Two Months

This month was fun :). Full of smiles and a little more predictability. Unfortunately some of that predictability has been late night alertness, cat naps and fussiness. Often until midnight or one AM. A witching hour of sorts (usually more than an hour!). Not tons of fussiness, just a lot of up and down; eat, sleep, spit up, repeat. Blake has been helpful until he has to go to bed, he’s got the magic daddy arm hold going for him ;).  It has made mornings a little tricky and I haven’t watched this much tv since Harrison went through this. She’s still doing it, but even that has it’s own rhythm and we’ve figured out the late night dance. Plus she should grow out of it soon (fingers crossed). It’s amazing the difference in having slightly older kids than when we went through before with Emerson being only 2. Harrison gets a little clingy when I have to take a nap or sleep in, but overall they’re great about playing and being independent when I need them to. And it’s all the same to Hudson! 

She still doesn’t really love a bath. She’s too big for the sink but the big bathtub is too much work and water for the short time she wants to be in it. The big kids love it when they can coordinate their bath with hers, and it works out okay. Emerson takes it very seriously to make sure she doesn’t get water too close to her face. The kitchen sink is just the right size but it’s rarely empty! Ha! 

Hudson loves to be held sitting up and looking around, she loves watching us talk to her and we get treated to some stories and cooing now and then too. She’s awake for about an hour before she’s ready for a nap. So far she’s pretty good about eating after she wakes up and then going to sleep with only a little encouragement. 

This month she continued to be hard to diaper, but just today, after I took her pictures I put on a bigger  BumGenius pocket diaper and they fit perfectly. So I have a feeling our diaper saga will be over when I write up next month. 

She is barely fitting into 3 months clothes but fits in 3-6 months and 6 months really well. I’m not putting the 3 months away yet but probably only one more wearing of each outfit. We didn’t get her weighed this month, except at 5 weeks which went into the previous post. But given her clothing size she’s at least 13 lbs now. 

This month has been busy with school and appts etc. So we got lots of sling time in. Gosh I love a sleeping baby snuggled up in the sling. I’m enjoying it while I can! She won’t always sleep so soundly in these noisy places, I’m guessing. 

Oh! And I got her to giggle!! Once! I can’t get her to do it again but at least I got it on video. Gosh she’s so cute! 

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.