3 Months

This sweet girl is three months old. In the last week or two she's suddenly realized there is a world around her and she is really happy about that. Don't be fooled by these pictures. She is super smiley and starting to giggle and it's delightful. This is one of my favorite stages, when babies really start to interact with the world around them. 

At three months Chloe still sleeps through the night most nights. She's still in her rocker sleeper and loves it. She isn't much of a day napper unless she's in her swing, so we do that a lot. She sleeps really well in her carseat too, which is lovely because I do a lot of pickups/dropoffs these days.

She's very patient with her sibling's love. Genevieve can't stay away from her. She kisses her all day long and Chloe mostly isn't bothered.

She's growing like a weed. She is over 13 pounds now and fitting into her 3-6 month clothes and even some 9-month clothes. She loves all things cloth. The fastest way to calm her down and help her sleep is to give her a blanket, most particularly a beautiful white knitted one from her Grandma Great, Bill's grandma.

I take her and Aaron running with me a few days a week and she is kind enough to tolerate it. She doesn't sit up well yet, so she kind of slumps in her seat, but with the head debobbler thing from her carseat that she grew out of she is pretty comfy in the stroller and she usually falls asleep.

Mostly she just tags along with me everywhere I go and is pleasant as can be, which is really awesome. Oh how I love this sweet little girl.

She laughs!

Chloe started laughing this morning. I even got it on video. It's adorable. But it was before we got all the way dressed for the day and there's a bit too much undergarment in view. Hahaha! So just know that we're enjoying the cuteness and I'll try to get a video soon with clothes on.

We went to the Clemson First Friday parade last night. It happens every year the Friday before the first home football game. Not gonna lie, it was the tamest parade I've ever attended. Apparently Utah knows how to make parades a bit more exciting than this one was and I was spoiled without even knowing it. We had fun even as I wondered why I would want to see all the sororities on campus walk by shouting the Clemson cheer. I noticed not a single fraternity participated. We've never gone to it before, so chalk it up on our list of lasts. It was hot! I've been checking the weather and this weekend looks like it will be the last two days in the 90s. Folks, 93 degrees is too hot for September. Chloe's face in the pics says how she feels about that.

But regardless of the heat and the general chillness of the parade and lack of floats and people throwing candy, it was totally worth getting out on a Friday night to be with the crowds and let the kids get all excited. We're starting to come out of our shell of staying at home all the time. When I had Aaron that first year we basically hibernated. It was so stinkin' hard to get everyone out the door to do everything. But now a couple years later it's somehow not so hard, and so rewarding to get out and about. I think it's because the other kids are a lot older and more capable even as we have another baby. It makes all the difference. It's good because I'm not a natural homebody, so being able to get out and about again fills my cup.

Aaron is all about balls, so these ones totally made his night.

Guys, I'm hot!

The low flying plane and news helicopters were pretty fun for the kids too.

No seriously guys, it's hot, and this hat is doing nothing for me. Ha!

Lasts

We drove there and back 9.5 hours yesterday to go to Isle of Palms beach by Charleston. It was a whim of an idea I had Sunday night that Bill jumped on board with and helped me make happen, and it was awesome. Getting back at 10PM on a school night was maybe less awesome, but it was totally worth it.

See, Bill and his advisor are both pretty certain he will be able to finish his PhD in time to graduate next May. As all grad students know it's never certain until he has passed his dissertation defense, but it's a very good sign that both he and his advisor have the same goal and expectation and are working towards that.

That being the case it has suddenly hit me that we may only have nine months left here in South Carolina and we better enjoy as much as we can before we graduate and head off to who knows where, but most likely far away from here. I really love living here. We have such great friends and grad school has been about as good an experience as we could expect from it, and I will really miss this place when we leave. It's been almost four years and that's definitely the longest we've lived anywhere since we got married, so it has definitely grabbed me. It will be a sad day when we drive out, albeit also wonderful because college will finally be over and that makes me ecstatic.

Anyway, so we headed down to Charleston and had a lovely day at the beach. Chloe experienced the ocean for the first time and seemed okay with it. The other three had a fantastic day. They love the beach and playing in the waves and building dribble castles with dad and shoveling mountains of sand and going and playing more in the waves. It made me a tad nervous how far out they were comfortable going, but I was also really pleased that they got over their fear of the waves, especially Aaron, from when they were younger. The footing is pretty uncertain in the ocean and they figured out how to stay upright, which is great. We stayed close enough to grab them if they did happen to get knocked over, and all three had at least one wave completely wash over them at one point during the day, but they were okay and came back for more.

The best part for me was when we pulled them around in the shallows on the boogie board. Aaron especially had this look of pure ecstasy on his face that made me so happy. I was surprised he wanted to do it, but after seeing Bill pull Spencer and Genevieve around, he hopped on and asked me to take him for a ride.

It was a good day. It may be the last beach day before we move. We shall see. Check that one off the list though. 

Oh, and Bill and Aaron were certainly there but I only took pics while I was hanging out with sleeping Chloe and when she woke up, and they didn't come over then, so we'll just pretend we have pics of them.