4 Months Old

Ally celebrated 4 months on Saturday with a fun filled day playing with Aunt Sue, Grandma Sharon, Grandpa Hank and the three dogs. This month she experienced a few first including her baptism into the Catholic church, rolling over and a cold/ear infections that needed antibiotics. When we took her to the doctor for her cold she weighed in at 13 pounds, 14 ounces so we will see if that has changed any when she goes in for her 4 moth appointment next week (it was supposed to be this week but her pediatrician had to cancel and change it to next week). She has her own little personality now and is very vocal and loves to reach out and grab onto anything and everything. She loves to put her toys in her mouth and has to hold her bottle or your fingers while you are feeding her. She tries to put her bottle in her mouth herself but hasn't quite mastered that yet because she often insists on having both her finger and the bottle in her mouth at the same time. She makes a lot of new sounds and her latest and most frequent one is a crazy sort of gurgling/spitting sound that causes drool to run down her chin constantly. She reacts to faces and voices and gets the biggest smile on her face when you talk to her. She has also discovered her dog and loves to reach down to pet Ella and will wrinkle up her nose in anticipation of a lick from her when she gets close. Ally has rolled over a few times from tummy to back but I still haven't seen it yet so I hope to catch her in the act soon.

We have really lucked out in the sleeping department and I have been pretty successful with a bedtime routine of a book or two followed by a few ounces of milk from a bottle and rocking. This usually means I get her into her crib between 10 and 10:30 and she sleeps until I need to wake her up for day care between 6:45 and 7:30 depending on my morning schedule. She naps like a champ at day care and has gotten better about napping during the day at home on weekends. She really only fusses for 10 minutes or so if we put her down for a nap when she isn't already asleep and will nap for anywhere from an hour to three hours during the day. As far as day care is concerned, she seems to really enjoy it and aside from the awful cold she got we are very happy with it. Its good for her to spend time with her friends during the day and the staff there just loves her.

Ally is growing so fast and is so much fun. She is a very happy baby and her noises and funny faces just seem to get better every day. I didn't do as good of a job taking photos this month but here are some favorites to enjoy! Now there is no 30th of February so when do we celebrate the next milestone??

Work of Art

This is Allyson's first piece of art work, the skating penguin. Its obvious that she is very talented! She spends time each month finger painting at day care and they already made hearts for the month of February. They stay on the wall for a few weeks then they get sent home for us to admire. We love it and we can't wait to add more works to the collection starting on our fridge.

Roll Over Beethoven

Ally rolled over on Monday night! So far she has only done it once, from tummy to back, and Karl was the lone witness so hopefully she will do it again so we can capture it on video. She will turn 4 months this weekend and has her check up next week so more to come soon.

Ally's Baptism

This weekend we went back to Oshkosh to have Ally baptized at the church I grew up in, which is also where we got married. We had planned to do this much earlier but with Karl's injury and the holidays, this was the first weekend we had available. It was a very quick trip but Ally did great! She slept through the entire church service and most of her baptism. My brother and Karl's Aunt are her Godparents and she looked so beautiful in her white dress. She woke up in time to take pictures at the church and stayed awake through a nice dinner with the whole family. The water and oil combination made for a very crusty hair do by the end of the night! Even after two baths, she still smells like the oil. Here are some photos from the weekend's celebration.

A Big Girl Chair

For Christmas, my grandparents gave us money to buy Ally a big girl high chair. We hadn't really done any research at the time so we weren't quite ready to buy before Christmas but we did some looking and ordered this one from Graco last week. Karl put it together on Friday and Ally sat in it for the first time while we ate dinner on Saturday. Despite not feeling that well, she was so happy to sit at the big kid table! Its a 4-in-1 chair that can be used a variety of ways so we really think we picked a good one. It also has great shoulder straps so Ally really looks like a big girl sitting up tall. We put some toys on her tray while we ate and she just loved to look around and check things out from a new angle rather than on the floor or in her swing. We are going to start solids after her 4 month check up in a few weeks so this is one step closer for her.