3 Month Old Melanie

Melanie turned 3 months old yesterday. I still can't believe how quickly she grows. 3 months is the happiest, most wiggly, most vocal age yet for her. Here are a few things about our 3 month old Melanie:

She is very wiggly. Very very wiggly.

She is a great sleeper. Most nights she will do a six to eight hour stretch, then eat and go back to sleep for 2 or 3 hours.  Her naps have been getting longer and more regular. Her first nap of the day is usually about 2 hours long now.

She is a morning girl. When she wakes up in the morning she is so happy. She just smiles and sticks her tongue out and stretches happily. It's pretty cute.

Melanie likes to mimic some of our sounds. She will watch our mouth very carefully when we talk or stick our tongues out at her and she tries to copy us. After a few weeks of practicing, I'm happy to say that Melanie sometimes howls.

She likes music. She likes watching us sing and it often calms her down if she's upset.

Melanie has gotten a lot better at using her hands. She likes to suck on them, often trying to fit her entire fist into her mouth. She gets pretty close sometimes. She likes to bat at her toys and sometimes tries to grab them. She's not very coordinated yet but she's getting better.

Melanie is the happiest baby I've ever known. She only cries if she has a problem that we can solve immediately like a wet diaper or being hungry. Sometimes she cries when I put her down for a nap because she feels lonely. Over all though she's very happy and smiley. We love her so much and love watching her grow and learn.

Happenings

I am trying to get back into blogging more regularly, so here's a post that's just about stuff.

We pretty much do the same things day to day. Spencer has class in the morning or in the afternoon or both. Melanie and I hang out, maybe go to the grocery store. I guess I should try harder to reach out to some of the other moms in the ward and actually socialize. Some days are really good and happy and productive, and other days I feel like we don't do anything but nurse and change diapers and try to get Melanie to fall asleep. She has some really happy time almost every morning though, and that's always fun. Being a stay at home mom is hard.

I've been working on setting goals and doing them lately. Mostly with keeping our apartment neat and organized, but one of these days I'll throw working out into the mix. I finally feel like my body is almost getting back to normal. Or at least what I want my new normal to be. I still have some weight to lose though, especially around my hips. Plus, I'd like to really get into better shape and feel stronger. Going into PT school is a good reason to get fit. I'll have to transfer patients and do quite a bit of lifting.

I managed to make a baby quilt since Melanie was born. :) My cousin Laura had a cute baby boy and I love making baby quilts. When Marianne came she brought me a bunch of extra fabric that she had, so I pulled a quilt together from those. It was fun to work with some different fabrics, and it made such a soft and silky quilt. I just think that every baby should have a special quilt. Maybe that's because I'm a little sentimental about the baby quilt my mom made for me. It was always on my bed growing up.

This weekend is stake conference (a regional conference for my church) in Midland. Today I have training for my calling in young women's (I teach the 12 and 13 year olds) and then the saturday adult session after that. Hopefully Melanie does well in the car. Then tomorrow we have the general session.

Spencer has his third exam on Monday, so I've been trying extra hard to stay out of his way and let him study this week. I'm always anxious about giving him enough study time, but I also want to make sure he has time with Melanie (especially when she's happy) and I want to have time with him, too.

For the last two nights, Melanie has slept really well. Like from 10 to 6:30 well. Then she eats and goes back down for a couple more hours. It's been pretty awesome and I feel great.

Today I skyped with Laura and baby Lincoln and everyone that was hanging out there (Janet and Sherry and Reeny). It was really fun, and I need to do a better job of keeping in touch with my cousins. Hopefully I can see some of them at Christmas time when we are up in Ironwood.

That's all for now. I have to go find some food. I'll add pictures later. (haha. I always say that.)

A Few of My Favorite Things

About Melanie, of course.

I love when I lean over her crib in the morning (or after a nap) and she just gives me the biggest grin she can manage. I think she knows that we stick around when she smiles.

I love, love, love the way she stretches. I'll have to get a good picture of it one of these days. She pulls her feet up, sticks her butt out, arches her back, and stretches her neck so her head tilts way back. All while making this cute face that makes her cheeks look so big. :)

I love when she has little conversations back and forth with me. She tries her best to copy sounds now, but all she can really do is grunt and say "Oooo".

I love when she looks at me right before she starts eating and smiles so big and goofy that I start laughing, and then she coos/laughs.

I love listening in on the little conversations Spencer has with Melanie.

I love how Melanie always has her mouth gaping open unless she's doing something with it.

Okay, here are some more pictures.

Dr. Melanie. This was her Halloween costume. 

Someone put this bear on a "free stuff" table at church, so I took it home. She likes it. 

She still loves bath time. 

Ward Halloween Party outfits. (Gaping mouth)

(Gaping mouth)

(Gaping mouth)

(Gaping mouth)

(Gaping mouth)

Ooh, yeah! I did this on her wall and I love it!

The mouth. I love it. 

Clearly, these aren't in order. 

The mouth again. :) And just look at these cute Jammies from Grandma Jill!

Spencer's 26th Birthday Weekend

We went to Grand Haven this past weekend to celebrate Spencer's birthday with his family. Spencer's Dad works in Bay City, so we caught a ride with him as he drove home on Friday and back to work on Sunday. That was great for us to not have to drive or pay for gas!

I was so worried about bringing everything we'd need with us. I packed two outfits for each day and like 50 diapers. And blankets and an extra swaddling one in case Melanie exploded on her swaddleme. Well, we were there for a whole hour when Melanie had a blowout on her outfit and it had to go in the washer. She also had a HUGE blowout on Saturday, but I'll get to that.

We got there Friday night and had some awesome soup and homemade pretzels that mom had waiting for us. Then we hung out and passed Melanie around. I hardly had to hold her all weekend! So much, in fact, that I missed holding her and would sometimes just keep her for a while after I was done feeding her. I need my Melanie snuggles, too! (But I'm making Spencer go and rock Melanie for a few minutes as I type this. She's been in the going to bed process for an hour now.)

Melanie slept pretty well Friday night, but she didn't really go down until almost 1. Lucky for us, she slept in so we could too. Spencer and Mom went out shopping for his birthday present - a new winter coat - and I did the baby stuff and made some pizza dough in the morning. Alan (a friend from Ironwood) and Courtney (Alan's girlfriend) came over to the house for lunch! They are in school at GVSU, so it's a quick trip for them up to Grand Haven. We had a good time talking and then playing with Melanie after lunch. It's so fun to see them, and I love that Alan and I can go years without seeing each other and just pick it right back up.

Spencer spent a couple of hours studying Saturday afternoon, and then I kicked Mom and Spencer's trash at Racko. (Later, Spencer kicked all of our trash at Ticket to Ride.) That night we went out for dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was so good, and Melanie slept the entire time and then some! So we finally woke her up to feed her and change her into PJs before we went to bed. As I was feeding her she filled her diaper, except instead of filling her diaper it went right up the back of her onesie. Seriously, it was such a huge mess. I leaned her forward and saw all the mess that had leaked through to her blanket and just called Spencer in for back up. She was so messy that I ended up hopping into the shower with her while Spencer scrubbed out her blanket and pants and started the laundry. We threw her onesie away because there was no way that huge stain was coming out. We finally got to sleep after that and she did fine for the rest of the night.

That's a little finger mark from laying on her hand in the picture above. 

Church was nice on Sunday. I took Melanie into the mothers' room to feed her during Sacrament meeting and after she ate and got a new diaper on she was in a really good mood. She cooed at me for a little while before I brought her back into the Chapel. Then I gave her to Mom to hold and she kept looking at me and giving me these big smiles and coos. After a while she noticed Mom and then she gave her the biggest, goofiest grins she could with a nice laugh. I think half the chapel heard her.

After church we had a nice roast dinner and birthday cake. We visited for a couple more hours until Melanie started to get tired. I nursed her and then we finished packing up our stuff. She ended up losing it and then I kind of lost it and said we needed to leave 15 minutes ago. She was pretty upset for the first several minutes of our drive, then she basically passed out and slept the rest of the way home. I had forgotten Spencer's birthday gifts at home, so I gave them to him before we watched a show and then went to bed. I got him a sweater and a shirt, which sounds lame, but I think he likes them.