Rory: 4 Months

It's hard to believe that our little Rory Lou is already 1/3 of the way through her first year.  She turned 4 months old on New Year's Eve and had her four month appointment the following week.  Ryan kept reminding her to "be brave" for her shots while at the appointment.  It's so nice to have your big sis there!  Her 4 month stats are as follows:

Weight: 14lbs 4oz (48th percentile)
Height: 24.5 inches (52nd percentile)

Despite the fact that she came into this world weighing in at over 9 lbs, she has dropped dramatically in terms of weight percentiles.  Not that there is any cause for concern whatsoever.  She's certainly not a small baby and is gaining beautifully, I just find it interesting that Ryan was more than a pound less than her sister at birth but at 4 months already weighed 15lbs 11oz!  Babies are so different even if they are fed the same way!

She is seriously such a smiley baby.  If you give her any attention whatsoever, she just lights up.  She has become a fan of many of her toys but her favorites are Sophie the Giraffe and a pretzel teether/rattle that Santa brought her.  She still enjoys her carseat and continues to be a great passenger in the car.  She went into the nursery at church for the first time this month with big sis Ryan and did great.  It's a nice break for Mom, especially after the hectic Sunday mornings trying to get all three of us dressed and out the door for church by 9am!

We had a HUGE success this month in the form of bottle feeding.  I had all but given up hope of her ever taking a bottle. But days before Christmas, I decided I would try it one last time before attempting to donate my 200+oz freezer stash.  I had not even attempted it in over a month.  However, much to my surprise, she drank the entire bottle with absolutely no fuss, as if she had taken a bottle every day of her life.  I was SHOCKED!  We have been doing bottles before bedtime every night since and I am pleased to say that she has no issue at all.  Although, she seems to prefer that Mama give it to her, but I think that will just get better with time.

Unfortunately, her sleeping has gone through a major regression.  We dropped the swaddle completely since she started being able to roll from front to back and while that may have contributed, I think it's mostly just the dreaded 4 month sleep regression/growth spurt that we are going through.  She's now waking at least twice a night to nurse, if not more often.  It is exhausting and frustrating for me since she had gone 11 hours straight at 3 months.  She even ended up in our bed one night when I was desperate for more sleep which has never happened before! I'm hoping it's going to get better here real soon!

She has let out her first little giggles this month which is certainly one of the sweetest things of infant hood. She adores Ryan, bath time, her hands, sucking on her bottom lip, being in the Ergo carrier if we are out and about and she is awake, and being sung to.

Rory, you light up our lives.  You are our biggest blessing of 2015 and we can't imagine life without you.  Happy 4 months Roars!

New Year's Eve

It's taken me a week and a half after the fact to get to this post.  Call it the post-Christmas blues or the  "I already haven't followed through with my resolutions" guilt, but I haven't been overly motivated to do much the last few days.  Likely, it's due to a combination of Josh being on nights, Rory not sleeping well, Ryan having an ear infection (again), and me being tired (okay that's nothing new).  2016 is already starting out on such a high note!

Despite all of that, we did have a very enjoyable New Year's Eve.  It had snowed during the week and since Josh was on vacation, he and Ryan took full advantage of the fresh snow and made use of Ryan's new sled.  Rory and I even made it outside for a bit of winter fun and of course, numerous selfies.

Despite the fact that the snow poses all sorts of inconveniences for us adults, it's quite possible that my children will dearly miss the winter wonderland weather someday if we don't live in a place where it regularly snows.  Well, at least Ryan will.  Rory's face in most of these pictures shows that the jury is still out for her.

Josh and I also made it out on New Year's Eve to our friends Amy and Geordie's home for a party.  We even stayed out until 1AM, which is at least 4 hours past this Mama's bedtime.  We are getting old and as if that wasn't already obvious enough to us, as we were leaving the house and giving instructions to the babysitter, Josh put the TV on "Titanic" and said to her "Here this is probably up your alley" to which she replied "I've actually never seen it, it was made the year I was born."  Seriously, wasn't it JUST Y2K?!?!?!  Apparently not.

I'm pretty sure I drank an entire bottle of champagne on my own, we'll thank Amy's "Bubbly Bar" for that one, but it was so worth it for a fun adult evening.  Unfortunately, the ONLY picture I got of Josh and I was this one.  But I'm convinced that means that a good time was had by all. :) 

This past year was a good one, 2015 will always be remembered with fondness as it was the year that  Josh Matched into a permanent residency position as well as the year that brought us Rory Lou and made us a family of four.  It will hard to top, but I'm sure there is lots of fun in store for the Scurlock family in 2016.  Happy New Year!

Christmas 2015's A Wrap

Another Christmas come and gone.  So much preparation and work for one special day, but I tell ya, it's worth it.  And it's oh so magical when you have Littles around to enjoy it.  Our Christmas Eve's and Christmas Days have changed a lot in the last couple of years.  No longer do we get all dressed up to gather with extended families and sit around a big table enjoying an overabundance of food.  No longer do we rush around trying to see everyone that we hold dear.  Instead, we say prayers of thankfulness that Dad is home and not working on Christmas Day.   We enjoy the holiday within the confines of our little 1400 square foot home.  We FaceTime with our California families in an attempt to catch glimpses of each other's day and feel love from each other, as much as a tiny iPhone screen can pass along.  And we try with all our might to create positive memories that our children will hold close to their hearts for the rest of their lives.

It is, without a doubt, a challenging time for me.  Josh had to work on Christmas Eve and was not able to make it home until minutes before the girls went to bed.  I attempted to make Ryan a festive breakfast of candy cane pancakes, but I was struggling throughout the day to feel cheery and was so happy that my friend Cami and her daughter Bella were up for coming over mid-day to eat my traditional birthday cake for Jesus, drink some wine, and help keep me from being Mrs. Scrooge.

The girls and I finished Christmas Eve opening our traditional Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas.  I tried my best to get a few good pictures in their matching pi's, but they were sure trying their best to make that impossible!  I mean is it really to much to ask to have ONE picture of both kids looking at the camera, not crying, and not having their finger in their belly button?!?!  Apparently it is.  However, the stockings did get hung and the cookies did get put out for Santa.  We read The Night Before Christmas and the Story of Christmas at least three times each and the kids went to bed.

Santa made his her appearance while the girls slept and it was just in time, because around 11pm, Josh got called back in to work for a liver transplant.  If I hadn't been so tired, I would likely have been in tears.  Liver transplants can take up to 10 hours to complete and we were not sure if he would be back in time for Christmas morning.  I knew I should count my blessings, someone was in surgery on Christmas and I was sad because my husband had to be there.  They definitely had it worse off than me, but it is hard.  Sometimes, being the wife of a physician seems very sacrificial in terms of family time.  This is undoubtedly something I/we just have to get used to as I'm sure it won't be the last time Dr. Dad has to work on Christmas.  I wouldn't have been opposed to pushing back Christmas a day, but I had prepped Ryan the night before and knew I had no option but to follow through with Christmas morning and Santa's appearance.

Thankfully, Josh found someone to relieve him in surgery around 5am.  He made it back in time for Ryan's 6am wake up.  Although, he had been up all night and was extremely exhausted so he slept through most of presents which was understandable but disappointing none the less, mostly for me.  Ryan was so excited about all of her presents that she didn't care that she was showing a sleeping Daddy her presents from Santa.

One of the best parts about this age is that after every present was opened, she wanted to play with it first before moving on to something else.  It made opening gifts take a couple of hours and we were really able to enjoy the morning.  Of course, there was a MASSIVE mess to clean up afterwards.  So the rest of the morning was spent playing and cleaning and playing some more.

Josh had gone back to bed during the playing and cleaning portion of the morning but got up mid-day to eat a big Christmas breakfast and take a family picture in our pjs.  We ended the day with homemade chili and cornbread, much like Grandma Scurlock makes every year at home in California.  It filled our bellies and made us think of all our loved ones at home.

Sure, Christmas looks a lot different these days, but ultimately, it's all about Jesus's birth and because of that, we have many reasons to celebrate.  I hope everyone of our friends and family both near and far enjoyed the day and gave praise to our Lord, the ultimate reason for the season.