Precious Memories: Four... count them, 4 months!

With each day that passes I sure love this girl more and more, but it is hard to believe it has already been 4 months. I know that I say that every time, but it is so true! I never really knew how fast time could go until I had a child. It really flies.

Amelia is changing all of the time. We look back on pictures from when she was first born and even from her first month and it is almost astonishing how much she has changed. All of her features are the same, but they are so much fuller now. She isn't a tiny baby anymore (which also makes me sad).

Amelia has been busy exploring her world throughout the past month. She is doing new things all the time and it is almost hard to keep track of them all! I try to get them typed into my phone notes and then I will go back at a later date and write them in her baby book and/or journal about them a little bit in a journal I am keeping about her.

Over the past month, Amelia has been perfecting her rolling. She first rolled over from her back to her front at 11 weeks, but soon after 3 months old she started rolling from her back to her front. Not kidding you, one evening she rolled from her back to her front, to her back and to her front again and just kept going! Not too long after that we found her laying on her tummy when she got up in the morning and a few nights later she started to sleep on her tummy all night. Every night we lay her down on her back and she will [usually] roll right to her tummy. It took me about a week to not be completely anxious about it and I will still sit next to her crib and watch her sleeping, making sure she is breathing. I'm paranoid. Plus, I just love staring at her.

Speaking of sleeping, Amelia has slept through night six... yes, six times. I am sure I will keep count until the day that she just keeps sleeping through the night. Some nights she will sleep until 1:30-2am and others she will get to between 3:30-4:30am. The first night that she slept through the night, I woke up in an absolute panic. I ran to her crib [without my glasses] and I couldn't see if she was breathing or not. I put my hand lightly over her chest and she startled and her arms flew in the air. Phew! I was so scared! If she could just make it to 5am when we have to get up anyways. Oh well. I am not going to complain. I have no problem getting up to feed her. We have never had problems getting her to sleep. We have a bedtime routine every night at the same time. She eats, we change her diaper, slather her in aquaphor (she has mild atopic dermatitis), put on her jammies/sleep sack, kiss her goodnight, and put her in her bed. She goes right to sleep. We have a good sleeper.

Amelia's 4 month appointment went great. She is growing just as she should. She weighed 15 pounds (68th percentile) and she was 25 inches long (94th percentile). She is tall, but her pants are too long and her onesies are too short. She has a long torso. She got her 4 month shots like a pro and wasn't fussy at all in the evening. The doctor didn't feel any teeth coming in yet, but she has been drooling like crazy. That could just be being a 4 month old though! She was healthy as could be and then a week later she got hit with a bad cold again. Warm weather needs to be here now to stay so these nasty viruses can go away!

Some of Amelia's favorite things include talking, spitting, and drooling. Aren't those yours? :) She babbles all the time and thoroughly enjoys spitting. She has really started to purposely play with her toys. She loves her O-Balls that she can easily grab and shake. She loves putting her toys in her mouth and especially loves her hands in her mouth. She can even put both of her hands in her mouth at once. Talented? Maybe.

One of the coolest things that she has started doing in the last month? Laughing. Oh. My. Goodness. Perfection. I squealed with joy the first time she did it. It is the cutest thing ever and sometimes she really gets into it. Last weekend while her auntie Rachelle was holding her she really had a laughing fit. She would just laugh and laugh and laugh and it made her auntie tear it up was so funny! Sometimes Ryan and I catch ourselves doing really crazy things just to get her to laugh. We say that it is a good thing nobody sees/hears us doing it and then realize we have it on tape while we are video recording her. Oops. :)

Her daddy loves to play with her and he is probably part of the reason that she started rolling over so soon and definitely the reason that she is already able to sit up. She just needs a little more balance. He even has her walking around. I tell him to let her be a baby! He always says he is so excited to play with her and for her to move. I tell him that I will ask him how he feels about that when she is running all over the house and getting into everything. I am just glad he is such a good father.

We are having so much fun with her. I thank God for her every day and I am so thankful that she is healthy and happy. When we had her 3 month photographs taken, the photographer told us that she has never seen a 3 month old smile so much. We wake up to her smiles and we go to bed to her smiles. We can just look at her and she will give us a big smile. We are in love.

Once again, enjoy the past month in photos. :)