Correct link...

I gave you a private link...here is the right one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHldukujmdI

A precious conversation caught on video....

After praying with Abby Kate last night, I decided to grab my phone and video while I asked her a few questions. This is truly now one of my greatest treasures. I am SO glad I did! She just kept GOING AND GOING! So it is long, but fun to hear what God is already impressing upon her heart. Now keep in mind, some of the theology is off AND Momma wasn't quite thinking so late in the day and my goof as Jesus being the only one resurrected (I know He wasn't and was about to talk to her about Lazarus but she kept going...we will talk today I promise!) and I know that was just ONE of the things that made Him special! But overall, this girl KILLS me! She is such a sweet, sweet blessing and I can't wait to see all He is going to do in and through her! Because the video is so long I had to upload it to YouTube. Here is the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHldukujmdI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

6 months!!

Our precious baby is now SIX months old!!!  How in the WORLD?  I cannot tell you enough about this precious boy.  He has been the easiest of my three.  I am not sure if it is due to experience or just that he is laid-back and fun!  He has been a great eater and sleeper and is pretty content all the time.  As I have shared, he is a HUGE baby.  He is 23 lbs 9 oz as of Friday and is 29.5 inches.  He started rolling both ways in the same day (it took my other 2 forever to roll from back to tummy!).  Because our kids have all been tummy sleepers, this always threw a kink in things due to them rolling to their backs and not being able to get back to their tummy to sleep.  But Brooks figured it out all at once so it left only a little hiccup in sleep.  Nighttime sleep has been great since 2 months.  He has slept 9-12 hours since...He goes to sleep at 6:00pm (I know many of you are gasping!) but after the time change, I could not get him pushed to 7 and tried 6 one night and he slept until 6 the next morning which was GREAT!  Bo gets up around 6 every morning so I was up anyway and it takes out that hour of super fussiness I put my other two through just to hit a bedtime.  AND we get to eat as a family without a super tired, fussy baby.  It is a win win!  He is still exclusively nursing (has only taken one bottle but not due to us not trying!) and started cereal on his 6 month birthday (more on that later).  He is in 18 month clothes and in size 5 diaper.  His naps have been tricky since about 3 months.  We dealt with a version of the 45 min intruder but his was an hour.  I extended his awake time to 2 hours thinking it might extend his naps but didn't.  So he was taking 3, one hour naps and still nursing every 3 hours.  It was super strange that one day this last week, I decided to make him try to extend to a 4 hour schedule and that very day, he stretched his naps to 2 hours!  So we are now going 4 hours between feeds and he is taking two naps.  This has been tough because his afternoon nap usually ends at 2 and he struggles being up 4 hours but won't catnap so he has been overtired and it has messed with his nighttime sleep.  He also has the 6 month sleep issues and is waking more at night but due to this happening with my other two and learning to just feed and ride it out, I know it will pass!
Now our biggest issue has been his struggle with eye contact.  He made little until about a month ago.  It had really worried me and our pediatrician but literally, a month ago, he started and made up for lost time!  Now you would never have known.  But because of all that, we had an evaluation scheduled for yesterday and still went due to a few other issues.  We weren't sure if it was due to vision (like the other two) or trunk control.  We had a PT eval and found out he had low muscle tone in his trunk which is likely due to his size.  Though he is attempting to crawl and rolling, he cannot sit up and holding him is a nightmare!  He slumps forward and gets very upset!  So we qualified for PT and will start going once a week to help strengthen those muscles so we are super excited!  And the eye contact was likely due to not being able to hold himself up to see you!  We also have a speech eval scheduled to figure out swallowing and texture issues.  He literally gags until throwing up with foods.  No matter what consistency I made it, he simply could not get it down.  Due to something the PT found, she asked about swallowing and I shared this...she thinks he may have swallow issues which is leading to respiratory issues he has now been struggling with for 7 full weeks.  So that eval is coming up and I am really excited about it too.  Hopefully we can help him start solids and love them!  But for now, we are back to just milk and he seems perfectly content with it!
Truly, Brooksy-boo (as we all call him), is the sweetest blessing.  I cannot IMAGINE our lives without him.  He is so precious and we truly delight in him.  Thank you Father for such an extravagant gift!

Just fun....

So that brings us up to date!  Goes to show how awful I have been about taking pictures!  Am getting better though, I promise...

Sweet Brooks is now 4 months old.  We weighed him today and he is 22 lbs 7 oz and is still growing like a weed.  He is sleeping 9-11 hours a night and napping for about an hour each time.  SO ready to get back to longer naps.  He is SUCH a sweetheart and is super laid back and takes it all in stride.  The time change has about killed us and I have yet to push him past 6:30 for a bedtime.  But it works.  We get up early anyway so he is usually up by around 7:30.  He still hates the car so that is the hardest component of all.  

The older two are loving the new house.  They play SO well together and truly love one another.  Bo is so lovey and SUCH a boy at the same time.  Abby Kate is an amazing big sister and has such amazing problem solving skills at such a young age.  We truly are so so blessed!  

More Thanksgiving!

We then got to celebrate with my side of the family and had a ball as well!  Tried to get pics for Mom's Christmas card and as you can see, did not get one with all kids looking and smiling.  Oh well, this is our stage of life now!  But we do have a ton of fun together!!  And will soon be adding another boy to the brood!  In case you didn't know, Hal and Ash are expecting another boy at the first of February.  Abby Kate and Liv will be the treasured girls of the crew.  SO fun!

Thanksgiving in O-Town

Bo helping Neannie with the dishes.  Isn't he going to make some girl SO SO happy?!

Promise I'm not trying to be a gangster...just try to leave out identifying details from this blog.  We had SO much fun with Daddy's family over Thanksgiving.  We were sad Daddy had to work but had a ball at Neannie and Pop's as always!  We were on the tail end of Daddy working 10 straight days of 12 hour shifts and we had just moved so it was SO nice to be there and be loved on!  We ADORE our fam!

First Lost Tooth

So at the first sight of a loose tooth, I truly became so aware of how quickly my baby was growing up!  I still cannot believe she lost her first tooth!  She was so brave and daily worked on getting that thing looser so her Daddy could pull it with a string :)  That part in and of itself was hysterical.  Bobby insisted we had to do it that way and the silly string kept slipping off her tooth.  It took 10 times before it finally came out!  But she literally did not even flinch when he pulled it.  SUCH a fun celebration!  And when she got $5 under her pillow, she told everyone it was $50.  Made us seem like super big rewarders!  

The before pic...

First sight of herself in the mirror!

Kindergarten!

 Okay so I am just going to jump right in and pretend it hasn't been half a year since I last posted.  I am super ashamed of myself and am going to try to get this updated for both my kiddos and my own sake.  LOVE looking back and they do too so here goes trying to update!
Our sweet Abby Kate started Kindergarten this year.  We decided to homeschool her this year and it has proven to be such a precious decision.  I cannot tell you how much we have all loved it!  Yes, it was super hard in the beginning with 2 young boys needed attention and interrupting but we got in a groove and started doing our "sit down" learning time during naps and we both have LOVED getting one on one time with each other.  I make hot cookies and we pour big cold glasses of milk in "big girl" cups and we jump right in.  I love our curriculum and she has started reading and writing lower case (already knew upper case from last year).  We are doing Saxon math and am amazed at our girl's brain for numbers.  She has shown that from an early age but I had to jump ahead to the April lessons in August just to get to something she didn't already know.  Amazing.  It is SO SO SO not my strength so I am truly amazed by it!  I love that our sit down time is short but effective and our other time throughout the day is spent "hands-on" learning.  This is so fun and Bo loves to join in.  I included a few pics of projects we have done.  Rainbow rice and mentos in diet coke were two of her favorites!  I love how the whole family can participate in learning and how it has continued to keep our kiddos the best of friends.  She LOVES school and so do I!  SO proud of my sweetheart and her desire to learn and am SO humbled to get to be a part of this every day!