Gracie at 4 Months

It really is a lot harder to find the time to blog with your second kid. I am hopeful that I can at least post once a month so that my kids can go back and read about all their stages of life. Our sweet Gracie is just the most precious thing. There is something so soft and delicate about her. At almost 4 months she weighs 13 and a half pounds, which is about 43%. She was in the 90% for height and the 96% for head. She is a long girl. She has the most white, bright skin. Her eyes are a really pretty clear blue and her hair still has a touch of strawberry to it. It is fun to see how different her coloring is next to Violet. 

For having such a big head, she is pretty good at keeping it stable and holding it up. She still isn't a fan of tummy time and has a little bit of trouble keeping her head up for very long. She hasn't really tried to roll yet. Sometimes she will shift her weight over so she is on her side, but that's about as far as she will go. She is always trying to get her toes up and push her legs forward. I have a feeling she will crawl a lot earlier than Violet did. She loves to chew on her hands and will gag herself all time, trying to shove those fingers in there. She is a lot more drooly than Violet was and has a tendency to spit up much more than Vi did. She still doesn't spit up a lot, just more than her sister. When Grace gets mad she blows lots of spit bubbles, turns bright red and gets beads of sweat all over her head. 

This little one has become such a trooper this summer. She is almost always on the go for her morning nap. She will have to take it in the car or in her stroller at the park. Since her morning nap is shorter, she tends to take a 3-3.5 hour afternoon nap when Violet is sleeping. It has been really nice to sync up their schedules. Grace will then take a little power nap at some point in the evening. Grace will typically go to bed around 7:30-8:00 and then she wakes up at 4:00 to eat and 8:00 again. She has really been doing great in the sleeping department. We had to let her cry it out for a bit when we were dealing with jet lag. It was a rough week but it seemed to get her back on schedule. 

Gracie bug is full of smiles and the cutest little squeal laughs. Most of the time she sounds like a cat. She loves it when you pretend to eat her belly and armpits. Lots of times when she is sitting in her bouncer she will look at you and just start to coo talk. It is so cute. She looks right at you and you feel like you are having a little conversation about your day. She likes to look at books just like her big sister. I can open a book and just turn through the pages and she will just stare at them.

Grace has learned to like the tub and pool. She was not a huge fan of the tub at first. Now she could splash all day long.  We have taken her swimming a handful of times and she has always liked it. She gets very calm and relaxed in the water. 

She has so much patience. I know that is a weird thing to say about a 4 month old, but she puts up with so much from her big sister. Violet is constantly hugging, smashing and touching her. Grace will just take it and not even be phased. Vi is never mean to Grace but she is very hands on and physical with her. We have had a lot of moments teaching her to be gentle with her.

 She likes to see me when she is falling asleep for naps. Lots of times I will put her to bed in the kitchen and do dishes or work on things. If she can see you then she is content and will fall asleep. She is social, just like her sister and doesn't like to be left out. 

She is not that interested in a binkie, but will take it sometimes. She does not like to be hot. Both of my girls are sweat machines, due to their awesome gene pool. Grace isn't a fan of the sticky humidity here in Michigan. You get her by a fan or in air conditioning and she is one happy camper. 

We really love this little angle girl. She has brought a new sweetness to our family that I am very thankful for. She has been an ideal second child and we are grateful for her!

Grace at 3 months

I am going back and playing catch up from right when we got home from California. Grace turned 3 months the day we flew home. She had a bit of a rough week after that big time change. She wasn't sleeping well at night and was just not as happy and content during the day. She went from doing a 7 hour stretch to waking up every 3 hours. She was just having a really hard time. We took a solid week of laying low, and then crying it out at night until she was back on schedule. 

She really started liking to eat her hands and blow spit bubbles at this time. She still didn't like tummy time and for some reason started to dislike the car a bit. Luckily all of the hard stuff cleared up once we got back into a routine. She started really taking all of Vi's aggressive hugs and face smooches. She decided she doesn't like to have her arms swaddled at all and will sometimes take a binkie to chew on. She also started to hold toys in her hands and chew on them.

Here are a few pictures of the sweetie pie at 3 months.

Tea Party Time & Utah

We headed to Utah for 3 weeks while Mike went to Kenya with the dental school again. The first week we got there and I went to Kate's endowment session the next day. My cousin Kwasi watched the girls and was such a rock star since Grace was not happy about having to wait to eat. Then we headed up to Idaho to my uncle's ranch. There was horseback riding, 4-wheelers and cousins. The kids played outside all day and just ran around and had a good time. It was a bit hard with Grace because she was so little this trip. Being outside all day long with no good place to nap made for an interesting couple of days. She was pretty over stimulated and just needed a bit of a break from it all.  Violet ran around with all the girls, making bracelets, launching rockets and chasing dogs. Frankie and Violet had a bunch of dance parties for the whole group. It was another great year at cousin's camp.

Once we got back to my mom's house everything mellowed out a bit. Vi was in total heaven. My mom brought out her dollhouse and kitchen for Vi to play with. She also wore a dress-up pretty much everyday that we were there. We went to music class twice in Provo and Vi had a week of swimming lessons in Provo too. Those did not go so well. Vi hadn't been in a pool since last summer and it took her some time to warm up to the idea of getting in. We tried to take her most days at my mom's house to help with that. We had multiple cousin swim days. Grandma and Grandpa took her to 2 movies( home and inside out) She played with her cousins a ton. We went up to the cabin for a night too and hiked to Stewert Falls. We met up with Jayne and Kate at puppy barn. It was so cute and Vi was in dog heaven. We made flower crowns out of flowers from my mom's garden. Overall I think Vi was just loving life in general. 

Grace was a trooper and was carted around everywhere. My mom also stepped in a ton to watch her or be with her while she slept. Gracie did get to go swimming for the first time. My parent's pool is pretty much the same temperature as a tub. She also got to meet all of her family and that was so fun. It makes me so happy when my kids can start forming relationships with their family. 

We loved out time in Utah, but I think Violet's biggest highlight was the tea party my mom and I put together for her and Jayne. They were dancing outside all morning to the music while they snacked on lunch. I put a little bit of lipstick on both of them and they were feeling extra fancy about the whole thing. It was so fun! I'm so excited that Violet is getting to an age where we can do this kind of stuff. 

 The Peonies

This is one of my favorite traditions we have started since moving to Michigan. The garden up on campus is so beautiful. Last year Vi was so good about letting me take pictures of her. This year I could not keep her still for more than a few seconds. She was running around and playing like crazy. She was all caught up in the magical flower world. I loved it. This is the small window of time in Michigan where it isn't cold anymore and it isn't crazy humid yet. We were leaving town just a few days after so we didn't get to wait for all of the peonies to come out. This was one of our last outings with the Blomquists while they were here. I loved seeing Deacon and Violet running around together and Scarlet and Grace being all cute. We are going to miss having them here our last year. They have become some of our best friends. I'm not sure if  we will still be here next year to catch one more peony season, so this may be our last time going. I'm just glad we made it and maybe we will bring our kids back one day to see this place!

This is as good as it was going to get with our crew haha.