AAAHHH Spring!

FINALLY, it seems to be here to stay!  These are a few pics from a fun picnic playdate with our community group friends a few weeks ago.  I LOVE seeing Liv and Bo starting to already form a friendship.  They are going to be SUCH fun cousin-friends!  Oh and I haven't even officially shared the news on our blog, our sweet Liv is going to be a big sister!  Yes, Hal and Ash are expecting again and will have 2 sweet little ones 15 months apart!  We couldn't be more excited.
Just for a few little updates.  I got back from my trip yesterday and had an absolute BALL.  Bo did wonderfully so thank you so much for all your advice.  My sweet mother in law, sister in law and niece all came to help Bobby and I know they are all exhausted.  I SO SO SO appreciate my precious family.  Though it was hard to leave on Thursday, it was SO needed and spending time with such precious friends revived my spirit and made me return home a better Mom and wife.  And as an added bonus, Bo started sleeping a ton better while I was gone, revealing that he must not have been getting enough milk so I began pumping and adding fomula to get an 8 oz. bottle to which he gobbles down within minutes.  He seems so much more content so I am SO thankful we figured that out.  I feel TERRIBLE but really could not try before the trip due to trying to save every spare ounce.  I can still pump about 5-6 oz. but it helps that he is taking the formula.
We are getting his tubes on Thursday which we are SO ready for...after his visit to the ENT last week, we found he has moderate hearing loss due to the fluid which will prayerfully be resolved after the tubes. He also has no ear drum movement which indicates a ton of fluid behind the ear drum so the tubes should help it all.  Our sweet doctor said it should help his sleeping, eating, balance and hearing so we are so excited to see him feeling well.  He has been crawling everywhere and is pulling up on everything.  He even stood on his own for several seconds today.  I cannot imagine what normal balance will do to his mobility (which I am so not ready for!).  He is just growing so quickly but we are loving every second.  He just gets us all so tickled.  His top tooth is so stinking cute and makes him look so old. At dinner tonight, he just sat in his highchair and grinned at us all and we just all laughed at how cute he is...we truly are so thankful.
And sweet Abby Kate is literally maturing faster than she has at any other point.  She is asking millions of questions and constantly wants to role play, which is by far her favorite thing to do.  She has an incredible imagination and continues to get more dramatic by the day.  I brought her home a few presents from my trip (all clothes, headband, shoes) and she was so excited.  She kept exclaiming, "OH MY WORD!  Mom!  That is SO nice!"  And today, we went for a walk and she fell and skinned her knee pretty badly.  She cried and then seriously asked, "Mom, how long is this going to hurt?"  And I told her it would heal and she asked me to pray for it.  So I did and after saying Amen she said, "PLEASE, PLEASE Jesus, PLEASE!"  It so cracked me up.  And when we got home, I asked her if she was going to be okay and she said, "No, no not really."  She is so my child.  But we are so entralled with her and the things that come out of her mouth.  She delights us to no end.  So hope each of you are doing well!

A New Cut...

Debuting her new adorable short cut!  WE LOVE IT!  And she has already spent hours (literally) looking at herself in the mirror.  :)

8 months (a few days early!)

Since I am going to have just returned from a trip when this sweet little guy turns 8 months, I wanted to ge the post finished.  How in the world has 8 months already passed?!
Our sweet little guy has proven what a champ he is...he has been dealing with ear infections since he was 4 months old and we are FINALLY getting tubes.  From what everyone says, it will make a WORLD of difference in his little life.  He is still on sleeping through the night and due to all the illness, I am still nursing when he wakes to prevent too many tears and congestion.  He is eating every 4 hours and takes 2 great naps a day.  He eats solids super well and LOVES veggies over fruit (shocking to me).  His favorite so far seems to be green peas.  He puts himself to sleep easily for both naps and wakes happy almost every time.  He has started to truly crawl, not just the army crawl he began a few weeks ago.  He is pulling up on everything though is still super wobbly which makes Momma a nervous wreck on the wood floors.  He started pulling up in his crib so we lowered the matress last week.  He is literally the busiest child I have ever met (with the exception of our oldest :)).  But he is truly so hard to hold because he is constantly wiggling and exploring.  He tries to grab everything in sight which keeps us constantly on our toes.  He now has 3 teeth and the 4th is about to pop through any second.  He has really had a rough time cutting his upper teeth.  His first upper I thought was sore for days until the tiny white tooth started to show.  He has drooled and been congested awfully lately and am so ready for this next one to come through.  But he truly is such a happy, contented baby.  We are constantly amazed at the smiles he offers all day long, even when he is exhausted or in pain.  He is so so sweet and we are daily reminded of the precious blessing that God gave us in him!

Family Fun

Abby Kate got invited by our precious cousin Haylee to come to a princess party at her sorority house (that was mine as well :) last weekend and she literally had a BALL.  When I asked her what she did she said, and I quote, "We put on make-up and played on Haylee's bed and practiced our names and had a FASHION SHOW!"  She loved every second!  Thanks Hay for including her.  You are now famous in her book (and mine).  Bo and I got to hang out with our sweet, sweet Nannie.  We had a ball eating mexican food and visiting.  We got to play all day Saturday and Nannie broke out her super cool wagon and the kids LOVED it.  Also Abby Kate got to do her favorite thing at Nannie's and roll down the hill 500 times.  We are so thankful for precious family!

Finally Spring!

We have LOVED the weather getting a little warmer.  We love looking at the blossoms on the trees and looking for flowers.  It has literally been the hardest winter of my life so I am so so so ready for the warmer weather.  Bring on the 100 degree heat, sweat, bugs....just get rid of the germs that have clung to my children this entire season!

Our beautiful girl....

Here she is in her new glasses!  BEAUTIFUL if I do say so myself.  She LOVES them (and may love hte glasses case more!).

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!