Nine & Ten Weeks Old- Baby Jed

The last two weeks have been crazy busy, but I did manage to grab his weekly pics. Little man celebrated two months of life and as you can see from the pictures he gets more and more animated every day! He's sleeping seven hours at night now and I feel like a whole new person, it's amazing what more than 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep will do for you. But unfortunately he has also gotten into the habit of spitting up- a LOT! We had a happy little morning feeding a few days ago, at 5am he ate and then we sat there and talked, he smiled his big smiles back on me and cooed, it was a sweet little exchange and having had a long stretch of sleep I was happy to spend the extra time with him and not put him right back to sleep. But after 30 minutes it was time to put him back down. I changed his diaper and then started carrying him to his bed- two steps in he projectile spit up what seemed to be his entire bottle all over me- the way I was holding him it went straight to my chest and right down my scoop neck shirt- so fun. Oh well, not every moment with a newborn can be magical! The funny thing is he can dowse me with spit up and then lay there all innocent and pull out some big smiles for me, which is exactly what he did that morning.

Ollie has been quite the character lately. He still adores Jed but he tells me in his own little ways when he needs attention. His favorite little thing lately is telling me he's cold, which in translation means "I want to snuggle." It's also my favorite thing because I will never get enough of holding him in my arms and I think I am going to cry for a very long time when he is too big for me to snuggle. I still know every day what a privilege it is to have him in my arms, and I still hold him just a little longer for Jess. Admittedly he is a bit of a wreck lately. Shortly after Jed was born Ollie figured out that the crib could no longer contain him, and while we tried at first to be firm and do the back and forth (and back and forth, and back and forth, and back...) with sleepless nights the surgery we just didn't have the energy to fight him on it so he's been snuggling up with us in bed at night. He was always good at going down, even if he was all wired when 8pm came we could put him down in his crib and not only would he not fight it, he would be out in minutes. So it's been hard, his nap times and bedtimes are all over the place now. When he had a melt down last week I could hardly blame anyone but myself. Now that I am feeling better and I'm getting more sleep I decided it was time to get him back on his schedule. But it's a rough road. On Monday we did the back and forth thing for honestly an hour and he was pretty upset. I finally did something I have never done before, when I took him back to bed I crawled in bed with him. He liked that, it calmed him right down and he pulled my arms around him and fell fast asleep. Tuesday after doing some back and forth I thought, why wait an hour- so I turned on one of his baby Einstein movies and crawled in his crib with him. He was wide awake and was so excited to have me there that he started pointing out all the names of the animals in the movie before they would even say them. I knew he could point out all the common animals like cows, but I really was amazed that he would know and could say "Parrot." The funny thing was I was the one that fell asleep. I woke up to him crawling out of the crib to go snuggle with Matt. I asked him where he was going and he said "Watch football!" He cracks me up!

Some of Ollie's other favorite things to do are look for scorpions with the black light at night with Matt. Right around Halloween time he started thinking there were monsters in his room so he talks about monsters all the time now, and he tells us "Scary!" A few nights ago he was being naughty at dinner, he didn't want to finish his food so he was dropping it on the floor. Matt and I were trying to be stern with him and all he would do was look at us with his big cheesy smile and say "I'm funny!" and laugh, and then he started saying "I'm Silly" and he had both of us looking the other way because we didn't want him to see us laughing. I guess we tell him both of those things all the time, he has just never said them to us about himself. The last thing I will say about him is that we have been working on his ABCs and counting to 10. At first when I would have him repeat the words to me we would get to the letter M and he would yell out "Emmie!" (His favorite little cousin that is 1 month older than him). Now I catch him singing the ABC song all the time, he won't sing it with me so it's fun to hear him singing it on his own. He pretty much says all of the letters now, such a smart little guy. If he takes time to count he can go to 10, but most of the time I hear him say 1, 2, 3, 4, 9! When he was little we couldn't get him to say 1, he would just say 2, 2, 3! 

Ok, one more thing he has finally figured out what it means to whisper, just this week he has started whispering to me when Jed is asleep and it is the cutest thing. It's good for me to recount all the fun little things happening in the boys lives right now because this has been a trying time for me especially- it has been an adjustment and lets face it, two children under the age of two is hard work. Ollie isn't really helpful yet, they are both dependent on me and sometimes it is hard to choose which one to take care of first when both of them are crying! I don't write any of these posts to pretend that I am a perfect Mom or that life is not full of it's own little challenges but to savor the moments that make it all more than worth it! Closing off with a few more of Jed's big smiles...

Eight Weeks Old- Baby Jed

Hard to believe that this little guy is already eight weeks old! It is already hard to remember life without him. His smiles are getting bigger and he is dishing them out more often. We celebrated 8 weeks by doing a photo shoot together and he lit it up! Could not get enough of his sweetness. We started taking pictures at 10:23 am and by 1:00pm and 429 pictures later... here are some of my favorites (we did take breaks to eat and take naps haha!)

Ollie of course wanted in on the action...

And he was not happy that Jed had his little volleyball!

When I finally put the camera down I got us all ready for Jed's 2 month drs appt. Poor little guy was all smiles all morning long and was so sweet even at the doctors office that I hated taking him knowing he was going to be getting shots!

He weighed in at 11lbs 13oz (62nd percentile), his height is 23" (61st percentile), and his head circumference is 39cm (46th percentile). He's right on track developmentally and couldn't be more perfect! And then came the shots... 

Poor guy- he did cry but surprisingly he only cried for a second and then he was fine again. He never got the big crocodile tears Ollie got when he had his first round of shots. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, in the hospital when they took the blood from his heels he didn't even make a peep- already such a tough guy! 

He saved some good cries up for the night, I think all those shots made him miserable. And believe it or not I had to take one more set of pictures- the ones with his teddy bear. He dished out a few smiles but then he was done!

At least he got some cute band-aids out of it!

Happy 8 weeks little man!

Memorable Weekend!

We've been dying to see Jessica again for lots of reason! For one we miss her, life is crazy for both of us right now and it has been hard to catch up so we really were excited to finally have some time together. We were excited for her to see Ollie, to meet baby Jed for the first time and to meet Sarah! So it was a big trip this time. I didn't do a great job of planning everything out, I had lots of ideas but this was a shorter trip this time and in the end we all needed a bit of relaxation and down time just as much as we needed to get out so a lot of ideas got pushed to the side but just being together was fun for me.

Jess flew in on Friday, since I was still working on the house and Ollie was asleep Matt and Jed went to pick her up. She got to the house just as Ollie was waking up. It was the cutest thing to see her sneak in to surprise him. Before Ollie went down for his nap we were talking about how he was going to get to see her and he got upset because he wanted to see her right then. I tried to explain that we couldn't go outside and see her because she was in the airplane, that didn't help because then he wanted to go see the airplane! After we all got ready we headed out for some lunch. I wish I could ever be more original but we ended up at Joe's BBQ again. We've pretty much gone every time since the very first time she came down, but what can I say you can't get BBQ like that or the stuffed baker in Utah so it never disappoints! Ollie had no interest in sitting down and eating with us. He ran around everywhere! He of course found some new "friends" to chat with, and then there was a roped off area because they are growing their winter grass, but all that did was make it more exciting for Ollie. He loved the attention he got from us when he would pull on (and down!) the caution tape, or make a run through the grass. He gets that little twinkle in his eye because he knows he is being naughty and as soon as you stand up to do something about it he runs off as fast as he can laughing because now you have to chase him!

I don't know where his obsession with tractors came from but as soon as he saw the tractor in the restaurant he got excited. He had Jess take him in see it and I laughed when she came out the door with him and he ran right back to the door they went in to see the tractor, he couldn't get enough of it!

One of my favorite moments was when Jess laid down on a bench and after seeing her lay down Ollie suddenly wanted to copy her and insisted on laying down on the table. He got a little crazy after that jumping off the table onto her while she was laying there. Silly guy!

Ollie had fun introducing Jess to his little brother :)

After Joe's we headed back home to relax for a few hours, I think we all fell asleep! Sarah came over after work, it was fun having the two people that mean the world to me meet for the first time. I had big plans for us to get our family pictures done on Saturday so since we were all together we went on a little shopping excursion. I had Jess pick out some clothes and get Ollie all ready for our night out- so cute!

I really had no idea what I wanted all of us to wear, but Jess and Sarah helped us settle on a color pallet and then we all set out to find something in those colors. I started with Matt, he's always fun to dress up and if he doesn't get his shopping done first he is pretty much miserable. He was a good sport as always, Ollie on the other hand was a hand full. He was all over the place and had no interest in staying in the cart. I finally had to bribe him with food. While I was picking out clothes for Matt, Jess and Sarah loaded up their cart and we all met at the dressing room. Luckily Jed stayed asleep while I got to help Matt and give the girls my opinion. So fun to have girls to shop with! I loved it that they found matching jackets too. 

Once we had outfits for Matt, Jess, and Sarah we sent Matt, Jess and Ollie off to get food while we worked on an outfit for me and Jed. I already had the perfect outfit for Ollie at home, he hasn't worn it yet so I was excited to finally have an excuse to bust it out. When we got to the baby clothes we literally had one choice for Jed in his size, and luckily it was a cute outfit that was practically perfect! It was a tad bit big on him but when you only have one choice you go for it! I was lucky to have Sarah with me because he was poopy at that point so not only was she nice enough to run out and get the diaper bag, but she offered to change him while I got my shopping done. We had 10 minutes left before the store closed but they still let me try on my outfits. It was so sweet too because the ladies at the dressing room were all interested in our story and were so excited for all of us. One lady insisted that we had to bring our family pictures in to show them. In the end we were the last ones out of the store, and it was 30 minutes past closing when we finally got checked out. I guess there was some commotion going on because a 400lb guy tried to run out of the store with stuff and he got chased down by the police so the police were in there when we were checking out and we got to hear the story. We made two stops on the way home, one for a belt for me, and the other because Matt requested gelato- we made him settle for some McDonalds icecream.

Saturday- We were supposed to meet Jodee at 9am for pictures so I got up at 6am to start getting us all ready. Luckily the boys slept so I could shower and work on my hair. Matt on the other hand left to go play basketball. We made it to the pictures, but not on time, I tried so hard to be there on time but...what can I ever say? It was fun getting pictures with everyone, we actually took them in some trees right next to the football fields where Micah and Boone were playing. I loved the spot it was actually kind of swampy and even though Matt initially opposed it, I drug a chair from our bedroom down there. Ollie surprised me and was not so cooperative, we ended up bribing him with candy for smiles so we'll see how those turn out, he may have candy hanging out of his mouth! And then there was Jed, not the best time for him to have pictures he wanted to cry instead of smile. So it was both fun and a bit exhausting- our first photo shoot where I am worried if there will be any where both boys look happy, and my arms felt like I had done a ton of pull ups because of the way I was trying to hold Jed out in front of me for so long. Good times!

After pictures we went to Kneaders for some deliciousness. I got to chase Ollie around outside because he wasn't interested in staying in the booth, but Jess was nice enough to trade off with me on watching him so I could eat too. We probably got back to the house around 1 or 2 and all of us crashed! We finally got up and out again around 6ish. Matt had volunteered to work a booth at the stake fair well before I ever booked Jess' flight so we made a stop at the fair. Grabbed some food, talked to some friends, took Ollie to some booths, got a thousand stickers in the tires of the stroller! They let Matt off the hook so after we let Ollie pet some animals we got out of there!

Me and my favorite girls in their matchy jackets (we all have matching bracelets too!)

We headed to Tamari's after that for some sushi, but by the time we got there it was packed and we weren't down with waiting for 40 minutes to get in. The boys were both asleep so rather than disrupt them we opted to do take out and exhausted we all fell asleep early.

Sunday we got to hang out a bit with Jess. Ollie had fun jumping all over her bed and all over her, love his silly little giggles and the things that make him laugh! After that we headed to Nick and Natalie's ward for Trace Bubba's baby blessing. Nick, Jodee, and Dad all got up and shared their testimonies. I have to admit that tears were flowing. Such a big day for our family! It's kind of funny how Jess inevitably comes when there is some big event for the family going on. I love it that she gets to see everyone and that they are always excited to see her. Ollie was not the easiest during sacrament meeting. Lilee came and sat next to him and those two were giggling so much we had to separate them, as soon as we did Ollie looked around for her and was so confused why she was gone. When he spotted her he started yelling out "Lilee! Come back!" while he pointed at the empty chair next to him. When grandpa got up to share his testimony Ollie stood up on his chair and was so excited to see him that he yelled out "Hi grandpa!" and started waving at him. That wasn't enough for him, he wanted to go see him and was upset that we were stopping him. That's when we had to take him out. 

After church we headed to Nick and Natalie's for lunch. Marcee and I had put together games for Halloween night for the kids that we never got to play so we brought some entertainment with us for all the kiddos. Fun times! After that we headed home. We all hung out for a while before going to bed. How did the weekend go so fast?? Jess flew home Monday morning and we miss her already!