James - 6 Months Old

James has now turned 6 months old. Life with 3, sometimes 4 kids is crazy!!!  The days fly by, each one faster than the one before.  James has been sitting up since he turned 5 months old and has had his two bottom teeth since he turned 4 months! He is changing and growing everyday. At his 6 month checkup he was 19 lbs, 3 oz and 27 inches long putting him in the 80th and 60th percentiles. He is surprisingly smaller than Oliver was at this age, considering that everyone thinks Jamie seems so big. I think this is because Ben was so much smaller!!

James is becoming a happier baby, he loves sitting up and playing with toys and chewing on things. We have tried sweet potatoes, squash and cereal and he hasn't liked anything yet. He mashes his mouth shut when we attempt to feed him food. He does like to chew on the fruit net with an apple once in awhile.

He is still nursing quite a bit during the night and sleeping in our bed. I am spoiling him because he is our last baby and I just want to keep him a baby for as long as I can!!!

Our lives have drastically changed since having James, we are just so busy, nonstop. Between taking Oliver to and from school, soccer, now piano lessons, trips to the zoo with Benny, visiting Grandmas, etc. Even though it is winter we haven't really slowed down. James gets dragged along to most things. He doesn't love riding in the car...especially at night. But he will fall asleep once in awhile while we are driving around and that helps.  :-)

He is just such a cute and smiley baby, I am sometimes still in shock that I have three kids!!!  Who are all healthy and (most of the time!) happy!

Our Spunky Middle Child

Ben is goofy, talkative, funny, spiteful, loud and sweet. He is definitely going through the terrible twos right now but he's also learning reason a bit.  He transitioned to a twin bed a few months before James arrived and we are still having some issues with that. Ben doesn't love bedtime and on most nights fights us on leaving him.  Oliver and Ben share Oliver's room and that works out for the most part for now.  

Benny can be very agreeable and sweet but he certainly has a mean side!!!  

James Henry

Mister James Henry

Born Friday, July 11, 2014

9 lbs, 4 oz

21 3/4 inches 

We were very blessed with another perfect baby boy! Surprise!

Oliver - 6 Years Old

Oliver is 6 years old and in first grade. He is reading a lot better this year and doing so well with his spelling tests. He has gotten every single word correct on every test. Including all of the bonus words!  125% on every test!  We are pretty proud, we practice spelling with him everyday and it has paid off.  

He seems to be well liked at school and right now his best friend is Cameron, from his Kindergarten class. We don't like his first grade teacher as much as his Kindergarten teacher but what can you so!?  We has a fun summer, Oliver played soccer in the spring and fall (with Erik coaching of course!) and did a soccer camp and two tennis camps during the summer.  We crammed in a lot of fun outings before our baby was born and it was such a memorable time with the boys!  

25 Weeks - Baby #3

We were very surprised in at the end of October to find out that we will be welcoming another babe to our family in July!!  I was in shock for a good month or two, not being able to process what another child will mean for our family. I told Julie when I was about 6 or 7 weeks along, wanting to keep it a secret until we'd seen the heartbeat on ultrasound. Finally, around Christmas the news sank in for me after we told our families and planning began.

I am beyond excited to have another baby. We wanted to have Ben for so long and tried so hard....it's such a miracle that this baby just "happened" and I know will be such a great addition to our family. I feel so thankful and lucky to be able to experience pregnancy for a 3rd time. I love being pregnant for the most part. Especially after the first trimester is over and when I start to grow a baby bump and can feel the baby moving. This will for sure be our last baby so I just want to soak it all in and enjoy every moment of this pregnancy. I also want to spend a lot of time with Benny, he will be about two when this baby is born. I won't be getting the 4 plus years of 1 on 1 time with him that I had with Oliver. I feel bad that he doesn't get to be "our baby" for much longer, but am very excited to experience having two kids close in age.

So far, the baby seems to be healthy and growing at a good rate. We decided to wait to find out the sex until birth again. It was fun finding out with Ben when he was born, and once we got past the 20 week ultrasound for this baby, I'm kind of over finding out what it is. We are hoping to have a VBAC instead of another C-section. We really hope it works out so we can do that. I want to heal quickly after this birth and Ben's C-section had a long healing process for me.

The boys were very surprised to find out they will become big brothers once more. I was afraid Oliver would be upset or angry about it but he has come around. Though, he has mentioned to me once or twice, "I sure hope this is your last baby, Mom." Obviously, Ben has no idea what is going on. Poor guy.

Weight Gain: I have gained more weight earlier with this baby for some reason. About 17 lbs so far. I'm trying to eat more salads and fruit now to reign it in. I've been craving fresh pineapple and watermelon. Also, eating a lot of ice again!  I'm not TOO worried about it because whenever I nurse it usually comes off quickly. I will plan on doing Weight Watchers again too after the baby.

What is different this time:  I felt the baby move earlier than I did with Oliver and Benjamin's pregnancies. Gained more weight earlier. No placenta previa this time! Planning on a VBAC. Erik and I went to a VBAC class that gave us a lot of really good information and we are feeling more at ease with this plan now.

We moved Benny into Oliver's bedroom and bought bunk beds! The boys took to sharing a room right away. It was a couple of nights of adjustment for Ben but then he was sleeping through the night. Yay!  Oliver seems to be better with Ben now too and said he does love sharing his room with him. Ben is still in the crib, so we will need to try to transition him to the bed maybe in the next couple of months. I guess we can always just keep him in the crib for awhile once baby is here. I'm guessing the baby will sleep in with us the first couple of months anyways.

What am I stressing about:  SLEEP. I am scared about what the lack of sleep over the next couple of years are going to do to me.  Money....how we will afford to send all these kids to college, how we will afford to still do a bit of travel with and without kids, will I quit my job or stay?

Having two kids 2 years apart. I've always wanted it, but it does intimidate me a bit since I feel like I have my hands full with Ben right now.

What do I miss:  Sleeping more comfortably, drinking wine, not too much. I do love to be pregnant.

 Exercise:  I'm starting to exercise more regularly again....getting on the elliptical 3-5 times a week and it is doing wonders for my energy levels.

Ben is 9 Months Old!

Our Benny turned 9 months old a couple of weeks ago! I figured I had better write this now before he is onto more new things!  He is changing everyday and starting to be a very busy boy! He has begun to get into things like cords, outlets...things that are not his business!!  He will still sit for awhile and play nicely but then his little eyes spy something more fun to get into....like cords! The boy loves our cords! He will stretch out as far as he can and grab whatever cords he can get his hands onto!  What a stinker!  He knows very well when he isn't supposed to have something and will wave his arms with whatever object he has in his hands and yell at us with it when we tell him "no." He is very funny when he is determined to show us!

Eating/Food! :  Ben finally loves his food!  He is gobbling up big helpings of veggies that I make for him...such as carrots mixed with spinach, sweet potatoes, and green smoothie type things! I blend up some spinach into his fruit and he doesn't even notice! It is a good way to sneak green things into his diet. He usually refuses any green type veggies if they aren't mixed with an orange veg or fruit. I remember Oliver being the same way. We were more accommodating to Oliver's likes and dislikes...we'd usually just feed him what he'd eat, but with Ben I feel like he should eat healthy from the beginning on and I am more choosy about what I give him. He is still really small compared to O at his age. His height was in the 4th percentile at his 9 month check up and his weight was the 16th. I also started mixing a little flax oil into his food once or twice a day just to give him some more good fats. He will eat a good amount of baby yogurt each day, that seems to be his staple. I will mix a little baby oatmeal and fruit with it usually. He really loves his food now though, which is such a huge relief to me since he's a little guy! He loves to snack on little bites of oranges or clementines or Cheerios.  He always seems to calm down a bit when he sees the yellow Cheerios box.

He is still nursing a few times a day....mainly just for comfort or small snacks to get him to a meal. My milk supply has dipped quite a bit but I'm not as worried about it now that he is eating good fruits and veggies. We will usually nurse at 4:30 a.m. and then he goes right back to sleep and sometimes we'll nurse again when he wakes up in the morning, depending on how hungry he is. I like to try to feed him his breakfast before nursing or giving him a bottle in the morning.

Sleeping:  Ben is sleeping so much better at night. About 2 months ago we changed up his nap schedule to the 2-3-4 sleep schedule. Finally, a day or 2 after he turned 9 months old, we decided enough was enough and let him cry it out when he woke up during the night. He had been waking up wanting to nurse or have a bottle 3-4 times during the night and we were done! Now he usually sleeps from 8 p.m.-4:30 a.m. , will wake up then and nurse and go right back to sleep until 7 or so. I am totally fine with getting up once to nurse him and it is just working out for us right now. I'm sure we could drop that feeding if we needed to but right now I don't mind it. He goes to bed, usually awake, really well. He just snuggles down under his blanket and he hand him his two loveys and he cuddles them and goes to sleep...sometimes chatting but rarely crying.  He likes his crib now. I am trying to sit him in the crib while I take a shower...just for a safe place for him to be to play. We are working on that, he usually gets mad.

Development:  Ben is crawling backwards, butt bouncing and army crawling around now. He gets very frustrated that he cannot crawl forward but he does get around pretty swiftly by bouncing on his butt! He took his first tumble off of the one step down into our family room this week.  He was very surprised and upset by this but got over it quickly.

Ben has started to shake his  head "no" when he doesn't want any more food...sometimes he'll even do it when I tell him no...he will smile and shake his head and it is very cute.  He definitely knows what "no" means. He will try to grab something (cords!) he shouldn't have and we quickly say "no" and move towards him to take it away and he will shake whatever he has in his hands and yell at us. It is very cute and funny but also kind of sassy!

He will kind of move his hand when we say "bye-bye" or "hi" so we think he knows that waving is associated with those things. He also tries to clap his hands once in awhile when we clap for him and cheer "yaaay!"

Benjamin - 8 Months Old

Last week Ben turned 8 months old! Time seems to be flying by compared to when Oliver was a babe. We have been so busy the last couple of months. We took a family trip to FL/Disney world! Ben's first trip by airplane and he did great! All the kids did. He was quite the perfect little traveling baby for us.

Eating: Benny is still nursing a few times during the day, along with taking a couple bottles of formula when Erik feeds him.  The last couple of weeks he was refusing solids and we realized that he had a couple teeth coming in!  The first two bottom teeth have made their way through and now he is accepting food again.  : )  He seems to really like the orange veggies...carrots and sweet potatoes and squash.  He also enjoys peaches mixed with bananas and vanilla Yo-Baby yogurt. He won't really eat more than a small amount at a time but we'll take it!  He also likes Cheerios! He seems to really love those a lot more than the baby puffs we'd been giving him.  He tends to just sog those babies up and then they end up stuck to his high chair seat or on the floor.

Sleeping: Last week we began the 2-3-4 nap schedule and it seemed to work out for us right away. Ben's sleeping at night has been terrible for the past 5-ish months and now it is shaping up nicely.  He goes down for his first nap of the day 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning.  Then, his second nap of the day is 3 hours after the time he wakes up from his first nap.  Then he goes to bed for the night 4 hours after he wakes up from his 2nd nap.  He is just getting up twice during the night now.  Erik will give him a bottle one of the times and I will nurse him the other.  Hopefully we can cut out that first time he wakes up so we're just down to 1 wake-up a night. I feel so much more rested now that he is sleeping 2 long stretches.  Before we started the new nap schedule he was waking up 4 or 5 times during the night. It was torture.

Development: Benny has been sitting up since he turned 5 months old. He just loves to sit and play and be able to see what's going on.  He seems to be scooting around on his bottom because we'll sit him down someplace on the hard wood floor and he will be in a completely different spot when we look at him again. He hasn't started to crawl yet and I think it might be awhile. I can hope anyways!  We will need to baby-proof the house! It is nice to sit him on the kitchen floor with a couple spoons to play with while we cook or do dishes. It seems to keep him happy and busy for a little while.

At his 6 month check up he was in the 30th percentile for height and weight so he is still our little guy, but he is very healthy!

Ben is a very happy baby!  He no longer covers his ears with his hands...he is adjusting to his loud baby cousins. ;-)   He seems to really love it when Erik gets home from work, he will smile and be excited for Daddy to pick him up.  He has started pointing when Erik carries him around, directing where he would like to go. It is really sweet because he almost always points to where I am. : )