Monthly Charlotte: Months 4 and 5

Month 4

Weight: ~16 lbs
Height: ~26 inches
Likes: Blowing spit bubbles, rocking in her chair, drooling all over everything
Dislikes: Being put down for too long
Accomplishments: This month she rolled from her belly to her back with Preston cheering her on in the background. She also makes a sound I call Chewbacca baby, gurgling and rattling whenever she has a lot to say.

Snow day snuggles//Happy Valentine's Day!//My tiny Valentine//Visit from Grammy and Pops

Month 5

Weight: ~17 lbs
Height: ~27 inches
Likes: When her daddy swishes her around in her chair, when Preston talks to her, phones and the baby monitor, tags
Dislikes: Stuffy noses
Accomplishments: Charlotte can sit up with some help, although she's still a little top heavy so she's prone to tipping over.

First Easter//She rocks a lot of polka dots//Cool kids//The best travel companion//Preston wanted her to sit by him//Bird dress

Bonus! Chewbacca baby in action

Chewbacca baby (Press ▶️)

A video posted by Jennifer Hannigan (@jmhannigan) on Mar 5, 2015 at 3:04pm PST

Monthly Charlotte: Month three

Weight: 14 pounds
Height: 24.5 inches
Likes: Talking to her brother, taking baths, kicking her legs, rocking, blowing out a diaper right before we leave the house, and the band One Direction
Dislikes: Being woken up, having shirts pulled over her head, getting drops in her nose
Accomplishments: She is holding her head up very well during tummy time and can bear weight on her legs. She "oohs" when you talk to her and has really animated "conversations." She giggles now and seems like she's close to rolling over.

Oh, sweet Charlotte. There are few things that upset her, and even when she's crying you can get a smile out of her. She is ticklish all over and kicks her legs with excitement whenever the word "bath" is mentioned. She also has started singing along with Scott — her favorite song being "Best Song Ever" by One Direction. Those boy bands get them from an early age, I guess.

Preston is a very doting big brother. He begs to go wake her up in the morning and always greets her with a "Hey, Charlotte!" and wants to know, "What's Charlotte doing over here?" Whenever she's without a paci, he's quick to find one and declare, "She needs it!" She's always eager to flash him a smile and talk to him whenever he comes around.

We're finally settling into a groove with how we function as a family of four, even though there are still some bumpy spots. Charlotte started daycare this month. It took her a week or two to adjust to napping with other crying babies in the room, but she's starting to figure that out, too. She's gotten popular with most of the staff, and everyone there seems to call her Miss Charlotte — like she's a Southern lady in the Civil War era. All she needs is a hoop skirt and a burning plantation. She'd probably smile about that, too.

Monthly Charlotte: Months one and two

As previously promised, like I did with Preston, I'll be taking monthly photos of Charlotte throughout her first year. I love being able to look back at Preston's and see how he grew, changed, and what he had learned to do that month, especially since I did a horrible job of maintaining his baby book (I started filling it out when I was eight months pregnant with Charlotte). It amazing how much can happen in a year. I'm looking forward to seeing where the next 10 months take Charlotte!

Month 1

Weight: 9 lbs, 9 oz

Height: 22 inches
Likes: Her pacifier, car seat and vibrating rocking chair, lights of any kind, and her big progther
Dislikes: Having her picture taken with a giant sticker stuck to her shirt, being cold, and being hungry
Accomplishments: She was deemed the "best baby in the nursery" by the lactation nurse the day after she was born, so that'll be included on her college application one day.

Charlotte turned one month on Thanksgiving day. At her two week old appointment, she weighed 9 pounds 9 ounces. She does not, however, have the Harris head, putting her only in the 50th percentile for head circumference. She's always grunting, switching between sounding like a piglet to a 1920s mobster ("Meh, see! Meh!"). If she were a 1920s mobster, she'd be called Hiccups Hannigan because she's had the hiccups almost every day of her life.

Just arrived//Little sister, big brother//Going home//Preston sharing his pacis//Post-bath cutie//Fun with Preston//So stylish//Four generations

Month 2

Weight: ~11 lbs
Height: ~23 inches
Likes: Baths, firmly grasping people's hair, staring at the ceiling fan, being sung to by her brother
Dislikes: Being taken out of the bath, being hungry, Scott's sneezes
Accomplishments: Charlotte is holding her head up a little better every day. She also goos and coos at us when we talk to her, and we've started getting real smiles (not gassy, dream smiles) out of her this month.

It's crazy how much babies change from the first month to the second. While she still has her monster chubby cheeks (which get kissed at every possible chance), she is a lot more alert and interactive. When she looks at me, it feels like she actually knows who I am rather than seeing me as a food source. She's the easiest baby and the happiest baby. There wasn't much need for adjustment when she came along. She was always supposed to be here and fits right into her little place in our family.

Daddy snuggles//Unimpressed//Christmas morning//Matchy, matchy//Family of four//The baby whisperer//Her first Christmas//Meeting Santa//Ready for church

Actually pretty in pink

Let me be the first to say that I never ever ever thought my daughter would have a pink room. I have been waging the fight agains the frilly since the ultrasound nurse said "Girl!" As a young girl, I never liked pink. It's not so much the color itself, just the super girliness it seems to represent. I distinctly remember sitting in church, face red from crying and arms folded tightly, because my mom had made me wear a pink dress that day. And I was probably 12 — a little too old for such pouting. While I wasn't coordinated enough to wear the title of tomboy, I definitely wasn't a girly girl.

And this anti-girly girl mindset came into play when making decisions for baby girl. In my mind there would be no poofy dress that looks like a cupcake trying to swallow my child, there would be no Carmen Miranda bows the size of grapefruits adorned with feathers and sparkles strapped to her head, and there would be no glitter, no rhinestones, and no tulle. Sure, I want her to be feminine and sweet, but styled like a contestant on "Toddlers in Tiaras." I wanted the same style for her room, and to me that meant little to no pink.

Who would've thought that it would actually be Scott who selected the color and changed my mind about it. His way of preparing for baby has been planning her room, and it's been so sweet to watch him searching the Web, pinning what he likes to a secret pinboard (The boy's on Pinterest! It doesn't get much cuter). When he sent me what he had in mind, I was surprised with how much I liked it. While it did have pink, it was a pale pink, and paired with a kelly green in her bedding and curtains, it was just too perfect to say no to.

Thanks to our friends Katie and Nate, baby girl's room got painted this Saturday. Scott and Nate worked hard while Katie and I entertained Preston with sidewalk chalk, golf, and the sprinkler. Our part was much less difficult.

Now with the paint, it really feels like baby girl's room is beginning to take shape, even if it is only a pink room with a white dresser/changing table in it right now. And even though I've accepted the pink, I still stand firm on my cupcake dresses policy.

It's a girl!

Yesterday, Scott and I got to see sweet baby #2 when I went for my second ultrasound. It's amazing how babies go from little beans at nine weeks to fully looking like a human at 18 weeks. After marveling at the baby's profile, tiny fingers and froggy legs, the ultrasound nurse told us that baby was a girl. While part of me was surprised (I just knew it was a boy), the other part of me felt like she was telling me something I already knew.

When we found out Preston's gender, I had been certain he was a girl, so in my mind being certain it was a boy this time around just meant we were getting a girl. Also, Preston had been telling us it was going to be a baby sister for a couple of months already, and he's a pretty smart kid.

It was fun to see the already apparent differences in my two children at this stage during my ultrasound. With Preston, he never really moved much or seemed bothered by the ultrasound wand invading his space. There were a couple of times after an ultrasound where I wondered if Preston could actually move his legs because he kicked around so little in those brief moments where we could watch him on a screen. He was always a chilled, laid back baby on the inside and continues to be one (for the most part) on the outside.

Baby girl, on the other hand — not so much. From the minute the ultrasound wand was pressed against my stomach, you could tell she did not enjoy having her space invaded. She kicked and wiggled, trying to get away as best she could. I've noticed that the best way to feel her kick is to curl my legs up in front of me to give her a little less room. It gets her stirred up every time. Looks like we need to be ready for a girl who needs her own space.

Prior to this ultrasound, Scott and I had decided not to do too much planning until we knew the gender. We got to enjoy a nice little stretch of expecting a baby while not fussing with the logistics too much. Now, it makes the reality of everything sink in a little more. Baby sister will be here in four and a half months! We've got to start making decisions — the biggest one at the moment being what we'll call her.

While baby now has a pronoun, she doesn't have a proper noun. Girls' names seem to be much harder to decide on than boys names for me. Scott and I spent the majority of the time batting names back and forth while waiting for the doctor yesterday. Every name was either connected to a person one of us had a bad memory of, sounded like we were trying too hard, or just wasn't a good name. The naming conundrum always brings me back to this "Friends" scene.

So, for now, we'll start pulling the newborn stuff out of storage while running through ever-growing lists of girl names. Too bad Vito is a boy's name.

Image via Pixels.com

Making room for Baby #2

Yes, we're making room for baby #2 who is expected to arrive in late October. My sweet friend Cassie took this picture (as she usually does) to help us share our exciting news with the world. As a couple of side notes: 1. Who has ever looked that happy to be reading What to Expect When You're Expecting? and 2. Preston's look of concern is for Cassie. He really wanted her to sit on the bed with us and show him the back of her camera.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was pretty shocked. While we planned and prepared for Preston a few months before I ever got a positive test result, this one wasn't so planned in that it wasn't at all, and all those things I felt we had a little time to think about pre-Preston came rushing forward that early Friday morning because I had to think about them — now! It was a little overwhelming. Poor Scott, I woke him up before 6 a.m., and before he had time to become fully conscious, I dropped the "I'm pregnant" bomb on him. "You've got to let someone wake up before you say that!" was his response.

Now, if you know Scott, you know his plan of one child. As an only child himself, he liked the idea of continuing that tradition. But he actually handled the news much better than I initially did (at first I was crying because, oh my goodness, we're having another baby and then I was crying because I felt bad for crying about the baby). He said there were a lot of things we didn't know about becoming parents the first time, and that God worked it all out. He'd do that for us this time, too.

Having had some time to adjust, we're all very excited about what's to come. We never made a big to-do about telling Preston because, at not quite 2-years-old, he still doesn't quite get it. But we talk about the baby, and at dinner in his roll call of people he thinks we should pray for, he'll mention "Baby Tummy" (because, in my attempts to explain the baby is in my tummy, he thinks the baby is in everyone's tummy), which melts me into a puddle every time.

I've noticed some similarities and some differences between this pregnancy and my last. With Preston, the nausea came in waves. When it hit, it hit hard, but it didn't last long. With this one, I feel perpetually queasy. Food helps some, but overall I feel blah a lot of the time. My earliest craving with Preston was lemon and carbs, and in keeping with the acidic theme, this go-around all I want is tomatoes and carbs. Both times, sweets sounded disgusting. With Preston, that went away in the second trimester as I formed a deep love for milkshakes and Cocoa Puffs. So, we'll see if these are any indication of another little boy in our future soon enough.

Thank you all for your congratulations and well-wishes. We are excited about what the future holds for our growing family and appreciate your prayers and encouragement along the way!