This little gem turned 4 months old on the 9th of this month. I knew it was coming... I feel like as a second time around mom I'm not one of those ones who says my baby is '27 weeks'!! but I always just round up to months so I had been telling people she was 4 months for a while even before it happened, and yet it still came as a shock! 4 months just sounds like almost 6 months, and I can't even comprehend that I'll soon have a baby who will have been with us for half a year! Time is just a mind blowing entity! that seems to speed up as soon as you want it to slow down - why is that!
I feel like these pictures represent her well at this age - full of smiles, and also a tongue that is always out! It's pretty cute to look at, but pretty exhausting if you're the mama who needs to deliver round the clock milk! They say the feeds should be slowing down at this point but Addi didn't seem to get the memo!
and of course a little throwback to her big sister Ella at her 4 month photoshoot! I love looking at how different their physical features are, but I feel like they are very similar in their happy little countenances!
I mean, how cute is this little face!
Big sis helped me by standing behind the camera and doing some of her tricks to get Addi's best smiles, so it was only fair she wanted in on the action too!
Also, I can never turn down an opportunity to snap these sisters - I love the relationship they share! and Addi's face in this pic is too funny!!!
So let's take a look back at the last month - it started out on our family camping trip in France.
Addi got her first go in a swimming pool! She wasn't as excited as it as we thought, since she loves the bath so much, but it maybe wasn't quite as warm as she was used to.
Lots of people freaked out when they knew we were taking a 3 month old on a camping holiday - but really she was a total dream in the tent! Here she is passed out in her moses basket for a nap! She slept just as well as she does back home, and just slotted in to all the plans we had.
We bought a little pop up sun tent, and so anytime we went to the lake we would take that and she could just nap and play in there and be protected from the sun. All the driving was another story - but really we did do a lot of driving and I wasn't expecting her to be super good in the car, but she did seem to develop quite a strong aversion to her car seat while we were there which wasn't the best timing!
We had even bought this lie down car seat before we left, thinking it would be the answer to all our problems! It did help on the drive down to the ferry, but sadly the novelty effect of it had worn of by the time we got French side!
We took the buggy, rather than her pram - purely because we wouldn't have fit her big bulky pram in the car along with everything else we had packed in! and so I couldn't get over how grown up she looked all stretched out in it the one day when we were playing mini golf!
This was Addi's first ride on a chairlift, in Morzine. Looks pretty idyllic right with those Alp views in the background? If this pic had audio, you would hear screaming the whole way down the mountain! Yep, she was not a fan of the chairlift!
Luckily she had left the chairlift trauma behind, and was all smiles again by dinner! I always find it to ironic that her happiest time of the day seems to be dinner - where she just has to sit and watch us eat, and she can't even join in on the deliciousness haha!
We took this pic on the last night of our trip - it sums up what our holiday meant to us, hearts full from lots of special memories made (even if they involved hysterical chairlifts, 60 hours spent in the car with a screaming baby, and only ever being able to tan my legs because I had to have a parasol above us both at the pool while Addi fed/napped) but that's what parenting is all about right? Amazing highs contrasted with wild lows and all the bits in between!
August was really an epic month, I was so sad when it ended, because we also had Addison's blessing that I posted about last time, but I had to squeeze in one more pic of her looking super adorable in her special dress!
Interestingly, even though Addi hates the car more than any other baby I've ever met and has reeeeeally struggled with teething this month - more so than Ella ever did, she is actually even happier and smilier in the inbetween periods and I didn't think you could get a happier baby than Ella was...but I was wrong!
So let's take a quick peek at some of those too good to be true smiles...
Her hair is just growing so long! I couldn't resist spiking it up after bath time one night!
and this is still one of my fave outfits that she got given, from my friend Laura. It is meant to be for upto 1 month, but since she's approaching 5 months now it's the gift that keeps on giving!
Like I said, she really loves bath time, and how cute does she look in her Elmer hooded towel!
I will never get tired of putting bows in her hair, and this adorable sleepsuit came all the way from Georgia from our friends Emily and Susie...and it came in a lovely little linen sack that said 'Baby Braithwaite' on the front. When I thanked them for the personalised bag, they said Baby Braithwaite is actually the name of a baby boutique in Atlanta - how fun is that! and you can't see from here but the sleepsuit has cupcakes and whisks and cute little baking related things on it, and is also the softest material!
Some final smiles for her space blanket, which she loves to rustle around and make noise with!
She had her first shoulder ride with Daddy this month - how is she old enough to be doing that already?!
She is really getting into books much more, especially now she can reach out and touch and feel some of the pages - it's so cute to see!
She still loves to suck her fingers! She used to just do it to put herself to sleep but she now spends about 70% of the day just sucking away! It is so cute to watch - she even sucked herself to sleep on her playmat one day which was a first!
There was that one time on the drive home from France when she finally sucked on a dummy after months of us trying to get her to like it! It was pretty perfect timing because we had exhausted all other options, we weren't due another pit stop for a few hours and the screaming was endless...and all of a sudden the stars aligned and she sucked that thing in like she'd been doing it all her life! It was miraculous for sure, because she hasn't ever wanted it since we've been back! So it must have just been a one time thing!
This month has brought some of her first little giggles, which we were all so excited to hear! Daddy produced the first one - finding a little tickle spot on her, that we haven't been able to replicate since! but big sister also is very good at finding little games that produce giggles...like these raspberries on the belly before bathtime!
Her latest is the 'duh-duh' game, which is essentially Ella going 'duh duh, duh duh, duh duh' (imagine the Jaws approaching sound effects) from a distance and then running closer to Addison and pretending to eat her face!!! Don't ask me how it started - but it is now one of her fave 'games' to play with Addison, and Addi certainly enjoys it too!
As well as all the giggles, I still love watching these two become the cutest siblings around! Honestly, I couldn't in my wildest dreams have asked for Ella to be any more loving and adoring than she is - she is 110% smitten with her little sister and the love they share is just incredible to watch!
Even at this young age, you can see Addison light up when Ella walks into the room - it is just darling!
Sharing their first swing together at the park, one sunny afternoon, after school!
Ella loves to be the first one to go and comfort Addison when she wakes from a nap, she will race up the stairs as fast as she can calling up 'don't worry Addi, big sis is on the way'! Then she will climb up the bars and hop into Addi's cot and sit beside her Moses basket, just stroking her head and saying 'it's okay darling, big sis is here now'!
I've no doubt that at some point down the road there will be fights over sharing toys...and eventually one day sharing clothes! and all the drama that comes with teenage girls, but oh if they could stay in this sweet loved up phase of adoring each other forever I'd be pretty pleased about that!
We really need to get better at taking pics of the four of us, but I feel like Addison is always in the pram so it makes it tricky! so here's one to remember how our little family looked at this moment in time! A kind tourist in Annecy snapped this for us and it's one of the only ones of all of us from our holiday so one I will always treasure!
