A Bunch of Firsts

I feel like over the past two weeks Walker has grown in so many ways. First off he is sitting up on his own. He still will fall to the side a little but he's gotten pretty steady and seems to like his new view.


And he's crawling! He's not moving too fast just yet but he is up on his hands and knees and making forward movements.


He got to go swimming for the first time and he LOVED it! He just splashed and splashed and cried when I took him out if the water.


Because he can sit up now he got to have his first dinner in a highchair and his first taste of a tortilla.


He hasn't pulled himself up yet but on the baby monitor I saw him putting his hands on the railing and trying to pull up so we decided it was only a matter of time before he pulled up and we needed to be ready so we moved his crib down to the lowest level.


And finally he can sit up in a grocery cart! Hallelujah!



We are going to switch out his infant carrier carseat to a permanent big boy carseat sometime over the weekend.

I swear all these big events and transitions all just happened over the past two weeks and it all of a sudden feels like I have a big boy!

Location:A Bunch of Firsts

Happy Memorial Day!

We had such a great Memorial Day weekend! It was filled with all the things that a Memorial Day should- friends, food, laughter and the lake!  We met the Solheid and Burgess families at Lake Kiowa and even though we are now extremely outnumbered by our children we still had the best time.  The kids played in the water almost the entire time and the babies just slept and hung out on the shade.  It was the absolute best weekend.

the Fierce Five ;-)  Addison, Campbell, Avery, Gracyn, and Ella

The Daddies and their babies

This picture cracks me up because poor Eric had been sitting at the the dock for a while trying to catch a fish and sure enough Lisa waltzes up, throws in a line and immediately catches this huge bass!  

And our little Avery girl caught herself a catfish too and immediately before she caught it she said "i just know I'm going to be big this time.  I'm not going to cry when I see the fish."  Well as you can tell she was not too happy to see the fish.  I finally convinced her to stand about 10 feet in front of it just so I could get a picture.

8 kids all aged 6 and younger.  Such a cool crew of kids who were SO well-behaved all weekend and had a blast playing together.

Walker is 7 Months Old!

What You Did This Month- 7 months old

Weight: ?

Length/Height: ?

Head Circumference: ?

Diaper Size: Size 3 Luvs

Clothing Size: 6-9 or 6-12 months in all clothes.

Sleeping Habits: A semi-schedule has emerged with you waking up at 7, eat a bottle, then go down for a quick cat nap from 8-8:45AM.  You nap again from 11-12:30/1, and then from 3-4.  Naps schedule seem to vary a little day to day depending on how long you sleep but the one consistent thing is that you are in bed for the night by 6-6:15PM.  All my babies went to bed early.  I have no idea what I do to make them be that way because it is both a blessing and a curse to have them in bed so early (adios to dinners out for a while), but you are very ready for bed by then and you sleep straight through the night until 7 the next morning!  You absolutely nap best in your crib and rarely sleep in the carseat or stroller anymore- again another trait of all my babies. 

Eating Habits: You are completely weaned from me and taking formula bottles pretty easily.  We transitioned really slowly over the course of the last month taking away one feeding at a time and I just fed you for the last time last week.  Its so bittersweet to know that phase of our "relationship" is over but it definitely is nice to not feel like I am confined to a 3 hour window anymore. You transitioned super easy to formula without any trouble.  You are loving baby foods, especially baby yogurt- that stuff is your favorite.  Oddly enough you seem to prefer the veggies to the fruit and you LOVE the little teething biscuits.  You get super messy but are one happy guy when you get to have them.  

Milestones: I totally thought you would be full-on crawling by now but you are still doing the rocking on all 4, and the belly flop/roll to get to wherever it is you want to go, but so far no actual crawling yet.

You are almost an independent sitter.  I still have to be there because you throw yourself back every once in a while but you are loving your new upright view of the world.

Still no teeth for you but you are drooling like a madman, and have been for a while now, so I expect to see a tooth pop through at any time.  

You are a happy, sweet, loving little guy and you love interacting with Mommy and you prefer to either be on Mommy's hip or for Mommy to be sitting right beside you.  You only tolerate independent play for a few minutes before demanding some attention.

You are a BIG fan of Daddy.  The girls always preferred Mommy over anyone else, Daddy included, but you are much nicer to you good ol' Dad.  You easily tolerate either one of us and light up when we enter the room.  

You have started a little stranger danger and do not really like for anyone other than Mommy or Daddy to hold you.  You cry pretty hard until we get you back and then you stop immediately.  This includes if we try to leave you in childcare at the gym or church.  You are not a fan :-(

You love the girls and always look for them first thing when you wake up, and constantly smile and laugh at every single thing that they do, and boy do they love you.  You are one very well taken care of little guy.  

You went swimming for the first time yesterday and LOVED it!  You cried your face off when I got you out of the water.  You also love swinging on the baby swing.  

Walker- you continue to be such a joy.  Such a fun, easy-going, sweet, playful baby and I just can not get enough of you.  Happy 7 months little buddy!

A Day in the Life

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Three Kids.....Six Months Later/ Happy Mother's Day

I've been thinking lately about what having three kids is like.  I felt like I wrote a post right after Walker was born about how I was coping with the transition from two kids to three and I felt like I needed a little update on that topic.

So what is it like going from two kids to three?  It's hard.  And it's easy.  And its perfect.  And its crazy.  It's all those things rolled into one.  Initially Walker slept all the time and was super easy but now he is becoming more mobile and less able to sleep when we are on the go, so we are always running around trying to get him home to sleep, then running back out the minute he wakes up.  So i feel like things are much harder now than they were at the beginning.  Plus Matt travels quite a bit for work so its generally just me here trying to fill the needs for all three on my own.  So it gets hectic.  The other day somebody asked me what it was like to have three kids (plus i still do a little part time contract work from home) and my answer was- you know that feeling like you are forgetting to do something?  I feel like that all. the. time.  That feeling never goes away.  Thats what having three kids is like to me.  Feeling like I constantly can't catch up and I am constantly forgetting to do something, or be somewhere.  But on the flip side I love it.  I love being busy.  I function better when I am busy.  So it's amazing and we are doing great.  But it's hard work.  Grueling, never-ending work. Best job in the world and I wouldn't trade it for a second.

Happy Mother's Day to all the women with the toughest/happiest/scariest job in the world.  

Why?

Why has someone not invented a better way to shop with

A. Somebody who has an infant carrier


And
B. Somebody who has more than one child.



Whoever invents it will be a rich person. I would buy anything that would contain my kids and makes shopping even a teensy but easier.

Open House

A week or so ago Avery had Open House at her school and I am not sure who was more excited- her or me!  I was so excited to get a chance to go up to the place where she spends 7 hours every weekday, see all the hard work she has accomplished and get a chance to chat with her teachers.  Luckily my mom and Steve were able to come babysit (Matt was out of town) so I decided to take Avery out for a little one-on-one time before we headed up to her school.  I love all my kiddos to pieces but its pretty amazing when you get a chance to sit down and have some alone time with one of them.  We had such a fun time at her favorite restaurant Salsa and I even let her have a little sweet treat al the end.


She was counting down the minutes until Open House started and literally ran dragging me behind her until we got to her class.  She was so excited to show me where she sat every day, introduce me to her friends, and show me some of the work she has done throughout the year.  She had to write a little narrative story and she was allowed to write it about whatever she wanted and this sweet girl wrote it about her baby brother being born.  It's the cutest thing ever.





Luckily the little two monkeys did pretty good at home with Nana & Papa, however the little guys is already starting to have a pretty serious case of the "I want only my mommy" so he fussed at Nana a little.  Luckily that didn't phase her ;-)

We Made It!

The 2014 NFL draft is officially over! We made it the best way we know how.... One football outfit after another.






In all seriousness we are so proud of Matt and all the hard work he puts in throughout the year. We are one lucky family. Way to go Daddy! Go Dolphins!