St. Paddy's Day Pictures

We spent the weekend before St. Paddy's Day at Tara and Charlie's in the South Hills of Pgh, for their 6th annual St. Patrick's Day party. It was so nice to spend time with all of my siblings. On Sunday, we met my dad for a birthday lunch at the Grand Concourse at Station Square before we drove back to VA. What a yummy meal...I forgot how much I lvoed that place!

Here are some pictures...

Our Little Leprachaun

Loving the beads already?

Gracie enjoying the party

...and her cousin Becca

...and cousin Christian!

Becca made me a birthday cake...
so sweet!

my brothers, Evan and Ryan

my sister Andrea and I

Gracie enjoying her shot glass...full of water on St. Paddy's Day

Gracie loving her Pappy...

7 Months Old?!?

It is hard to believe that Gracie is already 7 months old, but she is! As you can tell by my lack of posts, and the fact that I missed commenting on her 6 month celebration, she's been keeping us very, very busy. I had no idea that such a tiny baby could be so busy. I think she takes after me (Erin) in that arena.

Over the past two months Gracie has been getting stronger and focusing all of her energy into her large muscles. She hasn't advanced much in her language skills, but it may be because she started a new daycare in mid February and the teachers speak many different languages. That's typical when listening to more than one language. Over the past week she started being a lot more vocal again (singing, talking) and I'm sure she'll catch up and maybe even learn another language or two in the process. We had to find a daycare in a hurry, but it turned out to be a really good place. It's not at all fancy or modern, but the people are very nice to her and the kids are 6 weeks to 10 months, so she has many daily interactions. She loves going there and doesn't seem to care much when we drop her off or when we are picking her up. So that makes us feel a lot better about leaving her.

Gracie had her first trip to the Emergency Room on my birthday. She had a very high spike in a fever and started shivering and her lips and hands turned purple. It was a scary afternoon, but she was fine by the time we got to the ER, and they tested her for many, many things and said it was likely just a virus. She's still a little sick with chest and head congestion, but her fever broke after 4-5 days.

She is working hard on crawling. So we put the baby gates up and are working to get the rest of the house baby-proofed. Her room is completely finished since she sleeps on a floor bed and could be up and about at any time. We have a gate at her door so she will be relatively safe within her room when she does start moving.

Some things she can to do (or has done over the past two months):

• Gives kisses (open mouth, usually with a runny nose...mmmm)
• Plays "get you" - When you give her "raspberries," she does it back
• Plays peek-a-boo
• Bangs on things to purposely make noise
• Inspects new things (looks at different angles of a new toy for example)
• Says "hi" and waves
• Signs "all done" (for everything...when she means: no, all done, wants something different, uncomfortable, etc.)...I had no idea it was such a useful sign, but she has figured out uses for it in over 50% of her daily interactions
  Smiles 95% of the time (no more serious faces)
• Laughs very easily (it doesn't take much...a tickle, a smile, a funny sound, animal noises, singing, etc.)
• Just started whining in the last week (mommy's favorite!)
• Holds her bottle
• Drinks from a cup by herself
• Goes to sleep on her own for both bedtime and naps (crying when being laid down for a nap has stopped in the last week - woo-hoo!)
• Grabs (or tries to grab) absolutely everything..and she is so stinking quick!
• Reaches up when she wants you to pick her up
• Sits up well, rarely falling over
• Reaches forward for things when sitting and pulls herself onto her hands and feet
• Pushes all the way up on her hands when lying on her belly
• Moves forward doing the inch worm (pulls knees up and scoots herself forward with her face on the floor)
• Moves backward by pushing with her arms when on her belly
• While pushing up on hands, pulls knees up to crawling position
• Pulls herself to a standing position

Likes:

• Her thumb
• Her toes (trying to eat them!)
• Other kids
• Anyone who pays attention to her (she's so friendly and outgoing, and will be such a flirt someday)
• Alone time when waking from a nap (she sings and talks to herself)
• Music
• Books (especially animal books and rhyming books)
• Swings
• Pulling hair
• Drinking from a cup
• Water
• Cheerios
• Avocado (50% of the time)

Dislikes:

• All other food it seems
• Being left alone in a room for more than a few seconds when playing
• The same toy or object for more than a minute at a time
• Socks and shoes

Things Gracie has done over the past two months:

• Went to the National Zoo
• Went to National Museum of Natural History
• Watched her first parade (St Patrick's Parade in Old Town Alexandria)
• Rode a real train in Stroudsburg, PA with Uncle Tommy, Aunt Amy and LT
• Attended a raucous St Patrick's Day Party at Aunt Tara and Uncle Charlie's house

Foods Gracie has tried:

• rice
• oatmeal
• millet
• cheerios
• Baby mum-mum crackers
• avocado
• sweet potato
• butternut squash
• banana
• mango
• papaya
• pear
• apple
• yogurt

Peseverance!

More Pix

Catching Up in Pictures

...more to come, very soon!

Fun in the Snow!

On Jan 20, 2009...

On this very special day for our country, we are looking forward to the changes and challenges to come with hope and optimism.

At the same time, we also spent the day dreaming about our own future and reflecting on the past five months...because today, Gracie is five months old. Our expectations for her development were realistic, so I thought. But watching her learn, grow, and change every single day is the most amazing experience we could ever imagine. This wonderful little baby has turned our lives upside down and made it all so much more worth living for. I can't even explain how much in love we are with her, or how much we adore every sound and move she makes. And it is a very good thing, because she is certainly developing a personality that can try our patience, already.

In addition to my last post about all of her recent developments, including sitting without assistance...

One of the most annoying, but developmentally appropriate new skills Gracie has acquired is the ability to scream, screech, and squeal...and she has made it one of her favorite activities. She has surprisingly found a variety of uses for her high-pitched noises, some cute and others not so much, but all of them evoke reactions that I'm sure reinforce this undesirable behavior.

Gracie quickly figured out the art of swearing in babble, and is even a little sneaky. She tries to suck her thumb while she is eating, whether it be bottle or breast. Of course this doesn't work out so well for obvious reasons, and we also try to discourage it because if we go along with it, it interrupts feeding. So this is where she has very recently developed her version of swearing, often loudly protesting, and even pushing us away. She has become very sneaky about her attempts to suck her thumb while eating, and even figured out that if it looks like she is just covering her face, she can sneak her pinkie in her mouth and get a few good sucks in before we notice or before she breaks the latch. Another example of her sneakiness involves TV. We don't let her watch TV, so if we turn her away on the rare occasion that it is actually on when she is around, she'll turn away like it is no big deal. Then when our guard is down, she'll whip her little head right back around to sneak a peak at whatever is on the TV.

She has also quickly gotten daddy wrapped around her little finger, and she knows it. Last week, when I was feeding her in bed in the middle of the night, she kept turning over to make sure he was there and oh so sweetly rubbing his arm. And tonight, when she was protesting my attempts to keep her thumb out of her mouth, she would yell, babble-swear at me, and look around the room for him to save her.

Gracie is of course advancing in other areas as well:

She was still well above the 95th percentile at her 4 month appointment. Today we weighed her and she was a whopping 17 lbs. and 14 oz of cuteness.

All of a sudden within the last week, she became acutely aware of her surroundings. She now gets bored being in once place too long, and is fascinated by new things to look at and touch. When we take her into an unfamiliar room (guest room, basement, or bathroom), her eyes dart from one picture to another and at all items in the room individually.

She has added new sounds and consonants to her "vocabulary," but has only once uttered something that resembled a word. One morning, after getting up every two hours, we could hear her in her room, but we were hoping she would go back to sleep for a few minutes, when we heard "da-da." I'm sure this was quite by accident, and she must not have connected the sounds with our rapid response, because she has yet to do it again. But it was nonetheless, pretty cool.

We are continuing to use signs, some of which she has shown interest in and may have even tried out once or twice, but doesn't use them consistently. We're hoping to increase the use of signs over the next month in an attempt to reduce the number of protests and screeches, and give her some alternative ways to communicate. But we'll see how that works out.

Gracie also reaches out for everything within her grasp, including our food. In an attempt to wait the six months to feed her solid food, we started freezing some breastmilk and giving it to her like a slushy, with a spoon. She thoroughly enjoys this activity, and even holds the spoon once there is slush on it and puts it in her mouth. She even lets go of the spoon (most of the time) when she is asked (which is the first sign that she actually understands some of what we are saying, because she almost always lets go of things when we tell/ask her to. This has also given me at least one extra hand, since she usually takes up at least one and often both of mine). I, for one, am really looking forward to the time when she can eat solid food. I think she is more than ready, but we're trying to hold out since I have so many food allergies, in hopes that she won't develop so many adverse reactions. But two more weeks or so and we're going to get out the rice cereal!

So there you have it, her fourth month in a nutshell. As if you couldn't tell, we're really looking forward to watching her grow and teaching her all the new things that we can possibly think of. I'm also looking forward to her hair growing a little more so we can actually tell what color it is. But our initial guesses of red seems to be more and more evident as her peach fuzz thickens, which may explain that hot temper (and may also let mommy off the hook for passing that personality trait down - ha, ha). So we will be sending out another update at her six month milestone, along with some tears perhaps...as our little girl is already growing up too fast. It keeps mommy and daddy a little teary-eyed on at least a weekly basis.

Welcome Emmeline Clare Gremminger!

We would like to wish a great big congratulations to our friends Sandi and Shawn. Sandi gave birth to a little girl, Emmeline Clare, on Friday, January 16th. Emmeline weighed 7 lbs, 10 ounces and was a whopping 21 inches long. So far, she is a pleasant and very sleepy little girl...and a little clone of her daddy as you can see below...(she has a beautiful mommy too...but I'm not sure if she would want her post-birth pictures on display for all to see, so I'll post more pictures soon.)

The fact that Emmeline is a girl was a shock to us all. Sandi and Shawn decided not to find out the baby's gender, but everything about her pregnancy led us all (including Sandi) to believe that she was having a boy. Sandi had very few bouts of morning sickness, minimal weight gain, and she was ALL belly that was not especially "high." So I officially give up in believing in the old wives tales. We are of course SO excited that she was a girl since we already have so many little girls who have been born into our friends circle over the past year. Poor Joshua, he'll have his pick of pretty girls in a few years for sure, but he'll be tortured for the first 18 or so years!

Congratulations again, Gremmingers!

Mid-Month Update

Gracie seems to be doing so many new things in her fourth month of life, that I couldn't wait to share some of them...so here are a few in pictures:

Gracie found her feet and loves to touch them, look at them, and can almost eat them. The other day, she decided to try to eat them...under the water in the bathtub!

When eating, Grace just started getting comfy...no, we don't eat like this!

One of the funniest things she does is to try out new faces. This seems to be her favorite...the bunny face is the best way to describe it. She certainly knows how to make us laugh!

Here's another fun find...her tongue. She seems to be over the obsession this week, but for a week or so I was starting to wonder if someone had slapped her on her back (you know....and made her face stay like this).

And her greatest accomplishment so far...on Thursday, Gracie seemed to all of a sudden know how to sit without support. She loves her new view of the world.

Making Friends

We spent Saturday with Connie, Jelani, Aliana, Jenny, Jun and Joshua at Jenny and Jun's house in Millersville, MD. It was great to see everyone and watch the babies interact. We're all going to the beach in August (with a few other friends who also have new families), and I think the babies will really enjoy each other's company by then.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday...

Catching Up After Christmas

Here are a few pictures from Christmas...

Gracie loving her Uncle Charlie

...and getting spoiled by her Aunt Tara...who will be her favorite for sure very soon ;-P

Uncle "Big Mac" and Christian talking Penn State I'm sure.

Uncle Ryan (my brother)

Gracie with her cousin Becca

Gracie with her Uncle Evan

Gracie and Pappy
She really was this excited when opening every present.

A favorite pair - Gracie with her cousin Timmy,
who just adores her so much. What a great big cousin he is!

Terah and Logan, Annie and Gracie

Gracie with Great Pap-Pap Rice