New Specs...

I think most of you are on facebook but for those of you that read and aren't, we found out Monday that Abby Kate and Bo both have astigmatism and very poor vision and will have to be in glasses for full-time.  Prayerfully, by being aggressive, they will outgrow their need for glasses.  We went for Abby Kate and while we were there, they checked Bo whose vision is a TON worse than his sisters!  They even told me that had to order his glasses because they didn't carry prescriptions this strong.  Bless his heart!  We picked up his glasses today and literally, he hasn't touched them once!  The lady that helped us said that is usually a sign that they really need them.  He has been checking everything out.  After putting them on, he looked and me and grinned so big and just got so excited.  It literally took my breath away when I thought that it may be the first time he could see my face clearly.  We adored our doctor, who took the time to pray for us and are just so thankful we can do this so they may not have to deal with it later in life.  So here is the first look at our beautiful boy's face with his new glasses!

Buddies...

So, easily my favorite time of day is when Abby Kate wakes in the morning and Bo and I go into her room to get her up (she still won't get out of bed unless we come get her which is SOOOO nice).  She adores her Bubby and wants me to put him in bed with her every morning.  The above pictures are what transpires daily.  And it fills my cup.  Overflows it really.  I cannot tell you what it does to my heart to watch these two together.  They literally adore one another.  Bo lights up when Abby Kate enters a room and she patiently (98% of the time) plays and entertains him.  We have daily dance parties in the afternoon and yesterday I was holding Bo and we were all dancing and literally, he was climbing me and laughing SO hard every time Abby Kate danced close to us.  It was one of my favorite memories ever.  We all three were giggling so hard we all got the hiccups.  I pray that they will always be heart friends.  That they will love one another unconditionally, will faithfully stand beside the other, championing them.  I am sure they will go through stages of discord, but prayerfully they will be short-lived and the adoration that is present will last until death.  Oh the precious, precious blessing of siblings!

Quick Update

Thanks for the advice and for emailing me!  SOOOO helpful.  Just a quick update on it (if you care) and HUGE praise!  I lead a Bible study on Thursday mornings at our church and Bo ate early this morning so he would need to eat again during the study.  I threw in 3 oz bottle thinking if, and I mean IF, they could get him to take the bottle, it could hold him off until I was finished.  Well, they called me and said he had taken all of the bottle and was still hungry!  I was literally in shock.  AND, he slept wonderfully last night.  God is so good!

Advice...

I would love, love, LOVE any and all advice pertaining to the following...
So I leave in 1 month for 4 days with my precious best college girlfriends.  I literally am beside myself with excitement.  However I have a few items that MUST be taken care of before I can fly away completely without care.  And thus the needed advice.
1.  How do you get a 7 month old to take a bottle?  He literally just plays with it.  He chews and maybe sucks once or twice.  I usually can get him to take 1/2 an ounce.  BIG, big deal.  I need him to be able to eat while I am gone.
2.  How do you get the forementioned 7 month old to sleep through the night?  I am pumping enough milk to have a night feed but would SO love it to be eliminated before I go.  I know he does not need the calories.  He will not take a paci so there is not a little way I can soothe him.  He has had 6 ear infections since he was 3 months old so I have been told by my pedi not to let him cry it out.  I put him down awake for naps and most bedtimes.  We have a consistent bedtime rountine.  He knows how to put himself to sleep.  He takes 2, 1.5-2 hour naps.  He goes down about 6:30-7 pm and usually wakes anywhere from 10:30-12.  If he wakes on the early end, he usually wakes again around 4-5am.  The first waking is usually a 5 alarm cry.  The second I can usually leave him.  I have no idea how to help him nor do I know what is waking him.  Would love any help!

Our life in Pictures (lately)....

Trying our first solid (besides cereal), sweet potatoes 

Not so sure we loved them...and he got super snotty after this so we are holding off on sweet potatoes for a while longer.  It would be extremely odd if he doesn't love these seeing as they are the only vegetable his sister will eat...

Sissy "putting him down for his nap" (bless his heart)

Trying out bangs (she is so super observant and always notices when someone has bangs) and I am not ready to let her cut them so we do this about 100 times a day

Tin Girl (title she named herself)

Another one crazy about his big cousin.  We all ADORE Kourt!

Abby Kate LOVES holding Bo!  So funny seeing as he looks about as big as she does!

So we are about back on track.  We went through a hairy week last week.  I am not sure if it was from vaccinations or what but Bo started waking a ton through the night and would not go back to sleep without nursing.  He was snotty and miserable, I got super sick (double ear infection and respiratory infection) AND Bobby and the rest of my family went to Vegas so I was a bit exhausted.  My sweet mother in law, sister in law and Kourtney came up over the weekend to help and then my sweet Mom stayed a few days to help me catch up on sleep.  I am SO blessed!  We are now back on track praise the Lord!

More sledding pics....

What fun snow brings!!!  Thanks to our sweet buddy Shane for taking the pics!

Scooting....

I LOVE this one.  He was just chatting away and he often surprises himself which makes me laugh so hard....

Just had an impromptu photo session as Bo attempted to crawl again.  Oh my life is about to change!!!  He is beginning to become so much more vocal and is scooting everywhere.  And if you click on the last pic, you can see his new little tooth!

Sledding with Daddy and Shane!

6 Months and 4 Year well check!!

Having a fun snow day!  And then coming out of quiet time with a BATHING SUIT?  In snow?  Only her...

Sadly, I have not been updating like I would like.  We have been too busy in this house trying to get well.  We are still dealing with the tail end of pneumonia and Abby Kate has a really bad cold too.  We went to the doctor yesterday for AK's 4 year well check and Bo's ear recheck and found out Bo now has a double ear infection and Abby Kate has one too!  SUPER FUN!  Bo was soooo much better for about 4 days, eating, sleeping like a champ, etc...and then it seems it just returned in the middle of the night (always) like it had never left.  So I am back to giving them both breathing treatments and they are both on antibotics.  Did I mention I am SO over winter?
But in the midst of all this, our sweet boy passed the half a year mark and it has had me in puddles.  I literally have had no other time in my life that has passed so swiftly.  Yes, I am exhausted.  Yes, it does feel like 6 months since I slept a full night, but in other details, not so much.  These last 6 months are intense in my memory but somehow hazy as well.  Guess it is the lack of sleep.
We have had some big milestones these past few weeks.  A first tooth.  Starting to scoot.  Rolling all over to get across the room.  Sitting up.  I finally moved him to a 4 hour schedule without any fanfare.  He was more than ready but I kept thinking I had to follow advice I read online to wait until he was sleeping through the night.  But this move has been incredible and has actually extended his night sleep to consistently 8-9 hour stretch.  He is now awake 2 hours and sleeps 2 hours twice a day.  It has been amazing.  He goes right to sleep when I put him down for his naps and he has literally doubled his solids this week.  Once he is feeling a bit better, we will start introducing foods other than brown rice cereal and oatmeal.  He is eating twice a day now as well.
Abby Kate had her 4 year well check and was in the 97th% for height (43") and 80th% (38 lbs) for weight.  We adore our peditrician and she did truly complete check.  She asked her if she could right her name and she said, "No but I can write an A!" (which she did) and then identified tons of shapes and colors and numbers and letters.  She was asked her age and she asked her to hold her arms out and stand on one foot which literally lasted about 2 seconds until she said "watch Dr. N!  I can fly!  I can fly!"  We were all dying laughing at her.  The one hard thing was that she recommended us to see an opthamologist due to her eyes not focusing correctly and her not being about to read small letters unless she was close.  We shall see what he says.  So all in all, it just seems my babies are growing up so fast.  When Bo started sitting up this week, Abby Kate exclaimed, "Bubby!  You aren't a baby anymore!  You are about to be a kid!"  And boy, I know that he will be before I can blink.  So I am savoring this time.  (with a dash of coveting a little more sleep :)

A few little things...

First off, this last pic was just funny.  Abby Kate wanted to play in the snow every day and this day, she decided she wanted to wear flip flops.  I died laughing, due to the fact that not 10 minutes before, she had started crying b/c a little snow had gotten in her boots.  I silently wondered what kind of reaction I was going to see as she stepped in the snow with her flip flops.  Needless to say, it only took 2 steps!

As for a little Bo update, we truly would LOVE your prayers.  He has pneumonia and has been super sick since last Thursday.  We are doing breathing treatments every 3 hours.  He has an ear infection, had pink eye in both eyes and then yesterday, bless his heart, he got his first tooth!  Talk about miserable.  But as you can see from the pics, even at his worst, he is such a sweetheart!  We are so blessed.  Thank you for praying....

Updates

Going

Going

Gone

I have been meaning to add a 5 month update for my records.  Up until just recently, I was SO not sure I wanted more children (even though we started out wanting 4), but just this week my desire for a bigger family has returned fully so I want to make sure I make notes this time.  I cannot tell you how often I look back on this blog to see when Abby Kate did certain things.  And I did not do a good job recording them!
Bo is still such a joy.  He is a happy, contented baby.  He is a great eater.  I am still nursing every 3 hours and he is still not consistently sleeping through the night (10-12 hours) so I do not see us moving to a 4 hour schedule until that happens.  We started cereal around 4 months and this week started eating cereal in the mornings as well.  We are on a loose schedule (within 30 minutes of these times)

7:00am-wake/nurse
7:30- cereal
8:00-back down for nap (sleeps 1-2 hours)
10:00-nurse
11:15- back down for nap (sleeps 1 hour)
1:00-nurse
2:00-2:30- back down for nap
4:00-nurse
4:30-cereal
6:30-bath
7:00-nurse/bedtime

He is wearing a size 3 diaper.  He weighed 19 lbs 6 ozs this week.
We went through a horrible month last month due to him starting to roll from tummy to back at around 4 months.  He could not roll back so I would have to go in and gently hold him down so he would fall back asleep.  He is a tummy sleeper and would NOT fall asleep on his back.  3 days before he turned 5 months, he began rolling from back to tummy and now LOVES to practice.  I went back to letting him fall asleep on his own and he does wonderfully!  It usually takes him about 30 minutes to fall asleep after I put him down.  He usually plays and then cries for a minute before falling asleep.  He does not cry at all at bedtime.  He will not take a paci.  He does not like a bottle either.   We are trying to work on this.  I am taking a trip with my sweet college buddies in March so this has to work!
We are working on sitting up.  He can do it for a few seconds and I believe will be able to soon.  He is grabbing for things and does this funny thing with his thumb, just as his sister did.  They try to pin things down with their thumb.  Weird and funny!  He is drooling like crazy.  Notice the awesomely red face.  He literally staying constantly wet.  His cheeks stay red too b/c he sleeps with his cheeks in wetness too.  I cannot keep his sheets changed enough.  Not sure when the teeth will get here but I sure am ready. That is about it for 5 months!  We love love love this little man!!!
As for the last 2 pics.  I was so proud of Abby Kate.  We were making crafts with these little balls and I stepped out to get some glue.  I came back and she had seperated them.  She told me one was "deep dark" and the other was "light."  I was super proud of her sorting without direction and even finding unusual groupings for her age!  She is so smart :)
Love you all!!!

A Cowboy and a Haircut...

Sweecie and Poppy got Bo the most ADORABLE frame for Christmas and I have been dying to snap a cowboy hat pic of Bo to go in it.  We had a little photo session (as you can see, he was still in his jammies) and I like this one.  I may try again but for now, this was the cutest of the bunch.  And our little girl just got 4 inches chopped off her hair and she also layered it.  You may not notice much of  a difference but there SO is...she HATES having her hair brushed and I just have been so frustrated.  So this cut it super cute, low maintainance and is much easier to brush!

Crowned...

Aunt Ashley, Uncle Hal and Liv got Abby Kate this adorable crown making kit for Christmas.  It has provided numerous hours of entertainment and Abby Kate wanted to make Bubby one yesterday.  Thought they both looked pretty royal (-ly cute!).