Brynlee at 4 years old

Brynlee will turn 4 on November 4th!  Wow, time went by so fast!  Here are a few things about Brynlee at this age:  

She is very funny and likes to make up songs just like her daddy.  She changes the words to familiar tunes. 

She can be very sweet/concerned/caring.  She says often "I can do favors for you.  Anything you want"

Brynlee thinks I am so strong because I can lift her toddler bed up to put boxes away underneath.

She loves quiet time which is playing on the ipad.  Usually she watches the "eggs", which are youtube videos of people opening up eggs that have toys in them.

She has lots of attitude and 2 volumes- loud and louder.  Most of the time she is completely incapable of being quiet or not talking at all.

She sleeps 12 or more hours every night.

Eats mostly carbohydrates still (rice, noodles, bread, etc.), but loves carrots, apples, and raw peas "from the garden".  She will eat chicken nuggets and Costco rotisserie chicken plus share my smoothies that have spinach in them.

She can write her name legibly (has been able to do that for 6 months)

She made the transition to a new house/church/preschool pretty well.

Brynlee loves to play Barbies every day.  She wants me to play Barbies with her everyday also.

Weight: almost 34 pounds (41st percentile)
Height: 41 inches (77th percentile)
She is tall and skinny (just the way I like it :)).  I have been told by many people she looks much older than she actually is.  The other day the medical assistant at the doctors office thought she was there to get her kindergarten shots.

We sure love Brynlee!  She is such a cute kid and we love the happiness she brings into our home!

So cute holding daddy's hand while they watch a show

"Reading" the newspaper just like grandma Winslow

What a good daddy to play barbies with her

Elsa hair

Giving her baby a ride

Brynlee rarely sleeps in her bed.   We almost always find her on the floor in the morning

Brynlee does this a lot- gathers up a bunch of toys and puts them in her shopping cart and then puts on dress ups also.  Here she is wearing a fairy skirt, her jacket and backpack.   It is pretty funny to see what she picks and what she is wearing, but not super fun to put it all away.  

Brynlee even convinced her 11 year old boy cousin Tyson to play barbies with her 

Bentley at 6 months

Bentley at 6 months (October 3, 2014):

   Hates peas and non-baby food applesauce, not a fan of avocado

  Likes peaches, pears, bananas, apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, and graham crackers

  We have to put rice cereal in the purees to thicken them up so he does not spit up all the time.  The laundry situation was already out of control with the acid reflux, but then adding colored foods to the mix means we had very colorful barf all the time.  Not pretty!

The rice cereal seems to make him a little constipated, so now we have to give him prunes everyday (juice or puree)

 

He is wearing size 3 diapers and mostly 6-9 month clothes.  His summer clothes which are 3-6 months still fit pretty good and he was been wearing them a lot because it is still very warm.  Bentley has a 0-3 month superman onesie that still fits also.

 

He takes 2-3 naps a day- usually in the late morning and late afternoon/early evening.  He sleeps usually around 10 hours at night, but sometimes 12, sometimes wakes up in the night (still!).  He never does the same thing twice- he gets up at a different time every day, nap lengths are different every day, goes to bed at a different time every day, etc.   It is so frustrating I can't plan on anything.  It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try to get him on a schedule, he will do whatever he wants.

 

Bentley drinks 4 ounce bottle during the day and usually 8 ounces at bedtime.

 

He rolls across the room in the blink of an eye.  He is so fast.  He loves to hang out on his belly playing with toys.  He especially loves to dump the toy basket over and play with everything in there. 

 

Just recently he has starting army crawling.  He will scoot on his belly pretty fast if there is something that catches his eye and he wants.  Such as the phone or ipad.  He gets up into crawling position, but can't coordinate moving his arms and legs at the same time.

 

He can sit by himself for a few seconds, but not independently yet.

 

He sucks on his fingers or anything he can find all the time.  He has been showing signs of teething for over a month now, but no teeth yet.

 

Bentley loves silly voices.  He smiles every time he sneezes and cries every time John sneezes because it is so loud.  Bentley cries with loud noises.

 

Bentley loves to give "kisses" on the cheek (sucking on the face), complete with sound effects!

 

Height at 6 months: 26.97 inches (63rd percentile)

Head Circumference: 17.5 inches (66th percentile)

Weight: 16.46 pounds (24th percentile)

He was in the 44th percentile for weight at the last check up, but then dropped significantly this time.  The doctor is a little worried and said we will need to watch it.  He did double his birth weight at 6 months (from 8 lbs to 16 lbs), so that is one good indicator.

 

You wouldn't know it from looking at him that he is a little underweight.  What's interesting is that once we started solid foods, his bottles decreased significantly.  He used to drink around 24 ounces in a day, but now often only drink about 15 ounces. 

 

Bentley is such a fun kid to be around.  If he would sleep better he would be the perfect child!  He is so cute and we hear that from strangers all the time.  He is such a happy baby and will smile at just about anyone that smiles at him.

 

 

Oak Grove and fall leaves

Growing up it was always a tradition to look at fall leaves some time in October.  I haven't done it for a while and I missed it.  So we went to John's favorite place in the area- Oak Grove.  It was a bumpy ride for parts of it, but it was beautiful.  We went on October 20th, but you can see in the pictures we are all wearing shorts and sandals.  We went for a little hike and had to turn around because I was afraid Bentley would get sunburned.  It's crazy it was that warm almost to November.

 

Primary Program- October 2014

Brynlee was a part of the Primary Program this year!  Her line was "My name is Brynlee Miller and families are forever".  We practiced it a lot and she said it just fine at the practice the day before, but at the actual program on Sunday she only said about 2 words of it.  But she was still cute and I was so happy she participated, especially when we just moved into the ward and she was still getting to know people.

Staheli Farm

October is time for our annual trip to Staheli Farm!  It was fun with a new addition this year (Bentley).  As usual Brynlee enjoyed jumping on the bounce thing, looking at and petting the animals, and the hay ride to the pumpkin patch.  I loved that we got adorable pictures of the kids at the pumpkin patch.  I did not like how much money we spent there.  We have never had to pay for Brynlee until this year and the Dixie direct card did not work for what we wanted, so it was a very expensive hour we spent there.  But it was definitely a good time and I will do it again next year :)