Our little Annabelle is officially 16 weeks old and almost four months.  She’ll be four months old December 23.  These weeks not technically working out to a full month are starting to catch up.  Week 16 went extremely fast and with the holidays approaching I’m feeling the rush to get things accomplished, including this post (today is actually the beginning of week 18 so I thought I’d better finish this post so I can finish working on week 17’s update).

We spent week 16 on Sanibel Island.  It’s a beautiful little island, approximately 12 miles long and 5 miles wide, off the west coast of Florida near Fort Meyers.  More than half the island is made up of wildlife refuges and the beaches are known for their beautiful seashells.  We went with Dusty’s family and had a wonderful and relaxing time.  The weather was perfect, sunny and in the low 80s all week.  And because we were on the beach all week I thought it would be appropriate to take her weekly picture at the beach.

It’s hard to know how a three and a half month old will travel but Annabelle was wonderful.  And a major reason why she was so wonderful is because we had such great family around that wanted to help.  Annabelle was a good little passenger on the airplane with minimal crying.  On the way out we had grandma and great-grandma to help entrain so that was really nice.  And on our flight home she slept most of the time.

Annabelle loved the fresh air and being on the beach.  She also loved all of the attention she got from us all.  I was actually a little afraid to bring her home because I knew she’d miss everyone playing with her and all of the excitement going on.

She slept like a champ.  With such eventful days filled with an ocean breeze she went to sleep early and woke up for one quick feeding before going back to bed.  She’d wake up around 5am for another feeding and then get up for good around 6:30am for her daily walk.  Annabelle’s grandma Jane or Aunt Diane took her for a walk while the sun was rising everyday.  Annabelle had a lot of fun and Dusty and I got a couple extra hours of sleep.

Annabelle really slobbers now.  She still gnawing on her hands and loves to eat her thumb.  No teeth yet though.  She’s still not rolling over quite yet.  She’s so close.  She pretty much rolls over but just can’t quite get her arm moved to make it count.  Her goos and gurgles are becoming louder and stronger and you can most definitely see she’s producing more sounds than she was before.  I still can’t believe how alert she is and how she watches everything that’s going on.  Sometimes I look at her and just see that little brain working as hard as it can to figure out this so called world of ours.

The week was perfect.  Dusty worked with an ocean view everyday and still found time to relax a little.  I was able to take walks on the beach and get a bit of a suntan before we left.  Dusty and I ran on the beach together a few days and even went on a little dinner date.  The trip reminded me a lot of our time in Paris.  I forget how nice it is to get away from the day-to-day stuff that fills up our life and to spend time with family.