Robert and Amy Plus TWO!: January 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Mission San Jose

Robert's mom was able to come last weekend for a quick visit. We ran some errands and decided to go down to see Mission San Jose. It is one of the five missions in San Antonio and is still an active Catholic church. We're fortunate to live in a place with so much history. This mission was founded in 1720 and has several areas that have been restored.

Nancy, Robert and I enjoyed walking around and learning more about the mission, and Claire enjoyed being carried around outside - and her nap.

The next day we went to lunch at the Grist Mill in Gruene. It's less than 45 minutes from our house, so it has become a regular Sunday-after-church lunch spot. It was nice to get in some good family time and see more of our new city.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Nine Month Check-up

Claire went to the doctor for her nine month check-up on Monday. She weighed 15 1/2 pounds and measured 26 inches long (still around the 5th percentile). We have a shortie - although I wouldn't be surprised if she has a big growth spurt one day!

In the last week, Claire has finally started rolling with consistency. Yesterday she figured out that she could roll herself over to get to something (or someone) out of reach. She seemed pretty proud of herself! We're working on going from laying down to sitting, standing, and walking while holding on to something (usually our hands or her lion walker).

We've been working on finger foods, and she's catching on quickly. So far we've just tried Gerber Puffs and Cheerios, but I bought today for her to try in the next week or so - veggies, waffles, and some Morningstar veggie patties. We're having fun trying new things!

I'm having a harder time keeping up with the blog with this full-time work schedule. With the holidays, I've just now had a couple of weeks in a row where I worked all week. I miss seeing Claire, but we're adjusting and know that this is the best decision right now for our family. We're fortunate that she does so well in day care - her teachers always comment on how happy she is, and we know that they really enjoy her. Here are a few pics that I've been wanting to post. We're doing our best to keep up with the weekly chair pics, but it's getting hard again to get her to sit still! Now that she's learned how to lean forward to get on all fours (see example below), it takes both of us to take the picture - me to operate the camera, and Robert to make sure she doesn't fall off the chair!

41 Weeks

42 Weeks

Stinker! :)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Nine Months

Claire turned 9 months old on January 8th! Some things about Claire at this age:

Favorite toys are her new play table, doorway jumper (still), Sassy teething toys and burp cloths. She's started going to sleep holding a burp cloth - she seems to be adopting them as her "lovies."
She laughs easily. Things that she finds funny: getting undressed, tickling, bouncing, swinging up into the air, Daddy, Mommy, "Peek-a-boo," seeing herself in the mirror.
Started to pull up. She can easily get to her knees, and many times can stand all the way up. If you hold out your pointer fingers towards her, she will immediately grab them and pull up to a standing position.
She's consistently able to roll from her tummy to back - finally! :) She's always hated being on her tummy, so I didn't force her into too much tummy time. Now that it's clicked, it's really easy for her.
I can tell that she's starting to get frustrated by her lack of mobility, so I think crawling (or walking) isn't too far away. When sitting, she'll lean forward on her hands and start to go to her knees, but then she gets a little wobbly and pushes back to sitting again. Then she'll start rocking back and forth and fussing until someone moves her to where she wants to go or brings her the toy that's out of reach.
She gets shy around strangers but warms up pretty quickly.
She's wearing 6-9 month size clothing, although she can still fit into some of her larger 3-6 month size clothes.
Graduated from the baby tub that we used over the kitchen sink to her duck tub. She was really scared of it at first, but once she saw her toys in there she warmed up to it a bit. Now she loves it, and so do I! It's great being able to bathe her in the tub and not worry about her tipping over and hitting her head.

Eats 3 oz. of cereal in the morning, 3-4 oz. of veggies or fruit for dinner, and 25 - 28 oz. of formula every day. She loves to eat, and the only things she's tried so far that she doesn't like are broccoli (although it's okay mixed with other veggies) and garbanzo beans. Her latest favorite is a mix of spinach, mango and pears.
Has a mouthful of teeth - 4 on top and 4 on bottom! I think we're going to start more finger foods here in a week or so (her pediatrician said we would discuss at her 9 month check-up).
Sleeps about 11 hours at night and takes 3-4 naps totaling around 2-3 hours each day. I'd like to get her on a more consistent nap schedule, but at least she's getting enough sleep every day.
Brings so much joy to our lives!

I'll have height/weight stats next week - I'm looking forward to seeing how much she's grown.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Resolutions

A little over a week into the new year, I'm finally writing down my resolutions for this year. I'm not a big resolution person, but I decided it would be a good idea to write down a few of my goals for a visual reminder.

Finish losing the pregnancy weight - I have about 3-4 pounds to go, depending on the day. Fortunately all of the holiday goodies didn't set me back - not sure how that happened, considering how much I ate!
Exercise at least 3 times a week. Claire really enjoys going for walks with me now, so this one should be pretty easy - at least when the weather is nice.
Pray with Claire every night before bedtime.
Finish the top of my t-shirt quilt. I've had a stack of college t-shirts set aside for a quilt for probably 7 or 8 years now. I even bought backing for the t-shirts a few years ago, but have always been too intimidated to start. My sweet family helped me out with buying a nice new sewing machine (I love it!), so now I'm developing some sewing skills on small projects to give myself confidence to make a quilt top. I have no interest in the rest of the quilting process - I'll be hiring someone to do that - but I really want to make the top myself.

Obviously there are more things I'd like to accomplish this year, but these are the goals I want to be held accountable for. Wish me luck!

Thursday, January 01, 2009

38 Weeks

We've been slacking on chair pictures over the holidays and have missed taking pics the last two weeks. I think that gives me a new resolution - do better taking weekly pictures for the next 14 weeks!

Happy New Year!