Friends and Babies

We have been spending lots of time lately with friends. Michael and I love hanging out with our friends, as Michael always puts it they are the family we pick. Michael’s best friend’s sister got married last weekend. They are family for sure. His best friend just had their first child. I think it is funny, because everyone I know is pregnant or has recently had a baby. Anyway. They were all at the wedding, which was great. We got to spend some time with the new baby and his family. If you had asked me about these two having kids of their own I would have been shocked. So grown up.  While in Little Rock for the above wedding, Addison got to meet one of my best friends, Auntie Peg. Auntie Peggy came to our hotel and hung out for drinks before the wedding. It was a lot of fun getting to see everyone, even though, we didn’t stay down there too long. Less than a day. I love this picture and how Addison is looking at the camera…or cameraman. Right before we left for the wedding weekend, our close friends had their little boy! I was so excited that he came on Friday in the wee hours of the morning just after midnight. It meant I got to meet him on the day he was born. And Addison got to meet her boyfriend! She was excited. I told her where we were going and she gave me the biggest smile ever. I tried to document it but I couldn’t get her to recreate that smile. Baby Ben so little but not that little. 8lbs 5oz 8 weeks apart and still not that big of a difference in size. Mason and his sister are 9 months apart and pretty much the same size. I have a feeling it won’t be long before Ben is way bigger than Addison.

Lake Fun

My parents have a nice little place down at the lake here. Michael and I really love going down there. It is a getaway without cell service. Or at least minimal service. The kids and I have already gone down twice. Once for Memorial Day and once when Michael was out of town. It was fun spending time with my little family and going out on the boat is always enjoyable. I am eager for this weekend to come so we can head that way again for the 4th of July. My family’s friends all head to the lake for the 4th, so we will definitely get to have a good time, plus lots of extra arms for baby holding.

Over Memorial Day, our friends were down with their new little girl. She is 3 weeks older than Addison. These two are going to be the best of lake buddies. They live in Little Rock, so we don’t see them a lot but they will see each other at the lake for sure.  Papaw loving on his little girl. I love this picture. I have pretty much the same exact picture of my brother and Mason. It must be his glasses, because he was getting all the best smiles this weekend.   

Sitting on the end of a dock…fishing. Eating his snack while riding in Papaw’s boat. He was in little boy heaven, but kept asking about fishing. Beautiful  I love seeing how happy spending time with his Papaw makes this little boy. I think it melts that Papaw’s heart too. Mason is always grabbing him and getting him to play baseball or go fishing or watch a video. Me and my boy. My Mom had Addison so that I could go out for a few hours with Mason and Papaw. It was so nice to enjoy some quality time with my boy.

Addison 2 Months

Weight: We went to the doctor this week. Our little bit weighed in at 9lbs 9oz. I was hoping for at least 9lbs and so I was very excited to see 9.9. She is in the 10%. Still tiny but I will take tiny as long as she is gaining good weight.

Height: We have another tall baby. Addison measured 22.5”. Long and lean like her brother. She is in the 60% for height. Her brother was always 90s, so hopefully she won’t be too much taller than me.

Clothes: Addison is still wearing newborn clothes and newborn diapers. If it is pants or footie pjs we are wearing 0-3 months. Since she is so long, her pants turn into shorts. But she is so skinny the waist of bloomers and pants do not fit.

Eats: We have an eater. Addison will eat every 2 hours. Man am I ready for this to stretch out a little bit. I would take 2.5 or 3 hours, but that’s okay. I will take every 2 hours if she continues to sleep good at night. We have one formula bottle a day. Mainly because I know I will not be able to keep up once  I start traveling for work again. I want her to take the bottle and the formula when I am gone.

Sleeps: We just moved her to her crib in the last week. It has been going great. The only difference is that instead of sleeping from 9-5 she now gets up in the middle of the night to eat. But only once, so that is good too.

Likes: Addison LOVES her brother and her Mommy. She really likes people with glasses. My parents have glasses and so does my brother and she will just smile so big at them. She is super smiling right now and I think I have heard a few giggles come out of her. The giggles happen a lot when she is sleeping, but it is still cute. When she is playing on the floor and brother is close she will roll on her side and stretch her neck to see him. It is so cute, but makes me realize there is a good chance she will be rolling over earlier than normal.

Dislikes: Right now she really doesn’t have any dislikes except maybe the car seat. Some days she is content when I put her in it and other days she screams. We fight sleep during the day. I guess she is afraid to miss something. But overall, she really is a happy baby.

Potty Training

I am happy to give this report. We have been working on getting Mason potty trained. He is a very stubborn little boy. He gets it from his Mama and his Daddy. In the fall, Mason started asking about the potty and being curious and even pooped on the potty a few times. We didn’t think he could possibly be ready to be trained. Plus being pregnant I didn’t have the energy or patience to work seriously on it.

Then after he turned 2 I realized he really was ready. I tried to get his school to help us out in the training area. They acted onboard, but we horrible. Never consistent. Potty training needs consistency. So, we pulled back a little. Then Addison arrived and Mason came to stay at the house with us this summer due to his horrible school situation. Michael and I discussed options. We tried to get him to potty train using a pull up. We tried just putting him in underwear. We tried food, and we tried candy. I finally started asking around and several friends said they did the let them be naked route.

I was ready to try anything! I talked to our nanny and set a date to start. Most people said it only took 3 days of being naked before their kids were trained. It took Mason a little longer. Mason’s main problem was pooping on the potty. He like to hide to poop and if you came close to him while he was pooping he was yell NO NO GO AWAY. I was surprised that Mason wouldn’t pee or poop on himself while naked. The pooping usually waited until naptime or first thing in the morning. We still are putting him in a diaper for sleep times and long car rides. He started going poop in the potty alone. One day he just ran into the bathroom, took his clothes off, and did it. Then yelled for us. We have a treasure box with toys just for pooping in the potty. He wanted his toy and since that day it has been all uphill!

He is smart. He knows what he needs to do. Don’t know how, but I would say he is potty trained. Don’t get me wrong. He still has an accident every now and then, but most of those are my fault for not asking or not making him stop playing to go potty. Our plan to get rid of diapers all together…Wait until he is consistently dry when waking up from nap and bedtime. Most of the time he already wakes from nap dry, but bedtime will probably take longer. I don’t want to get up in the middle of the night to take him to the potty. I like sleep too much. Plus his little bladder isn’t ready at night.

Doesn’t he look so big here, playing at the splash park. He is cute and always smiling and having fun!

Addison – 7 Weeks

I can’t believe I have a 7 week old. Especially since she is still the size of a newborn. We went last week to the doctor because Addison’s poop had some blood in it. She had been spitting up a lot and we had gotten her put on medicine for that, but then the poop got weird and I called the doctor again. They had me bring her in right away. They believe she has an allergy to milk protein. What does this mean for me/us? No milk products AT ALL. Zero. I have to cut out all milk. I don’t drink or eat a lot of dairy, so I didn’t think it really could be that, but since we started removing all dairy her spitting up has improved. I have to read ingredients on everything. I am fairly used to being worried about ingredients for Mason’s allergies but now this takes it to a whole new level.

Did you know milk is in almost everything? No milk, no butter, no cheese, no goodness of anything. Every morning, I have toast with butter for breakfast, no more of that. This weekend we talked about going out for breakfast one morning. But where do we go and what do I eat. Can’t eat scrambled eggs, or pancakes, or biscuits, let alone the yummy gravy on the biscuits. It is actually kind of depressing when you really start looking at everything. Most chips minus the plain chips has milk. All chocolate is cut out. This is really making me sad, because I love me a good milky way. But in case you are wondering Oreos don’t have milk. Guess I will get my chocolate/sweet fix from them, minus the yummy milk to dip them in. No ice cream. This is sad for the summer months.

The special formula you have to give a baby with this allergy is expensive. Lets talk about how I checked because I am not sure I have the will power to avoid all milk products. The price is ridiculous on that formula. I am worried I won’t be able to keep up the caloric intake to keep my milk supply up for her. It is just rough. Most babies out grow this allergy between 6 & 9 months of age. That is a long time from now. I was planning to breastfeed for 6 months anyway, so we will see how this will continue.

Addison had gain 3oz between our visit last week and the one the week before. Slow and steady. Weighing in at 8lbs 5oz. Newborn. She is wearing newborn clothing, even though is has outgrown the length, so we are starting to switch over to 0-3 month clothing. She is 22inches long. She grew 2 inches overnight. Long and lean, like her brother.

Crazy hair day. She loves her brother and tries so hard to look at him when she hears his voice. Laying around outside napping while brother swims in the pool. She has about 3 fans blowing on her. Ceiling fan, tower fan and her little personal fan. Ready for the Hogs to play. She got to go to her first baseball game last week. At her first baseball game. Notice the fan on her. She was comfortable and so was I. I wasn’t sweating at all. Good or bad, it was fun. We didn’t stay the entire game, but made it 5 innings before she needed to eat again and I was ready for the A/C. It was funny how many people commented to me as I walked past about our fan and how great of an idea it was. My brother was there and he thought it was hilarious to hear the comments everyone was making (mostly men). She is laughing at me. Laughing. You just changed my diaper and I am pooping again. Muhahaha. This happened three times. 3! She thought she was hilarious, I on the other hand was not finding the humor.

Newborn Pictures

I am finally getting around to sharing newborn pictures. We sent out our birth announcements, so now it is time to add them here. Our good friend, Bryan Striegler of Striegler Photography took these for us. Addison would not fall asleep for us, her brother did the same time. She was awake for 2+hours, but we got some great shots of her with her eyes open. So cute!

She is always trying to eat her hands or thumb. We normally replace it with a pacifier. As I like to say I can take away a paci later, but I cannot take away for hand or thumb. I was a bad thumb sucker and it took my Mom a long time to break me of the habit and I would rather not go through that if I can prevent it. We are trying to prevent it…trying!  This is my favorite shot! Mason loves his sister.

Summertime Fun

Mason has spent the last month and then some at home. We pulled him out of his daycare after several incidents involving them giving him allergy foods. Basically we decided that in order to keep our child alive and safe he needed to get out of that school. Now we have a nanny coming into the house daily to take care of him. We have found a new school, but he has not started there yet. In the meantime, Mason is getting lots of love and attention and getting to do fun things.

She took him to a local drive thru safari. We took Mason last year and he loved it. He tried to hug a kangaroo last time, so Miss Michelle took him to the safari. She took her camera and gave me the pictures. I love them. What, with that long neck you still can’t reach the toddler? Wants to befriend the kangaroo again. They are so soft. Every week, Miss Michelle takes Mason to a trampoline place. Everyday from 9-10am kids under 6 get to jump. It is a great way to get some of Mason’s toddler energy out. He loves the place. She tells me how he makes new friends every time they are there. She also takes him fishing every week. It has been hard lately here to keep Mason indoors. All he wants to do is go outside and play. Sometimes they only have had an hour or two of no rain. Plus it has been cooler. Now that things are warming up here and the rain has at least stopped this week, Mason will get to start swimming in the pool daily. I am looking forward to working with him on swimming, but back to fishing. This kiddo LOVES to fish. Like begs to go fishing daily. Pretty much he would be perfectly content playing baseball and fishing daily. ALL Boy.

Birthday Party Fun

We have had several fun birthday parties lately. Lately as in the last 2 months. Mason has had so much fun at each one for different reasons. The first party was a pony party and it was on a farm. Mason got to ride a pony and feed some chickens. He was in little boy heaven and was so fun to watch. I was supposed to be taking it easy, but I am not very good at that so I went to the party and sat and watched. I was so glad I went to see him so happy and having so much fun. He never wanted to get off. It was great. The second party Mason enjoyed was a fishing party. He loved it. He wants to go fishing EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. Thank goodness we have a great nanny right now and she takes him multiple times a week. The fishing party was for Mason’s girlfriend and it was post Addison’s arrival. Mason fished and fished and fished at Hattie’s party. He caught upwards of 10 fish. The parents would cast and he would reel them in. Every time another parent yelled they had a fish on the line, Mason would run over and reel it in. It was funny. Most of the other kids were happy with reeling one and some didn’t really want to go near the fish. Birthday Girl blowing out her candles. Mason’s favorite part of any birthday party. The cake. He is totally my child. Poor Fish. My boys looking oh so cute. In his element. Getting brave about touching the wiggling fish. Daddy showing Mason a close up view of the fish he caught. Mason wasn’t too sure he wanted to touch it. Our last and most recent party was for our niece. She turned ONE. I cannot believe it. It makes me sad and I realize I need to enjoy all of Addison’s baby phase. It won’t be long until she is one. It was pretty much just family for this party, but we had so much fun playing with cousins. We had to leave early unfortunately for a wedding, but we got to have some cake and get some energy out.

Here is a picture of Addison with her Great-Grandmother. We need to take her to see her Great Great-Grandmother soon. Maybe during lunch this week. It is wonderful that Addison and Mason still have Great and Great Great Grandparents on Michael’s side of the family. Me with the birthday girl. Pretty Princess. Mason was so excited about singing and cake. Girlfriend needed a spoon to eat her cake. She did NOT like it being on her fingers.