Bella boo is 4 months!

Wow! We just celebrated Bella's 4th month a few days ago! Kinda hard to believe. I do have to keep in mind that even though she's officially 4 months old, she's only 2 months past term...which means she's only supposed to be reaching milestones that are appropriate for a 2 month old. Hard to remember sometimes!

But, overall, Bella is doing great!!! Better than great, actually. If you saw her today, you would not know that she was a preemie! She has turned into a complete chunker!! :) I weighed her a few days ago (with her clothes on) and she was 11lbs 8oz! I looked it up on one of my growth charts and, from what I can see, she's around the TENTH percentile for her weight!! To compare, Ava was a little more than a pound heavier at the same age- 12lbs 11oz (25%)!! So, needless to say, Bella is doing a phenomenal job "catching up!" Ava has always been pretty petiet, but I have a feeling Bella probably wont be following in her footsteps! Check out these sweet chubby cheeks! In fact, I think she would now be considered a normal weight! Yahoooooo!!! She's got her official 4 month check up this week, so we'll see how close I am!

Bella is nursing very well. She's been nursing exclusively for the past 2 months (since we went "cold turkey" back in September!), but, now we're running into a bit of a different problem. She doesn't want to take a bottle (which she has to do in order for me to go back to work)! We discovered this little issue a few weeks ago when Patrick and I were going to go to the Dave Matthews Band concert (Sarah and Grandpa Mike were going to babysit!)....well, we were about to walk out and she was not even sort of entertaining the idea of a bottle! So, to make a long story short, our first attempt at going out for the evening since Bella was born was a wash. So, since then, we've been working on trying to get her to take a bottle....it's been a very slow process. But, we will be attempting at least one bottle every day in hopes that with a little practice, she'll get the hang of a bottle once again. Funny what you wish for...2 months ago, I was praying she'd take to nursing...and here we are trying our hardest to get her back on a bottle part time! I'll keep you posted! We've got a little less than one month before I go back to work...so, we'll have to figure it out by then!

Just imagine her cooing here. :)
Bella's personality has really changed in the past month. I used to refer to her as my "cry baby" or my "hold me" baby. Basically, if she wasn't eating, sleeping, or being held- she was crying or fussing. No joke. She was sweet, but she wanted constant love! :) But, as she's grown, she's gotten much more pleasant and requires a little less constant attention (which really makes my life WAY easier. I truly couldn't do anything before)!! She's turned into quite a happy baby- smiling and cooing all the time. But, most of the time, when I get the camera out to record it, she's so mesmerized by the camera, stops all her cuteness, and just goes back to her bug eyes! :) HA!
I forget how sweet babies are. And how happy it makes me when they start deliberately smiling and cooing. She has fantastic, huge smiles that just make me melt. I'm really so lucky. :) To even out those smiles...this is what "tummy time" is like:
Not much of a fan.

She's a serious little thang. Always looking so pensive...
About 2 weeks ago, Bella started to sleep through the night! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!! I mean, I was starting to get so tired my brain wasn't working right. She doesn't sleep through the night every night, but most of them. About every 4-5 nights or so, she wakes up around 3am and wants to eat. I can't pinpoint anything specific as to why she wakes on those nights. She usually goes to sleep somewhere around 8-9pm and will sleep until 6-7am. When she gets very consistent with sleeping through the night, I'll attempt to make her bedtime a little earlier, hopefully getting to around 7:30 or so. But, for right now, I'm just thankful for the extra sleep! Her napping is okay. She's not a super napper like Ava was...but we're working on it. I think part of the problem was that she was constantly in the car (taking Ava to school, driving to the new house before we were here, etc), and it would mess her nap schedule up because she always falls asleep in her car seat- no matter if she just woke from a nap. So, I'm trying really hard to try to keep her at home- work around her schedule instead of making her work around mine. She's already getting better...just trying to be consistent!

She used to sneeze all-the-time, and this is a a pic right after a sneezing fit. That's why her eye is a little red. :( She seems to have grown out of that a bit lately, though.
So, I couldn't be happier with Bella's progress! And she is totally turning into a sweet little baby, and I am enjoying her so much these days!
I mean, if that baby doesn't look like Patrick, then I don't know who she looks like!!

We had a special surprise visitor come to see us a few weeks ago! Lauren, one of my oldest friends (and someone who has always followed the blog!) was in town from NYC and got to come by for a few hours and (finally!) meet my girls! I can't believe she had never met Ava before. Totally crazy! (Of course, Ava wasn't cooperative for a picture since she now has a mind of her own)! It was great to see you, Lauren!!
Daddy lovin' on his baby girl. Sweet.

So, that's about it for now. Geez, these always turn into these monster posts! I know I've GOT to get an Ava update out there, but I'm trying not to slack on Bella's updates. Patrick is constantly tells me she's gonna have the "second child" complex with only a fraction of the number of blog posts! Oh well. I can only do what I can do!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!