3 months

really? already?! i'm not sure how it's happened, but my sweet little 6 lbs newborn has grown into a 12 lbs infant! it's crazy to see how much he has changed and grown in the last 12+ weeks, and i know that every day he is just a little bit less a baby, and a little more grown up. this past month has been a busy one for our little man in pretty much every way. with both mommy and daddy working full-time, and mommy returning to her part-time job at AKUC, time together is much more precious than it was previously. we are still working out the scheduling particulars and are very thankful for a supportive family (especially my mom!) who have been very flexible in helping us out with childcare when our schedules get thrown for a loop. hopefully, some schedule stability is on the horizon and things will settle down a little more.

speaking of schedules, our little man is doing a pretty good job of setting/keeping his own schedule. there are days and times where it gets a little messed up and he gets fussy, but for the most part we now know what to expect from him (and what he expects from us) on a daily basis. our typical noah schedule goes something like this:

0630 - feeding time, followed by a little nap

0830 - wide-awake and ready for the day, he eats, then plays the rest of the morning

1030 or 11 - nap time

1230 or 1300 - time to eat again, followed by more play time

1430 - somewhere around this time he'll go down for another nap

1600 - dinner time!

1730 or 1800 - another nap

1930 or 2000 - bathtime, feeding and a book or two before bedtime

around 0130 or 0200 - late night feeding, then back to bed

he's also still on the prescription for zantac twice a day for his reflux, and that works into his schedule around 8 am and 8 pm. fortunately, though, he seems to be having way fewer symptoms and problems with that, so hopefully we'll get to be Rx free in another month or so!

on april 29th we went for noah's 2 month check up and were happy to hear that everything looked wonderful and noah was doing very well developmentally. his measurements at the time were a weight of 10 lbs, 10 oz (25th percentile), length of 22 3/4 inches (50th percentile) and a head circumference of 15 inches (up from 13 inches at birth!). noah also got his first round of really terrible immunizations, which wasn't so bad until about 4 hours after his appointment when the muscle soreness set in. lucky for him (and us) some infant tylenol fixed it right up, along with some extra snuggles that day.

noah continues to get stronger all the time, still doing his baby pushups any time he's on his tummy, rolling from front to back occasionally, and kicking and batting at things more and more. his neck muscles have gotten so good we've actually tried the bumbo chair out a couple times, but he still needs some assistance when his head gets a little heavy. it'll be a few more weeks before he's really ready to use it all on his own. in other news, he now giggles and smiles with little prompting, with his favorite smile-bringing activity being his bouncy chair -- especially when we play the music for him. originally, that was the only thing he would really smile at, but now he smiles at the toys on his activity mat and directly interacts with people who smile at him and play with him. his little baby giggles are so sweet to hear, i love it!

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our growing boy is now roughly 12 lbs by our not-so-accurate at-home measurements. this means that he is rapidly out-growing his 0-3 month clothes and, just this week, has started transitioning into 3-6 month outfits. what a little weed! :)

and lastly, for those who are curious, lexi seems to be doing well with this extra little person taking up all our time and attention. she mostly just likes to lay at our feet when we feed him, and sit close to us if we are playing on the floor. honestly, as long as she gets fed twice a day and let outside from time to time, i don't think she really cares much! hopefully as noah (and future siblings) get older lexi will have more playtime companions, which will make everyone happy. time for bedtime around here...thanks for checking in on us!

for *lots* more pics, click below:

3 months

my baby brother is 21

the birthday boy posing with his present from us

the littlest miller in our family is now old enough to buy and drink....a miller! on may 17th my sweet baby bro turned the ripe old age of 21. it's crazy to think that we are all so "grown up" now with our own lives, families and jobs. just in time for his birthday, jared accepted an internship at TI; meaning he has to work that 9 - 5 to bring home the big bucks. way to go, jared! and this time next year we will be celebrating another big milestone for him: graduation from SMU!

this year, we enjoyed his birthday with the family on sunday with tasty grilled foods and yummy turtle brownies for dessert. and even though jared didn't send out any sort of birthday wish list, we all showed up with gifts (read: mostly 6 packs of beer including corona, blue moon and ziegen bock). matt and i even worked out a little "scavenger hunt" for him that led him around the house until he finally found his cerveza.

happy birthday, jared! we are so proud of the man you have become, but you will always be my "little" brother! love you!

the standard pic of the spread and chaos in the kitchen!

the birthday boy with his food

later, papa john plays with the grandkids...

...i think he won!

"happy birthday to you!!!"

never too old for birthday spankings from your brothers...and nephew...

reading a clue for the scavenger hunt

mother's day

all the mothers (and grandmothers)!

i remember thinking when i found out we were pregnant that our little baby would arrive just in time for me to be able to celebrate my first mother's day in 2011; and now it's come and gone so quickly! first, let me start by saying that i had a fabulous day, despite having to work all night the night before. after midnight, nearly all of my coworkers (at separate times) wished me a "happy 1st mother's day!" and might have been even more excited about it than i was! when i got home, matt was already awake and had fed noah for me so i got to play with a super happy baby. this was probably the best mother's day gift ever, because noah smiled more than he ever had up to that point. and i *love* baby grins! after noah went down for his nap, i found an envelope and followed a trail of clues for a scavenger hunt to get my mother's day gifts. my amazing husband put a lot of effort into my first mommy's day and along the trail i got the proposal and tangled on dvd. at the end of my hunt was an adorable home-made apron with sweet little noah's feet stamped across it -- awesome!

after our own little home celebration we headed to sarah's house for a mother's day brunch where i got to spend time with my own mom (and, obviously, the rest of the family). we had a wonderfully tasty spread (thanks for coordinating it, sarah!) and enjoyed spending the day together.

tasty mother's day food:

we rounded out the night at mom & dad's house by watching tangled, which neither of my parents had seen. it was a wonderful day and i can appreciate it now more than ever! happy mother's day to all the moms out there! and thanks to my husband and my sweet little noah for giving me my own reason to celebrate :)

noah -- show stealer!

the grandmas work on a puzzle :)

jared's attempt at chocolate milk...it's a long story...

grandma sharon lovin' on noah

our little family + our niece maddie (who *had* to be in the pic)

the guys

awww...

mom opens her presents

and, of course... dog pile!!!

egg hunt

if my dad took as much time to prepare for easter as he does for christmas, we would totally end up like this:

noah's 1st easter

our little man got to enjoy his first major holiday this past sunday -- easter! now, we all know what a party animal our little king is, but he took this holiday especially seriously -- utilizing this particular day as a "time for personal growth" (i.e. a growth spurt!). that's right, our sweet little boy decided that he wanted to eat every 2 hours and spend most of his time within arms reach of his mother. despite his slight fussiness and constant eating, we had a wonderful time celebrating easter with my mom's family. as always, there was fabulous food, wonderful company, and a large-scale egg hunt for the little ones, which noah didn't really get to participate in and didn't seem too excited about... next year, though, i'm sure he'll be more than ready!

fortunately, after his 2 hour intervals noah settled in for the night and ended up sleeping for nearly 6 hours before waking up to eat! yay!

celebrating holidays as a parent is already a very different experience, but i can't wait until noah is a little older and able to enjoy holidays as much as we do. speaking of parents, a big thanks to my mom's family for loving on our slightly cranky little man during the day and an even bigger thanks to my mom who let us crash at her house after the festivities and helped me with noah all night! thank you, thank you!

happy easter, everyone! i hope your day was truly blessed and full of joy as God intended!

more easter pics:

noah's 1st easter

2 months

it's true, our little king is 8 weeks old and he is changing so much i feel i can hardly keep up sometimes!

noah continues to have more awake-time during the day and now spends much more of his time studying his surroundings and actually engaging with them. he is thoroughly enjoying his new bouncy chair and still enjoys spending time on his activity mat. he also has started enjoying books more and will now calm down and quietly listen while we read page after page of dr. seuss, shel silverstein or other classics -- the only exception is when he's hungry, and at that point the only thing that will calm him is a meal, of course. noah has also been gracing us with more and more of his little baby smiles, which are always a treat. this past week he also began to react to music, and now when he is fussy (usually in the evenings just before bedtime) we know that if we turn on the ipod and dance to some brad paisley, bruno mars, lady gaga or whatever else is playing he will calm right down. he doesn't seem to have a preference for anything just yet, so i'll have to keep you posted as his musical taste develops ;)

his other big news? he's gotten pretty good at rolling from his tummy to his back, especially when he's angry for some (i.e. any) reason. his neck muscles and arms have gotten much stronger, so now when he's upset and on his tummy he can push himself up and eventually ends up pushing off with his left hand and rolling over his right arm onto his back -- which just makes him more angry. sorry, noah! hopefully we'll get to the point soon where he doesn't have to be fussy to roll over! only once have i seen him roll himself over and not be upset about the whole process.

speaking of fussy, we did have a *very* fussy noah on our hands for a couple of days due to a not-so-good (in hindsight) decision on our part. as i mentioned in the previous post, noah's reflux seemed to be doing better on the zantac which made us very happy. but, being the greedy wanting-only-what's-best-for-our-child parents we are (and hoping that there would be less spit-up and more sleeping involved -- for all three of us) we made the decision to try noah on prevacid instead of zantac to see if it worked even better for him. the answer turned out to be a big fat NO. after two days on the prevacid noah was back to screaming his head off after feeds, regurgitating most of what he ate and not being able to sleep unless he was being held. it was a horrifying flash-back to his 3rd/4th week of life when he wasn't on any medication at all. matt and i took turns sleeping with him lying on our chests because he couldn't sleep any other way. when i realized our mistake we immediately switched him back to zantac (thank goodness we had a few more doses left and a refill was only a phone call away!) and things have been rosy ever since. the moral of the story? don't get greedy! if nothing else, the 24 hours we endured before we switched him back to zantac were an effective, yet cruel, reminder of how much better things are with the zantac, and that his occasional fussiness and spitting up were not nearly as bad as we had previously been thinking. i think it was God's way of showing us we should be thankful for the happy little boy we have and the wonders of modern medicine. amen!

since my last post i've also worked (read: endured) two weeks back at work. okay, so it wasn't that bad. the transition went about as smoothly as i could have wished and with my mom's assistance during daily "transitions" we've figured out a way to work opposite schedules and keep noah out of daycare -- yay! despite a rough couple of nights, matt and noah seemed to do pretty well without me here all night. i also survived being back in the ER, which i did miss, and was able to find time to pump (thanks to some very supportive coworkers!) so we can avoid having to put noah on formula. i think the roughest part for everyone was the fact that my first week back consisted of me working a horrible stretch of 4 out of 5 days: friday, saturday, monday and tuesday. needless to say, by wednesday i was *beat* and was having a really difficult time keeping up with noah's schedule. it was practically impossible for me to keep him awake and happy while i was ready to fall asleep standing up. fortunately, my new schedule does not require back-to-back-to-back shifts like that and i think it will be much easier for everyone. and, for those who are curious, i am still holding two jobs but i have not had the chance to work another shift at acute kids just yet. i'm not too worried about picking those up though, since they are shorter shifts and the pace is usually slower than the ER. and before you ask, i'm not sure how long i plan to keep both jobs but for right now i'm not planning on quitting either one. i guess i'll keep them both as long as noah will let me ;)

2 months

april birthdays

this month sarah and ray both turn the big 3-2! since their birthdays are only 11 days apart, and they are married, we always celebrate their birthdays with a joint party and this year was no different. we enjoyed tasty food from the grill, fruits, veggies, chips and dips and some extra tasty desserts. thanks for the fun, guys! here's to another happy, healthy, blessed 32+ years for each of you that you will experience together!

happy birthday, sarah and ray!

the birthday kids with my hubby, filling their plates

food time...

the kids outside with...empty beer bottles? looks like they've been partying without us!

mom with the dessert buffet...she was talking to maddie at the time :)

noah gets to spend some time with his cousins

the family in the kitchen, ready for "happy birthday"

blow out those candles!