Kayla 4 Months Old

This month our girl has been ALL about her tummy!  She almost instantly is put down on her back and then she rolls over!  Even when she's on her tummy and gets mad after a while... if you flip her back onto her back... she'll roll right back over! Right now she can only roll onto her left side.

She's also doing her best to scoot around and get off of her mats. 

Here she is "on" her other mat.  As soon as she could, she was off that mat!  And mommy has been working really really hard this month to clean that room up.  I put all of Kayla's baby books on the book shelf, and I moved a lot of the other stuff out of the room and into other spots.  I'm thinking that our computer room will make an eventual great playroom for Kayla.

Kayla likes looking at herself in the mirror.  She also likes talking and playing with mommy and daddy.   

She also likes the other side of the mirror too.

She also started to roll in her pack and play bassinet.  So this ended mommy feeling comfortable with her sleeping in it at night. So we've moved back upstairs into bed with daddy, and into the bassinet that is completely mess around the sides.  This one makes me scared that she's going to roll over, like she is in this picture and suffocate against plastic.  So she only lays in there when mommy and daddy are around her.

Kayla loves being cuddled, and I love cuddling her!  

Phew!  We were in a diaper transition this month.  There were a bunch of days where Kayla was blowing out her diapers at least once, if not multiple times a day.  Here she is, proud as a peacock next to her sleeper that was her most recent diaper blowout victim.  Kayla is in the 15% for her weight, so her butt was too big for the size one diapers, but she was too skinny to fill out the size 2 diapers.  So she was having blow outs from both of them!  Wah!!

Kayla outgrew her bottom infant insert in her car seat this month. I got nervous the first few times that I put her in the car seat and took her out for a walk without it.  I wanted to make she was propped up good and could breath fine. 

 Kayla adorably loves her little Mickey Mouse doll!  She chews on his nose.

 Cody and I realized that Kayla's world view was a little bit limited from being held by us, to being on her back/tummy.  So we decided that we wanted to get her a baby seat to sit in.

She looked skeptical as I was putting it together... but don't worry it was dummy proof!  Very easy to set up.  All I had to do was snap it into place.

I think it was a hit!!  

Look at that smile!

That's my girl right there!  I can't believe how much like momma she looks in this picture!

A big struggle for me this month was making sure that Kayla was fed well.  After she turned 3 months old, I realized that she wasn't gaining weight right.  So I went on a mission to make sure she was getting enough milk.  I started giving her an extra 4 ounces of pumped milk a day spread out through a few bottles  (basically an extra meal). This has been a lot of work for me.  I was already pumping, but now there was pressure to have enough for her to eat everyday, plus I still wanted to be able to store some for when I go back to work.  I've been buying quite a bit of products to help boost  my milk supply.  I bought one pill type, Pink Stork, that I didn't really see much benefit from.  So then I got, Natal Nourish drops which I'm on the fence on whether or not it has been helping me.  Then I got new upgraded flanges from Medela (that I did not like). My mom offered to make me some lactation cookies, and my dad bought me a new nursing pillow and a heated breast massager that are supposed to help.  I also just ordered a different type of flange called pumpin pals...  sooo as of this point, I'm still waiting on a lot of that stuff to come in. So hopefully I'll get the "secret sauce" to help me produce milk optimally.  My real hope is that I could boost my milk supply enough to where I don't need to supplement Kayla with extra bottles... but we'll see what/if anything works!  I have high hopes, and I'm basically "all in" trying to make it work!  The good news is that she has gained weight this month.  She's gone from 11 lbs 4 ounces to 12 lbs 9 ounces in 3 weeks.  So it's a big improvement from the past month.

It's sad that we've been in isolation due to the coronavirus.  It's sad that people can't come over to interact with us very much.  I'm also sad that we can't go anywhere.  Becky and I had such fun plans for these couple of months off... things are starting to open up this week in Ohio, so I can only hope that the virus doesn't spread more and that it's safe to go out again. I'd love to start going out in a few weeks (I want other people to test the waters first before we venture out).  I'd love to get to go to the Cleveland and Cincinnati Zoos this summer.  I'd also really like to go to Cedar Point, but we'll see if that ends up happening or not.

But yaaay for having one day that was sunny and 75 this month!  We got to sit outside, and baby was in her little chair.  Mom came over and sat on one side of the deck and we were on the other.

Here is daddy and baby outside. She's wearing a bib because she has been a drooling queen this month!!  All kinds of slobber!  She gets whatever she's wearing all wet with it

Kayla has adjusted to life without her swaddle really well, especially during naps.  Although, it does seem like she gets a little scared at night upstairs unless its wrapped around her body.

I came upstairs when I heard her rustling around after a nap to this...

 Girl loves her belly!

Then this morning, I heard her rustling around and got up and found my little goof ball like this.

 

She's like whaaat?? I'm comfy.

My sweetest girl!!

This was after our weigh in!  Big girl at 16 weeks old, 12 lbs 9 ounces!

This is pretty much sums up my first Mother's Day nicely!  Cody was super sweet and made breakfast with french toast, bacon, and fried apples.  He had a nice card and a picture made for me.  But Kayla was in a crabby bad mood the whole day  (and the day after that).  She was crying and grouchy all day long.

 And to make matter worse I spilled all of the milk that I pumped...

TWICE that day!  By the second time, I was nearly in tears! I've said it once, I'll say it a million times... whoever said no crying over spilled milk... certainly wasn't talking about breast milk!

 

 Darn social distancing!  We weren't able to be too close to my mom. But we sat in the garage and hung out with her for a little while.  At least we got to see her and she got to see Kayla.

Here is my mother's day collage that I made of all of my favorite pictures of Kayla!

Here she is lounging on daddy...

Look how relaxed and chill baby is... and how hard daddy is working to sit up.  Haha!  He's been talking about doing baby exercises... so there ya go!

Here's Kayla's instant roll!  Even when she's mad because she's on her tummy... she'll flop right back over onto it.

This girl is determined to crawl!  Watch her try!

I can't believe it!  I have a baby girl that hates bows!  Wah!!  She has so much hair that it makes it really hard to get it on her and for it to look good.  I need head bands that don't go all the way around her head.

Kayla has been doing this new "dinosaur" screech when she can't put her hands in her mouth.  So the new thing is for her to roll onto her tummy and then get mad that she can't suck onto her hands so she does her little dinosaur cry... we call her Kayla-Saurous Rex.

Here's Kayla playing in her big girl seat for one of the first times.

At the very beginning of the month, we'd blow bubbles at Kayla and she'd blow them back at us.  It was the cutest thing ever!  However, it seems like she's forgotten how to do it because she hasn't done it in the last couple of weeks.  We loved her bubble blowing!  We're hoping she'll do it again soon.

Kayla 3 Months Old

My sweet Kayla Rose has been such a joy this month.  She's giving big smiles and cooing at us! 

I can look at this picture and hear her sweetest little "woo" sounds that she makes!  Cody and I looove hearing her make those little noises.  She does it when she's happy and content, and she'll just make the sweetest little sound.

She also gives the best good morning smiles!  When I grab her to wake up in the morning she gives me the best smiles and coos!

My sweetest girl on the couch!  We love to have "conversations" together while she lays on the couch.

The Coronavirus has definitely impacted our lives on what we can do and who we can see.  We've relied heavily on going on walks to see the outside world on nice days. We've also been getting pretty good at video chatting to different people.

Grandpa came over to see the baby and drop off her Easter presents. 

We had to stay on the other side of the door because it's not safe to mingle with each other.  

The same with my mom.  I feel so bad that they are missing out on her sweet little newborn stage.  It really sucks to have to do social distancing right now.

Kayla loves watching wrestling with Daddy!  I think she likes all the music and lights.  Here they are watching WrestleMania.

Woo!  I love her little "woo" face.

Baby's styling in her little sunglasses we got her!  We noticed on our walks that the sun was in her eyes so we got her some sunglasses to wear.  However... she's not a huge fan!  She tries to buck them off while she's sitting in her car seat.

We were trying to prop her up on the couch... which mixed levels of success.

Kayla has truly discovered her hands this month!!  She eats her hands all day long!  Kayla is starting to out grow her pack and play!  I'm not sure what we will do for diaper changes once she outgrows it, because it is extremely convenient right now where we have it! 

She is just starting to notice her feet now too.  Her hands and feet are very fascinating to her!

She has started to DROOL like crazy too!!

Mommy has been working hard on storing breast milk.  I spend numerous hours a day pumping extra milk.  By the time she's 3 months old, I should have about 150 ounces stored up!  That's not a ton, but it is an accomplishment for me.

Every day we read multiple books... usually at least three, sometimes more.  However, this book is in our every day rotation.  I love the message in this book and that it is customized to her.

We also signed up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, where we get a free book every month.  This was our first book that we got in March.  We've read this book many times!  Honestly, it's pretty repetitive so mommy will be happy when the next new book comes...  I'm ready to move on!

Here is Kayla on her Piano Mat.  We've spent many hours playing on this mat this month.  Mommy and daddy know all the songs by heart and even dream about them in our sleep!  Our favorite songs are the one that goes "Stomp stomp stomp" and "You could be a purple monkey in bubblegum tree."  Towards the end of the month Kayla is realizing that she can bat at the toys and she enjoys doing that now.

I walked away for a minute and I came back and she was sleeping away.

Despite all her smiles there are times of Kayla crying and being upset.  I honestly feel like she's a pretty good baby most of the time, but she does get in her crying moods.  There are many times where she wants you to hold her with both hands, stand up, and bounce her and that's the only way she'll be happy.  We call it 2HBS (2 hands, bounce, stand).  Sometimes we tell her that she is Kayla Crab because she's crabby, or we call her Kayla Oscar (for Oscar the Grouch).  It is nice that the "witching" hour has seemed to have gone away this month.  Kayla is doing a good job of moving around and getting rid of her gas herself.  Many times I'll stand up with her or lightly tap her and she'll give me a big burp.  Much better than her first two months!  Our main problem has been a stuffy nose.  Sometimes she'll have a little bit of a harder time eating because of it, and she absolutely hates us putting drops or even touching her nose to help her.

Speaking of moving around...  she started facing towards the piano!  We were standing behind her and calling to her and she kept turning to look at us.  And yes, she was sitting on the mat next to me as I was eating my Easter dinner.  It seems like she has a knack for getting fussy right as we are trying to eat dinner.  We figured out that it's just because she's lonely/not getting attention.  So I pulled her little mat over and sat it next to me while I ate...  I smiled and sang to her and she was happy as a clam.

Here she is in action trying to move herself!  Look at that girl go!  She'll be rolling in no time!  She also has been trying to scout/crawl when she lays on her tummy.  In preparation for her starting to roll, we've been sending her to bed with one arm out of her swaddle.  She's had mixed results with how well she's slept this month.  One night she went for over 9 hours and other nights she'll sleep between 3-5 hours.

Kayla gets mad when we strap her into her swing, so we started just plopping her into it.  However... I don't think we're going to be able to do that anymore.  She has started to try to "escape" the swing.  She picks up her legs and scoots!  There have been a few times where I've had to run over and grab her, because I was worried she was going to fall out!

 Kayla has been doing great this month at tummy time!  She will lay on her tummy for between 10-20 minutes at a time without getting fussy!!  Her tummy time has much improved since she we put her in front of her light up piano.

This month was a big milestone!  Baby's first holiday!  Here is Kayla's Easter Pile!  Notice I said pile and not basket... hehe.  The stuff from the Easter bunny mostly fit into her basket, but the gifts from grandma, grandpa, and nana bunny really made it overflow with toys.  So exciting!  Some of this stuff we can play with now, but most of it will be used later on during bath time and for teething.

Here is Kayla in her pretty little Easter dress!  The bow that I found matched it perfectly!

Mommy and Kayla...  I can't believe how much she looks like me!

Daddy and Kayla

Here we are looking at our Easter presents.

Daddy reading Peter Rabbit.

Airplane!

My sweet baby!

Mommy helping her sit up to look at stuff.

Look at these cute booties nana got us!

Easter outfit!

Playing on the ground.

This picture cracks me up!  It looks like a selfie!

For years I've been looking up poses for babies for different holidays, and I loved this one!  This is my favorite picture of the month!!  I think she looks sooo adorable!  It's not often that I try to re-create something from Pinterest and like what I created more than what they did!  This just captures her so well!  She was loving mommy throwing the eggs on her.

Here's another cute one!  I liked her in the pictures where she was in her diaper the best!  But I didn't realize how cute it would look, and I actually took the majority of the pictures with her in her dress...

 

Here are the pictures of her in the dress... You can see how much fun we were having!!

Loving it!

 

Big smiles!

Hi mommy!!  Drop another egg on me!

Such a cute baby!!

She wanted to eat them!

Look what I found! 

Cosmo loves Easter eggs... and he actually plays with eggs all of the time.  So he was like... whatcha got over here...  She kept bouncing around and flailing her arms and the eggs would drop onto the ground.  Then I'd pick them up and dramatically put it back on her.

Hi mommy!  Look at me!

Here's a video I made of us playing with the eggs...  I wish she wasn't so camera shy!  She sees the camera and she clams up!  She'll hoot and holler and smile... then she sees the camera and she's like a deer in the headlights!

Everyday I sing the head, shoulders, knees, and toes songs to Kayla.  And every time I sing it to her she makes the same exact expressions.  Whenever I touch her shoulders she shrugs her shoulders and smiles at me, and I think it's the cutest thing in the world!

Here is a sample of Kayla's sweet little "woos"

We love playing on our piano and our favorite song is "Stomp stomp stomp"

Kayla's starting to realize that she can bat at her toys in front of her.  I have been grabbing her hands and hitting the stuff to help her catch on that she can do it herself.

Kayla has really found her hands this month!  They are so interesting!

Kayla is starting to move around her mat and is close to being able to roll over! 

Here is Kayla's usual talking and moving around while on her mat.  When she sees the camera she freezes up, so Cody took one from behind her.

Big development the day before Kayla turned 3 months old... she started to roll!  Every time we sat her down, she'd roll right over!!  Go baby girl, go!!