One Month

This sweet girl has been warming up our lives for a whole month now! She’s been pretty easy from the get go and there’s no arguing that she’s completely adored by her siblings (and everyone else too).

She has been a good sleeper, even at night, usually going 4-6 hour stretches since her first week. She doesn’t have much alert time yet, mostly she eats, sleeps, repeats. Like all our kids, she’s fond of hiccups and spit up, and then eating again. What she’s not fond of is diaper changes. It’s about the only time we hear her get really upset. We’ve found that her white noise machine helps her be more calm during them, and so does a contrasting stripe pattern for her to look at. We figured the last one out when changing her diaper on my patents’ couch and she was mesmerized by the dark red and cream striped blanket hanging  over the back of the couch. She tolerates getting her clothes changed only slightly more than diaper changes.

She’s also been hard to cloth diaper. I’m not sure exactly why, but I just can’t seem to get a good fit on her. She’s a little wide and was skinny legged at first but mostly the snap settings seem to be just off. Either too tight or too loose with no option in between. The Tiny G diapers fit her best for leak prevention but they really irritated her skin where the elastic was. The newborn AIOs really don’t work well yet (after I spent allll that time changing elastics!) but the preemie size prefolds and newborn covers are working pretty well. And we’ve done some paper diapers, especially when she needed a break from the irritated spot that the G diapers had caused. By the end of the month she is just finally hitting a sweet spot in the AIOs and I think we’ll get a few weeks of use from those before we try the one size diapers.

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At 5 weeks, she was 23” and 11lbs 13oz. She’s got the sweetest chunky cheeks and really is a pretty happy baby. She’s still a great sleeper in the late night and morning and then sleeps a little lighter in the afternoon and evening. She’s just starting to give us some smiles and we see her eyes tracking us.

So much love for this addition to our family!!

Harrison is 4!

This sweet boy is 4!! He has been so, so patient as he waited for his birthday. He started counting down back in June after Emerson’s birthday and has been planning his party and designing his cake and working on his birthday wish list just as long.. every time we went shopping he was asking me to add things to his list. I’m sure he has forgotten most of them. Ha!

He also had to wait and wait and wait for his baby sister to be born so we could have his long awaited birthday party. It wasn’t easy but once she finally came he was pleasantly distracted enough that the next three weeks were a little easier.

He wanted another construction themed party as his love for tractors and excavators and working with Papa has only grown in the last year. He’s our rough, tough, loud boy but also he’s very tender and sweet. He’s very generous and shares things or takes turns so sweetly. He loves to “nuggle” with us and most mornings after he wakes up he comes into our room and ‘nuggles for a bit while I wake up. He’s just the right size for a good snuggle and he’s very quiet and still so I can wake up slowly. Sometimes we do my Bible reading plan together and we start talking about our day and sometimes we both fall back asleep.

This year he has learned a TON as he tags along with our homeschool. He sings the presidents song like a champ 😂. But he’s also learned his own things too, he’s great with scissors and writing his name. He is drawing cute little people and the occasionally recognizable object. He can write all of the uppercase letters and knows several of their sounds. He’s working on his /f/ and /v/ sounds in sentences and has nearly mastered his /k/ and /g/ sounds in conversation. Still has the /l/, /s/, /z/, /th/, and /r/ sounds to go, soo he’s not always easily understood. He is getting much more aware of his sounds though and often tries to throw an /f/ in when it should be an /s/ because he knows he’s not doing it right but he doesn’t necessarily know which sound he’s supposed to do. It’s cute. 

He is riding his balance bike like a champ and just started on the petal bike a couple of months ago. He has good balance but the breaks tripped him up some at first. He just needs a little more practice, especially with turning (unfortunatley, practice is hard to come by, I’ve been too pregnant and Blake is working a ton).

He’s such a helper. Always happy to carry things, hold the door, or work alongside. He helps make dinner and is getting really good with cutting food with the sharp knife. He loves helping Blake mow the lawn and has been the cutest harvester of garden produce. All summer he’d come in with a surprise for me and behind his back or in his pockets he’d have several tomatoes, a red bell pepper (which he swears is a spicy pepper and must be saved for Papa, because Papa loves jalapenos) and maybe a couple of green onion sprigs. He loves being read to and has recently fell in love with his Usborne Train Stories book with a CD (which he pronounces something like a mix between receipt and weedee). It’s cute 😊. He also loves his shows. They get to watch tv on Sunday mornings and often we hear him wake up, realize it’s sunday and then he exclaims, “SHOW DAY!” and then you hear the loud patter of his feet and the TV turns on. His favorites have been Little Bear and Magic School Bus with the occasional Llama Llama. 

Four year/school picture

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First we had our traditional birthday breakfast of chocolate chip waffles and with the added bonus of Grandma Marek visiting it felt like a little party! He opened a few presents too. 

Harrison is TWO!

*Sigh* Two! Two full years of this sweet boy. He never stops amazing me. Everyday I'm amazed at the things he's figured out and learned. He's getting busier everyday and more daring every day too. We find ourselves referring to him as our wrecking ball, pretty often. This little guy knows what he wants and will figure out a way to get it or do it.

He also has a lot to say. We aren't always sure what he's saying but he sure knows! I can usually understand him best (although there are times when even I'm not sure) and he's usually pretty patient to repeat or try to say it a different way. He also knows when he can't say something, especially names, and he'll refuse to try until I give him an easier option. So he has started calling himself "Buddy" because Harrison was just too hard (We use Buddy as his nickname anyway). He calls Emerson "Lala" - his own nickname for her..not sure where that came from, and when Grandma was just too hard we said he could say "Nana" and he's run with it. I'm writing this when he's actually 2yrs 2 months.. so some of this has been just in the last months. He also calls my brother Jared, "Uncle Meow" because he has cats. He'll bring me the ipad and say "Uncle Meow. Two Meow. See Uncle Meow. And Eyewe (Ellie)." because he wants to facetime them. He calls my brother Jordan "Uncle Jojo".

Harrison has been obsessed with letters lately. A little before his birthday I showed him H for Harrison. He has to be doing anything and everything that Emerson is doing so one day when we were writing he brings me a marker and some paper and says "Buddy too! Me too!" I showed him how to make H and he caught on pretty quickly. Emerson quickly decided to teach him E for Emerson and E is really easy to say so for a long time every letter was called E: "E for buddy (H), E Lala (E), E Daddy (D), E Mommy (M), E Nana (N) - you get the idea. He will say on his own D-daddy now, and sometimes P-Papa. He can recognize H, E, M, D, P, N, and just recently A and U (auntie and Uncle). We have these random letters written all over things because he'll bring us stuff to write with and ask us to write them. Or he's point out these letters whenever we see them - passing by a sign in the car, in a book, etc. It's pretty cute.

He's also a bookworm these days. LOVES his Gossie and Friends books by Olivier Dunrea (the only way I could get him to sit for a picture in the chair). And he's always bringing me bigger, longer books too, like Berenstain Bears, Elephant and Piggie, Henry and Mudge or Mr. Putter and Tabby (all Emerson's go-to books right now).

This little guy is so full of energy and spunk. He's funny, sweet and just a little stubborn. ;) And we love him so!

He really hates taking pictures in the chair

Emerson's favorite part of any photoshoot is when she gets to take some pictures. I think these are both sweet and real.

Mom looks

He was ready for a nap and some "mama ma" and I thought it would be sweet to capture
it before it ends (whenever that will be) ;)

And of course she has to grab a few shots with her camera.
She's so cute in how she directs us.

A Year of 3 Year Old Emerson

Lets see if I can find a video from every month of her 3rd year...

July, 2016

August 16  Her sweet little voice and funny way of saying things.. 

September, 2016 (It starts with Emerson, even though Harrison is the preview)

Oct, 2016. It's funny how much her voice has matured since then.

November, 16 It's really homemade healthy chocolate pudding.. but she read about chocolate coins in a Fancy Nancy book and it was apparently on her brain.

December, 16 (disclaimer.. We're not sure why her cheeks were so red, but I put lavender on it to appease her, thinking it would be placebo and maybe soothe it, but apparently it stung.. so then we put coconut oil on which helped.. but she HAD to send a video to Grandma W (my mommy) to tell her about it. Now it's one of our favorites because she's so dramatic!)

January, 2017 This was another phase.. I accidentally belted out this song one day and she became obsessed with it! I usually sing it wrong, somehow I just have it stuck in my head wrong, so she is quick to correct me ;) which is fun so now I do it on purpose.

Feb 17 (She'll love me for this one someday)

March 17  Ahh Bob Books!

April 17  She was so excited that she learned to swim! A little harder in the hot tub than the pool but you get the idea.

May 17  This is one of those 'real life' videos, crazy hair, jammies and all. We went out to see the cows at my parents' house and we had to wait outside the barn or the momma cow would get distracted and stop giving milk while my dad was milking. Emerson is a crazy weeding fool! We do a lot of hand weeding at our house and Emerson does help, but she also can't help herself from stopping to pull a weed, anywhere she goes! And she started this strange talking out of the side of her mouth thing recently.. what is that!?

June 3, 2017 Just a silly video to Grandma M, explaining her art.

Emerson is 4!

My sweet 4 year old!

I know you're expecting me to lament this milestone but I'm actually kind of excited. I mean, this girl! She's so sweet and she's so fun lately. Yes, we have our meltdowns and moments but in general, life is full of new discoveries and so many ideas coming out of her head. Besides, there's just no baby left in her, she's all little girl now. She is actually the one lamenting this birthday. She's so excited for the celebration but keeps saying she wishes she could stay little forever. I think she's probably heard her grandmothers and me talking a little too much about our love of babies and keeping littles little.

Some of her favorite things right now are her dollies (aaaallll of them), the United States - she has a couple of states puzzles and she's getting really good at naming them, she's still my arts and crafts girl with her glitter glue, Purler/melty beads, coloring, drawing etc. She also still loves, loves, loves her books. She's so inquisitive and has so many questions about everything, and I mean real questions (for the most part) and she keeps so many details straight! She is loving math right now, and really interested in telling time, reading and Bible history (she'll ask me after Sunday School, Nehemiah was sad that the wall was destroyed and then he built it again but who broke the wall? Did that happen when Daniel was in the lions den or after?).

She has gone through some phases in this last year, don't we all. We love audiobooks in the car and she listens to them during quiet time and usually at night when she falls asleep.. we'll see if that's a good idea long term or not ;). She started her 3rd year loving the free Libravox podcasts of the Beatrix Potter Collection and a few Fancy Nancy audiobooks. I mean she ate, drank and breathed Beatrix Potter. I'll admit, I got a little tired of them - sweet as they are - and I started looking for more audiobook options. From there we downloaded the complete collection of Fancy Nancy, which are great but a little sassy. So we started looking into the library's audiobook option and found Winnie the Pooh, the original books read by British actors.. they're the sweetest! I'm already a little sad that we moved on from Beatrix Potter so swiftly (although she sometimes still requests them), I regret not waiting until she asked for more options.. but it was a sweet phase and now Winnie the Pooh is just as sweet. I'll be really sad when she's ready to move on from that. She almost always wants Winnie the Pooh when she's falling asleep but she also loves the Berenstain Bears, Mouse Tails, the Bear books (Bonny Becker's and Shirley Parenteau's two different series), Corduroy... oh so, so many more. She also went through an extensive Happy Birthday phase. She would sing to us and wrap something up as a present at least 15 times a day. If we asked her to bring us something, she'd wrap it in a napkin or blanket and sing us the song and then give us the thing we asked for... all day long.
She's had other phases too but they're not coming to mind.

I'm sure I could go on, but I'll stop here. I should have done a mid year post because there's just too much change to fit into one late night blog post! It's crazy how much changes in a year!<3 p="">

PS. Harrison HATES the chair

20 Months

classic