Growing Boys!

Well, hey there. This won't be long:) I just wanted to do an update since I took the boys to the doctor today. Let's see, over the weekend we didn't do much...Collin wasn't feeling well. First fever and runny nose of the season. In March. Not too bad. Ayden had a growth spurt and was attached to me for a few days...uff da. We watched a couple movies - Big Hero 6 is awesome!

Kate keeps wanting to hold Ayden "without the Boppy"
She is starting to move him around and hold him up more...I can't wait until he can hold his head up better!

Oh, I wanted to mention that I have started using essential oils, Young Living essential oils to be exact and though I am not "selling" them or starting a business with it, if you are interested in using oils or trying to live a healthier life in this natural and really lovely-smelling way - let me know! We love to diffuse different oils in the house and have applied them directly, mixed in with coconut oil (and applied to skin), etc. I am just getting started and am eager to learn more and use them more often. If you want to try any oils or order any, let me know I can get you some and/or sign you up! Okay, enough of that.

We love them!

This morning, along with the snow/ice, came doctor appointments for both boys. We coordinated Ayden's 6 week check with Collin's two year check. I asked if Dave had a late start in the OR so I could have a little help and he was actually able to switch cases around and take Kate into school for me. Wow, that doesn't happen too often! 

These boys!

It helped a lot and I was able to shower and get the boys out the door on time! It also helped greatly that Ayden just woke up once in the night at 2:45 a.m. (yes, you read that right:) and Collin was up just once briefly. Boo - but it is better than when he was running that fever over the weekend, we were up WAY more often with him then. Our pediatrician sees patients at three different clinic locations and on Tuesdays he is in New Lisbon. The last time I took them in, it was in Necedah. I almost drove to the wrong town this morning, caught myself just in time. Guaranteed, that will happen to me sometime. Stay tuned...

I just love our doc and his nurse (okay, Dr. Plamann is also our good friend, Ryan:) and the gal at the reception desk is even super nice these days so that helps. They dote on the kids and are so helpful. Collin started out not wanting to stand on the scale and I thought...oh no, he's going to start hating all of this and make it super hard for me to get him through the appointment! But we started with Ayden and then Collin jumped right in (I had to pretend the scale was a truck to get him to stay on it, but alright!) Ayden just laid down on the exam table on a warm blanket and was content the whole time (we had a hand on him the whole time!) Collin went to town unloading our diaper bag (note to self..need to rearrange or get a different bag. He is way too good at taking out things he shouldn't. Do they have bags with locks on them?) 

The boys

Collin stood still and let Laurie (the nurse) and Ryan do whatever they needed to do. At two, Collin is 35 inches tall and weighs 26.9 pounds. I think he said that he is still in the 75thish percentile for height and 50thish percentile for weight. I might need to look that up. But he is growing well. His vocabulary exploded recently and he is putting two words together regularly, so that is right where he should be. No shots at two years (thank the good Lord, not sure I would have wanted to deal with shots for both boys in the same appointment by myself) but Ryan does do a blood test at age 2 and so we'll see if we can get that done soon (I said no to doing it today!). 

Ayden was such a trooper, I was so happy! Just looked around the whole time and didn't mind anything. He is 24.5 inches long and weighed 13 pounds 2 oz! Of course the measurements can be off, but these boys didn't give them any grief when measuring, so it has to be close. It puts him in 90th percentile for weight (never had one that high before) and "off the charts" on height! The little dot was way over the lines on the graph. Ryan said he is as long as a 4 month old. Well, okay. Guess that was a growth spurt we just had, huh? Stop growing so fast! I honestly cannot believe he is getting that much milk with how much he spits up, but okay, the numbers don't lie:) He had three shots today plus the oral rotovirus stuff:( He loved the oral meds, after the first shot he got so red and wouldn't take a breath:( Even the nurse stopped and waited for him to start crying/breathing again before doing the next two. But after that initial shock, he was better. He stopped crying before I even sat down to nurse him. He spent the whole rest of the day sleeping and smiling!

Such a smiley guy today (asleep and awake:)

Collin has lately been even sweeter and will take both your cheeks in his hands and he gives you a kiss. Dave said he did it last night, but I had never received one until today:) So, flippin cute. And of course, it is not just once, he keeps coming in for a "tiss," "tiss!" He also gives Ayden lots of "tisses" and prefers to be about 4 millimeters from Ayden's face. Great timing with his virus he's got! Super cute, can't wait to see their relationship develop in the next few years as we've watched Kate and Collin. We are starting to work at getting him interested in the potty again. He was doing so well at Christmas, but has fallen off lately. So, we'll see how this goes! 

"Hold, hold!" 

"Hi, Ayden!"

I think I have referred to Ayden as Collin about 90% of his 6 week life. Good grief! I cannot say the right name. I remember giving my Dad a lot of crap about mixing us up....sorry, Dad! 

Coming up...Dave's folks are coming up to visit this weekend and next week! Dave is on call for the weekend and works during the week, but hopefully he isn't stuck at work too much and we can have some good time at home. I can't believe it is March but I will certainly take it! Kate keeps saying that God and Jesus forgot that March is spring:) 

Okay, that is all for now! Oh, here is the link to our February album, many of these end up in the blog, so there may not be a whole lot of new ones...(I had captions on them, but they disappeared...ugh)
https://plus.google.com/photos/101621614710195723652/albums/6113912184079126721?authkey=CPqRzJyV0sLP4gE

Collin David is TWO!!

Who can believe it is the end of February?! Yup, that's what I thought:) It has certainly gone fast for us. I have been referring to Collin as "almost 2" a lot lately, so his birthday didn't necessarily sneak up on me, but...:) 

Here's a little bit about Mr. Collin these days...

What we hear every day:
"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom......"

"All aboard!"   "Choo, choo!" 

When we see Daddy's suburban in the drive way - "Daddy HOME!!!!"

When he drops something "Oh, man!" 

He is such a clown. Has a lot of faces/grins. He's a charmer and of course has that grin when he is being mischievous which almost makes you forget what he is doing. He loves trains (we don't watch Thomas) but is pretty obsessed with anything train related. There is a place not far from here where you can ride a real train for a little scenic tour and we definitely need to do this soon! He also pretends he is a fire fighter a lot. (when he puts the Halloween bucket on his head, he is pretending to be a firefighter:) Maybe that will be a family tradition that continues...

Dressing up - what a goon:)

Train book that makes sound - he's in heaven

He is our child with a sweet tooth and is currently on an eating strike. Both kids actually, they are not eating much of their meals though still mysteriously love their snacks. Awesome. Can I stop preparing lunch and dinner? 

He loves to color/do art just like his sister and is no longer in danger of trying to eat any of the craft supplies, but is definitely guilty of using crayons, etc. on things he shouldn't. Kate was really good in this area. I believe there were two instances where she very briefly used a highlighter or something to draw on a wall/log:) We didn't really worry about it. But now I'm finding all kinds of books and things with Collin's artwork on them:( (just looked over and Collin is drawing on his hand with a pen...)

He is gaining more words each day. I'm trying to get him to string two words together more often and in the last two weeks that has really blossomed. He is very polite, as Kate was when learning to speak, with lots of please and thank yous.

He just had a growth spurt, I think his size six shoes are small now! He needs longer pants, 24 months work pretty well for length but are too big in the waist. He jumped up to almost needing a 2T in his tops. I swear I just started putting him in 24 months tops after Christmas. Good grief! 

The big kids at Kate's school (Kate painted the top left picture in art class)

He loves to go to the doctor with Mommy and Ayden. He wants them to do everything to him too. He gets on the scale, wants them to listen to his heart, wants to sit on the table, etc. This is the OPPOSITE of Kate at this age!

He is sleeping much better. He sometimes still gets up early in the morning and we give him some water/a pouch or just have to rub his back and tell him it isn't time to get up.. and I think he is going to have nightmares/night terrors as Kate did (and I did at that age). Sometimes I can't seem to wake him, he is kind of frantic. I HATE it. But my big, big worry of having a baby and dealing with a newborn night schedule and Collin's night antics has not come to fruition. It is very manageable (and Dave is good about going up to see Collin. If I can wake him up to do it:) 

Best Buddies

He wants to do everything his sister does. Everything. EVERYTHING. If she puts on shoes or boots. He has to. If she puts a hat on, he has to put a hat on. He will even jump in and repeat what she says, usually just saying the last word of her sentence. It makes for a quite the dramatic emphasis.

Example:
Kate: "Mom, I just need to put on these shoes. If I run around, I'll slip on the floor. I need shoes."
Collin: "Shoes!"

Kate"Mom, I'm hungry, I need a snack!"
Collin: "Snack!"

Kate: "I'm drawing a rainbow. and Clouds. Clouds have to be blue."
Collin: "Blue!"

He had showed some signs of wanting to potty train around Christmas and had gone on the the potty a couple times, but we haven't successfully done that in awhile. If Kate goes to the bathroom, he runs in there too. Sometimes shrugging his pants down:) But he doesn't want to sit on the toilet (we got those toilet seat covers that have a smaller "regular" seat attached...we like them, I'm not sure Collin does. I was in no rush to potty train him. But wrangling him on the changing table is no bueno. I think we should start working towards potty training. I think Dave should work with him towards potty training:) 

Collin loves to sing. Again, just like his sis. We have a CD in the car that we listen to and I swear he knows all of them. His favorite tunes to sing are Twinkle, Twinkle, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Old MacDonald and ABCs. He gets really mad when the sun is in his eyes. "Mom. Mom. Mom! Shunshine..eyes! Shunshine, no!" 

Asleep in the car. He loves having his sunglasses on

Some light reading with sissy

His favorite foods are: pouches (baby food pouches), crackers (many kinds), goldfish, cheese sticks, berries, cereal. He likes a lot of meat and used to eat most meals I made. He is rebelling a bit now. He used to eat yogurt and cottage cheese every day, but now not as much. His love of salads is also a bit more sporadic, but he LOVED caesar salads:) 

He has had two hair cuts so far (the same as Kate!), a thing he and Daddy do together. He LOVES going outside and gets upset if someone goes out the door and he can't go too. This cold, cold weather has been rather difficult for him:) He loves big trucks and machinery. There are a number houses being built in our neighborhood and I can't wait for the spring when we can go for walks and watch the big trucks. 

For Collin's birthday, we had a very low-key and easy birthday celebration. Gma Merl & Gpa Wally and Andrew and Kylie came up for it and my plan was to open gifts on Saturday and just order pizza and have ice cream for dessert. I am not a big party planner and I take full advantage of the fact that little, little ones will have no memory of the event:) I'm sure the requests will start soon for Kate and the bar will be set high with her school friends, etc. I'm saving my energy for those days! 

Gpa & Ayden

They're matching!

Friday night, everyone arrived we just visited and stayed up until 12:45 a.m.! What were we thinking! Good times:) Collin was such a clown when Andrew and Kylie showed up. He does this thing where he essentially does the Downward Dog pose to greet you. Then he was picking up things and just chucking them onto the ground. It was funny, but I was trying not to laugh:) Saturday was a lazy day, we had a very small cake after nap, opened gifts (so many!), played with a couple balloons and then had pizza and ice cream and watched Monsters, Inc. Sunday was another lazy day with yoga (for Gma and me), play dough, lots of dress up and making a cake for Gpa Wally. 

Birthday breakfast of strawberries and donut holes:)

He was ready to blow out the candle, but it took a number of tries:)

Birthday boys!

It was sort of a parade after he opened gifts:)

Checking in with his brother

He received so many wonderful gifts! From Dave and I (and Kate:) he got a train engineer and fire fighter dress up set, LeapFrog computer and a Mickey Mouse DVD. From Gpa Wally & Gma Merl he received The Little Engine That Could board book, his first baseball glove/ball and another bug for our...bug thing (hard to explain:). Andrew and Kylie gave him some truck pjs a John Deere tool box with tools and a sit and spin! Tara, Tony & Quinn sent a basketball and a special book for boys. Gma Bobbi and Gpa Ron sent him some new Crocs and a raincoat/boots (the yellow boots are ridiculously perfect with his dress up!) The gifts that didn't make it to us by Saturday...Melissa & Doug Fishing Pole Set from Elizabeth & Guy and personalized books and a Brooklyn onesie:) from Laurie!

Watching a movie

Family picture! First one since the hospital? 

Ha ha!!.....a pic of me and my baby

Gma & Gpa and the kiddos

Collin is a great big brother so far. He has been getting more and more interested in Ayden and likes to come up to him and say, "Awwww. Hi Ayden" "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Hi, Ayden" 

I really can't believe Collin is two. He seems older in that he and Kate are attached at the hip and I can barely remember a time when he wasn't here:) but how do I have two boys in the span of two years?!?!?! As I'm nursing and snuggling Ayden I'm trying to remember and reminisce about doing the same with Collin. I remember just feeling like I was falling in love:) and I knew I needed to soak up the time at home with him - my first baby I was able to stay home with from the very beginning! 

Here are the pics for Collin through the years...

Newborn Collin - February 21, 2013

1 year old Collin

2 year old Collin

Ayden Walter at One Month!

Ayden is one month old!! Well, he is five weeks. One week is, you know, a huge amount of time for a babe. And a mom:) So for me, five weeks is way older than one month! His actual one month "bday" fell a little too close to his brother's bday for me to crank this out on time. Here are some pics and deets on our littlest man....

Sleep: He sleeps well! I think the best out of all three! He only wakes up once or twice a night. He has gone a little over six hours giving me about five straight hours of sleep a couple times. That is gold for this mommy! Somewhere between 4-6 a.m. it gets a little harder, he is more restless and gets congested and needs to be upright more to burp, etc. We are swaddling him at night and some naps. He is in the bassinet at night and some daytime naps. I also put him in the swing during the day to sleep. I am actually thinking of trying him up in his nursery soon! 

He takes a couple long naps during the day, I've been able to shower most days and love, love, the nap time. I do put him down 90% of the time so I can get things done. If I am feeling very tired, I will occasionally hold him and nap with him/relax on the couches in the living room:) He (like most babes) loves napping on our chests and still likes to have those hands up near his face if he can. So cute.

Eating: He is the only one out of our three that requires burping many times throughout a feeding. He is still the spit up champion. Uff da.  I'm not sure how many times I feed him through the day...we try to follow EASY (eat, activity, sleep, you) but lately, he has been wanting to nurse to doze off, so I want to make sure we get back to falling asleep without eating. 

He still doesn't cry much. If he is crying, he is having a rough diaper changing, is starving or has a bubble that needs to come out. Now. He is definitely holding his head up more and trying to "stand" on our laps. For the first few weeks, he wouldn't straighten his legs out, he liked them curled up, but now he is definitely using those legs! 

His eyes are a deep blue and it is a fun debate to see if he goes the way of Kate or Collin:) He will stare deeply into your eyes or out our big windows. He likes his bath, but likes to just soak and lay there. If you are washing him, not as happy. His siblings just dote on him or ignore him right now. They don't seem mad to share Mama with him, it is a good thing Kate and Collin have each other though. The days that Kate is at school, it is a little harder as Collin definitely wants Mommy more. 

We are just starting to get some smiles! We've enjoyed those sweet sleep smiles since he came home, but now he is smiling while looking at us. Or the fan. Or the light. But they are big, big smiles and of course, it melts you to the core. I hadn't been too focused on smiles or the next milestones for him, just soaking up everything in the moment and trying not to rush anything! But now that it has started a bit, I'm dying for those smiles:) 

He is wearing 3 month clothing, mostly hand me downs from Collin, but a couple new outfits. He will soon be out of those because of his length. He is taking a bottle great and takes quite a bit! I've been gone from 2-4 hours and one of my outings, he took almost 7 ounces!  

Kate even got to feed Ayden! Collin likes to help burp:)

I had envisioned that I would have time to get some good photos of Ayden (and the other kids)...waiting for good light, having help to wrangle and get smiles, look up how to take a good photo:) and get some really nice pics, but that has not happened. In fact, on the day he turned one month, we were doing bedtime and I freaked out cuz I hadn't taken any pics. So in the dark upstairs, I turned on a lamp in Ayden's room and slapped the 1 month sticker on his belly and took some pictures. I know, I know, it doesn't really matter, but in my mind it was about the opposite of what I had intended...(slapping forehead)...oh well. Such is life. (I haven't even played around and edited them yet) Here is the A-man at 1 month!

Good grief, still looking like a yellow baby here...

Full body shot

What a sweetheart

Just Some Pics of the Kids!

I'm planning on doing a "Collin is Two! (and Ayden is 1 month!)"  post soon, but I wanted to share some pics I've taken lately, so this is a little photo update. 

I have also realized that the only pictures of Ayden and I are from the hospital....what?!?! I'm not a big selfie person, or at least, I cut myself out and just take a "selfie" of the kids. And, in an effort to keep this blog rated G, any pics we might dig up need to be censored out during these early breastfeeding days:) but I need to make an effort to get some good pics of me and my littlest love! 

Late on Valentines, we tried to take good pics of the three kids.
Ayden was in the middle of a nap. It went....okay:)

Happy Valentine's Day!

One of the fun onesies from Kylie...#ladiesman :) 

Our mornings usually look something like this...

Kate is reading Ayden a story. One she wrote. It is different every time, so cute.
Oh. And Collin is tackling her. 

My helpers

Some great Duplo fun. Before the tears because Collin broke her princesses staircase...
(I still love building with these things!) 

Kate took a Kids Yoga class in Tomah

Kate and I had a lunch date after her first yoga class.
I really loved this morning/afternoon with her.

This was Kate after our day of fun. She is new to the little booster seat...
not as much support for naps!

Collin and his first remote control car...he loves it!

Helping Mommy make pancakes on the weekend

Ayden usually hates getting into the car seat, it is definitely a time to use the paci.
He'll fall asleep, but there has been more crying than the other kiddos.

Kate was given a new notebook (one of her most favorite things)
She hasn't had it long and it is already decorated like a middle schooler's trapper keeper!
Or whatever kids have these days:)
ps - can you see the bottom heart? She writes Kate, Collin and Ayden on everything. Even on her papers at school.

Kate begs to help set the table and do the dishes. I love it!
And yes, she is wearing a dress and ballet slippers.
Just like I do every day:)

On a whim, I made some homemade playdough (with jello!) and the kids loved it!
I'm a bit surprised how well it all went actually... 

Okay, that is all for now! Just some phone pics. Some big milestones to write about soon...Ayden is already one month old!! and Collin will be two on Saturday! Such big boys:)