Mercedes | Weeks 11 & 12

I got behind in posting so I figured it would be easiest to clump the last two weeks together to get caught up. Nana and Grampy came to visit again. They had to help Uncle Paul move out of the dorms and we were happy for more time with them. We had a fantastic meal at Granite City and lots of fun just being together.

Mercedes sleep has progressively gotten worse over the last few weeks. She is now sleeping how I remember the boys sleeping – up two to three times a night. Thankfully Micah is amazing and will get up with the boys to let me catch a little bit more sleep in the morning. I’m guessing that once we move her to her crib in a few weeks she will get back to sleeping better. Right now she is wiggling around so much that she ends up hitting her head on the sides of the cradle and wakes herself up. We could move her now but we are going on vacation soon and dont want her to get used to the larger space then be stuck in a pack ‘n’ play and get grumpy all over again.

I had a fantastic Mother’s Day with the family. The boys brought me breakfast in bed consisting of baked French toast with cinnamon struesel topping, fresh strawberries, milk, and fresh picked tulips from the yard. They both made me pictures as well. Micah did all the dishes which is always one of the best presents ever and the boys got me a set of biscuit cutters. I used them that night for dinner and they are so much better than using a cup!

We had gone out to dinner (yay Red Lobster!) for dinner on Saturday night to avoid the Mother’s day crowds so we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for lunch after church and sausage gravy with biscuits for dinner. We also went to Tutti Frutti for after nap snack because moms got 12oz free! What a treat After that we hit up Lowes and bought two raspberry bushes and two blueberry bushes followed by a quick trip to the park.

Now we are counting down the days to vacation!

Mercedes | Week 10

Double digits! What a milestone.

Last weekend Nana and Grampy came to visit. They were originally going to try and be here around 6 but they woke up on Friday morning to a broken water heater and about 12 inches of snow on the ground. They decided to put off traveling until Saturday morning so they could get a new water heater installed and let the roads clear. Around 3 they called again saying they were about to get on the road anyway, ha!

We had a fun weekend with lots of smiles and gasps of excitement out of Mercedes. She thinks it is quite amusing when Nana says the vowels or “Nana” really drawn out. We spent Saturday morning at the annual West Fargo rummage sale and enjoyed a fantastic meal at Texas Roadhouse for lunch. They will be back the first weekend in May to help Paul move out of the dorms and back home for the summer. We are looking forward to more time with them!

Want It Wednesday | Camera Giveaway

I’ve been using my Nikon D40 camera for five years now. When Micah and I bought it we really just wanted an entry level DSLR to capture pictures of our newly growing family. We really knew nothing about cameras or photography other than what Micah had learned in a photography class in college but that was using a film camera.

It took until about the fall of 2010 for me to start learning about the camera – so two and a half years after buying it – and to finally take it out of auto mode. I’m so mad at myself for waiting so long! I could have had so many great pictures of the boys when they were little rather than simple snap shots. But such is life – when you know better you do better. I’m just thankful that I have a group of amazing and talented friends to learn from!

Now that I have a basic and ever growing understanding of our camera I have dreams of upgrading. I’m constantly looking on Amazon and drooling over the newer Nikon models. I’m doing my best to earn gift cards through programs like swagbucks, our health center rewards program, and Coffee-Mate’s Brew Crew so that I will eventually pay as little out of pocket as possible.

Right now SnapKnot (a wedding photography directory) is hosting a giveaway for a Nikon D800 or Canon 5D Mark III. What an incredible opportunity! Someone (hopefully me ) is going to be a very lucky recipient of one of these cameras. I know the odds are incredibly slim but someone has to win, right? Big thanks to the SnapKnot wedding photography directory for offering this great camera giveaway!

Would you like to enter for a chance to win? Click here and fill out the form. It’s as simple as that!

Mercedes | Week 9

This week seemed to fly by after spending the weekend recovering from Jane’s visit and getting ready for a visit from Nana and Grampy (more about the visit in the week 10 post!). Plus we threw in doctor appointments for all three kids and a MOPS steering team meeting for me and the whole week felt rushed… Or maybe it was just Thursday felt really rushed since that’s when all of that happened.

It’s Mercedes last week in single digits! She is smiling all the time now (except right now when she is protesting at seeing the back of my head from her rocker rather than the my face. And as soon as she gets the slightest bit of attention it is right back to smiles from her.). She is also trying to vocalize more and has very brief “conversations” with us. She loves when we say “Oh” to her, especially when we draw the sound out. She will attempt to mimic the shape of our mouth but usually just ends up bursting into a huge grin instead.

Some of her favorite things right now include her brothers’ singing to her, walking around the house to look at things, and her swaddle wrap. I have never used a zip up swaddle blanket until we were given one as a gift from our pastor and his wife. We love it and so does she! We swaddled the boys using a large baby blanket but they were able to bust out of even the tightest swaddles after a few months. There is no busting out of this and it is a great signal to her that it’s time for bed. It is rare for her to not calm down and fall asleep once we wrap her up. I’m keeping my eyes peeled at consignment shops for one in a larger size and in cotton for this summer.

Mercedes | Two Months

How have two months passed so quickly? I know it’s such a cliche thing to say but it is so true. Mercedes is growing like crazy and doesn’t even seem like the same little baby we brought home from the hospital. She has changed so much and is acting more like an older infant than a two month old.

I had to wait until after her two month appointment to write this post because I wanted to include her stats. We have quite the big girl on our hands! She clocked in at 12lbs, 5.5oz (68th percentile), 24.5 inches (100th percentile), and 39.6cm head circumference (83rd percentile). No wonder why she needs 3-6 month pjs! Her weight was actually a little lower than I thought it might be though. I figured she would be at least 13lbs but she is still a chunk and we love it!

Her rolling over is definitely no fluke and she even did it on the exam table for Dr. Hanson. She was quite impressed and said her strength reminds her more of a four month old than a two month old. I think we are going to have our hands full with our little miss.

Mercedes | Week 8

All but one of our siblings have gotten to meet the little miss now. Jane came to visit this week and we had a great time playing with her. We also enjoyed a very yummy lunch at King House buffet. I have to get in my Chinese food when she visits because its the only chance I have. Micah won’t eat at Chinese buffets so my chances to indulge are few and far between.

Parker woke up on Friday with pink eye so now we are treating both him and Mercedes. She doesn’t have any signs of getting it but we figure that giving her the breast milk drops as a precaution can’t hurt. Parker is much less willing to get the drops than Jamison was so it will be interesting to see how we manage getting the drops in four times a day. I still don’t understand how their cousin Khloe had it within a day of Jamison getting it but it took Parker five days. Strange.

I tried looking back at the boys’ calendars to see when they started rolling over and I could only find Jamison’s without digging. He rolled over around 3 1/2 months. If it wasn’t for Mercedes rolling over several times and doing it nearly every time we do tummy time, I would have passed it off as a fluke but she really is a roller.

Mercedes | Week 7

What a week of milestones for our little lady! She is now consistently sleeping 7-9 hours at night. Such a blessing to us with little boys that like to wake up before the sun. And on Thursday (April 4th) she rolled over for the first time! I even managed to capture it on camera. I just happened to have my phone ready to take a picture of her doing some tummy time and then I realized she was getting ready to roll so I quickly changed to video and captured her first and second roll.

Grammy, Aunt Kristin and cousin Khloe came to visit for the weekend. Parker ADORES Khloe and we had to keep reminding him that he isn’t quite big enough to carry her around. Jamison wasn’t too sure of having another little kid in the house since he is still somewhat resentful of Mercedes and Khloe was not a fan of Mercedes at all, especially when her mama was holding her. Overall the kids did great together. We all went to the playground at Courts Plus, enjoyed a couple meals out, and lots of family time at the house. Unfortunately Jamison ended the weekend by getting pink eye and it had passed to Khloe (out of all of us, go figure) by the time she got home. Interesting side note, breast milk cures pink eye! I pumped a small bottle worth then used a medicine dropper to apply it to his eyes a few times a day and after three days his eyes were back to normal! Amazing what that stuff can do.