Jaron - 6 Months

Our little guy is 6 months old today.  I'm so on top of it, posting on his actual 6 month birthday.

I don't have any stats for him because our dr. appt, isn't for 2 more weeks.  How do I always get so behind on these appointments?

Anyways, here's some things about Jaron this month.

• He found his toes.  He doesn't suck on them but loves to hold them and examine them.

• He loves to do this inhaling trick.  It sounds like he's been holding his breath and has just come up for air and does this inhale sound and he thinks he's pretty funny when he does it.
• Still drooling a ton but has gotten a touch better, along with the spitting up.
• Wakes up so happy.  I could just leave him in his crib for quite a while because I just love hearing him talk and coo to himself.
• Has decided he only likes the green binkies from the hospital. We bought some blue ones that are supposedly exactly the same.  Come to find out they are a touch firmer and he knows the difference.
• Sitting up really well.  He will still fall down occasionally so I keep a pillow around him still but the times I don't he'll go 5 minutes without falling over.
• Very easy going, happy, smiley little guy.  He really just has a happy disposition and only cries when he's tired.

• Sleeping from 8pm-7:15am.  Morning nap is usually 2 hours, afternoon nap is about 1 1/2 hours total. Although for the afternoon nap he usually wakes up half way through, talks to himself for 20 mins then gets whiny and if I go put a binky in then, he goes back to sleep for his 2nd half of the nap.  Then he takes about a 30 min. nap in the evening.
• He is still swaddled for every nap and at night.  I have tried to break him of this and he is having nothing to do with that.  I want to break him of this but at the same time he sleeps so well with it, I think why bother.  At some point I'm going to have to do it though.

• His cries sound like Aria.  I have always been able to tell the girls cries apart from when they were just a couple months old.  They are very different to me.  However, Jaron's cries sound just like Aria's.  At night when I wake up I many times think Aria is crying only to get out of bed and hear that it is Jaron. The other night right after they all went to bed, someone was crying who I thought was Aria (since she cries a lot right after we turn off the lights) and it was Jaron...once again I was fooled.  Just an interesting tidbit for you.
• He loves his burp rag and plays with it almost as often as any other toy I offer him.

• We started feedings this month. I meant to do a post about it but never got around to it.  He loves his food and likes it on the thicker side right from the start. He often will lean forward to take a bite and a couple times I've gagged him by accident because of it.  We only started veggies this week and so far he's loving the squash, green beans are up tomorrow.  I have to feed him before his bottle otherwise he won't eat a bite.  Even if I wait an hour or so after his bottle.  He spits out every bite.  But if it's before his bottle he gobbles it all down and then drinks his bottle just fine.

6 months has flown by...I can't believe we're on the downhill to 1 year already.  sniff sniff.

Room Changes

This month we've done some major re-work to our room situation in the house for several reasons.

My sister gave us my grandpa's piano that she wasn't using anymore, so we moved all the toys out of the dining room to make room for the piano.  The girls really never liked to play in there anyways, unless I was in there with them.

Then we sold my queen bedroom set that was in the one and only bedroom on our main level right off of the family room and moved all toys into that room.  That is now our toy room and I LOVE IT!  We just haven't broken the news to my mother in law yet that next time she visits, her nice private guest room is no longer there.  :)

Although most days all the toys still end up everywhere else in the house.  At least there is a spot to put them back and close the door.  And they're getting better about playing in there.  They actually like it when I close the door and make them play in there by themselves.

 Then the biggest move we made was we moved Siena back into her room to share with Aria.  And then we moved Jaron into Siena's old room.  We did this for a couple reasons...1-I have to sleep with a monitor every night because Jaron's room is so far from ours and I hate sleeping with a monitor.  2-I thought maybe the girls would kind of comfort each other and help stop the crying when they wake up, crying before they go to sleep, etc.  I really thought they would think it was fun to share a room but when we moved the crib Siena was sooo distraught.  For 2 days she kept walking to her old room for naps and bedtime standing at the door saying 'other one'.  I felt bad, that had been her room since she was about 3 or 4 months old so she knew nothing different.  But after a couple days she was fine.  It has helped a little bit with the crying and they do love it when they wake up after naps and have someone to talk, laugh and jump up and down with. It also made their going to sleep for nap time much longer but their happy so I just leave them.

And the other plus to all of this is I get my office back.

I'm in love with an owl

I'm in love with this owl.  It's been a life changer for me this week.

Maybe you have something similar...

This owl has an alarm clock in it and 'wakes up' at 7am each morning.  It only took 1/2 a day for the girls to understand what this meant.  It also has a timer for naps.  They now know that if the owl is asleep, they should be asleep.  Green = Awake...No light = Back to sleep.  It's worked for the mornings and for Siena who has been taking shorter and shorter naps.  HEAVEN!!!  They get so excited when the owl wakes up. A few times I have heard them wake up and start to cry and then they just stop and go silent and go back to sleep.

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be when you're little and you wake up and you have no idea if it's time to get up or not.  My girls have both been having a lot of sleep issues and waking up at all hours of the night. When I go in there cuz they are hysterically crying, the conversation goes something like this.

Me : "Are you ok?  What is wrong?"
S: "All done.  Downstairs.  Mickey Mouse.  Awake"
Me: "It is still sleep time, you need to lay down and go back to sleep"
S: "No, all done.  Awake."
Me: "Lay down."
S: "Waahhhhhhh"

or

Me : "Are you ok?  What is wrong?"
A: Silence
Me: "It is still sleep time, you need to close your eyes and go back to sleep"
A: Silence
Me: "Do you need anything?"
A: "Nope"
Me: "ok go back to sleep"
A: Silence
Me: walk out of the room
A: " Waahhhhhhh"

Like I said...I'm in love with this owl.  Hopefully it works for a very long time.

A big job change

I would like to introduce you to my 3 new bosses....

Yes I have a new job.  I am officially a stay at home mom.  

We've been working on this for a couple months now and even longer then that as we've tried to make this work.  Without getting into a lot of detail we have had many, many things fall into place for us that has truly been a blessing and many answered prayers.

It wasn't easy to quit work.  I have worked at 3M for almost 16 years.  The people I work with are like 2nd family to me...I've spent A LOT of time with them and I will miss the people and friendships the most.  Even though I've been off work since the end of July it still felt so strange to pack up my desk and leave my badge and computer there and walk away.

However...I'm so excited to be able to stay home and be a mom to these 3 amazing kids.  They keep me on my toes all day long...literally.  Some days are so hard and some days are so fun.  It's challenging, exhausting and exciting and what I've always wanted to do.  I'm so grateful to Shane for all his hard work in helping this to happen.  He works hard, long hours and crazy hours as well to support our family and I'm so thankful for him.  He also works from home part of the week and it's so nice to have him there to help out when I need help.

It's been an adjustment for sure.  Being a mom and working full time was super hard but staying home is also hard in totally different ways.  I'm still working it out and probably always will be.  There are some days I would love to just sit at a desk and stare at a computer.  But then one of them will smile at me or ask me to read them the same book for the 10th time that day and how can I resist these little ones.  I love them with all my heart.

Here's what I get to wake up to every morning to start my job...3 little kids, 1 who wants a bottle and 2 who must start their day with a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

New Years 2013

We had a fun New Year's Eve over at my parents house.  We had a yummy Mexican/Cafe Rio dinner and just hung out.  About 8 o'clock we decided we needed it to be the 'new year' so we gathered all the kids together and my parents had a ton of hats, streamers, horns, etc.  I think we celebrated New Years about 8:04pm.  Perfect right?  It was total chaos for those few minutes but all the kids had so much fun that I had to document the cute pictures.  Christy, Emmy is cracking me up in the last 2 pictures...

After we got home and put the kids to bed Shane and I celebrated the New Year about 9:45.  I think this picture sums up our New years and year in general.  Some sparkling cider right by the the nose suctioner, bottle and kids toys.  I was in bed before midnight but actually was awake at midnight to say happy new year and then closed my eyes and fell back to sleep.

Here's hoping 2014 treats us all well!

Jaron - 5 Months

I have to hurry and do this post before Jaron turns 6 months.  Sheesh I'm behind.

Yes Jaron turned 5 months a few days after Christmas.

The biggest change this month is that he moved to a 4 hour schedule.  I LOVE the 4 hour schedule.  I was so anxious to do it that I probably did it a couple weeks earlier then I should have but I don't even care. He did great the first few days then it was a bit rough but now it is great again.  So he takes a really good long morning nap, then usually a pretty good nap in the afternoon (I wish this was a little bit better but we're adjusting wake times so hopefully it gets better.)  And then he takes a 45 min nap around dinner time.  The best part is all 3 kids are down for a nap at the same time on this schedule.  YAY!

He goes to bed at the same time as the girls now, 8pm and wakes up about 7:15am although I do have to say his needing his binky at night has gotten worse this month.  He wakes up around 5:30am for a binky then again at 6:30.  Some mornings it's more then that but it's still better then the girls were at this stage where they wanted it up to 7 times a night, all throughout the night.

We also moved him up to 7 ounces for each bottle...a lot compared to my girls who were still drinking 5 and 6 ounces.

Jaron has rolled from his back to tummy but no one has ever witnessed him do it.  I left him in the room by himself and came back in to him on his tummy.  At first I thought Siena had come into the room and done it but she wasn't paying any attention to him.  Then Shane did the same thing with no one even nearby and looked over and Jaron was on his tummy.  But we're still waiting to watch him do it.  Those are really the only times he's done it.

Jaron has started to sit up already.  In fact I took this picture on his 5 month birthday.  At 5 months he will only sit up for 10-20 seconds at a time but is doing pretty good.

Jaron is Mr. Social.  I don't know if it's because my girls had each other or what, but I don't remember them being like this at this stage...if we all leave the room, even just to the kitchen or where ever, Jaron gets so bugged that we have left him and will let us know pretty fast.  Even if he's in his exersaucer or has toys to play with.  So he has to join us for lunch, dinner, snacks, etc.  I think it's cute that he loves all the interaction and it's good because there is always a lot going on over at our house.

Christmas 2013

I'm going to try not to make my Christmas post too long, but we really did have a great Christmas.  The girls don't get the anticipation of Christmas yet, which is actually really nice, although it will be fun when they do as well.  But we did a lot of little traditions that I hope to do every year.  We watched 'Small One', looked at Christmas lights, made cookies for Santa, etc.  It was fun to see the girls experience things for the first time and start to realize what is going on.  

In fact I think one of their favorite parts of Christmas this year was our Christmas tree.  Every morning when we would get downstairs we would turn just the tree lights on and pretty soon that is what they would ask for each morning before we even got downstairs.  The day the tree got put away I could see Siena looking over at the bare spot and so I asked her where the Christmas tree was and she said 'Where is it?  I find it!'  It was cute.

Christmas Eve day we met up with Shane's mom and sister for lunch.  That night we went over to my parents and had a big turkey dinner, acted out the nativity and of course opened our PJ presents.  That was nice cuz then we got them all ready for bed before leaving my parents house.

Christmas morning was fun.  When I told the girls that Santa had come Aria looked a little afraid (she's kind of traumatized I think) but when I told her he just left the presents and isn't actually here she was fine with that.  Santa gave them cash registers, coloring books, Mickey slippers, lots of Minnie and Mickey stuff. Jaron got some new toys and some new clothes.  After feeding Jaron and making breakfast we opened up our presents...all but one.  The girls played with their toys and then after Jaron went down for his morning nap we had them open up their last present and we gave the girls each a small android tablet.  I debated getting them this but we have strict rules about when, where, and how long they can play with it and it's only loaded with educational games for now.  They love it and often ask for their tablet. So we spent the rest of the morning hanging out and just relaxing.

That afternoon we went back to my parents where we opened more presents for us and for the kids.  Then later that night we made our annual stop at Shane's brothers house to say hello to his family for a while.  It's always fun that we can see both sides of the family during Christmas.