Happy New Year!

Esther is 1 year old now - it's hard to believe that she has been with us for 1 year already. She had a fun-filled 1st birthday party, with grandparents and great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and almost her entire church family present. Esther wasn't sure what to do with her presents at first, but Dad helped her to unwrap them. After awhile, she got the hang of it. She was so cute! She was so happy with each single toy that she got, that she didn't even care about opening the next present. She sure got a lot of toys though... Mom baked Esther cupcakes - Esther wasn't sure what to do with her cupcake at first, she just mushed the frosting in between her fingers until Mom showed her that she was supposed to eat it. Then she dug in. Mom had to drag her off with Esther's aunts to the bathtub to clean Esther off... :-) Mom had a duckie theme for Esther's birthday, since Esther goes to sleep with a stuffed ducky every night. Esther says "duck duck" when she sees duckies.
Esther started sleeping all the way through the night sometime around 11-12 months. Hooray!!! She goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps until 8:30, and then takes a nap from 1-? (sometimes 3 or 4). Esther is such a GOOD GIRL. She is so easy to put to bed. She gets milk from Mama, then Dada takes her upstairs to change into her p.j.'s and read some books (she loves books). Then Dada lets her turn off the light, and she lays her head down on Dada's shoulder. Dada probably wouldn't even have to rock her much before she would go to sleep on her own now - but Dada is spoiled from rocking her so much before and likes to have his cuddle time with Esther (about the only time she holds still).
Esther has a calendar of puppies and kitties on her wall that her great-grandpa Mathews gave her. She really likes it, and gets excited whenever she sees it.
Esther had a lot of fun at Christmas-time. We went to the Smokies to stay in a cabin with Kristin, Ed, Mallory, Leah, Drew and Grandpa Van. We stayed for a whole week! It was a blast. Dad was busy chasing Esther around and keeping her out of trouble. Esther had fun playing with Mallory and playing with her new toys. The gang went out and bought a HUGE Christmas tree that Esther really enjoyed. We went to a candlelight Christmas service at a church in Gatlinburg that was really neat. It was a relaxing time, but went by WAY too fast.
We came home and celebrated Christmas with Andy's parents on New Years Eve and New Years Day. Esther had a lot of fun there too, and got a ton more presents. She slept great in the pack 'n' play in Mom and Dad's bedroom.
Now Esther is 13 months old and is really a pro at walking. She is starting to jabber more. She can sign "milk". Her first word over Christmas break was "hat" - she likes to pull Dad's hat off his head. She calls food "ummm". She is starting to sign "more". She seems to call everything "Dada", even Mama! We can point to Molly and say "Mama", and Esther will say "Dada!". She likes to give hugs. Esther likes to help Dad feed Rascal. When Dad comes home or if someone comes to the house to visit Esther, she will run away huffing and puffing with excitement. She is such a silly girl.
We dedicated Esther to God at church last Sunday - January 17th. It was an emotional day for Dad.
I am so proud of Esther and so thankful to God for her. She truly is a miracle after what Molly went through over 2 years trying to have a baby. God could not have given us a more beautiful, happy and loving daughter than Esther. She is so easy to take care of, and now that she sleeps through the night she is like the perfect child. She never gets sick and is rarely cranky - as long as she gets the food and sleep that she needs. :-) I enjoy every second I get to spend with Esther.

Long Time, No Write

Dad got behind in keeping up with his Esther blog while he tried out a new job from May - September. His new job didn't work out, so he is back at Raytheon again.

In the meantime, Esther learned to crawl (about 9 months), learned to wave "bye-bye" (about 10 months) and sprouted the start of 2 teeth (10 months). She is 10 1/2 months old now. Esther can nearly walk on her own, she has been walking with help since she was less than 6 months old, but now she takes about 6 steps on her own before falling down. She doesn't seem to be too interested in walking most of the time, she is happy being carried around or crawling, since she knows she is good at crawling.
Esther had her first cold around 9 months too, that was probably brought about by the teeth she was growing. She has had a rough time with her teeth. She gets really irritable during the daytime, and then sometimes wakes up screaming during the night. That isn't like Esther at all, since she is always such a sweet girl during the daytime (although she still wakes up 2-3 times per night to get some milk from Mommy). Esther likes to suck and chew on her fingers while playing with her new teeth. It hurts when she bites my finger with her sharp teeth!

Daddy loves to spend time with Esther - he can't seem to get enough of his little girl! (except for at night-time, when Daddy likes to sleep).
Last Friday night Esther was not tired at all. After falling asleep on the way home from her cousin Mallory's 3rd birthday party, Esther woke up at home and would not go back to sleep. Daddy read her books again with the light on and then tried to rock her back to sleep. Didn't happen. So, Daddy let Esther stay up until about 2:00 a.m. playing with books, and she didn't yawn even once. Mommy eventually intervened and fed Esther, which calmed her down and put her to bed!

Esther loves to point!!! She sticks out her little pointer finger and babbles words at anything moving or interesting. She started doing this around 8 months I think. Daddy likes to tell Esther what she is pointing at, so hopefully she will learn new words. Esther has already learned the word "button" this way. Now you can ask Esther, "Where is Daddy's button?" and she will point right to it.
Esther loves to be praised too. She gets really excited when people clap and say "Yeah!" for her. She will wave her arms and squeal.

Mommy and Daddy are buying a new house to move into on November 21. The new house will have 4 bedrooms, so there will be room for a new brother or sister for Esther maybe sometime next year (2009)...

Update

Esther's latest big trick is rolling over from her back to her tummy! She started this about a week before she turned 5 months old. At first she did it one time when we weren't looking. Then the next morning when Dad went in to get her she was on her tummy! After that, she was rolling over several times a day. The problem is, Esther can't roll back over from her tummy to her back, and she doesn't like being on her tummy for too long before she starts crying. The last two nights she has been waking up several times a night after rolling over on her tummy and crying until Mom or Dad come in to rock her back to sleep. Both Mom and Dad are really tired. Dad is super-tired since he is still going to work all day long. Hopefully this is just another 7-10 day phase like when she started teething and it will pass.
Mom and Esther are leaving on Saturday to go to Texas to visit Molly's cousin, Alicia. They will be there until next Wednesday afternoon. Dad will probably go visit his parents to have someone to keep him company while he misses his wife and little girl.

Growing!

Esther is well past the 4-month mark now. She is definitely growing bigger and longer. She still doesn't have a lot of hair yet though. :-p We still have to work to get her to enjoy tummy time. She really doesn't like to be on her belly for too long, and hasn't made much progress towards rolling over or crawling yet. She still likes to walk with help though - she thinks she is pretty big stuff! We can almost always get a smile out of Esther when we let her walk on top of us and look down into our faces. She is a happy, smiley little girl. She is still teething, but we think she is through the rough week that she had a few weeks ago. The last couple of nights she has been waking up 2 or 3 times during the night, but that's still better than nearly once every 1-2 hours!
She seems to be going through a phase where she wants to be held CONSTANTLY. For awhile she really liked her "bouncy seat" and would sit in it unattended for 15-30 minutes or so. Now she needs to be held or rocked by a real, warm person.
Esther really likes to suck on her hands, on toys or on other people's hands. Maybe because she is teething?
Esther is also starting to make more noises. She laughed for the first time last week! (see Molly's flickr account for the video) She tends to make a lot of sounds when she is eating her fingers. Esther doesn't have much control over the pitch or volume of her voice. It's funniest when she lets out little squeals and squeeks!

Rough few days...

The last few days have been rough for Esther and Mommy & Daddy. After she had slept through the night for 5 nights straight, she has been sleeping fitfully for the last 6 nights in a row. Last night she was up every hour on average, and had a major meltdown around 4 a.m. We aren't exactly sure what's going on, but our best guess is that she is teething. 4 months is about the earliest babies teeth, and she is still 6 days short of 4 months, but we can't think of what else it would be. She seems to like sucking on a frozen teether zebra, so we figure she wouldn't like doing that unless it felt good to her. Dad called the doctor on call tonight and the doctor also thought her symptoms sounded like teething. Esther has her 4 months appointment with Dr. Kidd on Tuesday. She has to get more shots...
Poor little girl. Mommy & Daddy wish they could do more to help her, but at least this won't last forever. We gave her some baby Tylenol last night and tonight. Last night it didn't seem to help, but maybe it will work tonight. Crossing fingers....zzzz

Past the 3 month milestone

Welp, Esther is 3 months old now (14 weeks tomorrow). Time has been flying by lately, and she has been growing like a weed.
Esther has learned 2 new tricks in the past couple of days, right about at 3 months.
Her first trick is that she reaches out and grabs her "bug on board" that is attached to her bouncy seat. She typically only reaches and grabs with her left hand, but she is starting to use her right hand just a little bit. Maybe she'll be a lefty? She will extend her arm straight out, and then slowly pull it back toward her face and up to her mouth or to her left eye. Her poor little eye takes a beating sometimes. She also likes to suck on her hand, which really calms her down sometimes. She can get pretty noisy when she's eating her hand though...making contented little sounds.
Esther's second trick is doing sit-ups in her bouncy seat. She will raise her head up and then lean forward, crunching her upper body like she's doing a sit-up. She makes funny grunting noises when she does this too. Molly and I had to start strapping her in to her bouncy seat because she is getting a lot stronger and more wiggly now. Molly has counted Esther doing about 15 sit-ups at one time! She is a strong little girl.
Daddy has baby-sat Esther a couple of evenings now for 3-4 hours at a time, and Josh and Carolyn have also baby-sat Esther once. Esther does great for Daddy, and just needs her bottle when it's time to eat. She is a good, happy little baby. She has only had a couple times lately where she wouldn't go to sleep at night. She gave Mom a hard time one day last week, not going down for a nap, but her usual day involves several naps. Today Esther was rudely awakened by the new neighbors drilling and hammering something into the wall of their bedroom next to Esther's room. Hopefully that will only last for one afternoon...
Esther had a good Easter at Grandma and Grandpa Mathews house. She got to see nearly everybody. Esther wasn't sure what to think about the NCAA Basketball Tournament. She enjoyed watching on Dad's lap on Friday night, but when Craig, Tot and John (Craig's friend) came over to watch Butler play on Friday afternoon, Esther got scared when everyone cheered a couple times. She stuck out her bottom lip and looked really sad, and then let out a big wail. Daddy eventually calmed her down though...poor little girl.
Esther is growing every day! Daddy thinks that every day when he comes home and sees Esther that she looks a little bit older. Her face seems to mature on at least a weekly basis, and she is getting longer.
Esther and Mommy and Daddy can't wait for it to warm up outside!! It is officially Spring now, but it sure doesn't feel like it (in the 40's, low 50's with rain / snow). Mommy is anxious to take Esther out to work in the garden with her. Mommy plans to take Esther to the zoo to see the butterflies soon!

11 weeks old!

I haven't posted in a long time...
Esther had a busy and eventful weekend last weekend. On Saturday we traveled up North to Hammond, Indiana, to celebrate Molly's Grandma Van Gorp's 85th birthday. The drive is about 3 hours each way. Esther did great in the car. She got hungry and Mom fed her once each way, at the Wolcott / Chalmers rest stop, which is probably about the halfway point. We decided to change Esther's diaper on a bench in the middle of the rest stop, for lack of a better place to change her, but Esther didn't mind. :-p We had fun at the birthday party - sloppy joe's and banana or chocolate cake to eat. Grandma had lots of relatives and church friends there to help her celebrate. Afterwards we stayed and talked for awhile with family, and then went to Grandma's house nearby. Esther was pretty sleepy during the party, but let a few people hold her. Then she was kind of cranky at Grandma's house, because she was getting hungry again. We ate with Kristin, Ed, Mallory and Leah at Cracker Barrel before heading home. Andy kept Esther entertained most of the time during dinner, since she was wide awake and slightly cranky. Then Kristin took a turn. The ride home was fairly uneventful, but we didn't get back until like 11:30. Esther slept good Saturday night!
On Sunday we had AWESOME weather. This winter seems to be dragging on and on and on, but Sunday was a gorgeous day. The temperature was up somewhere in the mid-60's! Mom and Dad went out in the back yard to work in the garden, while Esther napped in a little screened-in baby tent that Mom bought at Once Upon a Child. Esther slept really hard in the little tent for probably around 2 hours! She slept right through Max attacking the tent, planes buzzing overhead, and a strong wind at times. Mom is looking forward to using the tent again in Spring when she gets outside to garden some more. Only 15 days until Spring!! (as I'm writing it is 28 degrees outside with some snow and ice leftover from yesterday. yuck)
Esther is 11 weeks old now and is making sounds every day. She has a sound she makes when she gets excited that is like sucking in air really fast. She has a couple more "full night's of sleep" under her belt now, and has somewhat more of a routine. Mornings are still her happy time, and she still really likes the bouncy seat that she got from Target. Esther needs to be able to see peoples' faces. She doesn't like it when people leave her field of vision - she will turn her head to try to follow them, and if they don't come back she might start crying. She can stand up really well with some support - Dad likes to make her pick up one leg, and then she will bend her knee and kind of take a supported step. Mom tries to make sure that Esther still gets plenty of tummy time! She can halfway roll over, but no real attempts to roll over or crawl just yet.