The Mouse Family Blog

Wow - time flies by! Beautiful Grace is six months old! In the past month she has started solid food...so far, she is pretty happy with the rice and oatmeal baby cereal, but the debut of carrots got mixed reviews. You should watch the video of her first meal. She is sleeping great - three naps, 12 hours at night (7pm - 7am) with one wake up around 3 or 4 to eat.

We had an interesting visit to her pediatrician this month. Her weight gain was not what our doctor expected to see...so much less so, that the doctor took her to another room to weigh her on another scale. Turns out she only put on 6 ounces since her 4 month visit. Her current weight still puts her in the 75-90%tile so we're not very worried. She still has fat rolls on her legs that go on for days. We are assuming that the introduction of solids will give her to opportunity to eat as much food as she wants. Since she is so happy and sleeps well, we're not worried that she isn't getting enough. We have introduced some formula now and then for ease of babysitting and we give her about 4 ounces at night as a cluster feeding to help her get tanked up for a long night of sound sleeping. She does not have any teeth, but likes to chew fingers (especially moms) and anything else she can get in her mouth.

6 Month Stats:
Weight = 17.6 oz (75-90%)
Height = 27.75 in (95%)

The dress and pants in the photo are Grace's 'classy Minnie Mouse' outfit by Mommy Said Sew (aka Liz). Lauren has a coordinating outfit! Go to www.mommysaidsew.com to see more pics of the girls and their outfits.

Labels: Monthly Photos

Okay, this is pretty geeky, but worth checking out.

I'm not sure how or why this site does this, but it's neat for a look.

• Grace's comes to Dinner
• Lauren goes Sledding

My favorite is this "simple ascii" version of the video.

Labels: Geek Stuff, Movies

Here's a video of our trip to Winnemac Park, here in our neighborhood. We don't have much in the way of hills. My favorite part was (unfortunately not caught on film) when Lauren yelled "Go, go, go, look at that grown-up go!" Lauren had a pretty good time despite getting cold, and even took a couple of small wipe-outs in stride.

Labels: Movies

Congratulations, Grace! She's starting solid foods, which means she gets to hang out with the family for dinner. She ate rice cereal tonight and LOVED it. Lauren also decided to try "an old favorite," but she was n0t as impressed.

Also, note the new duds, a gift from Aunt Charolette.

Labels: Movies

Here is a slide show of pictures from our 2009 Christmas / New Years trip to Oklahoma. We stayed with Jace's parents in Elk City and then with Jace's brother Bret's family in Norman. We enjoyed seeing all the aunts, uncles and cousins and wish we lived closer!!

With names like theirs and faces like theirs, one might think they were angels!

We celebrated the new year in Oklahoma with Jace's family. It was wonderful to see the girl's grandparents and three sets of cousins. Here is Lauren sporting her party hat (she did not stay up until midnight - neither did Jace for that matter).

I heard somewhere that a great new years solution for kids is to have a count down party at noon so they don't miss out on the fun. It's conveniently before nap time, so food and games and "happy new year" can be enjoyed before *bed*.

Here's our beautiful baby at five months. Grace is a lovely, happy baby! No trip to the doctor this month, so we will have no new stats, but stay tuned to next month when she has her 6 month visit.

Grace is doing great being on a schedule now. She eats 4-5 times during the day and sleeps from 7pm to almost 7am with 2 wakings to eat. She takes 3 naps, and the second one overlaps with Lauren's nap, so it's mommy bliss for 1-2 hours every afternoon.

Grace can roll over from her back to her tummy. She continues to be very strong with her head control...doing what we call baby crunches when we lay her down on her back, she lifes her head and shoulders up to see what's going on. She loves to keep an eye on what Lauren's doing. She is making friends with our dog Indy. She even talks a bit more in baby babble. She hasn't quite mastered sitting yet, but is working on it. She told us that for Christmas she wants world peace. Good girl Grace, good girl.

And a few more pictures with Grace...

Labels: Monthly Photos

Grace is 4 months old and here she is dressed out for the Christmas season. We got a late appointment at the Dr. this month (flu season has them super busy) 1 week past her actual 4 month b-day.

Here are the stats:
Weight is 17 lbs.
Heights is 26 in.
Both are in the 95th percentile

Grace is finally settling into a routine thanks to the work on our house wrapping up. (The above picture was not even taken at home!) She is going to start sleeping in her crib all night...actual 'sleeping' may vary. We'll start with the sleep training as soon as the work is completely done. We'll also be transitioning to a schedule with only three nap periods during the day... the middle nap is even supposed to line up with when Lauren will also be asleep - oh blessed hour of mom time!

Grace is developing according to average...she coos and is actually quite talkative and can even shriek in excitement. Lauren did not shriek. She thinks her sister is the bees knees and even enjoys the exersaucer for a little while, but mostly she still likes to be held.

We think she is beautiful. What a blessing it is to have 2 healthy kids. While we were waiting for the Dr, I popped Lauren on the scale, she's about 35 lbs. She also still likes to be held, but mercifully she also likes to ride in the double stroller, so we are spared the agony of schlepping around a heavy toddler when she gets tired on excursions.

Labels: Monthly Photos

they are holding a few community meetings about the recent race-based admission shake-down:
click here for dates and times.

We LOVE this place. We're not the only ones (it's super busy) so I don't feel like I need to keep it a secret. Especially nice place to go when your house smells of wood stain and guys named Ziggy and Mario are operating power tools in your living room.

Lauren likes to play dress up.

www.familygrounds.com

Happy belated Halloween to everyone. Our apologies for not posting pictures sooner, but we've been distracted (more on that later). The work on the house has kicked into overdrive as we try to get everything done. Our goal is to be done with phase I (and some stuff from phase II that is sneaking it's way in) by Thanksgiving. To that end, the workmen are kinda all over the place, so I (Liz) have been trying to be out of the house as much as possible with the girls. Sewing has not really been easy to do, so the girls are sporting store bough costumes this year. There is always next year...






Grace dressed as a bug/butterfly. Lauren was Tinkerbell. She told everyone that she was either "a princess" or "Cinderella." The morning of Halloween, we trick-or-treated through the shops in our neighborhood with some friends. I was feeling really sick (I'd been ill the night before but thought it was just fatigue) so I left early and went home to retire to bed with Grace. Lauren and Jace enjoyed handing out treats to the kids that came by in the evening. Lauren was so sweet and welcoming.


It turns out I had mastitis. All the symptoms pointed to H1N1 (except for the part related to breastfeeding) so I ended up being relieved not to have H1N1. Especially since the night before I had visited my friend's newborn in the hospital. So I've been recovering from that and will be catching up on some more posts soon.