5 Months!

Today is Darcy's 5 month birthday. We have been in Washington almost 3 weeks now and it has been a crazy few weeks. Her sleeping habits have been anything but pleasant. Although sleep has eluded us this Christmas we have loved being here with so much family to love Darcy and spoil her and help us take care of her so much during the day.

Things we want to remember about Darcy's fifth month:

- 18 lbs. 8 oz. Things are definitely slowing down. 26 1/2 inches long.

- She still does not sleep through the night and at the moment there is absolutely no consistency in her sleep pattern. We have had lots of people suggest the book Babywise so when we get back to Pittsburgh we will be trying that. I am really praying that it works.

- This month she has been mastering her hand control. I have loved watching her get the hang of grabbing for things and it helps to entertain her.

- She seems to really love the color blue. When she sees blue or anything else she wants to touch she kicks her legs and waves her hands and then I take her close and she grabs for it. It is so exciting to watch her figure these things out.

- She is consistently rolling from her back to her belly. She doesn't roll the other way though and she gets frustrated when she's been on her belly for too long.

- She is drooling like crazy and chewing on everything. We are guessing she might be teething but haven't seen any teeth at this point.

- She had rice cereal for the first time a few days before her 5 month mark and loved it!

Zzzz........

I need sleep.

I don't want to complain but it always makes me feel better to write about something and get it off my chest. I am just having the hardest time at the moment. Darcy is supposed to be sleeping through the night at this point right?! Instead, she has gone the opposite direction. She slept through the night a couple miraculous times around a month ago. Before we came home to Washington she had started waking up once around 2 just to cry and then again around 4 to eat. Since we've been home things have gone very sour. It has gotten worse and worse every night until last night she woke up every hour. My brain is so fried. I struggle to carry on a conversation. I forget names. I forget what I'm doing. I feel like crying all day long and even more at night when she's screaming and my body wants to sleep. I do not know what I'm doing. The guessing game is killing me. I keep hearing about a million different things to try, but don't know which thing to try next. I never was into letting her cry it out, but I think that might be the next step. My sister-in-law Sharee has been telling me about the book Baby Wise which I think I will be reading as soon as possible.

We actually gave Darcy rice cereal tonight and I'm hoping maybe her belly is really full and it will help her sleep. She did really well and kept attacking the spoon. I think she liked it. I just love watching her catch on to something new. She rolled over two days after her 4 month birthday, but then took a break. She is pretty consistently rolling from her back to her belly.

We are loving being with our family in Washington. It's so hard because there are so many people we want to see while we're here and it's hard to fit it all in. It is depressing to see what our little town is becoming though. Gangs are taking over in town. A couple days after we got here 3 people were murdered. Scary! Can't we just get rid of those crazy people.

Anyway, I'm tired so I'm going to bed now. I love posts where people give me advice, so if you have any tricks to help babies sleep I would love to hear them. I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season!
A post just isn't complete without a picture. I took this before we left Pittsburgh. So funny! Darcy gave Drew a nice big wet "kiss."

Creamy Hot Cocoa

This morning I was frozen and wanted some hot chocolate. I decided to try my hand at making it from scratch and found this recipe online. Drew and I both thought it was the best hot chocolate we had ever had so I thought I would share the recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients

* 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 1 pinch salt
* 1/3 cup boiling water
* 3 1/2 cups milk
* 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup half-and-half cream (I had cream instead of half-and-half and it worked)

Directions

1. Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Divide between 4 mugs. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

Late Thanksgiving Post

Drew's parents and his brother Justin came for a visit this Thanksgiving. I was thinking this would be my first year attempting to make a turkey and then Becky stepped in and saved me! Our meal was fabulous! I ended up eating after the rest of the group because of Darcy, but I'm getting used to that kind of thing. I was in charge of rolls and pies. Originally I was going to make three, but I was lazy and cut it down to two, which was OK I guess. We had left-overs filling up for fridge for the next week. It was so great not to have to cook for an extra week! Aside from our Thanksgiving feast we did some touring around the Pittsburgh area. Here are some pictures of our adventures.
A group shot after our Thanksgiving meal taken on our fancy table (aka our couches). :)
When Darcy was first born I failed to get pictures of her with Neil and Becky so I made sure to get some pictures with them this time. Here she is playing with Neil.
Becky and the chunk that is Darcy.
Isn't this picture so cute?! Darcy was really taken with her Uncle Justin.
Becky decided Darcy needed a snowsuit because we were touring all over and it was cold! So here is Darcy with Drew in her adorable new snowsuit. I just think she looks so cute!
We went to see the Falling Water house. Drew and I ended up not going on the tour because they wouldn't let little kids inside, but on our way to the waiting area where you take babies we got lost and ended up at the house. We snuck down and Drew got a picture with his phone. I was hoping we could go another time when Darcy is older and can stay with a babysitter, but Drew didn't really think he cared to see the inside. What a party-pooper! :) We'll see.
Darcy got hooked up with some early Christmas presents from the Christensen grandparents while they were here. Here she is before "she" opened her present.
And after! At first she didn't really know what was going on with this thing, but every day it seems like she's figuring it out more and more. She loves to be able to be up and looking around.
Hanging out with her new teddy bear.
We went on a little ride on one of the inclines where you can get a view of downtown Pittsburgh. Neil, Becky, Darcy, & Justin on the incline.
We toured the Hartwood Mansion. (I got kind of a mini tour because I had Darcy.) There were some pretty amazing Christmas decorations inside.
There is an amazing Christmas lights display around the Hartwood mansion. Darcy and I stayed home to have a break from the car seat but the rest of the group got to go and get some good pictures for me. I was hoping I would get to go another day with Drew but last night I asked Drew about it and he said very matter-of-factly, "Not gonna happen." So tender. :) Maybe next year.
Another shot of the Christmas lights.

Music to Our Ears!

We are loving this.

4 Months!

This post is a day late because she didn't have her 4 month checkup until today so I didn't have any stats. It doesn't seem possible but we love Darcy more and more every day. We have our rough patches, but ultimately we love having her and can't get enough of all her sweetness.

Things we want to remember about Darcy's fourth month:

- 17 lbs. 15 oz. Although that seems huge, her weight gain used to be up off the charts, but now it has come down closer to normal. :) 26 inches long.

- Sleeps from around 9:30-2:30, then 2:30-7:30...it seems like she's going backwards. She used to last longer. What happened?

- She loves foot massages. If she is crying we will lay her down or sit her in her bumbo and rub her feet. She gradually stops crying and brings her hands to her mouth to suck on them. Then she makes cooing noises. We think she's letting us know how good it feels. It's adorable.

- She is "talking" so much. She lays on the floor after I feed her and squirms around and babbles to herself for about 15 minutes. A lot of the time she will talk back to us when we talk to her. I think it's the cutest thing ever.

- She screams in the car. (So fun!) Most of the time the only remedy is for us to make animal noises. She especially likes the chicken and the elephant noise.

- We can put her to sleep without her crying if we dance her to sleep. Right when we turn on the music she calms down. She is just getting too heavy though so we're putting a stop to that. We decided we can't do that forever.

- The doctor said she would be rolling over by four months but she isn't. She is teetering up on her side, but hasn't pushed herself all the way over yet. We thought she was going to roll from her back to her belly first, but in the last two days she has made more progress from belly to back. These new discoveries are so exciting!
The close up. She wasn't cooperating very well for her photo shoot today.
The full body shot. Look how long she is!
Darcy can officially wear a ponytail. She probably could have a while ago, but I never tried...and I probably won't be trying again for a long time. She hated it. It was too awkward to put it in without pulling her hair a little because she won't hold her head still. Even though it's so cute, it just isn't worth it to me.

P.S. She had her second round of shots again today and she did amazingly well! She barely cried. This nurse was faster and once I picked her up she was good. I was so relieved. I didn't even cry this time! I was soo brave. :) She is asleep right now and I assume she's going to sleep a lot today. That's what she did last time. If that's as bad as it gets, I'll take it. I just love her!