Maddie Lou is 5 months old!

Maddie, or Um-daddy as Connor likes to call her, is now 5 months old. How in the world can that be?!? She is still growing like a weed, weighing in at just under 17 pounds (we weighed us both then weighed myself and subtracted the two). She's still in some larger 3 month clothes but mostly 3-6 and 6 month clothes. 6 months are a bit big on her, so she will be in them a little bit longer. She's still in size 2 diapers and wears Target diapers during the day and either Luvs or Pampers at night.

She is eating rice cereal each morning, and 2 ounces of baby food at lunch and dinner. She is up to four 5 ounce bottles of formula each day. She was at 4 ounces at each feeding for the longest time. My girl loves to eat! I'm making her baby food just like I did with Connor. It's not necessarily saving money, but I'm able to put my stored breast milk in it. Not only is she getting fresh fruits and veggies, but she is also getting those extra nutrients that formula just doesn't have.

She is sleeping from 7:45pm and wakes up for good around 8:30am. Sometimes she will fuss some between 5am-7am for a paci. Once I give it to her and turn on her music, she goes right back to sleep. She is still swaddled but is beginning to move around a lot. Once she flips over in her swaddle, I'll unswaddle her. She seems to like the swaddle though.

She can now sit up on her own. Sometimes she gets a little excited and falls over, but she's doing extremely well. She's doing so well that she is sitting in the mini bathtub for her baths. She can roll over from her back to her belly, she just chooses not to. When I put her down on her belly, she rolls over to her back and laughs about it. She thinks she is so sneaky! She can inch around the floor on her back. She loves her personal space, and I don't blame her one bit.

She is playing with a lot of toys, but thinks her feet are the best toy around. When she's sitting up, she plays with them constantly. She laughs all the time now, and we can really get her rolling. It is the cutest thing!

Here are some pictures of her from this morning.

It's hard being a lady sometimes

She has the best big brother in the world

Look! I can sit up all on my own!

She loves her baths... and her toes

Both of my babies at 5 months

It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of year. It always has been. Not only for the spiritual reasons, but also the traditions. As a kid, my mom went all out for Christmas. We collected nutcrackers every year, got a new ornament for the tree each Thanksgiving, went to a tree farm and shopped down the perfect Christmas tree, watched every Christmas movie numerous times, and the list goes on and on. I really want to start our own traditions. It was hard to start something new this year because Maddie is so little, but maybe next year we will go to a tree farm and chop down our own tree.

My mom gave me a few decorations that I loved as a kid. She gave me her Polar Express train and her Rudolph that counts how many days left until Christmas. We let Connor do the bells for the Rudolph and he loves it. He doesn't exactly understand that you only do it once a day, but we keep telling him that it's something you only do one time a day and we will do another one tomorrow. He nods his head like he understands but then points up and says "please!" It's hard to say no, but we just tell him how about we do it tomorrow? He eventually finds something else to do. 

Here are some pictures of the house. It isn't much, but we will find our own thing to do each year. We just haven't found it yet.

Fireplace with our stockings hung

Our mantle

Our Snowman that Connor loves and our tree

This is the Rudolph day-tracker. You take the bell off the day and hang it on his antlers

The Polar Express Train

Our Nativity Scene

Our tree when it's lit

Our Christmas card that's displayed on our mantle

The plate I made for us to put cookies on

Connor is 21 Months old!

My big boy is now 21 months old. How can that be?!? Weighing in at a whole 25 pounds, this boy is an active one.

He has all of his canine teeth and they have been the most bothersome so far. I know they hurt, but we need to find another way of handling his frustration. Right now I'm working on "blowing it out." So far, nothing. But, we will find something that will work.

He knows a few more colors now. He knows red, blue, green, and yellow without any help and, with help, he also knows purple and orange (dare I say those two colors together?!?). He loves coloring. So much that he's colored on the walls and furniture! But, what toddler doesn't do that? Luckily he hasn't done it other than that one time. 

He still uses his words a decent amount. He loves for me to sing to him... not sure why because it's terrible! He loves it when we sing the mail song from Blue's Clues. He wags his tail and then screams MAIIIIIIL at the end. It is absolutely precious. He also likes to sing "Anna" songs from Frozen. He really doesn't care what song I sing, he just knows them as Anna songs. He sings "Let It Go" and he sings "Dooooooooor!" but that's about it. Every time he watches Frozen, he smiles really big when the songs come on. He also likes to sing "Jingle Bells."

He recognizes Santa Claus, but he calls him "Cheeta." I'm not sure how he worded that one, but it's consistent and has been for a few weeks now. He also likes the Snowman, or "Meeman." Sometimes I'm baffled at how he says things. He really likes the Santa Buddies movies on Netflix and he likes "The Polar Express." He calls it the "Cheeta Train."

Believe it or not, we are actually going to start potty training him. Well, attempt to. I think he's ready. He's been showing signs for a few weeks now. He says "Mama! Poop!" before he poops. One night he looked at Cameron as he was getting him dressed for bed and said "Dada! Diaper!" Cameron asked if he wanted him to take off his diaper and he shook his head yes. As soon as Cameron took off his diaper, he peed everywhere. That was when it really hit me that he is probably ready to sit on the potty. The first time I sat him on the potty, he peed within a minute. I thought, "Man, this will be easy." Yeah, not so much. He doesn't ask to go potty, but when I ask him to sit on the potty, about 80% of the time, he will pee in it. Now, he still has wet diapers in between because I forget to put him on the potty regularly. But at least he is actually peeing in the potty. When Cameron has his time off for Christmas, we are going to work on it as a team. We have training pants ready for him. I'm hoping when he feels himself wet, he will understand that sitting on the potty is something he needs to do. If we fail completely, no big deal. We won't know if we don't try.

Here are some pictures of our big boy. He doesn't take pictures when asked so this is all we were able to get tonight.

Maddie is 4 Months Old

I know I say this every month, but it is so hard to believe that my little Maddie girl is already 4 months old. At the doctor today, she weighed in at.... are you ready for it??... a whopping 15 pounds, 12.5 ounces. My little girl is really a BIG girl because she's in the 80th percentile for weight. She is 25 inches tall and that puts her in the 72.5th percentile. So... she's a big girl!! Her pediatrician is not concerned about her weight's percentile being larger than the height's (she prefers babies to be long and lean). Months 4-6 is when their weight is at the heaviest percentile because they aren't super active yet. In hopes of not having her get too heavy for her height, I'm cutting back slightly on her formula intake.

She is eating 25oz of formula each day. She is still doing 5 bottles consistently at 7:30-8am, 11, 2, 5, and 7:15pm. Instead of doing 25 ounces, I'm going to do just 20 ounces. I can't decide if I'm going to do just 4 ounces in her bottles or if I'm going to give her water in a bottle (both are okay to do). She is now on rice cereal once a day. I'm giving it to her while we eat dinner (between 6-6:30). She absolutely loves it. She hardly spits any of it out. In two weeks, I'll give her two bowls of it, one in the morning and the other at night. This is supposed to help with her formula intake too.

She still sleeps well. She goes to sleep on her own around 7:30 each night and wakes up between 7:30 and 8 each morning. She takes 3 quick cat naps during the day and one longer nap (2-3 hours) after her 2:00 bottle. I try to get her to take her longer nap when Connor is napping. More times than not, I'm successful. I usually swaddle her during this nap, but in the swaddle she can escape from. When she wakes up, she frees her arms and stares at her mobile. 

She is in mostly 6 month clothes. Believe it or not, she can still wear some 3 month clothes. A lot of her clothes are shirts and pants or dresses, so she can still wear them. Her footie pajamas are 6 months. She is in size 2 diapers. She wears target brand during the day and either Pampers or Luvs at night. She needs the more absorbent at night because she stays in them for 12+ hours.

She is almost sitting up on her own. The pediatrician was impressed because usually babies don't do that until closer to 7 months. She doesn't roll from her back to belly yet, but (according to the pediatrician) that's closer to 6 months. One day it will click. She also loves to jump in the jumperoo. She likes to stand and watch her brother. She also laughs (mostly at him) and squeals when one of us walks in the room and greets her. 

She does not like to be ignored. She will grunt and groan loudly. Once you look at her, she gives you a huge smile. It's hysterical, yet sometimes annoying. 

Her acid reflux is so much better. She is taking 1.2mL of Zantac 3 times a day, but should be at 1.4mL with her weight. Since she's doing so well with the lower dosage, we are keeping it. If we don't need to adjust for the next month, then we will stop giving her the medicine. The hopes were to have her off around 6 months, so having her off of it at 5 months is perfect! Fingers crossed!!

For anyone who has a little one who has terrible diaper rash (I mean like bright red bleeding diaper rash) my pediatrician told us to use: lotrimin, hydracortisone 1%, and desitin (or whatever diaper rash cream you use) on it. It cleared right up after 2 applications. What I did was squeeze the tubes of creams on a piece of wax paper and mix them up with a knife (I used it like a spatula) and put it in an air tight container. Also, if you have a little one who has bad eczema, our pediatrician told us to use: hydracortisone 1%, aquaphor, and neosporin on it. Maddie's cleared up within 48 hours and didn't scar her face. I did the same thing with this cream as I did the diaper rash cream. Old pill bottles work great for storage. You can put it in separate bottles and keep them all over the house and in the diaper bag.

Here are some pictures of her this month.

Cameron refers to this as her sassiest outfit

She is ALMOST sitting up on her own. She still gets excited and falls backwards sometimes

She loves her jumperoo

Again, doing so well sitting up

My baby doll with her baby doll

Eating some rice cereal

Her brother loves her and gives her kisses constantly

Connor is 20 Months

Connor is now 20 months old. It's hard to believe that we are so close to his 2nd birthday. This past Thursday, he weighed in at 24.6 pounds. He has finally tripled birth weight! I believe he was around 33 inches tall. He is growing... slowly but surely.

He is still in size 4 diapers and 18 month clothes. He still needs a belt with his pants because they fall off of him, but he needs them for the length. He is in size 5 1/2 and 6 shoes. His favorite thing to do in the car is take them off, throw them down, and say "ohhhh noooo!" He also tries to put them on himself, which doesn't exactly go as smoothly as he would like. He usually just ends up screaming because he can't do it yet.

He has 3 new teeth that have popped in this week. I knew they were coming in because he gets a little aggressive during the day. This causes him to visit time-out quite often. He understands that when he does a "no-no,"  he goes to time out. We still stick to the one warning and then time out. His time out is his empty crib or I pin him in a corner. He responds well to both of them. The corner is great for when we are out of the house (yes, I'm that mom that puts her child in time out in public). 

He hasn't really had much of an appetite because of the teeth. He eats a lot of soft foods except for crackers. The kid can down some crackers. We have to limit him on them, especially at lunch time. We've also kinda shifted fruit snacks to be raisins. He still knows and identifies fruit snacks, but he likes raisins and will eat them instead.

He still talks all the time. He can identify most animals and make their sounds. He doesn't say "monkey" yet but he will make their sound. He can identify four colors (red, blue, green, and yellow). He was identifying white, but we don't have as many white things that he plays with so I haven't asked him to identify it as much. 

He finally says his name! He pronounces it as "Nonnor." He will name everyone in the room, and then point to himself and say "Nonnor!!" He's starting to pick up on peoples names and remember them. He's started to tell us when he has a stinky diapers. That's step 1 of 3 towards potty training. I am so NOT ready for this yet. But, I have to take my cues from him. The other two are being able to pull his pants down (which I'm sure he can do if I would allow him to) and to stay dry for longer than 2 hours. The pediatrician said go down for his nap dry and wake up dry. Little does she know that his nap is 4 hours long! We're a little ways away from that though.

He still loves to watch Blue's Clues, Sesame Street, Clifford, Max and Ruby, and Arthur. He actually interacts with them too. He says "a clue a clue!" and sings along with them. He identifies characters and gets excited when he gets it right. He also likes to watch Basketball, or bat-ball as he calls it. If Cameron is watching a game and switches it for whatever reason, Connor gets really upset and demands him to turn it back by saying "Dada! Bat-ball!" I like the fact that he tells us what he wants. I really try to encourage him to use his words and tell me. I've never talked for him, and never will. I think it has helped a lot with his verbal skills.

We recently had the kids pictures taken by our friend from high school, Kate. She takes awesome pictures. Below are a few pictures she took (different than the ones I posted on facebook)

His laugh is contagious

I absolutely love his big blue eyes

He's turned into quite the little boy

He has beautiful eyelashes

Kate took so many pictures of the kids. You can see them all on her website  www.katemary.smugmug.com and "like" her facebook page www.facebook.com/katemaryphotography  

Halloween 2014

It's Halloween and we celebrated by dressing the kids up and passing out candy. We still think Connor is a bit young to go trick or treating this year, but maybe next year we will take him. Connor was a fireman and Maddie was a dalmatian. They were both so cute. Connor did a really good job greeting all of the kids and passing out candy. He hung out by the candy bowl a lot of the night, and put the candy back when we asked him to. Below are some pictures from today.

Cameron carved our pumpkin and I painted milk cartons to look like ghosts

Two more ghosts

I made and hung three of these spiders on our front porch. They're made of an egg carton and black straws

Have you ever seen such a cute dalmatian??

Had to show off her little tail

My little fireman

Even though Maddie's looking down, this is still cute

Connor was not a fan of taking pictures

Kissing his sister

Maddie doesn't mind taking pictures

She really got into character

Waving bye to the trick or treaters

We found him around the bowl most of the night

He has discovered kit-kats, or as he calls them "di-tat"

Maddie is 3 months old

The diva, Maddie, is now 3 months old. She's definitely grown a bunch this month. We had her weighed today (for Zantac purposes) and she weighed in at a whopping 13 pounds 13 ounces. Holy cow!!

She is still in 3 month clothing, which will probably change soon since she's growing like a weed. She's in size 1 diapers and size 2 at night. When we finish this pack of size 1's, we are moving her up to size 2. The diapers aren't leaking, her legs are just too fat to fit comfortably in the size 1's. I love her little, fat legs!

She is now up to five 6 ounce bottles a day. She eats pretty consistently at 7:45am, 10:45am, 2pm, 5pm, and again at 7:30pm. She still spits up a lot due to her acid reflux, but with the help of Zantac, she no longer fusses about it. I just have to keep on top of her medicine.

She had a rough week of sleeping at night. I'm almost 100% positive it was due to her stomach because when she would wake up, I'd give her gas drops or gripe water and she would go back to sleep. The first two nights she woke up, she wanted more to eat. I then upped her bottles to 6 ounces during the day and that fixed that. She was still waking up at night with tummy troubles. Yesterday, I increased her dose of Zantac (will be confirmed today if I was right) and she slept the full 12 hours last night. She takes five -1 1/2 hour naps during the day and is up the rest of the time. She wakes up to eat, plays around some, and then falls back asleep.

This month she really enjoys sitting up, standing on our laps, the exersaucer, and laying on her tummy. It took a little while for her to actually like tummy time, but she handles it a lot better now. She actually is rolling from her tummy to her back on her own. She was doing it on the bed a lot, but I figured it was just a fluke because the bed is so soft. I put her down on her play mat and she kept doing it over and over. She loves sitting on my hip and letting me walk her around. She is not fond of laying down on her back without having toys to look at.

She absolutely loves and adores Connor. Every time she sees him, she smiles at him. He's very good with her and acknowledges her. He gives her kisses, fist bumps, high fives, and will fetch her and try to give her a paci. He even tries to help burp her. She loves having him around her.

Here are some pictures of her this morning, a video of her rolling over, and a picture of her and Connor at 3 months side by side.

Such a diva!

So much sass

The evil eye at her momma has already started

But she's still very sweet :)

I think they have the same nose, lips, and hair color, but their eye shapes are completely different