Catherine Montage

Dear Mom Blood,

With a little cooperation from your adorable grandkids, I will have the bathroom pictures up this weekend.  Until then, here's a montage of your little namesake.

Love, Megan

Four Months

Why didn't anyone warn me that time goes even faster with the second one?  This is just crazy.

(adorable ruffle swimsuit from Aunt Lori!)

At four months old, the Princess is:

*12 lbs, 13 oz.  And exactly two feet tall.  Which puts her in about the 30th percentile for everything.  

And makes her exactly 5 pounds lighter than her brother at this age.  Five pounds.

*Grabbing at things. And then crying because she doesn't like things that close to her face.

*We've progressed from laughing to squealing when she's really excited.

*Still swaddled because her first reaction when she's tired is to try to claw her eyes out.  

Hoping to get over that soon.  

*Finally wearing 3 month clothing, but still in size 1 diapers (Target brand--they're bigger)

*Sleep training!  Can't really say if it's working or not--her sleep schedule has been all over the place.

For example: less than a week ago I was up twice a night with her.  And today she's been asleep for 

a full twelve hours without eating and shows no signs of waking up.  

Could be the combo of drugs/shots from yesterday, but I'm hoping for a new trend!

*Drooling.  Like crazy.

*Still not going to bed until 10:30 or 11 (although the past two nights it was before 9:30, so whatever).

*Will consistently take a good morning nap an hour after she wakes up.  The rest of the day is still totally erractic.

But DO NOT mess with that first nap, especially on Mondays.  You WILL pay for it the next few days.

*Still hates her carseat.

*Her daddy is her favorite.  If he's around, she will follow his movements regardless of what else is going on.  

Seth is second favorite, and I'm basically only interesting if there's no one else around.

*Tummy time: she still won't roll over, but she will push with her legs and can move pretty quickly when she's motivated.

Yesterday she moved about a foot in three minutes because she really wanted to get my waterbottle.

*Her hair is most definitely growing.  And it's still brown.  What do I have to do to get a redhead?!

There for a week or two her first post-wake-up action would be to reach up and touch her hair.  

Like she was checking to see if it was getting any longer.

*She is still just the happiest, sweetest little bug.  Even during sleep training: when we would go in to rescue her after her hour of not-sleeping, she would just grin at us and wiggle her whole body with happiness.  

How can you resist that?

The doctor was impressed with her standing ability (she has that in common with her big brother) and said she's doing perfectly.  Definitely not ready for solid food yet, but I'm fine with that!  

And me, at four months?  Still shedding like crazy: it's a miracle I'm not bald.  I'm officially below my pre-pregnancy weight, but hopefully it won't get as low as it did with Seth since Catherine is obviously not eating as much as he did.  I finally feel like I can make it through the day without a nap, which means I'm feeling good enough to exercise again.  Jillian Michaels is currently kicking my butt.  Thank you, 30 Day Shred (just graduated to Level 2--I'm so proud of myself!).  Life is crazy!  

Summer Kick-off

I have several friends who have complained that I'm quarantining myself in my house.  This post is to prove that I do, in fact, leave the house.  Sometimes.  Like twice a month.  What do you do when your baby sleeps from 9 to noon and your son sleeps from 1 to 3?  Yep.  You never leave.

But when some friends invited us to a local beach, I couldn't resist.  Catherine made us pay dearly for messing with her naps (she was a monster for 2 or 3 days, the punk), but it might just have been worth it.  It was SO nice to get to chat with some friends who I don't get to see often.  My favorite part was watching Catherine Washburn quite skillfully hold both my Catherine and her little Josiah.  I felt guilty about leaving her with two little ones, but I'm pretty sure she was in heaven!

As usual, Seth spent 95% of the time in the sand.  

Helping Felix build a sand castle.

Or hindering him.  Not sure.

Me & the Princess.  I love this little bug.

She loves the heat about as much as her mother does.

Which is not at all.

The best part?  No sunburns on any kids, and only a slight one on me.  That is quite an accomplishment for pasty-whites like us!

This is not a bathroom post...

...so those of you anxiously awaiting pictures of our bathroom remodel will just have to keep awaiting anxiously. Don't worry--I'm working on it.  All I have left to do is prime, paint, and hang some hardware.  And maybe get Lenae to come decorate it.

This is a birthday post.  Meaning it's a post about what we did for our birthdays.  Which was basically nothing.  Honestly, the entire month of May was just a big blur.  I didn't even have time to think about our birthdays until they were already here.

Jon got his smoothie (his dessert of choice this year), and I got a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake from Marah.  She drove all the way to Towson to get one from the Cheesecake Factory!  And it was divine, even at 560+ calories a serving...

So now Jon is 29 and I'm 26.  We still haven't had a chance to go out for our birthday dinner or to buy ourselves a birthday gift (an external hard drive that DOESN'T make horrible, horrible grinding sounds when we turn it on).  But I'm okay with that.  After the craziness of May, I prefer to just be at home together.

Sorry for the lack of pictures--obviously there wasn't much to photograph!  So to appease you, I'll throw our Memorial Day pictures in here, too.  And let me just say how nice it is to have a national holiday right by your birthday every year.  Good planning, Mom & Dad (and Mom & Dad Blood)!

We started off the day at the ward Memorial Day breakfast, which is always fun, even if it is already 90+ degrees at 9 am.  Luckily I was in charge of a game involving a pool of water and some marbles, so I stayed fairly cool.  Of course, I managed to leave all the marbles I borrowed sitting in the grass when I left.  After much searching, I found out they ended up in the garbage.  Guess who gets to buy new marbles.

After naps and lunch, we headed to Kilgore Falls (Falling Branch, whatever).  And I left my camera in the car.  Seth had a great time--he made it within a few feet of touching the falls before he panicked.  I was impressed.  Catherine basically slept the entire time.

Afterwards, because apparently we didn't get enough water at the falls, we headed to our neighborhood pool.  This time I did bring the camera!

Seth, not cooperating for the camera.  As usual.

Marah and her friend, Kellie enjoying the kiddie pool.

Jon & the kiddos 

Princess enjoying the water.  

And now for some totally unrelated pictures that were on my camera:

Like father...

...like son:

Seth gets his photogenicness (photogenuity?) from his dad.  

And no, I have no idea why Seth is just in his whitey-tighties.  Or why I took a picture of him.

Strawberries from our garden!  At their peak we were getting this many every day!  Then it got too hot... 

Seth, tattooed:

This came in handy yesterday when he asked our neighbor about her tattoo.  

Hopefully he thinks hers will just wash off, too...

And, of course, the Princess, modeling her (adorable) swimsuit:

We make cute kids.