4 Months Old

 
Addie is 4 months old! We went to the pediatrician and here are her stats:

Weight: 13 lbs 12.5 ounces (~50th percentile)

Length: 25.25 inches (~90th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16 inches

Also, a little update on how she has grown and developed this past month:

Sleeping Pattern: So we decided to stop swaddling at the beginning of this month because we did not want her to become dependent on swaddling to sleep and Addie decided that having her arms free means total license to move around all over her crib. And I mean alllll over. She can still fall asleep on her own, but in doing so rolls from her back to her side 20 odd times and scoots her legs so she is rotated 45-90 degrees from where we put her down to sleep and so that she is butted right up against the slats of her crib. She also went through a phase this month where she went back to waking up every 3-5 hours to nurse. She still struggles a bit with taking naps during the day, but is slowly but surely getting better at sleeping for longer amounts of time. 
Eating Habits: Addie had tested me a bit this month-still nursing the same amount, but now likes to shriek out (think: pterodactyl screech) or "hum" while she is eating. She is completely happy when she does this, but is VERY easily distracted while feeding.
Accomplishments: First laugh on October 3! And oh, are her giggles cute. I managed to catch the first couple ones on camera, and they have only gotten sweeter since. We have yet to find what tickles her funny bone, as she is not ticklish at all and only laughs when she is getting really tired. She will mostly laugh at faces we make at her, when we say something in a silly voice, lifting her up and down, or, as in the first case, when I was blowing on her face. She also has rolled over from her back to her stomach a couple of times, but only does it in her crib when she is falling asleep at night. She is a total pro at rolling onto her side now though!

Little Giggler from Aggen Family on Vimeo. (10/03/2013)

Discoveries: Her feet! She loves grabbing onto them and holding them, and even manages to take her socks off as soon as I put them on. The cutest thing she will now do is when we are changing her diaper she immediately lifts up her legs and holds onto her feet for us! Addie has also learned that there are people who carry her around, and looks up at us when we hold her instead of turning her head every which way to see what is going on (which she still often does of course!). She recently discovered that she can not just drool but can use her mouth to blow it out, and so has started doing some pretty rudimentary "raspberries." Addie  can use her hands to reach up and touch / pull down objects. She has a pretty good grip and has started getting better at holding onto what she grabs.

The Reacher from Aggen Family on Vimeo.(10/30/2013)

Memories:Watching General Conference with Addie, Ohio trip, snuggling, reading stories and her trying to turn the pages with us, the one time Alex was holding her before bed and she just looked up at him and started laughing, her first belly laugh when I was singing Ring-Round-the-Rosie with her, dressing her up in her pink bear winter onesie and going on a walk to campus to meet up with Dad, the many positions we find her in when we go to check on her after she has fallen asleep, her pterodactyl screech that she does when she is happy, wants attention, mad, etc., 1st Halloween.

Happy Halloween 2013!

 

We had a Halloween party at Church and dressed up as Hawaii! Addie wore a cute hula outfit that her Great-Grandma Denyse gave us, Alex was a volcano, and I went as the ocean. 

her ukelele was COVERED in spit after about 10 minutes...

this girl's facial expression always bring a smile to my face!

Oh Hi, Ohio! - Cleveland

Alex had a couple of days off of school for fall break, so we decided to take a little road trip down south to our next-state-over-neighbor Ohio! Our first stop was Cleveland which was a really fun city. We left Friday morning and got to Cleveland in the afternoon. We had a picnic at Willard Park which overlooks Lake Erie. It was an absolutely beautiful space that had some cool mirror sculptures, so of course we had to take pictures! We then walked downtown a bit and came across some really neat things: a huge water fountain, the public library which had cool architecture and Addie-sized sculptures, and a giant rubber stamp.

We then headed over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame- a Cleveland must! The building itself is this big glass pyramid with multiple levels. Most of the exhibits are on the lower level, and there were things like Michael Jackson's glove, Beatles memorabilia, music listening stations, an Elvis and Rolling Stones exhibit, and lots of outfits from various artists that were donated to the museum. A memorable moment we had was trying to find a place to feed Addie. We finally saw a sign that said to ask about a family restroom/nursing area, which we did. Turns out it was just an employee bathroom where they put a sign on the door and it just has a separate space apart from the actual bathroom with a chair. Oh the joys of being a young parent on vacation!

top L to R: in front of the museum, The Decemberists accordion, Beatles guitar, MJ's glove, Daddy dancing with Addie, Rihanna's "Rude Boy" outfit, future Elvis impersonator?

Friday night we drove outside of Cleveland to Melt. It's a grilled cheese sandwich restaurant that we heard about from the Travel Channel. They have different varieties, and so Alex ordered the Monte Carlo and I ordered a BBQ version that came topped with an onion ring. These were undeniably the best grilled cheese sandwiches either of us had eaten, and I may or may not have finished my leftover sandwich after a 3 am feeding later that night! The restaurant itself was pretty cool. When you arrive they had you pick out a name/phrase out of a container for them to put down, and we were T-Boz. I also may or may not have pronounced it T-Bo 2, because in my defense the 'Z" really looked like a 2! Other names called that we heard were Uncle Frank and Thank You for Coming. The place was also decorated with really kitschy plastic lit-up holiday decorations.

Saturday morning we headed over to the Westside Market, which is a large indoor market that has vendors from around Cleveland who sell a variety of foods. We loved walking around and seeing everything! We ended up buying some fudge, artisan bread, jerky, flavored couscous, a couple of pears, a pineapple, blackberries, a sub-par cupcake, and the best apple fritter in the city! We also got lunch at one of the stands called Steve's Gyros. They had some crazy customer service! There was a sign out that basically said they would serve people when it was convenient for them, and Alex ended up waiting in line for over 30 minutes. But, the gyros were amazingly good and it was totally worth the wait. We ate lunch outside in a square that is right in front of the market and the weather could not have been more perfect. After lunch we walked around a bit more and explored places nearby, like at a food spices shop that sold a very tempting orange peel that smelled heavenly so we can only imagine how it tasted! We then got in the car and made the next leg of our trip to Granville and Columbus.

Oh Hi, Ohio! - Granville & Columbus

For the second half of our trip we first stopped in Granville which is 40 minutes away from Columbus and is where our Uncle Tim lives. Granville is a charming place and we loved our stay there! We arrived Saturday afternoon, but were first side-tracked on the way and had to make a pit stop in a small town to go to the bathroom, feed Addie in the car (in which she screamed the entire time), have 2 bees swarm us, change Addie's diaper on the grass, and then to top it all off she had a huge spit-up episode. Good thing she has such a cute little face to bring us a smile when things go awry!
We stayed at the Granville Inn, which is this charming historic building in town. Our events for the afternoon involved Uncle Tim giving us a driving tour around the town and then that evening we ate at the Buxton Inn across the street and went and got some great chocolate custard for dessert! We ate the custard back at the Inn and also put Addie to bed and then visited with Tim. (As an aside Alex likes to do silly things with Addie to try to make her smile/laugh and so he put her jeans on the top of her head and we got a picture of it with Tim, which you can see below!) Sunday morning we went to Church with Tim and then went to Columbus in the afternoon.

In Columbus they have a riverfront walk called the Scioto Mile. It is a beautiful paved stretch along the Scioto River that has parks along it and even at one point has a row of swinging benches that you can sit in! On our walk we saw the gavel sculpture in front of the courthouse, a statue of Christopher Columbus, a life-size replica of the Santa Maria boat, and a Children's Park that as you walked through it told a fable story and had statues of the characters from the story. We ended the night by playing cards with Uncle Tim at our hotel and eating the rest of the food we had bought at the Westside Market the day before.

Monday was our day of food! (Is anyone else sensing a theme here?) We went to Katalina's in the morning and got the most amazing breakfast. One of the dishes we ordered was 'pancake balls,' which were spherical pancakes that were filled with strawberry jam. Yum! We also had sweet-n-spicy bacon, which seriously is the only way bacon should be made. It had a sort of candied texture and started off tasting like maple syrup but then ended with a bite. Right after breakfast we decided that since we have already stuffed ourselves and were on vacation that we should get some ice cream. By this time it was 11:30am, so that is totally justifiable right?! We had heard about Jeni's ice cream and so I looked up the nearest one on my phone and we ended up stumbling upon another indoor market that had a Jeni's. We explored around the market and then got ice cream (brambleberry crisp, roasted strawberry buttermilk, and backyard mint were our flavors of choice!) and ate outside while enjoying the sunshine.
As we finished and started walking to our car, we were approached by a local news reporter who was doing a segment on the government shut-down. After talking for a few minutes she asked if she could have her cameraman film us for a few questions. It was a fun thing to do and we joked how we should have taken our sleeping Addie out of her carseat so we could of made sure to get on the news, as it seemed like she was going around and interviewing a bunch of people. Once we got home out of curiosity I decided to look on their website to see if we actually did make the news and lo and behold I found this: http://www.nbc4i.com/video?clipId=9413577 Alex and I think it it totally hilarious of how a)our last name is pronounced b) my agreeing head nods and c) that he is labeled as a "stock market investor" because that is the farthest thing from what we are!

The Topiary Garden is another place that we visited on Monday. The shrubbery in the park is made to look like Georges Seurat’s famous painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte." We had fun walking around the park and taking pictures of Addie peeking through the topiaries and re-creating some of the scenes we saw.

Our vacation then ended in a district called German Village. It is this charming part of town that has cobblestone streets (that are not so charming to drive on), German street names, and brick buildings. We went to a Fudge 'Haus' and took a picture in a lederhosen-themed scene that was out front. We also had a late lunch at a restaurant in the German Village called The Thurman Cafe. We split the "Thurmanator" burger (which we also heard of through Man v Food) and this burger was ginormous! We could not even finish it all! It had two 12 oz patties and was topped with bacon, onions, ham, lettuce, and tomato. The name of the burger was in tribute to Arnold Schwarzenegger winning the body-building title of "Mr. World" in Columbus in 1970. Columbus even has a bronzed statue of a muscley Arnold to commemorate it at the VA hospital!! 

After all the fun we had in Ohio, on Monday evening it was time to head back to the realities of school and home life back in Michigan.

So until next time 

Goodbye, Ohio!

Apartment Tour

We still have a couple of finishing touches to add to our place (like decorating the nursery and adding other pictures around the house), but for family and friends who were wondering where we are living I thought I would give a tour of our new apartment!


WALKING IN - Front Door

 MASTER BEDROOM

The door behind our bed is non-functioning and leads to nowhere. I think it works well as a makeshift headboard!

 

LIVING ROOM

 

Closet in Living Room- It has yet to be organized! In my defense, I rarely open it because normally we park our stroller right in front of it!

NURSERY

And don't worry, the blanket was only on there for decorative effect! :) Door seen in picture goes into bathroom.

BATHROOM

It was hard to get a good angle of it to take a picture, but our tub is an old-fashioned one with the "claw feet"

 KITCHEN

Nursery is directly to the right

This door is another entrance to the bathroom

DINING ROOM

That door leads to our backyard and down to the basement, where our washing machine and dryer are that we share with the other apartments in the house!