Week 11

Week 11 is going great... The past week or so she has been sleeping from 7 till 3 then again till 7... I feel refreshed and encouraged... She's sooo happy!!! I feel overwhelming blessed to have a baby with such joy... I know that little ones can be so trying during these first few months while everyone (especially baby) is trying to get settled in to our new life together... But how can I not feel blessed when she talks to me and shoots me these beaming smiles all throughout the day!!!!! I seriously just wanna kiss the girl to death.. She's so stinkin beautiful and amazing!!!! (Which by the way, I have to admit that she is not to fond of all my kisses... She kinda gets annoyed when I kiss her to much... to bad... she should have expected nothing less coming into our family :)

The Clark House Sisterhood... Halee looks like a little girl to me in this picture and not much like a toddler... In person she still looks like a toddler but sometimes I capture pictures like this and I feel like I get a little glimpse of what she might look like when she's grown... Beautiful is what she'll be... My prayer is that her heart is even more beautiful that the sweet little face in these pictures... I pray that for all my kiddos... I pray Lord, that whoever they come in contact with over the years they will look at my kids and say to themselves, " Wow, what a beautiful heart those little girls and boy have!!!" A heart that loves their neighbor, a heart that respects authority, a heart that brings glory to their Father...

Look at those smiles...

Sweet cheeks...

Anyways... There's not much news to report... I just wanted to post a few pictures to mark this week of her precious little life!!!!

Getting Back Into A Routine

I wanted to keep a little record of how this routine thing is going so that if I find myself doing this newborn thing one more time in a few years I can remind myself that it is a process and that things only get better in time...

So here it goes...

We feed her at 7, 10, 1, 4, and 7 everyday (more or less, If she's hungry earlier, we feed her but she usually falls into the three hour thing on her own)
We started putting Skyler down awake, in her own room, in her own bed, when she was nine weeks and two days old...
Night one... we fed her at 7... put her to bed at 8... she woke up at 12 and 4...we fed her both time and she went right back to sleep... she fussed a little at 6, I changed her diaper, put her back to bed without feeding her... and woke her up at 7 to start her day.

Night two... Almost exactly the same except she slept till 1 instead of 12... everything else was the same

Night three... We fed her at 7... put her to bed at 9... she slept till 3... we fed her and she went right back to sleep... She started fussing off and on from 5:30-6... we changed her diaper at six and put her right back to bed without feeding her... we woke her up at 7 to start her day...

Night Four was just fine..
She fell asleep for a nap @ 5:30pm and she slept till 7 when I woke her up to feed her... I tried with all my might to keep her awake but she kept passing out so around 8 I just put her back in her bed... She slept till 12 then till 3:30... i fed her both times and she went right back to sleep... then she started fussing a little, I put her passie back in her mouth and she went back to sleep until 7...Not bad :)

Night five...
Almost exactly the same as night 4

Night six...
fed her at 7:30 and she slept until 3:45 then I had to wake her up at 7:30 to start her day!!! Hooray!!!

Night seven...
Fed her at 7:30... she slept until 4:22... Sweet!!!!!!!! Then I had to wake her up at 7:30! Slowly by slowly! We are totally getting there!!! Praise be to the Lord!!!

Night eight...
Fed her at 7:30 but didn't put her to bed until 9pm... but she slept until 3:30 ... then again till 6:48!!! She' eating a little more at each feeding during the day too... only about 1/2 ounce more but it seems to be helping her to sleep longer at night...

Glory To God and Gripe Water; Peace Is Back From Her Vacation!

She's back from CRAZY land!!!!! While we were in Texas one of Skyler's problems was gas, gas, and more gas!!! I can't remember if it was Granny or Aunt Amy who suggested it but we started putting a little 'Gripe Water" in Skyler's bottle and she is a new baby!!!! She gets a little restless sometimes but her fussiness is usually solved with a diaper change, a nap, or a few minutes of patting her on the back until you can get her to burp.

How sweet is this little face...

She's found her fingers this week... She usually sucks on her whole fist though... she hasn't quite figured out how to stretch her fingers out to fit better into her mouth...

I most definitely LOVE this smile!!!!

Is she chunking up or what??? She's getting roles on her thighs!!! Hooray! I have been working on her roles since the day we brought her home from the hospital...

She's nine weeks now... Sleeping is getting better... I decided when we got home from Texas that we would start some sleep training with her... Last night was the first night and it was totally successful... Up till now we would swaddle her every time we put her down and she usually slept in her swing rather than in her bed... and her and I would often sleep down stairs cuz it was easy access to the kitchen for all the middle of the night feedings...
But last night... no swaddle, she slept in her bed, in her room, and we put her down awake so that she could learn to go to sleep by herself...
And she did great!!! We fed her at 7. She didn't even cry when Joey put her down at 8pm... She woke up at 12 and 4, and I put her right back to bed and she went right back to sleep both times... She woke up at 6 with a VERY wet diaper, I changed her and put her right back to bed... She fell back asleep and I woke her up at 7 to start our day!
Night one = a HUGE success...
Week nine consensus... Things are lookin up... Thank you Lord for helping me through each day and thank you for gripe water that has brought my sweet little girl back from her crazy vacation!!

"Peace" Took A Vacation This Week

It was an eventful week for our sweet girl... She met so many new friends at Papa's birthday party on Saturday... She really got to know Aunt Jennifer Saturday night when Mama and Papa went to the hotel... She flew on her first plane to her first time at Papaw's house... And she had her first trip to the urgent care...

Skyler did awesome on the plane but the first few days that we were here she turned into CRAZY baby!!! She couldn't sleep for more that ten minutes at a time... She was crying uncontrollably... She was fidgety and uncomfortable... needless to say... it was NO FUN!!! Finally after I had put the older kids to bed I thought that maybe she had gotten an ear infection or something (Almost every time that we fly with the kiddos someone gets super sick, bummer...)

But it was so late that the only place we could take her was was to an urgent care at the hospital in town. They checked her out and guess what was wrong with her????? Absolutely nothing... the doc said she looked healthy through and through. WHAT??? So I asked if I could check myself into the mental institution for the night cuz I felt like I was going a little crazy... The doc said no. :( Then I asked if he wanted to babysit Skyler for the night since he was going to be up anyway... He said no again...

So we took her home... She fell asleep on the ride home and only woke up once that night to eat then fell right back asleep... And the past few days have been AWESOME!! She has been on an incredible schedule and only getting up once in the middle of the night...So PRAISE GOD! "Peace" is back!!! Yeehaa!!!!
Papaw took some incredible pictures of Skyler last night!!! She's getting so big and strong. She weighs 10 1/2 pounds already!!! Can you believe it. She was 8 weeks this past Wednesday! Time is flying by. :)

She Woke Up Super Happy

I did t!! I finally got her beautiful smile on camera!! She started smiling a few days ago and when ever I pull out my camera she goes right back to her serious face... But here she is.. just glowing with joy!!!

This picture totally reminds me of one of my baby pictures... I'll try to find it and scan it in so we can see if she really does look like me or if I just have high hopes :) But I must say that her eyes are getting darker each day. Yipee... maybe she'll be our little brown eyed girl and we'll have one of each. Sweet Hal has beautiful bright blue eyes but you can't always tell in her pictures because of my incredible photography skills :)

I took this video this morning after I fed Skyler... she was bursting with smiles... and then... a little worried look... and the finale... well, you'll just have to watch and see. :) (you'll have to excuse the "mommy commentary." I get a little excited over this girl!!!!!)

And... the final video of the day... Skyler is totally getting stronger! Check this girl out!! Is she buff or what? :)

She Smirks... But Only For A Moment

Skyler Reese 7 Weeks

Here we are at week 7... She's sleeping, She's eating, She's content... but rather serious, and She smirks... She doesn't really smile, it's more of a smirk... you know those kind of half wanna-be a smile, smiles??? Ya, it's like that. And I haven't been able to catch it on camera for the life of me. :) Joey can get her to do it better than I can... And I love to watch the two of them together...

Mmmmm... what else can I say about these past two weeks... nights are good... she's getting into a little bit of a loose routine... key word, "loose". ;) Nights are fairly predictable... eating at 7pm, 10, 3, and 7am (not bad... not bad I say :). And Days??? Well days are all over the map... Some days she's a sleepy head and other days she's wide awake and chipper. You know me and schedules... I LOVE schedules... so I'm working on it... one day at a time right :)... we'll get there... I'm pretty sure of it :)...

I don't know how much she weighs but I know she's getting big cuz she's grown out of most of her newborn clothes... but she's still swimming in her 0-3 months clothes... Isn't it funny how they make sizes these days???


Skyler's Many Faces

The Yawn

The Pirate Face

The Not Quite A Smile, Not Quite A Smirk Face

We call this one "The Usual" cuz this is what she usually looks like....
Serious... Which is just fine by me cuz she is seriously cute!!!!


Here's a video of Skyler doing what she does best... just hanging out...

My First Trip To The Wild Animal Park

I went to the Wild Animal Park yesterday with the fam... I spent most of the time in the front pack on mommy... It was a little warm , but I like to be warm so I slept almost the whole time... I woke up when we got to the playground to eat... then I just hung out in the stroller the rest of the day and checked out the sights... When we stopped to look at the gorillas my eyes went cross-eyed trying to discern what on earth I was looking at... Those gorillas are funny lookin... :) This is me at at the Wild Animal Park
The Clark Girls