Quinn is 5 months old

It's hard to be believe, but so true.....our little girl is 5 months old. What an amazing journey so far already! We really couldn't have wished for anything else with her. She is just amazing.

There is no wellness check this month, so no statistics on weight and length. But if I have to guess I believe she is somewhere between 12 and 13 pounds right now. She also:

* sleeps a solid 9 hours at night, from about 9pm to 6am (sometimes even longer)

* she takes 2 long naps a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and 1 shorter nap in between.

* she eats 6 times a day, only breastmilk. I haven't started with solids yet and as long as she is as satisfied as she is right now, I'm going to wait until she hits the 6 month mark.

* when she wakes up and I go into her room to get her, she welcomes me with a huge SMILE :-)

* she smiles at everything and anything, she's such a happy baby

* she chews on everything, drools a lot, but there are no teeth yet. I do see a little bit of white coming down in the front of her top gums though.....

* she loves her thumb

* she loves it when you sing to her. Or talk to her, or make funny faces. She loves all the attention that she gets.....which is a lot, haha.

* she loves to put her toes in her mouth. Wish I had her flexibility, would make Body Flow a lot easier for me....

* when she rolls on her belly, she stays like that and plays for quite some time. Hopefully this way her little bald spot on the back of her head gets filled in soon....

* she is an amazingly good baby and we LOVE her very very very much.

Quinn's baptism

On Saturday June 26th Quinn got baptized at St. Bernards Church by Father Dave. Isn't it amazing that one day later exactly 2 years ago, he married us! We were honored and very happy that he did the baptism for our little girl. She found it very interesting at church, was looking around a lot, and the cold water didn't bother her either.

Our good friends Seth Kornowski and Karri Luebke are Quinn's godfather and godmother.

Quinn with Father Dave.

After church we had a small get together at our house. Karri baked these nice cupcakes. The were delicious. Quinn wasn't too interested yet.....she probably knew she couldn't have one anyway.

All this commotion makes you very tired.......time for bed.

Quinn in the City

Karin, Quinn and I took a little road trip to the big city of Chicago to get my Dutch passport renewed and to get Quinn one as well. It was her first trip out of state. It takes about 4 hours by car to get there. Quinn slept during a good part of the trip. We did make one stop of course to feed her and ourselves....

We stayed at the Doubletree hotel just one block away from the Magnificant Mile and very close to the Dutch Consulate. This way we could easily go back to the hotel to feed Quinn and get out quickly to continue whatever we were doing (read shopping :-) )

Chilling at the hotel with Karin......
Wow, this is a big bathtub.....she looks so tiny in it. Pretty soon I do have to start giving her her baths in our bathtub as well, since her babytub is getting pretty small for her.
Taking a break while shopping. When Ryan saw this picture he was relieved to see we were on the "right" side of the Coach store. With that he meant we were on the outside and not on the inside.....

We bought Quinn a little summer hat and of course we had to try it on. She didn't mind having something on her head. The big smile said thank you mommy all over!

After a day of shopping, you can get pretty tired......I LOVE it when she falls asleep in my arms like this.

We brought her portable crib in which she slept like a baby. She continued 9 hour stretches at night in Chicago as well, which was very nice for me and Karin.

Besides shopping, we had to go the the Dutch Consulate as well of course, since that was the actual purpose of our trip. Luckily the passport pictures were good, so we had no problems getting our passports. We had to have our picture taken at Sears Photo Studio ahead of time, where they have the requirements for Dutch passports. It took a good hour and 3 tries to get it correct. Wow. Next time (5 years from now) I'm going to try to have them taken in Holland, which is a lot easier and cheaper...

Happy Father's Day

Last year I was pregnant already, so we had a mini father's day then. But this year we were in for the real deal. Quinn had her presents ready for her number 1 dad and was so excited to give it to him. She sure loves her daddy and gives him tons of smiles. Ryan is a wonderful dad and I can see that he enjoys it more and more now that Quinn is getting a bit older.

We both love you daddy!

Visit from my cousin Karin

My cousin Karin was our next visitor from Holland. She stayed with us for a week, which was way too short of course, because time just flew by. Quinn loved it having Karin around. She loved listening to her when she sang her favorite song "Vader Jacob". It made her face light up into a great big smile.

One must-do stop was the mall in Green Bay to shop for jeans at the Buckle. Pretty much all of my relatives that have visited us bought jeans from this store. Karin found some nice additions to her jeans collection again. We did a quick lunch from Subway and brought a bottle along for Quinn.

Karin giving Quinn her bath.....

And then it's time to get out, dry off, get dressed and back to bed for a nice long nap....

Sweet dreams sweetheart....

Rolling over

She goes so fast that the first part is missing......can't have the camera ready either because then she won't do it of course. But anyway, our little girl likes to practise her new skill a lot. Also in her crib when it's naptime, which means we have to go back in to roll her back quite a few times before she finally decides it's enough and goes to sleep. I'm teaching her how to roll back once she's on her belly, but at this moment, she still prefers to just call for help :-)

Het lukte, het lukte, she did it, YES!

She did it! Today, June 9 2010, our little girl rolled over all by herself for the first time. She finally figured out how to get those arms in the right position. She's on her belly before you know it now. The next thing she needs to learn though, is to roll back again.

I haven't been able to capture it on video yet, but I will do my best to get it on there. Once the camera comes out, most of the time she stops doing whatever she was doing and just stares at it....

She has found her toes as well. It's amazing how flexible babies are. Wish I was like that, would make Body Flow a lot easier...

Quinn is all ready for winter....haha. She got this hat from our friends, the Luebke's, when she was born. We have it hanging in her room and I was wondering whether she would fit it already, so I tried it on. Well, it looks like she does....she looked so cute with it, we just had to take a picture.

Fun videos

I finally figured out how to post videos (it takes lots of patience, because it takes a while to upload......), so here are a few fun ones.

Cookie decorating party....

Sing along songs....

This video was taken a little while ago, March 29 to be exact. Quinn was only 2 months old then.

Playing in the "playbox".

Memorial weekend @ Paya Lake

It was Quinn's first trip to Paya Lake and the first time to sleep overnight away from home as well (except for her first 2 nights of life in the hospital of course). We lucked out with wonderful weather during memorial weekend. We brought her portable crib along in which she sleeps very well. Now that she's starting to roll over (or trying to), we find her in all different directions when she wakes up....

Quinn's first boat ride. She loved the air blowing in her face. We put the awning up of course, so she was out of the sun.....don't want those rays burn her soft baby skin.

Yoehoe we're going for a boat ride!!!

She was such a good little girl. All smiles for everyone.