Evie- 5 months

5 months old already! We've had a lot going on over the past month. Evie can now roll from tummy to back as well as back to tummy.  I've only seen her go tummy to back a few times, and she usually gets "stuck" on her belly and will fuss until I come help her. She's great at scootching across her baby mat and rolling herself off the mat and even the carpet sometimes. She spends some time in her bumbo seat now and has started to get in her johnny jump up in the doorway! We've got to get her exer-saucer out of the attic and put up some of the baby seats that she is outgrowing. We still aren't back to sleeping through the night. She gets up twice most nights...around 1 and around 4.  Usually at the 4 am feeding, I just put her in bed with us so I can nurse her lying down. She is still the most smiley baby ever! Even when she gets fussy she has a hard time not smiling. She is so content to just hang out in your lap. We spent hours bouncing Sullivan, so this is very different. Napping at home has gotten more difficult. Sometimes I can get her to nap in her swing, but most days she wants to fall asleep nursing and just nap in my lap. 

Evie is working on lots of new sounds and does lots of "talking" first thing in the morning.  Sullivan comes in and wakes us all up most mornings, but it's so sweet to listen to them talk to each other. Sullivan will mimic any sound she makes and they'll just keep going back and forth. They sure love each other. 

Evie has held her bottle several times over the last month or so. She can also usually pick up her pacifier and eventually get it in her mouth. She doesn't go to bed with a paci, but I'm starting to think I should leave one in there for her. Wishful thinking that she will go for that over nursing, but might be worth a shot!

We tried rice cereal mixed with breastmilk twice, and she HATED it. I read in Sullivan's baby book that he liked it, so score 1 for Sullivan in the rice cereal column. Evie still hasn't had formula, so maybe she just doesn't like the different taste. I don't really see the point of rice cereal anyway, so we may just wait and go straight to other baby foods when she acts ready. She currently nurses at 6 am, 8 am, has 3 to 4, 4oz bottles at daycare, nurses at 6:30 for about an hour, goes to bed, nurses sometimes at 1 am, and then again at 3 or 4 am. Pumping still sux, but making it. Evie is teething, well, chewing and drooling- no teeth yet. Unfortunately, she has started to chomp down and pull on me, and that is NOT fun. 

On May 25th, we had Evie's Christening at O-U Methodist Church. The service was very special and Evie did great! Sullivan helped walk her down the aisle with the preacher, Warren Black, and was a great big brother during the ceremony. We had family and some friends come have lunch after the service. I didn't get any pictures, so thankful that the church took this top photo of us!

On Memorial Day, we took Evie for her first swim in the same pool where Sullivan had his first swim! She and Luke are only days apart, and it was fun that they both got to have their first swim together. It was a lovely and relaxing day.  Sullivan went to the cabin and then to Mobile with his cousins for the week.

Speaking of Sullivan, he had a very rough last 2 weeks of school, but has been much better in the few days since. Maybe he did just need a break from all the rules and structure for a bit. We met with his teachers and they said a lot of his frustration comes from other kids not knowing what he knows. He gets mad at them when they keep asking questions or don't get something. The teachers even let him "teach" one day. It definitely gave us a new perspective on his behavior at school. Not really sure how to overcome it, but something to think on. He had a perfect score on the last round of his assessment tests. He already knows everything plus some that the schools show as the goals by the end of 5k. I can't homeschool him, but I don't know how to keep him from getting bored and to keep him moving forward. 

The last picture above is from the Mother's Day party at his school. I don't know if you can see the "All About Mom" sheet, but he got me pretty good! I love all of his art projects! 

The photo with the little girl is from when our friends from California came for a visit. They used to work with us and live in our neighborhood. Sullivan and Madylan are just 3 weeks apart and had a great time playing while the grown ups caught up.  He has asked several times when they are coming back, so I think a family trip to Cali is in order in the future! 

The top photo of him holding his "sign" on his last day of 3k. He wrote "Willie Price May 22, 2014" and then drew a picture of all of us. He read the first half of "Go, Dog, Go!" to me in bed the other night. he gets frustrated if he can't sound out a word, so I have to keep things light and encourage him to keep trying. It amazes me he can read books to  me. 

The house has been oddly quiet without him here this week. It really made Daniel and me realize how much time we spend getting on to him or nagging him. We are vowing to do better when he gets home. He's only 4 and we need to give him a break sometimes. Maybe... We are heading to Mobile to get him this weekend, and I will be so happy to get a hug from my sweet boy.  He's been having so much fun, he hasn't even wanted to call or facetime with us. I'm so glad he's getting to spend quality time with his cousins!

Evie 4 months

I feel very unorganized, so this post will be a bunch of photos and random bits and pieces! Evie had a busy time between month 3 and month 4!  She attended her first Easter Egg hunts (3!), we traveled to Cleveland for Easter, and had our first fever.

Evie started truly sleeping through the night in early April, and it was glorious!  Notice I said "was". She was sleeping straight through from about 7:30 pm until 6:30 am!!! Unfortunately, she and Sullivan got a cold or virus the Sunday after Easter and that sleep went out the window! Part of the problem was the need to suction her nose several times during the night.  We have just, this week, started to get back on a better schedule.  I think we may have had a bit of a growth spurt during this same time period.  She's now just getting up once a night and my milk is crazy, so that's my assumption.  I've actually put her in her crib in her own bedroom.  She was just getting too long for the cradle in our room and would knock her hands on the side or turn totally sideways with her feet going up the side. :) 

Sick kids entertaining each other.

At her 4 month appointment (which was actually 4 1/2 months), she weighed in at 14lb 13 oz (that's up 7 lbs since birth!) and was 25 inches long. She has moved from 59% to 73% in height and 76% to 71% in weight. I need to look back and see how that compares to Sullivan's height and weight. She seems so long to me! I have to wrap her around me when I feed her in most of the chairs in our house. 

at work with Mommy!

Evie rolled over for the first time the day she turned 4 months! She had been so close up to that point, but never could get that arm out from under her until that day.  I still haven't managed to get it on camera. I watch and watch with the camera ready, but as soon as I walk away, she does it! She loves to lay on her mat and pull on all of her toys and shake them around. She grabs her feet all the time these days which makes changing her diaper challenging! She no longer says "gee" when she's hungry and instead does a cry with a snort. My little piggy! She is still making lots of long, hard g sounds, so we practice saying words like "gggooood", "ggggracious", etc. She is so happy and chill. In the mornings after she eats, she just looks up at me and grins and coos. It's adorable. Her night routine involves her nursing for about an hour straight, but then she's so knocked out I just put her in bed.  On the nights where we messed with this practice, we struggled to get her down for hours! She wants a really full belly before bed time.  We left both kids with a sitter for the first time recently, and I really don't know how she got Evie to sleep. Lots of milk I guess and probably some crying. I'm sure Evie was all, "WTH? I have to cry?". I don't know if it's because she's the baby or a girl or our last, or just so dang sweet, but we may be a good bit softer on her than we were on her brother!

twinkies!

modeling her first pair of jeans and the panda shirt from her cousins!

Speaking of brother, Sullivan has less than a week of school left! This week has been a really bad one as far as behavior is concerned.  I haven't read too much from the book I mentioned last post, but I haven't found a link yet. Maybe it's just a phase. He has been asking to drink out of sippy cups, and try rice cereal, and get swaddled like a baby....He shows no signs of jealousy or aggression towards Evie though. He thinks she hung the moon.  I'm hoping the break this summer will be good for him. Got to be hard to be constantly told what to do and to always end up with negative feedback at the end of the day. :( He's a great kid and so freaking smart. He still doesn't eat much variety, but recently tried and like lasagna! He would probably eat alfredo or a pb&j every night if we let him. The only vegetable he'll eat is carrot sticks with ranch and tomato sauce (spaghetti, pizza). He still eats lots of fruit, but wasn't fooled by my smoothy that contained spinach. I'm going to have to find a smoothy recipe that he likes and doesn't contain tiny flecks of green!!! 

My sweet boy. This is him 99% of the time!

Mother of two, keeping it real.

I realize that most of my posts skim over the bad and focus on the good. It's not to try and project some perfect family image, but rather, it's much harder to discuss the hard stuff, and who wants to read a debbie downer post?  Well, if you don't, it's time to move on from today's post.

Being a mother is hard, being a mother of two is harder. I can't even imagine how people with more than two do it. Or single parents. Each day seems to be filled with the constant struggle to stay on schedule. Must get up before baby wants to eat to shower, feed baby, finished getting dressed, feed dog, get Sullivan eating breakfast and getting dressed, make bottles, feed baby again before running out the door to make school drop off for Sullivan. Read between those lines: keeping Sullivan focused on his tasks, dealing with whining, getting spit up on right after getting dressed, etc, etc...When we get home from work and school, usually around 5:45 or 6:00, we begin again. Rush to get some sort of dinner on the table, bath kids, feed baby (for like an hour cause she likes to fill up before bed), read to Sullivan and try and get him lights off by 8pm, get Evie down for the night. Rinse and repeat, Monday through Friday. It's exhausting and I'm so thankful Evie is a good sleeper or I'm not sure I would make it!

When is our quality time in between the rushing and the schedules and the have to dos? I can remember struggling with this with Sullivan when he was a baby. I guess we save it for the weekend, but that doesn't seem like enough. Even our weekends are filled with things to accomplish and places to be. I mention this because Sullivan has been having some rough days at school (and sometimes at home). Some days he's great and some days, the teacher is calling me by 10 am because he's not following directions, hitting, having meltdowns.  He is very sensitive and gets his feelings hurt very easily. He is also a perfectionist. If he can't do something perfectly the first time, he gets upset and is very hard on himself.   We are trying to emphasize using words to express how we are feeling rather than acting out, but it's a hard lesson to teach and to practice. Because it seems to be one extreme or the other, I've been wondering if it's possibly tied to foods he eats.  I'm about to read this book to see if I can find any correlation.  We've definitely seen him go crazy after red40, so I already try to keep him away from that.  I try and limit sugar exposure as well, but sugar is hiding in all kinds of places. With a picky eater, finding healthy foods he will eat is a daily struggle.

I feel so much guilt about what Sullivan is going through. He is so freaking smart and he's a leader and very independent, but it kills me when his teacher calls about his behavior.What did we do wrong? How do we give him the tools he needs to handle his emotions in a positive way? Would he be having these bad days if I had stayed home with him more or if I had time to cook home made healthy meals every night? I know every parent feels guilt about one thing or another, but dang, it sux. I've read other books and lots of articles on parenting to try and be more proactive, but so far I haven't found the magic key. Maybe it's just a phase (granted, a long phase). I'm willing to do whatever I need to help him, if someone could just tell me what that is!

I'm also struggling with the guilt around breastfeeding. I know, I know. She would be fine on formula, but I have this desire to exclusively breastfeed her as long as I can. 1. Evie is our last child, and I want to cherish this time because it will be over in a flash, 2. I really believe it's better for her, 3. it saves us a ton of money to not buy formula. But it is freaking hard to keep up while working full time. Finding time to go pump 3 times a day at work and crossing my fingers I get enough to make the bottles for the next day is stressful. I'm lucky to have a nice set up at work to be able to go pump 3 times a day. Now I just need a cheerleader to help me remember that I can do it and my body can produce enough milk for her and it's worth it! Go boobies!

My poor husband gets almost no attention since I go to bed about 30 minutes after the kids most nights. I know this too will pass, but I need a vent day.

Evie - 3 months

February 27th to March 27th

I haven't gotten the photos from my camera for the 3 month post, but have plenty from my phone to share! Evie had a busy month! She is still sleeping great, although the transition to daycare messed us up for a few days.  She usually goes down about 8 pm, gets a dream feed at 11 or so from Daniel, gets up at 4 am for me to feed her, then goes back to sleep until 7 or so.

She's in size 2 diapers, but will probably be moving up to 3 soon. She is the happiest baby! Smiles constantly and only fusses if Mom is too slow to feed her or put her to bed.

She's really started to coo and giggle this month.  She's making some hard 'G' sounds and stills says "gee" when she's hungry. She loves Inky the Octopus from her floor mat just like Sullivan did.  She'll grin and giggle and talk to Inky when she's on her mat.

She's starting to grasp the toys that hang above her and is reaching for her feet more.  She also plays with her hands as the second picture below illustrates.  She just seems like such a little lady when she keeps clasping her hands together.  It makes me smile.

Over the last month, we made our first trip to the Coast for Mardi Gras!  Mardi Gras was cold and rainy this year, so Evie and I spent most of the day in the house.  It was great to see family and eat wonderful food! The whole family passed the stomach virus around the weekend prior to and the weekend following our trip. Not fun.

Evie started her daycare on the 19th.  I tried really hard not to cry, but I did anyway.  After almost 3 months at home with her, it was so hard to hand her over to someone else.  She did great, but I was a sappy mess.  She's done really well there, and I know she's well take care of, but I sure love picking her up and seeing those sweet smiles at the end of the day. 

I took the kids over to my grandparents on one of my last days of maternity leave. We all went out to lunch and had a nice long visit.  I'm so lucky to live so close to them, and love that my kids are getting to know their great-grandparents.

Sullivan has been doing pretty good. We have good days and bad days at school.  He thinks he knows everything (wonder where he gets it) and wants to be the boss of everyone.  I have only myself to blame. :) He LOVES his sister. Seriously. One night as we were laying in bed saying prayers and stuff, he said, " Mom, I just really love Evie." Melted my heart. He's a great big brother.  I hope he's always as loving and protective as he is now. He has also decided he's going to go find and marry Elsa from Frozen. He loves the movie Frozen and plans to go live in her castle with her unless she has already married someone else. He's doing great in soccer!

Evie's first Taylor Grocery visit.

My little soccer star.

Evie- 2 months

What has been going on from January 27th to February 27th? Thank goodness for timestamps or I would have no idea!  Evie had her first "sleep through the night" on February 6th.  I think she slept a 6 hour stretch. Daniel did a dream feed at 10 pm and she didn't wake to eat again until 4 am!  Other than a few nights, this has been her sleep schedule since!  After Sullivan was such a terrible sleeper, I never thought I'd have such a good sleeper by 6 weeks old!  I think the dream feeds make all the difference, so thank you Lisa for letting me in on that secret!  Evie is so happy and laid back.  I am very blessed.  She gives the best grins, especially first thing in the morning when she wakes up!  Evie still eats about every 2 hours during the day.  Since she sleeps great at night, I don't mind a bit!  She's still only breastfed.  She's still in the Rogers cradle in our room at night, but mainly naps in her Nap Nanny seat during the day. We had her 2 month appointment on March 10th and she weighed 12 lb 6 oz!  She's 23 inches long. She had a stomach bug the day of her appointment so no shots yet.  

Daniel's dad and step mom came for a visit in early February to meet Evie.  I don't have any photos on this camera, so will have to get some uploaded from elsewhere. It snowed while they were here, although it was just a light dusting and was gone quickly. 

At 5 weeks old, we went to my cousin's wedding in Guntown.  I had hoped to get a family photo since the four of us were dressed up, but it didn't happen. I have some proof below that we did actually get showered and out of the house!  We all went to my grandparents after the wedding for dinner.

Here is our first official family of four photo (selfie).

In the Rogers family cradle looking at her Cradle Cross from O-U Methodist Womens Group

During February, Evie made her first trip to Cleveland to visit Bebe and Fred Daddy. It was my first solo trip with both kids, but it went pretty good. I did miss having Daniel to do the dream feeding at night while I slept! The weather was warm and beautiful for most of our trip, so we got to get out of the house!

On the deck with Bebe in Cleveland

At the Train Museum with Sullivan in Cleveland. 

As you can see below, Sullivan LOVES his baby sister.  He wants to kiss and hug her and tell her he loves her all day.  Sometimes his love can be very "intense". :) He is a wonderful helper!

We've been getting outside or going for a stroll every chance we get.  Unfortunately, there haven't been too many days to do so.