Saturday, February 19, 2011

Gwen at 7 Months



Gwen's first 7 months are in the books, and with each passing month she gets bigger, stronger and tooth-ier. Her first two teeth busted through her bottom gums a few weeks ago. And judging by the waterfall of drool gushing from her mouth, more teeth may be coming soon. (The first decent shot of her teeth is below.)


Gwen hasn't really shown much interest in crawling yet. But she can hold herself up in a standing position -- which came in handy when she was opening her Valentine's Day presents earlier this month.


On the health front, Gwen tipped the scales at 18 lbs at her most recent doctor appointment. Even better, Gwen finally broke her streak of constant ear infections. She has gone almost a full month since her last one. She's scheduled to get ear tubes on March 1, so hopefully our ear infection saga is behind us.

The month wasn't completely free of medical drama, unfortunately. The whole family got a barf-tastic 24-hour stomach bug, which was followed-up by conjunctivitis (a.k.a. "pink eye") for both Gwen and Morgan. With Spring right around the corner, we're hoping that warmer weather and fresh air will help keep our trips to the doctor at a minimum very soon.

Here are some more photos from Gwen's 7th month...


On January 22, Gwen's pal Cate (little sister of Cooper) came for a visit. The girls sat and discussed all sorts of topics, such as 'What It's Like to Be Cute and Bald.'

February brought another batch of snow to South Jersey. And with Gwen's ear infections on hiatus, we were finally able to bring her out into the snow for the first time.





Gwen's teething has meant that nothing is safe from being chewed on. Luckily, while chomping on everything in her kingdom this month, Gwen also figured out that chewing on a blanket or stuffed animal is a great way to sooth herself back to sleep at night. (Mom and Dad are very grateful.)


Both girls dressed up in their Elmo gear for the red, furry guy's birthday on February 3.



Feeding Gwen her bottle has become so much easier now that she can hold it herself. But, as you can tell from the two photos below, feeding Gwen solid food still has its challenges.




You can't really tell in these photos, but Gwen's hair is finally starting to grow. It's much lighter than Morgan's hair was at this age, and looks like it may be curlier, too. Her new hair hasn't diminished Gwen's fondness for hats, however.




Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day

After the week we just endured, we're especially happy that there's some "happy" in our "Happy Valentine's Day".


First it was a stomach bug (3 out of 4 Sauciers effected). Then came the pink eye (2 out of 4 Sauciers effected). And we capped off the week with a pulled muscle in Andy's back (1 Saucier effected, 4 Sauciers forced to suffer through it). Altogether, we made 3 trips to the doctor, 4 trips to the pharmacy, missed 6 days of work and 5 days of daycare, and spent many, MANY hours on the couch.

Considering all that, we decided to bust out some balloons and kick off our Valentine's Day early. On Saturday night, Gwen showed some love to her new favorite food: PICKLES.



On Sunday morning, the girls opened their Valentine presents from Mom and Dad. Then, for breakfast, Ariella cooked up heart-shaped pancakes drizzled with chocolate sauce and raspberries. It was a delicious treat for all of us -- even Gwen.







Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sister Snuggle Time



This morning, Morgan decided she really wanted to hold Gwen while Gwen drank her bottle. But, as soon as we put Gwen in Morgan's lap, Morgan decided she'd rather to chill out with a little thumb time.

The end result was hardly the best bottle-feeding experience. But it leant itself to some really flippin' cute photos.









By the way, the girls are modeling their new t-shirts that Nanna and Grandpa sent from their trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "Otters are Awesome!"

Instructions for Gwen

This week, instead of going to her usual classroom ("Infant A"), Gwen spent a couple days with the older, crawling babies in "Infant B."

We found these instructions with Gwen's stuff the other night:



The bottom section cracked us up:

Gwendolyn will usually fall asleep while drinking her bottles. She sleeps in her crib as long as she has her blanket. *Please do not put it over her face* Gwen likes to chew on the blanket to sooth herself. : )

Yep, that's pretty much Gwen in a nutshell.