Combo Update (Months 6-9)

I’m so late with Grace’s 6, 7 and 8 month update that I’ve combined them into one glorious 9-month update.

Grace weighed in at 18 lbs.,  at her 6 month appointment and then 19 pounds at her 9 month update. Her growth is slowing down as she has become super active. She’s still got those cheeks though! She doesn’t crawl yet, but she can spin herself in a circle and roll over and over and over to get across the room, especially if there is one of Noah’s toys that she is after.

Just after turing 6 months she had her first taste of pureed food. So far, she enjoys most things, but at the top of her list are sweet potatoes, pear, peas, applesauce, black beans and puffs… sista loves some puffs!

Grace also popped her first two teeth just after her 6 month birthday. Her two bottom teeth came in the same week and she had a rough few days, but even on a rough day, Grace is still a pretty easy baby. She just wanted to be held or carried in the baby bjorn and chewing on toys constantly.

With Noah in pre-school Grace’s immune system is getting plenty of practice; she has fought off several colds like a champ, but needed some medicine to kick a nasty croup out of her system. Dave got to go to San Francisco for work and sleep in a king-sized bed by himself during the teething and part of the croup fiasco. Lucky him! 🙂

Noah and Grace are becoming even more like buddies these days. Grace loves to observe Noah and cracks up at his antics, I mean he is pretty funny; I’m pretty sure Noah is Grace’s favorite person. So far the feelings go both ways, after Noah’s afternoon nap he regularly asks to play with Grace or asks for her to lay in bed with him. Nearly every day Noah asks, “Can Grace play with cars?” Sorry Noah, they are still too small for her! Dave and I love seeing the spontaneous hugs he gives her and their little friendship forming… Now that he doesn’t hit her anymore. 🙂

We can’t wait to celebrate Christmas next week with these two best buds. Check out our flickr.com/photos/harttersinc for the latest pics!

 

Family Camping

Dave and I had grand plans… our family of four enjoying the wilderness, sleeping in a tent together, roasting marshmallows, making pancakes at the campsite in the morning, making family memories. It was going to be awesome, until it wasn’t.

Looking back, maybe we should have tried sleeping in the tent in the front yard, before driving two and a half hours to the mountains. We’re not going to let this defeat us though. Yard camping or camping at a campground about 30 minutes away are next on the agenda. We WILL camp before Grace turns five!

All was great, until Noah would not go to sleep in the tent, or happily hang out by the fire/outside. He just couldn’t work it out that it was time to go to sleep, add in being over-tired from no nap, not being in his normal routine, and throw in the sugar from his first s’more and it all led to us packing up the campsite at 9 pm and driving back to Charlotte. (And having to backtrack and drive about an hour out of our way due to an accident and roadblock on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Fun. Times.) We couldn’t subject our camp neighbors to anymore of the tantrums. But, we captured some pics before it turned sour. 🙂

Noah happily played with is trucks while we set up our (new and huge!) tent. Grace did great, but with all the nonsense going on around bedtime, she had trouble getting settled down too!

 

Definitely an upgrade from our two-person backpacking tent or our four-person, which really only fits two people and a Bernese Mountain Dog. Who wouldn’t want to sleep in this palace?!

 

Roasting marshmallows in happier times.

Noah is TWO

Look at this big kid! It’s hard to believe we have a two-year-old in the house!

We  had a busy birthday weekend celebrating a triple holiday — Noah’s birthday, Grace’s baby dedication, and Father’s Day. Grandma and Pop came all the way from NY to help us celebrate!

A quick round-up of Noah at 2:

Likes: Frisbee, running, going to the pool and spray ground, trains, trucks, buses, ambulances, riding bikes with Dad, cheese, cheese quesadillas, grilled cheese, super cheesy mac-n-cheese, fruit, hummus, ice water, books, duplo legos, Thomas Trains, and an old baby Einstein video on YouTube.

Dislikes: Vegetables, playing inside when he wants to go outside, waiting for dinner. 🙂

Noah is talking more and more every day. We stopped counting his words, he repeats everything and says many new words every day. He is also starting to repeat favorite or common phrases from his books and is saying more names…. still working on “Grandma.”  :).  We love hearing Noah’s short stories, he recently recounted our morning swimming with his friend Emerson (who has a gate in her neighborhood). “Car! Gate! Pool! Snack! Home!” Or a bike ride in the neighborhood, “Dada! Bike! Crocs! Outside! Choo-Choo! Big Truck!”

As I mentioned above, he loves running, riding on Dave’s bike, practicing jumping and just being outside. Somehow he is shockingly good at throwing a small frisbee. Noah has ZERO interest in coloring or anything that involves sitting still, but he plays on his own more these days and will sit still for short videos on the iPad.

We have causally entered the “potty training” world. Noah tells us when he needs to be changed and sometimes asks for “potty”. Not sure it is going to happen anytime soon, but it would be really nice to get one kid out of diapers!! His reward for sitting on the potty is a sticker. He gazes longingly at his cat and dog (goddy) stickers and carefully evaluates the choices before choosing one — it is quite the process.

Happy Birthday Buddy!

 

 

Happy Grace @ 3 Months

“I refuse to smile..but check out my faux hawk!”

All is well in Grace’s world. Very happily there is not too much to report. She continues to eat and sleep like a champ, smiles and chats to us frequently, and expertly fends off the occasional rowdiness from her brother.

We are getting into a good rhythm/routine with Grace’s naps, but on the weekends, she naps on-the-go, so that we can keep Noah busy and get out on some kind of activity. We finally broke her of the swing and as Grace happily naps in her crib, we happily got the swing out of our living room! She’s doing a lot better with the bottle and eagerly takes her little 2 oz. bottle from Dave each evening before getting tucked in around 7:30 p.m. We’ve been inching Grace’s bedtime up and she has completely embraced it … Dave and I even watched TWO episodes of Scandal on Netflix the other night. (Olivia Pope!)

This month we had Grace dedicated at our church, Watershed. It was a crowded stage with 10 other families dedicating their children as well. The same day, Noah moved up to the “spouts” class at Greenhouse (Sunday morning for kids), so now he is with his 2-year-old friends. And Grace started in the “seedlings” class … she’s the newbie so gets lots of attention … and I can actually pay attention to the service now. 🙂

Grace with Grandma and Pop.

Happy Grace with Dad on Father’s Day.

Time to wake up sleeping beauty!

 

Grace at Two Months

 

Our little lady is growing like crazy and certainly packing on the pounds. At her two month appointment she weighed in at 12 pounds 5 ounces and 23.5 inches “tall.” She continues to eat great and her little personality is coming out a bit too. She gives us more smiles and is generally laid back like her brother. But… she has no problem using those powerful lungs to tell us she is hungry, wet, overtired or just wants to be held … especially in the evenings!

Grace had a major sleep breakthrough this month. Three weeks ago she was still getting up every 2.5-3 hours all night, with the occasional four hour stretch in there. Then one night she slept nine hours and the next she slept 11 and she has slept 9-11 hours every night since. It’s like a switch went off and IT.IS.AMAZING. I’m still thinking it’s some kind of fluke and she will regress, but I sure am enjoying it for now. Mostly I think it’s related to her finding her thumb. I often see her hands up by her face or her thumb in her mouth when I go in her room… so it seems like she’s soothing herself to sleep. Whatever it is, we are so thankful!

I usually wake her up around 7:30 to eat and then she takes a morning nap until 9:30 or 10. After that, all bets are off … If she needs to catch a nap, she will sleep in her swing, but not the crib. We are passing the swing back to our friends who are expecting a baby in July… so I have about a month to work on the afternoon nap in the crib. In the meantime, her spit up has eased off a bit … some days are worse than others… but nothing like the “Spit-up King, Noah.”

Noah asks for “Baby” most mornings as soon as he wakes up and says “baby, night-night” when he sees her sleeping in the swing. He is starting to make the “G” sound if you ask him what her name is. And I’m sure once he says “Grace,” “Grandma” won’t be too far behind … right Grandma’s?

Grace is very content to sleep in her carseat, so we happily take her and Noah out to dinner with us. She even went with me to her first “Girls Night,” — she slept soundly while eight friends enjoyed drinks, dinner and cupcakes at Tupelo Honey. She looked very stylish in her plaid dress…but the carseat straps kind of cramped her style.

Later this month (actually on Noah’s 2nd birthday and Father’s Day), we are having Grace dedicated at our church. Lots of blessings to celebrate for our little family!

Noah pointing out that this is in fact, a baby.

A picture of good health at her two-month check-up.

I’m ready for Girl’s Night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace’s newborn picture.

Cousins!

Mike, Angel and Adeline flew down from the mitten to spend Memorial Day weekend with us. We had a great time showing them around Charlotte and hitting up some of our favorite spots. It was so fun seeing Noah and Adeline play together. They warmed right up to each other and had a lot of fun with Noah’s water table and toys throughout the weekend.

As Uncle Mike would say, “The gang enjoying some ‘free range’ snacks.”

Looks like Grace found a good spot to snooze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes when you’re eating BBQ, you just need to hug your cousin.

Noah thinks he’s the boss of the Y spray ground.

Addie gets in on the spray ground action.

What’s Up With Noah

We sure are busy with Grace, but having a lot of fun with Noah as well! He keeps us on our toes and our days busy and full of chatter.

Over the past two weeks Noah has had a word “explosion.” He probably says 30 or more words on a regular basis and he attempts to repeat much of what we say. Our favorite word… battery. So funny to hear his little voice say “battery,” which he learned when Dave needed to replace a battery in one of his toys.

He continues to be very active and loves to play outside, run down hills and go for rides on the back of Dave’s bike. He happily rides along in the “big boy seat” in the stroller, all while pointing out big trucks, trucks, buses and cars in our neighborhood. He has developed quite an affinity for frisbee. Too bad they have organized soccer leagues for 2-year-olds but no frisbee leagues! He has several “frisbees”, his favorite being an oatmeal container top, which surprisingly soars pretty well. A few coffee container tops and an actual frisbee round out his set. We enjoy lots of playtime outside with the neighborhood kids and the growing collection of shared ride-on toys, especially with the longer spring days.

During a recent busy morning I put a Thomas the Train video on my iPad for him to watch. What I hoped would be a quick and easy distraction for him, has opened up a whole new world of “choo-choos” on the “ipa-pa” (iPad). Dave and I are now learning all about the choo-choo’s as well.

Noah is such a fun and silly little boy. I can’t believe he is almost two!

Noah with Jules, the BMD and giving Grace a quick kiss!

 

Tummy-time x2.

T-ball anyone?

We were a little unsure how he would handle the low seat. He loves it. Phew!

Looking like a super-hero at the park.

Noah is pretty excited about goldfish crackers in his Easter basket.

Noah’s First Haircut

With family pictures on the horizon, Dave and I agreed that it was time for a “real” haircut for Noah. The past year or so we’ve strung together some good (and some bad) trims by yours truly to keep the hair out of Noah’s eyes and his “hockey hair” to a minimum. But it was getting too unruly, so with a coupon in hand, we hit up Snip-Its a kids-themed salon/barber-shop. He was a little shy and very serious at first, but he sat still the whole time and finally cracked a smile at the end. I know a certain Grandma in NY who is probably thrilled that he got a haircut… even if it was just cleaned up a bit. I requested… “not too short please, I like his long hair.”

Welcome Grace Edna

Baby Grace Edna is here! She arrived on March 24, 2014 at 7:24 am and weighed in at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. We are blessed with a healthy baby girl!

The birth experience could not have been more different than with Noah. I walked into the operating room just after 7 am, got my spinal and Grace was born soon after. No painful labor, non-working epidural, emergency c-section, and panicky parents and doctors. Everything went very smooth, we were thrilled (and I was shocked) when they said, “it’s a girl” and she was handed to Dave. Dave and Grace were able to be with me in the recovery room for a couple of hours, which was another nice change from last time. I fed her right away and we sent pictures around to our friends and family.

The pain was definitely there after the c-section, but was more manageable than last time. We took advantage of the nurses and sent Grace to the nursery at night so we could get some extra shut-eye before coming home. She had/has some slight jaundice so was super sleepy and I had to rouse her to eat and keep her awake during feedings.

Grandma and Grandpa H. took amazing care of Noah while we were in the hospital … taking him on all of his activities and bringing him to the hospital in the afternoons for visits. Noah is a bit young to understand the birth of his sister and how to be gentle with a baby. But we will get there.  He says “baby, baby, baby” all the time and is learning to touch her feet very softly.

Right now Grace is basically just sleeping and eating, except not sleeping on her back, especially at night. She likes to sleep on my chest which definitely hinders my sleep at night, but it won’t last forever. Soon, we will have to kick her out of our room for her stint in the playroom/guest room, before her and Noah bunk up together for a few years.

And now on to some photos!

A few minutes before we left for the hospital. WAY smaller than I was with Noah.

At home… Grace slept for 5 minutes in the pack n play. Noah likes to check her out.

With Grandma and Grandpa H. … And Cheerios.

The new Hartter Family

Another family pic.

On my birthday … Grace is the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten! And she looks SO tiny in this pic.

The Very Best Dog

Our extremely lovable buddy Greylock passed away suddenly just yesterday. It all happened very quickly and I think we are still in a little bit of shock, although we have a lot of memories to help sustain us and nearly eight fun years to look back on.

Just a few days ago Greylock started acting lethargic and bumping into furniture here and there. We took him in to the vet and they diagnosed him with an eye infection and sent us home with some antibiotics. By the next day he had gotten worse, but was still walking around and eating, by that evening Dave had taken him to a specialty vet so an opthamologist could look at him and they decided he should spend the night. We got a call at 4:30 in the morning that he was not doing well and that he really needed to see a neurologist, so Dave went to pick him up. When he got there, Greylock would not even walk and had to be wheeled out to our car on a cart, covered in blankets. We were both in shock to see him in this state. After meeting with a neurologist and discussing the possibility of a brain tumor, we had a CT scan done in the hopes that the tumor would be operable. It was not meant to be. The tumor was on top of his skull and was extensive and would have very likely returned in a short time. We agreed to give him some anti-inflammatory drugs to hopefully get him back up and walking, eating and make him more comfortable; and left the vet’s office around 11 am. We had hopes of a few more days with him and maybe some neighborhood walks. The vet called me around 4 pm to let me know that he was not breathing on his own. They had put him on a ventilator and said if we wanted to say good-bye, we better hurry. We rushed there to say good-bye and give our last hugs and pets. We hope he knows that we were there.

The vet told us that the bone tumor had likely been developing for months but just in the last few days it was putting too much pressure on his brain, so his vision and balance were impacted. In a way, I’m glad it was quick and hopefully painless for Greylock. But it gave us no time to prepare and definitely increased the “shock” factor.

There are too many wonderful memories of Greylock to record them all. Thinking back to when we first got him… it was definitely Dave who wanted Greylock, but I quickly fell in love with him. Dave only had to tell me one “little fib” to get me to agree to getting a Bernese Mountain Dog. I believe the words were, “Chris, they only shed two times a year.” I quickly learned that Greylock would shed constantly, and two times a year the shedding would be beyond excessive. But we got a super-expensive vacuum and moved on with many, many adventures with our buddy.

Some of our favorite memories include:

• The time he ran onto a farm and went nose-to-nose with a bull that probably weighed almost 2,000 pounds. Greylock just sniffed him and then walked away. Later that same day a cardboard box fell a few feet in front of him, he was scared and ran away. A CARDBOARD BOX is scarier than a bull I guess.
• In Blacksburg, he loved our neighbors and their dog, Carmel. When Greylock went out one morning, he snuck into their house through an open door and when our neighbor left for work, he got stuck in there.
• Although it’s not very common for Bernese Mountain Dogs to swim, Greylock learned to and loved the water. But, I think if he had a choice he would just sit in a cold, shallow creek all day rather than use extra energy swimming in deep water.
• When Dave left the front door open and I didn’t realize it for at least 30 minutes, Greylock could have gone anywhere… he just sat on the front porch.
• Lately when Dave would travel for work, he would often sleep in the hallway between  our room and Noah’s room. He had a fierce bark, so I never felt worried with him in the house.
• Greylock was beyond tolerable of Noah and all the antics of a toddler and they even formed a little bond. One of Noah’s first words was “lock” and he would often point to Greylock and say “there’s Greylock.” Every morning Noah would go to the pantry and get Greylock’s medicine or a treat and want to give it to him. A little friendship that didn’t have time to develop.

I’m so thankful that we will have a very special occasion to celebrate in about a week. We need something else to focus on, but Greylock will always be in our hearts. He really was the best dog in the world.

It’s true what they say, Bernese Mountain Dogs are the cutest puppies.

Greylock loved the snow.