I’m not nearly as good as Cindy is about remembering to post and say happy 4-monthversary!  But thank you to everyone for the anniversary wishes for Skylar!

Here are a couple of the photos we took in the recliner:

And to reflect, here’s her 2-month picture:

I don’t have her 3-month photo on my computer right now- will have to add that at home later.

Also- happy birthday Sergio!!!

Nothing too exciting happened this weekend.  Skylar developed some pretty good butt/diaper rash so we made an appointment with the pediatrician on Friday to get it checked out.  He said it’s nothing serious and to just put some Neosporin on it and try to keep her butt dry to let it heal.  Chris and I do a good job of keeping it dry at home but the rash seems to develop after going to daycare… guess we just gotta keep reminding them to dry her butt before putting the diaper on.  The pediatrician says rashes can develop and go away depending on how her body digests stuff.  He said they do like to keep an eye on nasty rashes though just to make sure it’s not a staph (spelling?) infection- and this one doesn’t look like that… whew!  They weighed her during her appointment on Friday and she was 10lbs 5oz- I thought for sure she’d be over 11lbs!  I’m trying not to get worried about her weight- the ped. said we take a closer look at it on Thursday, 11/12 when she has her “official” 4-month checkup appointment to look at the charts to see if she’s on-track.  Chris and I also got the H1N1 vaccination on Friday at the pediatrician’s office- they gave us the nasal spray- let’s hope it works and helps Skylar avoid getting sick!  Chris and I now both have both the seasonal and H1N1 vaccinations.  Friday night Chris had his hockey game- again, Skylar and I didn’t go with him.  I don’t really remember what I did that night- I think just odds and ends around the house and then tried to fall asleep for a little bit before Skylar’s last feeding at 10:30pm. 

Saturday was football of course- a very disappointing day!  Penn State lost and Iowa lost- what’s up with the Big Ten???  Skylar had on her Penn State outfit but we also decided to put on her Tennesee bib so she could spit on that instead of her PSU outfit

I also propped the Boppy up against the back of the couch so Skylar could “sit up”- and I can’t remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post or not but Skylar is already addicted to the TV!  She definitely turns her head and will watch whatever’s moving on the screen… not a good sign, huh?  Anyway, so I propped her up and put the remote in her hand so it looks like she’s really watching TV

And the poor little girl has a bald spot on the back of her head:

Saturday night we went out to dinner with some friends at an irish pub up near the Denver Tech Center (about halfway between Castle Rock and Denver)- here’s a picture of Katie holding Skylar:

And a picture of Karen holding Skylar:

Sunday was another pretty uneventful but nice day- we went for a walk to the grocery store and did our shopping, we watched a movie (“The Proposal” with Sandrea Bullock- very cute), and went to REI, Best Buy and Target.  Fun day! 

Here’s a link to a video of Skylar laughing- it’s funny because there are times during the video where she seems on the verge of crying but then she’ll start laughing…

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4658.flv

And another video of her doing some tummy time on the playmat- nothing too exciting- just a video.

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4667.flv

And now I’m updating the blog, uploading videos and photos and am going to share them.  Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

I was just re-reading my post about last weekend and realized I left out 1 very important detail!  We heard Skylar laugh for real for the first time!!!!  It was on Saturday when we were at Grandpa Joe’s house and I was upstairs changing her and talking to her when all of a sudden she just started laughing… I yelled for Chris to come up and bring the video camera so we could try to catch it on video- how exciting!  I can’t believe I forgot to mention this in my weekend recap… jeez, old age is affecting me  

Sorry the video is sorta sideways and also that you get to witness me cleaning out Skylar’s nose

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4366.flv

and a video of both Grandma’s with Skylar:

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4320.flv

and a couple of the girls with Skylar:

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4362.flv

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4335.flv

Some photos from our visitors on Sunday. 

Sharlee with Skylar:

Here’s the picture of Scott and Suz’s son Ian’s head and Skylar’s head- look, they match!

Aunt Sandy with Skylar:

Heather with Skylar:

Michelle with Skylar:

Josie with Skylar:

Suzie with Skylar:

The Condliffs:

The Mellingers:

I think that was everyone who visited us- if I missed you and didn’t get a picture of you with Skylar- sorry!!

Wow- what a crazy couple of days it has been.  My last post was on 10/26 and that was before the snow hit and our quick weekend trip to PA…

Tuesday, 10/27 was our last nice day before a big winter storm rolled into CO.  Castle Rock officially got 24″ of snow but there were some towns in the foothills near Boulder and Denver that got over 4 FEET of snow!  Wow.  A place called Nederland got 49 inches… holy crap.  We (in Castle Rock) got 32+ inches of snow 1 year in a storm that lasted for 3 days and that was the most snow I had ever seen at 1 time- and it was ALOT!  I can’t even imagine another foot+!  Chris decided to stay home on Wednesday because he didn’t want to get stuck down in the Springs with Skylar but I decided to go to work because I knew I wasn’t going to be there on Fri and had a feeling that I wouldn’t be going in on Thurs- so I at least wanted to make it in for Wednesday!  The snow wasn’t bad during the day on Wednesday- I think alot of folks decided to stay home Wed so traffic on the highway wasn’t bad at all.  Then it just started snowing harder and harder Wed night so that by the time we woke up on Thursday there was probably about 16″ of snow on the ground already.  Chris decided to go in that day since he had been out on Wed but I decided to stay home.  I took a couple pictures but none of them really showed how much snow we REALLY had- nothing looks very impressive.  This one is probably the best because it shows the pile of snow on the neighbor’s car and the fact that you can see the grass shows how windy it was.  All the snow blew OFF the grass and ONTO the driveway!

I don’t think I posted this video before- it’s of Skylar “talking” to me on Wednesday (10/28) night- it amuses me to watch it

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4307.flv

So it pretty much snowed all day Wed and Thurs and finally stopped Fri morning when the sun came out and started to melt everything.  I love CO!  The high for Fri was 50 degrees- the roads were pretty much dry by the time we were heading to the airport at 2pm.

Speaking of the airport, Skylar did great on the plane.  She pretty much slept the entire time.  Chris held her for most of the flight and they both fell asleep while I finished reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife”- it was such a good book!  I highly recommend it.  Chris’ dad was travelling for work that week and was getting back to PHL @~10pm so he got the carseat from Lisa/John and put it in his car.  Then he waited around for a little bit to pick us up when we arrived at 11:15pm.  We made it to their house (after a quick stop at Wawa of course for some food!) by about 1am-ish.  We fed Skylar and then dove into bed!

Saturday we got up at about 8am when Skylar woke us up to be fed- which was 6am CO time (her usual waking time on weekends).  My parents came to Chris’ parents’ house first at about 10am-ish before we headed over to his grandfather’s house.  We hung out for a bit and then left for North Wales and got there by noon-ish? I think… Lisa/John and the girls were already there so we said hello and then ordered some food for lunch.  Carrie and Shaun were stopping by as well so they had lunch with us too.  Hoagies and cheesesteaks- yum!  My parents were the 1st to leave because they wanted to get back down to OCNJ to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters.  Then Carrie/Shaun and Lisa/John and the girls left to head home.  It was great to get to see Carrie and Shaun too- thanks for stopping by!-  Carrie is in her 3rd trimester and I’ll be coming back to PA in early December for her baby shower.  I’ll be flying with Skylar by myself that trip- let the fun begin!  Anyway, we stayed at Chris’ grandfather’s house and had dinner and Aunt Doris and Uncle Dick came over for dinner as well.  We ordered pizza this time- yum!  We left North Wales at about 9 or 9:30pm and got back to Exton in time to feed Skylar and then go to bed.  We watched most of the Phillies game but didn’t see the end of it.  They were losing when we went to bed- I think it was the bottom of the 8th inning?  Anyway, they ended up losing- bummer.

On Sunday we had the alarm set for 7am so we could be up and head over to Chris’ brother Scott’s house by 8am to say hi.  They have a new daughter, Katelyn Grace, who was born 3 weeks ago.  We could only stay for a little bit though because I had invited anyone in the area who wanted to stop by Chris’ parents’ house to meet Skylar and say hi.  We had a bunch of people stop by- thank you to everyone who came!!!  A friend of mine from IR, Craig, and his wife Sharlee and their son Trent stopped by.  They live in West Chester.  Then Aunt Sandy (Karen’s cousin) stopped by.  My parents came up again.  Our high school friends Scott and Suzie and their 2 kids came to say hi.  Their kids have red hair as well (altho their daughter’s hair is getting lighter)- and their son’s head looks like a large version of Skylar’s head- I had to take this picture of their heads together:

Then Lisa/John and the girls and Karen’s friend Josie arrived and then last (but not least!) our high school friends Heather and Michelle stopped by to say hi as well.  It was a full house!  Heather got a little Chase Utley Phillies onesie for Skylar- I had not unpacked it for the game last night but will have to get it ready for Game 6!  It was a great morning/afternoon with everyone and then, unfortunately, we had to leave for the airport at 2:30pm.  Cindy called the house at about 2:15pm to say hi.  I only got to talk to her VERY briefly because we were running around trying to pack and make sure we didn’t forget anything.  Lisa had brought a bunch of baby stuff to give to us so we were packing that.  We had borrowed a suitcase from Chris’ parents back in May after the baby shower in PA- and we brought it back to them this weekend.  I THOUGHT I was going to be able to leave it there but I forgot about Lisa giving us baby stuff and she had also bought 2 cans of formula for us from BJ’s.  Kelly had some coupons for formula from BJ’s but we don’t have that store out here by us.  So Kelly was nice enough to mail the coupons to Lisa and Lisa was nice enough to get 2 cans for us- thank you both!  So we had 2 very full suitcases going back to CO with us!

So we packed up and said goodbye to everyone and headed to the airport.  We ran into a bit of a snafu in getting thru security.  We checked in at the airport and when the lady came by to check our IDs and tag our luggage- she asked to see our boarding passes.  So we handed her TWO (2!) boarding passes- I clearly had a baby strapped to my chest in the carrier thing (this will become important to the story later)- and she just said thanks and handed them back.  We didn’t think anything of it and headed off to security- we waited in line for a bit and then it was our turn to get our IDs and boarding passes checked.  The TSA lady said (in a snotty tone I might add!) “Where’s the infant boarding pass?  I need to see her boarding pass”  We were like “What?  You need ot see her what????”  We had never heard of such a thing.  So the TSA lady informed us that we needed to have a boarding pass for Skylar even tho she was sitting on our laps.  So off we headed back to teh United check-in counter to get said boarding pass.  Needless to say, we were annoyed because we had flown before with Skylar and NO ONE ever asked us for a boarding pass for her- what’s the deal with Philly asking us for one?!?  So we got to the United check-in counter and headed to the Premier line (thanks to Chris’ dad for getting us Premier status!) and said we needed to get an infant boarding pass and we asked “How come we’ve never had to get 1 of these things at either Denver or Chicago when we flew last month?” and the lady (being the ever-helpful Philadelphia person she was) told us ”I don’t know- we’re only doing our jobs and following the rules- those other airports must not’ve been following the rules”- and of course she said this in the NICEST (note the sarcasm) of tones!  Which, of course, just set us at ease with her oh-so-wonderful (note the sarcasm again) customer service skills.  Chris was borderline yelling at her about the inconsistencies between airports (his tone probably didn’t help her lack of helpfulness) and that we didn’t have to get a boarding pass for her before and the lady literally said to us “I can’t help you- do you know how low on the totem pole I am here?  I’m just a peon- I can’t do anything for you”.  I get her point and knew she couldn’t do anyting about it but the fact that she actually said that out loud to us was just amazing (and not in a good way)- those are some mighty fine people skills that lady possessed! (note the sarcasm again)  Has anyone else ever had to get an infant boarding pass for a child you’re holding on your lap?  I was annoyed because we flew from Denver to Chicago (BOTH are United hubs) and neither leg of the flight were we required to have an infant boarding pass.  Just at crappy ‘ole Philly were we required.  Chris also asked the lady we were speaking to why the lady who checked our bags and boarding passes didn’t ask us about the infant boarding pass (when clearly I had a child strapped to my chest)- and the lady just said “Oh, she just checks bags…” and we were like “If YOU know about it and the TSA lady knows about it, shouldn’t the lady asking for our boarding passes know about?!?”  Anyway, I’ll stop bitching about it- we got the boarding pass and headed back up to security and made it thru with no other problems.  As we were walking to our gates, some guy said to us “Oh, good- you made it through?  I was in line and saw the hard time they gave you…” so he was comiserating with us about how annoying it is to travel these days.  Skylar was great on the flight again- slept in my arms the entire time.  I think she was probably tired from all her excitement in the 2 days!  We made it home by about 8:30pm, fed Skylar and dove into bed again.  Monday was going to be painful to get up!

Monday was indeed, rough- we both missed Skylar after spending all weekend together and I especially missed her (not that Chris didn’t…) because I had gotten to spend 4 days in a row with her!  So I headed home as soon as possible to pick her up and then get the dogs.  We watched the Phillies game and what an ending.  I was actually feeling a little ill because of being nervous that they were going to blow it!  Chris went to his hockey game and missed the game but I filled him in when he got home.  And now it’s Tuesday and I’m counting down the minutes til I can leave work and head home!!!  I don’t have any of the photos on my work computer so I’ll have to add those later tonight at home.  Stay tuned for photos…

It was chilly during the week so we broke out a hat for Skylar- 1 of the several hats Lisa gave us.  Here she is all bundled up in her carseat with blanket, hat and carseat cover ready to brave the cold:

Another weekend has come and gone… We had a good weekend- nothing special- but a nice weekend nonetheless.  Friday night Chris had his hockey game so it was just me and Skylar til he got home later.  I actually managed to leave work on Friday at 3:30pm and got home in under an hour (unheard of for a Friday!!)- our plant is pretty slow right now so none of the hourly folks were working on Friday.  It was eerily quiet that day- felt more like a Saturday with only the salaried people there.  Anyway, I got home and Chris was just finishing feeding Skylar because the garage door repairman had just left at about 3pm (Woo hoo!  We have a garage door that works now!) and she pretty much went to sleep right afterwards.    I dove into reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife” that I had started the other night- I was tearing right through it because it’s such a good book!  Skylar pretty much slept from ~4:30pm til 8:30pm (she had not napped very well the previous day and was looking pretty tired that afternoon) and I read that ENTIRE time!  4hrs of wonderful reading time… ah, what a luxury!

Saturday morning Chris took HB to her vet appointment to get blood drawn to test her liver values- we got the results back and everything looks great- yay!  So no more giving her the pills 1 hr before she eats breakfast- no more forcing the pill down her throat b/c we couldn’t give it to her with cheese b/c she had to take this pill on an empty stomach- yay!  As usual, we watched a bunch of college football that day.  We feared for awhile that they weren’t going to televise the PSU vs Michigan game in our area since it said it was on ABC regional coverage (and they would’ve shown the OK vs Kansas game in CO) but luckily (whew!!) they showed it on ESPN.  Skylar tried out another 1 of her PSU outfits that we got as a gift (thanks Jess!)- it was a bit big on her but we just rolled up the sleeves…

We also got out and took a walk that day since it was nice sunny weather- I would guess probably close to 60?  Saturday night we decided we wanted to go out for dinner and headed to Texas Roadhouse- yum! 

On Sunday we woke up to nasty weather- cold, cloudy, and icky.  Then it started snowing at about noon so we had a lazy day in the house- did some laundry, played with Skylar, etc.  I did venture out to go grocery shopping and get gas in the car but didn’t do much else because it was COLD  

Here’s a photo from earlier in the week when Skylar was doing some tummy time and I recorded the video I posted the other day.  Chris was mirroring the way Skylar was leaning on her arms- I think it’s too cute

Also on Sunday, Chris was feeding Skylar and she had a pretty good grip on the drawstrings of Chris’ sweatshirt- we were joking that she was holding him in place saying “Don’t you even THINK about trying to take this bottle away from me!” 

And a couple videos as well:

It seems Skylar has started taking after cousin Ellie in that she gets very excited when she realizes it’s mealtime.  However, Skylar’s excitement trigger is the putting on of the bib whereas Ellie’s trigger was seeing the bottle.  We managed to capture Skylar’s impatience on video:

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4298.flv

And while she’s drinking she’ll sometimes just make these random noises- maybe she’s expressing her satisfaction???

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4287.flv

And, last but not least, another tummy time video- no rolling over this time though:

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4297.flv

When we got home tonight Skylar was very awake again- so Chris was playing with her on the playmat and doing some tummy time.  While she was leaning on her arms she “rolled over”- and I put it in quotes because it was more like she fell over and happened to end up on her back… but still.  It was worth a video   Sorry the video is so shaky- I’m a horrible camera-person!  And right at the end you can hear Chris say “Oh my god….” and it was because HB was sitting right beside his head and she totally ripped one- right next to Chris’ face!  Ew!  Too funny.  Also, at the end you can sorta see Nittany come over and sniff her (you can see his nose) and get kicked by her flailing feet.

http://s489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/dlc136/?action=view&current=MVI_4278.flv

Nothing too much new to report here.  We’ve been watching the Phillies games- thank goodness they’re on so early here in CO!  If we were living in PA, there’s NO WAY I’d be able to stay awake so late to watch them!  I’ve enjoyed texting with my friend Heather (in Philly) during the games to see if she’s still awake watching the game

I thought Skylar was on the verge of a full-blown laugh the other night- but it turned out as sort of a half-snort/cough/noise.  Any day now… I can feel it… any day now and she’s just going to bust out with a laugh! 

Yesterday when I picked her up at daycare they were just about to feed her- so I fed her there and then we drove home.  When I got home she was still very awake so we played on the playmat, did some tummy time, and then she practiced starting to grab for objects- I had the lamb and bunny wrist rattle things from Lisa and was putting them near her hands to see if she’d grab on.  It was clumsy but she managed to get her chubby little hands on them.  She wasn’t quite sure what to DO with them once she got a grasp of them but it was still cool to see her look at them and then move her hand towards it.  And, she’s got a strong grasp when she does clamp onto things!  Things like the bottle while we’re trying to feed her… or your fingers when you’re trying to feed her.  Chris noted that it’s getting more challenging to feed her because she’s getting stronger.  I remembered something Lisa told me one time when I was home in PA and was feeding 1 of the girls and her (can’t remember who it was) hands were getting in the way of the bottle getting into her mouth or staying in her mouth- Lisa told me that “…she’s testing you.  You have to be the one in charge here”    So I mentioned that to Chris and that Skylar’s probably getting to be about that age too… 

Speaking of which- she’s 15 weeks old today!  Well, as of tonight at 9:32pm that is.  I sent out the link to the 3-month portraits we had taken last weekend but here are a couple of the pictures that I liked- apparently you can download the photos from the internet.  I only realized that when I saw that Karen had put 1 of the photos on her Facebook page.  Who knew?  Well, I guess Karen did

Everyone really seems to love (haha- pun INTENDED) this Love photo:

And here’s 1 of her in her costume:

And a cute 1 of her in her purple outfit:

And 1 of the family:

We couldn’t coax a smile out of her for the photos because she was too busy looking around and taking everything in… even with Chris and I standing behind the photographer making googly eyes and noises and whatnot- still no smile.  Darnit!  Well, at least we got a couple cute non-smiley faces where she was actually looking at the camera…

We got quite a bit of snow yesterday- I didn’t take any photos though since it was dark by the time I got home.  But I would guess we got about 6″ from what was on top of the Toyota that was parked in the driveway all day.  And the Toyota was parked in the driveway because our stinkin’ garage door BROKE!!!  I was sitting in the family room one night last week and all of a sudden I heard this loud BANG!  Chris was supposed to be home any minute and I thought “Good lord, did he HIT the garage door???”  So I looked out front but didn’t see anything in the driveway- so then I thought “Did something fall off the ceiling or the walls in the garage?”  (We have things like our roof rack hanging from the ceiling)  So I went out into the garage to see what fell and couldn’t see anything- so then I finally looked at the garage door and noticed that the spring on the right side was in 2 pieces.  Huh.  That can’t be a good thing… So the stinkin’ spring on our door broke and we couldn’t open the garage door!  We managed to open it once to get the Jeep out of the garage and then closed it and it hasn’t been opened since then.  We actually had to make sure we each had a key for the front door since we hardly ever use our front door- we always come and go through the garage.  So I finally got ahold of a garage door fixer to come out tomorrow and install some new springs- whew, then we’ll be able to park in the garage again.  It’s been a pain because we always keep the Subaru in the garage so it’s warm for when we put Skylar in the car in the AM.  So since the cars have been out in the driveway, we’ve had to go out early and start the cars to warm up and then scrape ice and/or snow off the windshields.  I HATE scraping!  So it’ll definitely be nice to have our cars back in the garage.

HB has an appointment for Saturday AM to get her liver values tested again to see if the medicine we’ve been giving her for the past month has helped at all.  She seems to have gained weight since we increased her to 3 cups of food at each meal (Nittany still only gets 2- don’t want him to become Fatter Man!).  They loved playing in the snow last night when I let them out in the yard to run around- it’s so fun to watch them chasing each other and acting like puppies again.  You just have to be careful not to let them do it for TOO long because then they’re both limping the next day- they’re not spring chickens anymore

Whew- well, I guess I DID have quite a bit to update about, now didn’t I?    And yay, tomorrow’s Friday!  No big plans for the weekend- just watching college football and trying to catch up on as much sleep as possible!

I’ll leave you with the latest daycare photo from yesterday- asleep, again

Chris just sent me the latest picture from today- a closeup from when he was holding her:

Well, I had a better week at work this week.  I was so proud of myself for not crying at all this week   Nothing too exciting happened Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday- just typical stuff.  Although I do have to note that the stars and planets must’ve been aligned because twice this week we fed Skylar at about 9pm-ish and were all in bed by 10pm and she slept straight thru til 5am!!!  Woo hoo- 7 hours of continuous sleep!!!  I wish that could happen EVERY night.  I’m sure it’ll happen eventually for us.  Overall, she’s doing very well- eating well, growing (growing out of some of her clothes now!), etc.  This weekend, in fact, I’m convinced she’s in the middle of a growth spurt.  Normally she’ll drink about 4 ounces at each feeding.  Well, at 1 or 2 feedings each day on Saturday and today, she drank like 7 ounces!!!  Holy little piggy   But that’s good that she has an appetite and is eating well.  She still loves the playmat and kicking her legs and looking at all the fun toys.  She’s also doing very well and exploring her vocal chords by making all sorts of different noises- cooing, gurgling, clicking, etc noises.  Very cute- I love “talking” to her when she’s in her happy, talkative mood.  I wish I could get a video of it but it’s hard to video her while trying to make eye contact and imitate her noises to keep her talking.  She’s doing well with tummy time- for awhile there she really didn’t like it.  But yesterday and today we had her on her tummy and she was doing very well at holding her head and chest up and leaning on her arms.  She was tolerating it and looking around for probably 10 minutes- amazing!  No laughing yet but that’s apparently the next milestone to hit.

On Thursday, we stopped by our friend Sarah’s house after work because our friend Yexi was in town this week for business.  He works at Ingersoll Rand with me (although he’s based out of Indianapolis) and is working on a project that brings him to CO alot right now.  So Sarah was having him over for dinner and asked if we’d like to join them.  We passed on dinner since that would keep us out too late but did stop by so Yexi could meet Skylar.  Yexi is alot of fun to talk to because he’s from China and I love hearing all about his country and how different things are there.  Here he is holding her:

And 1 of Chris, Sarah (holding Skylar) and Yexi:

Then on Saturday I was holding Skylar and my hair happened to drape over her head- so I said to Chris, “Here’s how she’ll look later on (if her hair stays red that is)”  So we decided to take a picture of it to see if it would look like she had alot of red hair- not sure how successful we were with this photo

Also, on Saturday, my friend Kristy arrived in CO for a friend’s baby shower.  She got to Castle Rock at about lunchtime and hung out with us for a couple hours before heading down to the Springs to have dinner with her friends.  She stayed with us Saturday night and then went to the baby shower on Sunday.  She was flying stand-by because her brother-in-law works for an airline (I forget which one right now) and can get them stand-by passes to fly cheaper.  However, her flights tomorrow weren’t looking very empty so her flight itinerary might be kind of “interesting”- I hope she makes it back to Cincinati smoothly!  Here’s Kristy holding Skylar (in her Penn State sleeper- thanks Kelly!):

Sunday we went to JC Penney to get Skylar’s 3-month photo taken.  We also had a Halloween costume for her and got a picture taken in it too.  The photos turned out very nicely despite the fact that Skylar wasn’t very enthused by having her photo taken.  We couldn’t coax a smile out of her but we still got some super cute faces in the pictures.  In fact, we had to use the pacifier to keep her from crying and then quick pull it out and take the picture and then put it back in.  Maybe at her 6-month photo she’ll be smiley-er (I love making up words!).  Here’s Chris in the waiting area afterward holding Skylar in her pumpkin costume.

I’m hoping to get our Christmas photo taken at Thanksgiving time.  We’re going to go to The Picture People to get this photo taken because they allow pets.  So it’ll be the entire Mellinger family for this portrait- should be quite the circus event to get this photo taken   In fact, we’re doing it on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because Chris’ parents will be here for the holiday and we’ll have extra sets of hands to help hold dog leashes and baby   

Sunday afternoon I headed out to do some errands (Target, grocery shopping, etc) and I came home to 2 nappers- so I had to snap a photo of the 2 of them napping.  Skylar in her swing and Chris on the chair.  Too funny.

And now it’s Sunday night and we’re watching the Phillies stomp on the Dodgers- go Phillies!  We’re going to try out a new type of formula tonight- it’s from Enfamil and is called “Rest Full”- it’s supposed to be an expanding, slow-digesting formula designed to help babies stay fuller during the night and sleep longer.  I figured it was worth a try   Hopefully it tastes the same as the other stuff, she likes it and it works!

Good night!

Since the Primrose School (daycare place we chose) is a couple blocks away from where Chris works I made him promise me that he’d go visit Skylar everyday at lunch and take a picture of her and send it to me   With his new job he got a Crackberry (Blackberry) phone that has photo and email capability- so he can take a picture with his phone and then just email it to me at work.  He’s been pretty good about going at lunch so far- he went Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of last week (Wednesday he had a meeting in Denver and couldn’t make it and Friday he was super busy trying to get out of the office for what was supposed to be his half-day of work) and he went today.  Here are the photos he’s been sending me.

Monday, 10/5- she was napping when Chris stopped by: 

Tuesday, 10/6- with Miss Cynthia holding her:

Thursday, 10/8- napping again

Monday, 10/12- she was just waking up when Chris got there so he fed her a bottle and then took this picture with Miss Jenny holding her: