Most humans, by nature, do not like change. When things are a certain way and seem to be stable, why would anyone want to change that? Well, sometimes we also put on blinders and those blinders make it seem like everything is okay, but it's not. Once Jenna got out of the Navy we soon realized that we had to make some decisions on what to do. Maryland was an expensive place to live and the only way for us to live there was to buy a house. But as we were just finally finding a house we could live with, Brad's parents suggested that we move back to Arizona. Naturally we hesitated because Brad didn't have a job and then by the grace of God, Brad's employer said that he could keep his job and working remotely from his laptop from Arizona! So the decision was made and nothing was keeping us in Maryland anymore. We contacted the Navy and they packed and shipped all our goods for free. Brad's dad came to Maryland and drove one of our cars back with our dogs. So all we had left to do was drive across the country... with a 4 month old! It wasn't as fun as it sounds, I assure you. But it also wasn't nearly as bad as we expected. Anberlin in seriously the best baby in the world.
Along the way we made plenty of stops and Anberlin was able to meet tons of family who she otherwise wouldn't have met. {There are LOTS of pictures coming up, just warning you...}
Obligatory picture in front of the first house Anberlin lived in.
Hope this thing is comfy...
Family photo during a stop on the 4th of July.
Anberlin and Great Grandma Sheppeard,
Hanging out with the girls!
Great Aunt Sally.
We had so much fun during our visit!
Sleeping on the way to meet Nana.
Anberlin and Great Nana.
Cousins.
Anberlin and Great Aunt Valerie.
Anberlin and Erin and Katie.
More sleeping.
Anberlin and Great Grandma Ebert.
Anberlin and Great Grandpa Ebert.
Yup! I got them all!
WHEW. That was our trip across the US. It took us 4 days and Brad drove the whole way (what a trooper!). We are thankful that we were able to stop and see family. And now we are so happy to be in Arizona with our parents and immediate family.
Tomorrow Anberlin turns 5 months! And yes, there will be a blog for that tomorrow! :)
This has been a busy month for the Bay! And really a busy month for all of us. So busy that I am late posting the blog, which really bums me out. And the longer I postpone it, the more that happens. But for the sake of keeping this info within her 3 - 4 month update, I am stopping at whatever happened on July 2nd, when she hit 4 months. Everything else will happen on her 5 month blog. And there *might* even be a little road trip blog in between if I can find the time.
Since the decision was made that we were moving back to Arizona, we started thinking about the few things we would miss from the DMV area. One of those things was watching the Nationals play some baseball. We managed to take Anberlin to a few games before we moved, but we had to leave early both times because she got fussy. I don't blame her. One day we were in a heat advisory so we hid out in a restaurant and enjoyed the game from there. Sometimes you have to do things for your kids and we are learning that more and more now.
Bay has been getting so much better at sleeping through the night. In fact, we had a 5 day stretch at one point where she slept through the night! Five. Whole. Days. It was awesome. But even just getting up once is better than multiple trips to her room. The only issue we have now is that she loves to sleep with her binky in and naturally it falls out once she is asleep. But if she wakes up and realizes it's gone she will start to cry until you run (as fast as you can) into her room and replace it (before she can full wake up and freak out). Sometimes that happens a few times a night. It's pretty annoying... Some days I wish we never introduced that thing. But I am thinking that a 4 day, across country road trip without it would have been hell. But that is for another blog... ;)
Father's Day happened this month and it fell on our anniversary weekend. We went out to our favorite pizza place in Bethesda and Anberlin slept pretty much the whole time, which is unheard of nowadays. But I think that was her gift to us. :) We also bought a new baby carrier and both Brad & myself tried it out during the weekend. Baby carrier is just so much easier than using a stroller at some things.
Our baby is growing fast! She is already in size 3 diapers and wearing size 6 - 9 month clothes. She is just healthy and her little chub is adorable.
We took a lot of trips to the park and even a trip to the beach!
Then, the biggest news ever, was that on July 2nd, the move happened.
Movers came and packed up all our stuff. They were there ALL DAY. And we
seriously could not have asked for a better baby during that long
stressful day. She didn't fuss until the end of the day when bedtime
should have been happening, so I took her for a car ride. I had to feed
her in a bathroom on the floor, but she didn't mind. And then once it
was way past her bedtime, she laid with me in an empty room on a blanket
on the floor and just talked to me for a while and let me tell her
stories until she fell asleep. She really is the best baby on the
planet.
So, that was up until her 4 month mark. If we don't get a road trip post done, the 5 month post is going to be a doozy, so let's hope I can find some time to do that. Haha. :)
I will end on some pictures of Anberlin and people she met this month.
It's been three whole months since we brought our sweet little girl into the world. But honestly, it has felt like we have had her our whole lives.
May has been a busy and exciting month for all of us. We took Anby to watch the Diamondbacks play the Nationals.
She doesn't seem to mind the noise of the game or the people yelling. She actually does really well at baseball games. She can even sleep while we are at them! And when we are home so loves watching baseball on the TV with Daddy. It's adorable.
We have a little obsession with Food Trucks and they are really popular around here, so on Cinco De Mayo, we went to a food truck festival that was going on in DC called Trucko De Mayo. Anby was on her best behavior there. We really can take her anywhere with us and she is always good. (Well, most of the time. ;))
And then Mother's Day happened. :) Brad got me a day at the spa and it was wonderful. Naturally I missed my little Bay but I was in need of a nice pampering, so I enjoyed it. And then Anberlin gave me her own little present: she slept through the night!! Awesome right? Well, it would have been a lot better if I wasn't awake most of the night staring at the baby monitor wondering if she is okay. Plus, when I woke up my "milk jugs" were REALLY full and it kind of hurt, haha.
Anberlin has really been learning a lot this month. It's so amazing to watch her learn new things and take everything in. This month her new obsession is her mouth. She found her mouth and LOVES to put her fingers in it! Sometimes it's just two fingers, and sometimes she will squeeze as many as she can in there. And if it's not her fingers, it is her toys. She has gotten really good I grabbing her toys, pulling them to her mouth and then licking or sucking on them. The problem is, she drops them immediately because she can't get a suction on them like she does when she eats. Haha. It's pretty cute. She also likes to lick things. Mostly her blankets, burp rags, toys, and any skin she can come in contact with. I think this is all just her way of learning what her mouth does.
She is still really vocal. She loves to talk in the mornings the most. That's when we get the most smiles from her as well. She can get really high pitched with her squeals sometimes and it kind of hurts our ears. Haha.
Her sleeping patterns are getting better. We are down to a pretty good routine during the day. She gets three naps in normally, but sometimes they are only 15 minutes long. I get the longest naps from her on bath days, which is twice a week, and she will sleep about 2 hours during those naps. She still gets a little cranky during the evenings. Sometimes the only interaction Brad gets with her during the evenings is trying to console a screaming baby. But I think we are getting her on a good sleeping schedule. Bedtime is between 8-9 and she has actually slept through the night about 5 or 6 times since Mother's Day. If she doesn't sleep through the night, I am normally only having to get up once, twice on a "bad night". I don't know what we did to make this happen. We cluster feed her at night, which means she gets fed at one hour intervals from around 6-8. But we don't do the cry-it-out method because when she cries, I cry, and I just couldn't handle that. So, I do nurse and rock her to sleep and that works for us. I have been trying to put her down with her eyes open as of lately just so I know she can fall asleep on her own, and that has been working well, too. All in all I am pretty happy with how things are right now. :)
With that being said... things are actually about to change big time. After a lot of discussions and things just not going as planned here in Maryland... we decided to move back home to Arizona. Yup. We should be leaving sometime in July, but we are waiting on the moving dates from the Navy, who is moving us for free. We are not 100% sure of what we are going to do there, but we know it is better than staying here. Sometimes you just have to take that risk and hope that everything works out. Plus we have all our family back home who has been so supportive of this decision, although I am sure they all just want to be closer to Anberlin. ;) I am hoping that this move doesn't mess up our routine with Anby. We have to drive across the country to AZ and I am so worried of that long road trip with her. And then the time changes she will be going through... I am sure we will have a few rough days when we get there, but she is smart and will get back on schedule perfectly.
In other news, we don't have any signs of teeth yet with her, which I am happy about. I am NOT ready for teething. Plus I love her little gummy smiles. *swoon* She is really good with tummy time and I think she is progressing perfectly in that department. She has started rolling to her side from her back though!
Also, I realized that we have taken a picture of Anberlin every single day since she was born, so I created a flickr page for her and uploaded all of the pictures we had of her. I will maintain it about every week or so, so check back and watch her grow! <3 www.flickr.com/anberlin_amy
Well, I think that is all that has happened this month with us and our little Bay.
Until next month... <3
This month Anberlin took her first road trip to St. Louis and got her first set of shots. {I already blogged about that, so if you missed it click here!} She also got to meet her other grandparents. My parents came out for an extended weekend to meet their new granddaughter. :)
After they left, not before spoiling her first though, we were busy trying to get me all checked out of the Navy. That was a looong process and it meant that Anberlin had to spend a lot of time in her car seat following me to appointments. But somehow we were blessed with an amazingly awesome baby who didn't seem to care too much about not really having a schedule during the day. But finally all of that is now taken care of and I am officially separated from the Navy after 8 years and 10 months of service. :)
I'm trying to think of anything else that happened this month... On Monday night, we went to a beer tasting at Dogfish Head Alehouse (if you recall, this is where my water broke). We brought Bay and she slept the whole time (2 hours) and was such a good baby that one lady said she didn't even know she was there because she was so quiet. Then yesterday I took her out for a mama & baby date to the movies. TheBump.com sponsors this event once a month where mom's are encouraged to bring their baby to a certain movie theater for a movie on a certain day/time. They have the lights up more than a normal movie and the volume turned down. It was really awesome. She was awake for the beginning of the movie but I fed her and she took a nap the rest of the time.
So for now, we are just going day by day. Anberlin has a little cradle cap going on right now that we are trying to get rid of. Other than that, she is completely healthy. We are still watching out for any symptoms of Pyloric Stenosis, which runs in my family, but I am hoping we are going to dodge that altogether. We really love her and love being with her and watching her make funny faces and hang out with her right arm up in the air. She is hilarious. Sometimes before we go to bed, we make Anberlin faces at each other and laugh. {We are dorks, we know.} She pretty much sleeps through the night for the most part. We try to get her to bed between 8:30-9:30pm and she normally doesn't wake up again until about 1:30am for a feeding and a changing, then she sleeps again until about 6:30am. Her hair is still growing and changing colors. Some places looks like she has lost some hair but not too much. And her eyes are still gray. As for who she looks like, it's still pretty split down the middle for what other people think. I guess we will have to wait to find out... I think she just looks like herself. <3
Her favorite arm.
This was an outtake from her two month shot. She noticed Chewy and wanted to pet him, haha.
And here is a little video of her playing on her activity mat!
When you are only 6.5 weeks old, you get a lot of chances to have
your "first" things. Like Anberlin had her first Friday the 13th last
Friday. It was also the start of her first road trip, through her first
set of different states, to her first baseball game where she saw her
first homerun. She had a pretty awesome set of firsts this weekend. :) She was suuuuch a good baby on the road trip too. We were able to drive about 2-2.5 hours before needing to stop and she would sleep pretty much the whole time. Then when we stopped for the night in a hotel, she would sleep in her pack and play with ease and would only want to be fed once in the night. We couldn't have asked for an easier time with her.
We found her a little STL Cardinals hat!
Hanging out inside.
After the Cardinals won! :)
Hanging out inside with dad.
Playing in the hotel room.
Smile!
Crying baby
Still so cute, even when she is crying.
Playing in the trunk after a diaper change.
WHEW. Roadtripping is hard!
And then on Wednesday, she had another set of firsts... her first shots! :( The appointment started out with a basic check up. She is now 12.6 lbs and almost 23 inches long and healthy as can be. They had us fill out this assessment of things that she does, or should be doing at 2 months, and she is well off the charts AND she is only 7 weeks old! :) After the appointment part, it was time for her to get her shots. I sent Brad into the room with her for that because I KNEW I wouldn't be able to handle it. So they walk over to the room where they give the shots. It's pretty far from me, but I could see inside the room still. And then out of nowhere I hear an ear piercing scream and I KNEW it was my little baby and so I started crying. The way it went down in the room according to Brad was that she was just laying on the table all smiles. Brad was behind her head holding her arms and she had two corpsmen on either side of her legs. She was looking up at the smiling and completely unaware of what was about to happen, then BAM they both shoot her at the same time. Then it was a one, two, three kind of reaction from Anberlin, like she was processing what happened before screaming and crying. Then they bandaged her up and sent her on her way. When she came out of the room she was fine, not even crying anymore. Me, on the other hand, still crying. Haha.
One of the battle wounds. :(
Little Anberlin has had a very eventful week and right now her grandma and grandpa (Jenna's parents) are here visiting. :)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
