Lotsa Mamma Time

Grace and I had a great week this week. The weather was beautiful and we really did not have anything to do after our doctors appointments on Monday. So we spent a lot of time around the house just hanging out. What a great way to spend my last week with my girl before work starts again.

Here we are before church on Sunday. Grace is finally big enough to wear the pretty blue dress my mom got her! She was too cute in it. I think the nursery may be in her near future. For the first time ever I had to take her out of the service. She usually stays awake for most of the music and then sleeps during the sermon, but this week she did not make it. She got fussy so I took her to the cry room and gave her a bottle (thank goodness I brought one). She ate almost 5 ounces! That is a lot for her. I think she must be going through a growth spurt because she is eating so much more often than she used to, and when she eats she eats a lot. Maybe she will go back to normal before work starts up next week. Anyway, I may start leaving her in the nursery soon with a bottle. I guess that means I need to go ahead and fill out all the paper work for her to be able to go.

Tuesday was a beautiful day. Highs were in the low 80's, so we spent a long play time outside. I took a lot of pictures but this was one of my favorites. Grace was so funny while we were outside. She was really still and quiet. She just loved looking around. I put her on a pallet on the back deck under a huge maple tree and she stared up into the branches. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. I think Maggie enjoyed the company too:)

Grace Girl is still practicing pushing up and rolling over. She always smiles when I first put her on her tummy. I think she must like having a new vantage point to look around from. No giggles yet, but I know it will happen soon. She has discovered how to razz or "growl" as we call it. She does it nonstop sometimes. And she really loves it when we growl back at her. She will squeal with happiness. It is so much fun! I can't wait to hear what her little laugh will sound like.



She is also getting really good at grabbing onto her rings. She is great with her left hand and will wave them around once she has them. The right hand is not so quick, but we are practicing and she is getting better and better. Last night she had the best time just hitting the dangling strand of rings over and over again. She did it for probably 10 minutes.


Wednesday it was overcast and cool. Jonathan kept her for me in the morning while I spent a morning out by myself. It was great. I had breakfast at the coffee shop (did you know that a coffee shop will make any drink you like decaf? Why did I just now figure this out?) and then went to Kohls, Meijer, and Target. I got Grace a couple of fall outfits that were on sale since it is about that time of the year here in Kentucky (I know all y'all Louisianians have a couple of months to go yet). She looks so cute and grown up in her new clothes sitting in her red chair. I can't believe she is almost 12 weeks old!



I took this picture this morning. Grace usually smiles at the camera, but this is the smile that I can never quite seem to capture! This is Grace's real smile that is sometimes followed by a squeal! I wonder what makes her so happy?

A Little List

OK, so now that my exhausted child is asleep for the evening and I have had a really hot shower I can write a bit more about Grace's hip situation. First though, I must say that I know that we are so so very blessed to have such a healthy baby, and that I am also grateful that Grace's condition would have been easily corrected without any long term implications. I kind of feel guilty for worrying so much about a situation that seems so trite compared to kids and parents who are dealing with serious health issues. But no parent wants their kid to have any sort of problem, and I am a parent... so there you go.

Here is a picture of a kid in the harness that Grace would have had to wear to correct her hip dysplaysia.
I was ok with the whole thing ( I mean we are not dealing with anything like paralysis) till I googled it and saw all the pictures and support blogs. I can not express to you what a relief it is that Grace does not have to wear the harness. The doctors measure the angle that her hips sit in their sockets to determine if they are developing correctly or not. At least this is how I understand it. We were told that they wanted her hips to be at 60 degrees or above. They had been measuring in the low to mid 50's for the past 2 months. Today they measured a 59 and 62! The doctor said that there had been so much improvement that she did not need to see us for another 3 months and even then they would only do an xray and not an ultrasound to check Graces development. I have been praying for the last month (actually, since I googled the topic and saw pictures) that I would be able to deal with Grace having to wear a brace. I have been playing out every possible trial that the brace would bring in my head so as to be as prepared as possible. Now I have a huge list of things that I am grateful for.

Here are just a few things that top the list:

I am thankful that...

When Granny and Pappa come they will be able to snuggle with Grace and rock her and squeeze her as tight as they want.

Grace can still have tummy time like usual and she won't get behind developmentally

I won't have to figure out how to nurse a baby in a harness

Grace can still sit in her swing!!! (oh, she loves the swing)

People won't look at her differently and make comments when we go out (many props to my mom for never letting anybody have it over the years. just the thought of somebody making a comment about my kid makes me want to knock em a good one. and thank the Lord for sparing me that particular lesson this time around)

I don't have to worry about getting new clothes that will fit over the harness

I don't have to worry about Grace getting pressure sores or the brace rubbing her skin and leaving scars.

I can still use the swaddler (swaddling=a good nights sleep for all)

Grace won't have to go to all those doctors appointments. We are all completely exhausted after days like today.

I don't have to worry about all these things while I am starting my first week of work

And on that note I am going to go to bed.
Good night:)

Answered Prayer

Thank you all so much for praying for us today. It has been quite a day, but we got great news! Grace's hips look good and she will not have to wear the sling or have any more ultrasounds done! We don't even have to go back to the doctor till December! I was fully prepared for the worst news and was pretty surprised to hear such good results. Well, I have a cranky baby on my hands (we have been at the doctors since 8:00 this morning and its 3:30 now) so that's all I have time to write, but I wanted to let know know the good news! We will all be sleeping wonderfully tonight:)

A Little Reading and Rolling

Well, we have not been up to too much around here. Jonathan finished his first week of classes. I think that he is going to enjoy them this time around. I only have one more week of staying at home :( Grace is doing well. I have started to keep her up during what would have been her before bedtime nap. She seems much more content at night than she used to. We have started to give her night time baths which has been a lot of fun. Jonathan finds some good tunes on the ipod and we sing to her while we bathe her. Not only does this kill about 30 minutes, but she seems to really love it. It is nice to end the day with a calm family activity.

All squeaky clean


Grace has been enjoying tummy time so much more now that she can hold herself up better and roll over. I think sometimes she forgets how to roll because she will go over a full day without doing it and then all of a sudden do it over and over and then stop again. I am also able to put toys and books in front of her and she will look at them and hold herself up longer without getting upset. She still LOVES her Eric Carle books. She will look at the pictures in those books longer than any others. I can't wait till she can read along with me!

A little leisure reading...


She loves the crocodile picture. Will green be her favorite color?


I think that Grace will be laughing soon. I can tell that she wants to so bad sometimes, but the only noise that comes out is a squeak or squeal. She gets so excited and smiles so big, but just does not know how to turn that extreme happiness into a giggle. It is really really cute.

"I am so happy that I can get off my tummy when I want to now!"

I absolutely can not believe how grown up Grace is. She is capable of so much more than she was even a few weeks ago. And she does not look like a little baby to me any more. It is sad and exciting all at the same time.

We are going to the doctor on Monday, so I will post afterwards and let you know what the verdict is on her hips.

New Things

Well, our summer is coming to an end. Jonathan started school this week, and I will go back to work week after next. I must say that I had a hard time staying at home during the first few weeks, but I have really grown to love being a stay at home mom (even though it has just been a couple of months). It is awesome to be able to take care of Grace whenever she needs me, and I love having the time to keep my house clean and orderly. We are so so fortunate that I will be able to work from home some and Jonathan's schedule worked out so that he will be able to watch the baby and we won't have to put her in child care, but it is going to be so hard to go back to work and worry about getting my work done when I am at home. I am just so glad that the baby sleeps so much at night. No matter what the day is like I know I can count on her going to bed at 9:30 and waking up at 6:30. That is a huge comfort!

All clean after bath time!

Grace has been doing so many new things lately. She continues to baby talk and coo all the time. She is also grabbing for things much more often than she used to. She really loves to grab onto her rings. So far she seems to really favor her left hand, but that may just be coincidence. I think that the pictures below are of the first time she really did a good job of grabbing the rings with her right hand. She has only rolled over a few times since I last posted. I did catch it on camera once though, and I put up the pictures so you can see!

Opening her hand to try and grab on.

Almost!

Fun times!

Here are the pictures of our Grace Girl rolling over!

Getting ready...

Rolling...

Over...

I did it!

More Rolling

Apparently Grace rolling over was not a fluke! She did it 5 more times during her last play time!!! Yeah Grace!!!

A Little Gymnast

Grace rolled over this afternoon!!! She only did it once and it happened very slowly, but she did it! I was so surprised when it happened. I guess it is appropriate timing with all the gymnastics going on at the olympics. She was always pretty good at holding her head up and pushing up during tummy time, but she is not a huge fan of the activity. The week before we took our trip to Arkansas was the week that she really started to "talk" a lot. I was having so much fun talking with her and our routine was so off that we had pretty much stopped tummy time for the past two weeks. When I put her down on Monday she would not even lift her head up! I guess she was just really out of practice. So I have been making her have a little tummy time every time we play to try and get her back to what she was doing a few weeks ago. She finally started to really be able to hold herself up today. I totally did not expect her to roll over. And judging by the look on her face, she was pretty shocked too. She didn't cry, but she did get really still and look around. I tried to get her to do it again for Jonathan, but she would not do it. Maybe tomorrow:)

Here she is pushing up. Maybe I will get a picture of the roll soon.

Because so many of you voiced the need for Grace to have some big bows I went and got her some today. Here she is sporting the pink one. What do ya think? I think she is pretty sweet.

She was so happy this afternoon. She must like the big bow:)

A Day Trip Through The Bluegrass

Jonathan and I are trying our best to take advantage of every single day that we have before his school starts next week and I have to back to work. Here is a recap of our past 24 hours...

Last night we ate at a "Louisville Original" restaurant called Kaelin's. Look closely at the sign behind Grace in the picture. Yep, that's right folks, Kaelin's claims to be the birthplace of the... drum roll please... cheeseburger. I kid you not. The cheeseburger. That is a mighty big claim to fame in my opinion. I guess it works though. I mean, we drove across town to pay too much for a burger and fries that I would describe as just... good.

Since a cool front moved through the area we decided to live it up by driving through our beautiful state and visiting a state park. We had quite an eventful day today.

We decided to stop in Lexington and find the UK campus (big parking lots are good places to feed the baby without drawing too much attention if ya know what I mean). It took forever for us to figure out where to go. I am not sure that we ever saw the actual campus, but we did happen upon the football stadium. My husband was not displeased. We even "snuck" into the stadium. I had to get a picture of Grace's first visit to a football stadium. I am sure that there will be many more to come.

We called our old friend Chad and he met us for lunch at a local BBQ place. We ended up talking for almost 2 hours! It was great to catch up with him.

Next we drove the rest of the way to the park where... if you know me, what I am about to tell you will prove that I must have had a temporary bout of insanity. We rode a sky lift to a natural bridge in the mountains. Normally I do not participate in risky theme park rides or anything where my feet will not be firmly planted to the ground. The "sky lift" was sooo way out of my comfort zone. One time my mom rode Mr. Freeze at 6 flags cause my sister wanted to go. MA definitely did not need my mother to go on the ride with her, but I totally understand why mom insisted on going now. I think it is the same thing that got me on the sky lift with my kid and husband. I wanted Grace to have the experience and not be such a sissy like me about these kinds of things. So I mustered my courage and hopped on. I still feel a little woozy thinking about it now. 

Here it is... the sky lift. I hope Grace likes the pictures cause she will never see the thing in person again if I have anything to say about it.

Here we are... high in the sky... wind blowing in our hair... me with a nervous smile.

We made it to the top... alive!!!

The trails were nice and shady.

Do you see the "natural bridge" in the background. It was really neat to walk across it.

Grace loved the baby carrier. She looked around for a while and then dozed off for most of the walking. She was not happy with me when I stopped walking and sat down on the darn sky lift to get back off the mountain and to the car. Lets just say the descent was less fun than the ascent. Hovering 100 ft in the air with a screaming baby strapped to your chest is definitely not my idea of a good time, but once again we made it. I am glad we went. We really did have fun, and we got to see a part of the state that we had really never seen before.  

2 Month Update

Grace had her 2 month well baby check-up today and she is still doing great! I am so grateful that the Lord has blessed us with such a well, easy going baby. Here are the current stats:

Length - 22.5 in Percentile - 50th

Weight - 10 lb 5 oz Percentile - 25th

Head - 15.5 in Percentile - 50th

She also received 5 vaccinations - 2 shots and one oral. That was at about 4:30 this afternoon. It is 8:00 now and she does not seem to be missing a beat. We will see how she feels a little later on tonight. Hopefully she will just be one of those babies who sleeps a lot after a vaccine and not a baby who cries and runs a fever. I will let you know how she does.

Now for more updates...

Do you see this face? This is grace's "I think that I am about to be unhappy with this situation" face. Her Daddy says that when she does this her mouth is about to "head down south" because the corners of her mouth point straight down and her bottom lip becomes very large and sticks out very far. You may be wondering why she has this face. Well, we went on a walk to the park last night. The weather was absolutely beautiful, but when we got to the park we realized that while the weather is not anything like louisiana, the mosquitoes are. They were everywhere!!! So we stayed about 30 seconds and then walked back home.

When my friend Kayla met Grace she could not believe the craziness that is her hair. She said that you really just could not get the full effect from the blog. I got so many comments from strangers on our vacation about my child having a mohawk that I decided to try to get her hair to lay flat again when we got home. All previous attempts had been fruitless, so I decided to let her hair just be what it was. Well, I finally got her hair to lay down once we got home. Now I kind of miss my crazy haired baby. The two pictures below show her hair both ways. What do you think? Should we keep it crazy or continue to tame the mane?

No, this is not static... this is the hair being what it is.

Here she is practicing sitting in her chair with her "normal" hair.

(I tried her out in her chair since she can hold her head up so well, and she LOVED it. She gets tired very easily, so I only leave her in it for a few minutes at a time.)

We had an opening ceremonies party with my whole family in arkansas. We decorated and had great food. Mom even got an Olympic flag on ebay (her first ebay purchase).

We spent one afternoon with my grandmother. Here is a picture of all 4 generations of the Dumas/Mitchiner/Milford/Nida women!

Grace had a blast hanging out with her Grandmother (we don't know what she will be called yet). These are 2 of my favorite pictures they took together.

One more note... The child is still sleeping through the night!!! She has slept through the night 10 nights in a row!!! In a hotel, at her grandparents, and in her room at home. Hopefully this shot thing won't get us off track :)

ps. I really do want opinions on the hair thing.

2 Months Old In Arkansas

Well, we are on our vacation in Arkansas, and we have been so so busy! Here are a few pictures and a little update of all the things we have been doing...

Grace is 2 months old today!!! 

We have a big day planned, so I will have to let you know how it goes later.

Grace has had fun just chillin' at her grandparents house. We have had lots of play time and great sleep time. Grace has slept through the night every night we have been here. I am talking a solid 8 hours!!! I even have to wake her up in the morning. Grace has been in her pack n play in the same room as Jonathan and me. The first night I did not sleep well because I did not realize how much noise she makes when she sleeps. I kept on thinking she was about to cry but she never did. She would just grunt a little bit and right when I thought she was going to cry she would be super quiet. Now I am totally used to it, and I have been getting a great nights sleep too!

Grace Girl is getting so so big. Look! Here she is in the back seat of the car enjoying some time out of the car seat. She was such a trooper on our trip. She really only cried one time. I was very worried that she would never want to see the car seat again, but so far she still seems to like it. We will have to see if she feels the same way about it after our return trip home :)

Yesterday we got to visit my good friend Kayla and her kids in Conway. We had a great time visiting and catching up. This was the first time Grace had been around more than one other child and I really think she liked it. Kayla's kids are absolutely awesome! They are so sweet and were great with the baby! I can't wait until Grace is bigger and can really interact more with them. Maybe next Christmas when we come back to Arkansas. 

Grace also got to to meet her Great Grandmother!!! This was one of the main reasons we made the trip. Great Grandmother was completely smitten with her great grand girl. We are going back over again before we leave with my sister now that she is in town. We will take a picture of all the generations then.

We have spent a lot of time just going places. We have been out to lunch every day, to my moms office and shopping around town! Today Grace is going to get to meet Josh Bryant when he comes to our house and then we are all heading to Fayetteville for the evening! 

She has really been enjoying all the time she has been getting to spend with her grandparents. I think her grandparents are having a pretty good time too:)  Her Paw Paw sang to her for over an hour one night. She never really went to sleep. She just looked at him and listened. She is so sweet sometimes.

I am so glad that we decided to come. We have been having such a great time! I will post about the rest of the trip soon.