changed. She is now sleeping in her crib at night and this week she only woke up once or twice a night almost every night. That is an improvement over the last month or so.

My What to Expect Book tells me that by six months, Nicole should be able to:

- keep head level with body when pulled to sitting - check

- say "ah-goo" or similar vowel consonant combinations - check

It says she will probably be able to:

- bear some weight on legs when held upright - check

- sit without support - for a few seconds

- turn in the direction of a voice - check

- razz - she loves to do this

She may possibly be able to:

- stand when holding on to someone or something - check

- object if you try to take a toy away - she doesn't seem to mind too much yet

- work to get a toy that is out of reach - check

- look for a dropped object - check

- babble - check

She is starting to scoot, too.

My Little Helper

Nicole just keeps growing up more and more everyday. I love her little personality. She is very inquisitive and checks out everything she can. These days, she will put anything she can reach in her mouth. Friday morning, I was getting her bottles ready for daycare, so I had to put her on the counter with me. We have a container full of our cooking utensils next to where she was sitting. She startedreaching for the utensils one at a time. She would put them in her mouth and then when she decided they didn't taste very good, she would throw them on the floor. It was cracking me up. She was very into it. Her face looked so determined, like she was looking for one that tasted good. She dirtied almost my whole container and I couldn't help but laugh at her. I had to grab some pictures.

Some people call me Baby-Phelps, I prefer Aqua-girl

Since the day that Nicole was born I've marveled at her huge feet and thought, she'd make a great swimmer! (I know what you're thinking, but it's one of the reasons Michael Phelps is so fast...seriously). This Saturday we put Nicole in the swimsuit that fit her best and set out to put those feet to work.

When we got to the pool, we found out they were having a two-year anniversary party, free swimming and Otis Spunkmeyer cookies for all...yeaahhh! The downside, a ton of kids hopped up on chocolate chip cookies, frolicking around in an aquatic playground with every squeal of delight reverberating off every wall in the glassed-in room. The whole experience was overwhelming for Nicole initially.

She eventually got used to being semi-buoyant and did her best Neil Armstrong impression around the wading pool...with a little help. She liked to look at the other kids and splash around, until she started being splashed in the face, she's still working on cause and effect. The water features were also very interesting, 87 kids under 5 agreed!

You're probably thinking, "Rooney, what gives? You talk about this junk about Nicole being the next Phelps, what's her 100M time already?" Well, I didn't clock an official time but let's just say baby dolphins would be impressed. Once she gets her flip turns down, watch out!

After a tough swim workout it was time for some "I got your nose...in my mouth." It was pretty fun and a great way to end the day. We hit the showers and enjoyed our cookies on the drive home; we're going to have to get a good night's sleep if we're going to go to Bernkastle winefest tomorrow.

Exploring the World

Nicole is growing up too fast! The last few weeks she has been really exploring the world. She has really good control of her hands now and can grab the things she wants, she can put almost anything she grabs in her mouth, and she can pass things back and forth between her hands. Ever since she started solid foods, she is especially interested in anything I put in my mouth. The other day, I had a V8 can that I had just finished and she kept reaching for it. I gave it to her and she held on to it and really inspected it.

She put it in her mouth and she liked it because it was cold. She's also been doing that with my glass when I take a drink of water. I'll let her put it in her mouth and she just kind of sucks on the glass. This weekend we took her to a festival and I had a sandwich. She was staring at it, so I started to hand it to her. She went to take it with both hands and pull it to her mouth. I had to remind her she wasn't ready for that kind of food yet. She really is a pro when it comes to food though. If only her tummy was as ready as the rest of her is.

She had bananas for the first time a couple nights ago. She seemed to like them, but tonight she didn't like them as much. Tomorrow, we are going to try squash. So far, so good. No allergies or reactions. She gets pretty gassy, but she always has, so that isn't surprising.

Nicole has been a little sick for the first time. She seems to be allergic to something in the air. We have had a lot of rain lately and it is giving her a runny nose and cough. The cough is so sad. I hate to hear it. She coughs in her sleep and it sounds terrible, but it isn't keeping her up and she doesn't have a fever, so we are doing alright. I just feel bad for her. Hopefully, it will clear up soon.

5 Month Check Up

Today we went for Nicole's 4-month check up. It was actually on her 5-month birthday though. I almost felt like I was cheating on the test. I was able to answer "yes" to all the questions on the developmental questionnaire. She started the appointment off with a dirty diaper, which is always fun :) Then she got weighed. She is still a really small little girl. She seems huge to us because we look at how much she has changed. She weighed in at 12lb 3oz and 24 inches long. This caused her percentages to go down, but the doctor said it was fine as long as she is still gaining weight and hitting all her milestones and having the necessary diaper changes. We knew she was small, but her weight put her in the 13th percentile and 32nd for length. Her head circumference stayed about the same with around 50%. She loved all the docs and thought they were playing with her when they checked her out. She was as smiley as can be. Her next appointment will be around her 6 month point just to get her back on schedule and then to make sure we see a doctor before we head back to the US.

First Solid Food!!

Wow our little one is growing up sooo fast! We decided to try solid foods today. Here she is getting ready. The first time we ever handed her a spoon and she stuck it straight in her mouth like she had been doing it for years. Our little one is a natural eater. She used her spoons from her Aunt Jackie and her bib from her Aunt Stephanie. She's lucky to have so many Aunts that love her so much.




At first she seems a little confused and we couldn't tell if she liked it, but she kept trying it and making funny faces. Then she saw that we liked her eating it, so that made her smile. We didn't want to push it too much, so we only tried a little. We will try again this afternoon and see how she does.

Rolling Over and Running

Nicole is rolling over all the time now. Almost as soon as we lay her down to play, she rolls to her belly. She can roll back the other direction, but doesn't normally. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. She started rolling over, she found her feet (both of them now), she's laughing (although she is pretty stingy with those right now). She really is growing up so fast.


Nicole also loves our new running stroller. We got the BOB Revolution. It was pricey, but has really been worth it. I've been able to go running without feeling guilty when I leave or if Shaun isn't home. She normally stays awake for the first little bit and then falls asleep. It has been a great incentive to keep me running longer to get her a nap. Today we ran for just over an hour and she slept almost the whole time. I've been running without her too and that gets easier after running with the stroller. I have to get ready for my PT test in September. The AF only gives us 6 months after the baby is born to get back into shape, so I really need to get ready. I know I can pass it, but I'd like to do well on it.

A Few Pics from Nicole's 3-month photo session