Michelle's 9 Month Measurements

My baby is growing so fast:(

She is the cutest little thing.

On December 9, 2015 she had her 9 month check-up.

Weight: 19lbs 15oz (77%)

Height: 27.5in. (42%)

Head Circumference: 17.25cm (48%)

Stake Apple Picking

We had a stake apple picking event at an orchard an hour away.

Last year I had looked forward to this event and then it got cancelled. This year we actually got to go.

We got Sister Gill (aka Grammy Pat) to join us and she was just tickled pink.

We had apple donuts and apple cider.

Here we are above the city on the mountain.

We picked our own apples.

It was wonderful to have Grammy Pat with us.

Flag Football 2015

Both kids did Flag Football this year. I didn't put Allison in it last year, thinking I would put her in a dance class instead but I just don't have it in me to pay for a dance class when I am such a sporty person....AND I would rather take them to the same place on the same day rather than different places, if you know what I mean.

Allison is a girly girl..which is good. I think she wanted to play this year because I played catch a lot with Matthew last year and she wanted to do that with me more.

She kind of enjoyed it a little but wasn't super aggressive.

Her team was the Bruins.

There was one other girl on her team....but that girl has four older brothers that are all really good so she knew what she was doing and scored touchdowns for their team.

 Allison's team only won one game all year. Then they went to the Bowl Game (the last game of the season but plays other team with a similar record) The Bowl Game was against our friend, Colin's team, whom was the one team they beat during the "regular" season. Even though Allison's team lost, I was actually happy because that meant that the other team finally got a win, which is so nice for the kids.

Then there is Matthew. This is his second year playing...though not sure if you could really tell.

He did want to play...

 About half-way through the season, I noticed that one of the two quarterbacks, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS through to ONE kid. ALWAYS.

I really enjoy watching football but I have never been able to tell what he play is going to be by the way the team lines up like other people but THIS quarterback I learned that he ALWAYS throws to this ONE kid.

The kid is usually pretty good at catching it but this game I think he may have caught one out of the twenty that was thrown to him.

There was one time Matthew caught the ball that this particular quarterback threw...but that is because in was in the area of this other kids. I think it was a bad throw that happened to be in the area of Matthew.

Anyways, after that game I confirmed with the coach that he didn't call for every pass to be sent to said kid. Of course it didn't but he said this kid is usually pretty good at practice and so the QB just looks for him. It also came up that Matthew chose to sit on the bench the whole time during practice. I was shocked and appalled. I couldn't believe he would do that.

When I asked Matthew why later, "Because I am not any good."    

THAT IS WHAT PRACTICE IS FOR SON!!!

SOOOO, we had a discussion about wanting to play and what practice was for and I started coming to practice to watch him instead of watching walking the area for exercise.

He started wanting to play, wanting to do the drills and his coaches were completely surprised at his efforts and the complete 180 effort from him.

He did better, but not well enough to help the team much.

His team was the Bulldogs

(All the team names were from College football teams, Georgia Bulldogs, Bruins is from California Bruins)

Matthew's team went into the Bowl Game without winning a game.

They ended up winning that game, which, like Allison's team, the other team had only won one game in the regular season, which was against Matthew's team so it was a great day for everyone I think.

Matthew has been wanting to play catch outside more.

Halloween 2015

This seems like such a daunting task of catching up but I just have to keep going as much as I can.

I was really excited for Halloween this year because for the first time in our children's lives we were actually in a good neighborhood to go trick-or-treating in. I was excited to meet our new neighbors and walk around with my kids. We put Michelle in the stroller and out we went.

We had Harry Potter 

(apparently I didn't know that Harry has a scar on his forehead...oh well, we had the glasses, AND we colored his hair)

My Little Pony - Rainbow Dash

Tiger

We went to our old school's Fall Festival and had a great time seeing teachers and staff and again.

We were all so glad that Ms. Curfman, Mrs. Snider and Mrs. Johnakin and were there.

 Ms. Curfman

Mrs. Snider

Mrs. Johnakin

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

While Grandpa was here we took him to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center which was the Discovery Space Shuttle there.

He thought it was awesome. 

Here he is with the kids in front of the shuttle.

We actually saw this guy there. This is Yao Ming, the tallest Chinese basketball player. He is 7ft 6in.

 Here is a picture of he and Shaq

I convinced Matthew to ask him if he could take a picture with him. Yao was really nice but he said no because there were too many people around.

I should have thought about that because if he would have done it for one then he would have to do it for many others.

It was cool to see just how tall he was in real life.

Michelle 7 Months Old

Our little adorable baby doll is 7 months old today.

She is just so cute and lovable. I just can't kiss those big cheeks enough.

She has FOUND HER THUMB!!!!

I absolutely hate that she has found her thumb. She used to just chew on her thumbs and fingers but it is now a full on suck and I don't like it. I sucked my thumb until I was 11 and I don't ever remember getting teased because I only sucked it when I went to sleep but still it messed up my teeth and it was a hard habit to stop. The way I finally stopped was because my sister, Heather, said that if I stopped sucking my thumb for three months I could have a camera. Just like that I did it for three months and then never again.

I have always sworn that I would not have a thumb sucker. The other kids had a binki and they were fine with that.

Michelle has a binki and will take it but she has found her thumb. 

I am doing what I can to break that habit which means socks on her hands. She tries to suck through it but hopefully this will work. (fingers crossed)

Michelle is absolutely precious and I still get tears in my eyes thinking about how lucky I am to have her.

We have gotten her back to sleeping better which means some nights she is sleeping all the way through but other nights she is waking up. I am trying to look at those wake-up times as more opportunities to hold her:)

Her smile is so infectious. I just love it. 

She is a happy baby and I love being her mommy.

I am still nursing!!! (YAY I have made it 7 months!!!) It only hurts a little bit now, but it definitely still doable. I am thankful I have been able to last this long. 

She is kind of sitting up. As you can tell she is sitting in these pictures but she does still topple over sometimes.

She doesn't eat a lot of regular food yet. She hasn't gotten the whole swallowing real food down.

With all the moving and traveling I did with her we started the cereal later than four months and then we we did start the oatmeal she threw it up. Then we tried just rice and though she didn't though it up, we could tell her tummy was hurting.

Chris read that breastfed babies sometimes have a harder time eating the cereals so we have been doing veggies and fruit. It is quite the ordeal though so it isn't our most fun thing ever. We think she likes bananas since that was the least amount of struggling it took to feed her but she doesn't open her mouth for it at all yet.

Dr. Tull said we are suppose to feed her foods twice a day now...it doesn't always happen.

Michelle's routine usually is that she gets up at eats at 8am and is up for one hour fifteen minutes to one hour thirty minutes and then she is ready for bed. She sleeps until her next feeding which is at 11 and then the routine repeats itself. 

So she nurses at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm and 11pm. 

We definitely try to feed her while we are all eating at the table for dinner.

I am wondering when she changes to a 4 hour schedule.

 

She has also found her toes and she likes to grab them.

Time Out For Women

I am trying to figure out what I have and have not posted so kind of doing a little catch up....

In October of 2013 I got to go to Time Out For Women. One of my favorite groups, Mercy River performed and I got to meet them and take a picture with them.

Fun ladies I went with from my ward.

Kings Dominion

I am playing catch-up and kind of don't even know where to start.

 I don't think I have written about us being able to go to King Dominion. It is a local amusement park for smaller aged kids themed around Snoopy.

Matthew's primary teacher (who maybe missed two Sundays the whole year) found out that Matthew had never been to King's Dominion, which is only about 15 minutes away. She works there so she told him that she would get him passes to go. 

She not only got us passes to go to the Amusement Park, she got us passes to the extra Dinosaur exhibit part AND parking passes!!!! Yeah, she definitely hooked us up.

The only bummer (but not a bummer) about it was that I was 4 months pregnant so I couldn't go on the rides but we all still had fun anyways. It was such a fun family day.

This was towards the end of the dinosaur exhibit where the kids got to dig for dinosaur bones.

Chris doesn't like the rides as much as I do but he got to go on them while I took pictures.

The kids loved the cars they got to drive.