Allison is 4 months old today!

Month four is upon us, with Allison growing bigger everyday...one of the teachers from school said she saw Ally after their one-week break and hardly recognized her. No height/weight stats yet...the big four-week doctor visit is Monday...but suffice it to say we are resting easy that our little girl, despite being a bit of a spitter-upper, is packing on the ounces. (Ally weighed in at 14 pounds, 4 ounces; and measured 25 inches. I thought this sounded huge...then I looked back and saw Anthony was nearly 16 pounds at four months!)


As I looked through my photos for this month, a few things stood out, all exemplified by the following photo:

1. Allison spends a lot more time on her tummy
2. Most of the photos are of both kids, as Anthony seems to be taking more and more of an interest in his sister all the time
3. Our camera stinks (situation remedied...Amazon delivered the new one today!)

In any case, month four brought a lot of changes for our little girl.

She's laughing now! I mean, who wouldn't when the comedic stylings of Brandon are at your constant beck and call:




Anthony is definitely finding Allison more interesting now that she can do stuff like, you know, move.

He'll help with her bottle if you catch him at the right moment:



And he'll walk over to her while she's rolling around to tell her hi. The best part of this is - and forgive me for a moment of sappiness - that the minute she sees him, she gets the biggest smile on her face. It's heartwarming.

Meanwhile, Allison has been taking tummy time seriously this month, mastering the art of rolling over and enjoying her new view of the world.

She has also decided she prefers to sleep on her stomach...the instant we put her down at night, she rolls over and starts snoozing away. Guess she's got a little of her dad in her!

The only problem with this - aside from bucking that whole "back to sleep" thing - is that she wakes up each morning with bright red cheeks from rubbing her face against the sheet. Oh well, I guess we'll just call it a healthy glow.

Meanwhile, in Anthony news this month...

He continues to amaze us with his extensive knowledge of the Cars movies...here he's got Mater towing McQueen at bathtime. No, I don't know what that is on his cheek.

He's also branched out a bit to play Dr. Anthony...takes after Uncle Justin, though we'll assume Justin wears pants while he's doctoring.

We also hit a friend's birthday party late last month. Anthony loved playing with the other kids...

...while Ally mostly stuck with mom.

All in all, it's been a fun month, and our little four-month-old is finding plenty to smile about. Now if only I could figure out what to do about those red cheeks...

Allison is 3 months old!

Allison hit the three-month mark Tuesday, and looking at her three-month and two-month photos, I'd say the biggest difference can be summed up by two words: baby fat.

She's definitely picked up a few more rolls in the past few weeks!

Allison at three months:

Allison at two months:

Of course, month three has brought more new stuff as well.

Allison had her first day of "school" Monday; she seems to be adapting and has received many compliments for being "a good baby," which I take to mean "she doesn't scream her head off all day long and make us crazy."

Sadly, she also endured her first trip to the ER, for a fever. Infants under three months - yes, even if they're just days from the cutoff, like Ally was at the time - have to be seen by a doctor right away if they have a fever over 100.4 degrees. And, since as any parent knows, all fevers happen at 2 a.m., the ER was our only option. She's doing fine now, and I'm pretty sure a sick Ally is still calmer and happier than 95 percent of babies.

The other big changes are in Ally's activity level - she isn't a passive, still infant anymore. She constantly wants to move her arms and legs and is getting close to rolling over.

The bath is one of her favorite places to squirm around:

Ally's first AND LAST nude YouTube video

She's also more and more social and smiley:

She LOVES to accessorize...or maybe I love to accessorize her...

...and to dress in holiday-appropriate clothes. Her Fourth of July gear:

The bouncy chair is still a favorite, especially now that she can get it bouncing all by herself...

...though Ally also found she enjoys the new, more upright perspective of a Bumbo chair:

Apparently, seeing Allison in an upright position was a thrill for big brother, too: Grandma Char, who was watching them at the time, said as soon as Allison was seated in her chair, Anthony took a real interest in her, and started bringing her cars to "play" with. I guess seeing her look like more of a big kid got his hopes up...he has a little while to wait, but before we know it we'll be enjoying the sounds of the two of them entertaining one another.

Or enduring the sounds of them bickering...whatever.

Happy three month birthday to our precious girl!

Allison is 2 months old today!

She's so happy to be a big 2-month old!

For comparison's sake...Allison a month ago:

Allison today:

Ally passed her two-month doctor visit with flying colors. Apparently, our little lady is a bit of a bruiser, in the 75th percentile in weight (11 pounds, 12 ounces) and 95th percentile in height (nearly 24 inches). She's also in good health; is doing the things babies should do in terms of smiling, cooing, etc.; and barely whimpered during her first round of immunizations. In other words, an excellent report from the doc.

But more importantly, mommy's report is even more glowing. This kid seriously has to be the easiest baby ever. She's generally calm, quiet and content during the day, and manages to sleep all night or only wake up once. She smiles a lot, and seems to go with the flow...the cliches about second children are true with this one.

She's happy when she's all swaddled up in her bassinet...

...she's happy when she's dressed in her cute outfits in someone's arms...

...she's happy getting soaped up in the bath...

...she's happy to tag along when mom and big brother need to get out of the house...

...she puts up with the, ahem, louder members of our family...

...and she's happy to sit quietly in her bouncy chair for what seems like hours.

Oh yeah, and we think she's kinda pretty, too.

Happy 2 month birthday, Allison! We love you!

Party time

We celebrated Anthony's 3rd birthday this past Saturday with family and friends. The kids had a great time playing outside while the adults marveled at how our South Florida group has grown to include so many little ones, with Allison the most junior member of the bunch.

Even before the party started, Anthony was super excited about his fire truck cake, which mom and Grandma Char made from a video Brandon found on Youtube. By way of convincing us to undertake this project, he repeatedly mentioned the video was only 6 minutes long...



As for the actual cake production...six minutes my @!*. Regardless, the cake was cute and delicious, and the party was a ton of fun...here are some outtakes:

The birthday boy himself, getting ready to party:

The cake, aka our masterpiece:

Anthony loved hearing everyone sing "Happy Birthday" - even joining in to serenade himself - and did a great job blowing out his candles all on his own:

Did I mention we made this:

Anthony had a great time opening his gifts, and even (kind of) let some of his little friends help:

We also took the chance to snap some family pictures while we were all in our party clothes.

The guys:

The girls:

Grandma Char and Grandpa Dave with the kids:

The four of us:

Anthony is 3 years old!

This is crazy. Where does the time go? He's not a baby anymore.

Here are some videos of the little guy and his new baby sister Allison:

Reading a story:


Running through the sprinkler


Singing a song:


Oh, and we can't forget little Allison:

Allison is one month old today

Month one is in the books for little Allison, taking us from this:
To this:

She now tips the scales at 9 pounds, 10 ounces; and stands (OK, lays) 22 inches tall. Here's some more newborn cuteness from the past four weeks:

As for Anthony, he's doing well and warming up to his little sister. The other day he even agreed to hold her for a split second or two, though this can't be an unsupervised activity: as soon as he was done, he was pretty much ready to spill her off the couch and onto the floor!