Six Months

Ah, the half year mark! Time has passed far too quickly with this fellow. I don't think I'd mind reliving these precious months over and over again. 

Growth-wise, I don't know for sure because his appointment isn't until he turns seven months old... But I'm pretty sure he's still on the lower end of the curve for most measurements. He's such a tiny guy. Just enough padding to him to know he's not starved. It makes it a little easier to tote him around everywhere and brothers to help.

Mischief managed.

If we ever questioned if he was a momma's boy, there is NO doubt left. Garrison is convinced he'll never get to bond with this kid because he just wants only mom. I get that he's just a baby, so it's normal... but it's a little much. 

Last week he had trouble sleeping at night. Early in the AM, after a couple hours of tending to him, I was exhausted and finally passed the baton to Garrison. Peter screamed in his arms for an hour straight without pause, and stopped the very second I walked back into the room to rescue Daddy. Two minutes later he was asleep in my arms without a peep. 

That's usually how it goes. The second he hears my voice or sees me in the same room, everything else in the world must come to a halt and he has to be in Mom's arms...

He loves peek-a-boo and watching his brothers. I think he mostly loves to rest his head on me though.

Some fun milestones:

-He does okay at sitting. It's still an emerging skill. He just prefers to stand or roll around wherever he wants. 

-The ratio of rolling/army crawling to crawling gets smaller each day. Any day now, it'll click for him, and he won't even look back. WATCH OUT WORLD.

 

When he officially turned six months I realized I needed to quit being lazy and get him started on the solids. I had ONE bag of non-formula milk in the freezer to use for the first couple days of cereal, but he hasn't touched cereal since because he HATES formula and that's all there is left to mix in. BUT he devours his fruits and veggies with his little body so excited for the next bite. 

 

Naps are not this boy's strength. It's just his age though. Hopefully he follow his brother's patterns and transition to an awesome sleeper soon.

And he does NOT like to be tickled. When we tickle him his eyebrows get so serious and he squawks super loud at us. Which means we don't tickle him for laughs, we tickle him for his funny reactions. We're mean like that.

Peter is SO fun and we just love him to pieces. He's adored by everyone in our family, and I think that's understating it.

Nathan vs. The Talk

Nathan gave his first talk in Primary as a Sumbeam.

I told him a few days before that he would get to, and he suddenly got very quiet and somber and told me, "Um... no..."

When the big day came, he sat very nervously in the chair in front. If it weren't for his friends sitting with him, the twins next door, he might have cried and thrown a fit to get out of it. I love some good peer pressure!

His turn came and he started narrating, out loud, his trip up the steps to the podium. Consequently, his talk began with his mini, high-pitched voice stating, "There are three steps, and THAT'S FINAL."

He mumbled/repeated his five sentence talk that I whispered in his ear about Jesus, and sat down a proud little Sunbeam.

This kid makes me laugh. I love that he's getting so big.

2014

At the end of January, I took down our calendar from the wall. It's interesting to go back and look at the things written down. Most of it was a blur--at least for me. I spent probably 10/12 months in the thick of survival mode, so sorry if it's painfully obvious that lots of these events are about me (I find it probably just as annoying as you too). I'm glad we got through.

January

Discovered that our family would be growing on New Year's Eve. Held my breath for several weeks until the first ultrasound. Feeling sick.

For the most part, just normal business--callings.

My birthday. A very low key celebration.

February

This month on the calendar is rather empty! These are the weeks I spent in denial of just how sick I was getting. Finally got set up with Home Health.

Valentine's. Managed a DIY craft for Garrison.

March

Also very empty month. 

Garrison's birthday.

Our most frequent visitor was Joni, my home health nurse. More IV's than I can count and black and blue arms and hands. Two liters of D5 every. single. day.

April

Managed to go see Chris Botti concert with my dad. 

Found out we were having another BOY! 

Easter. 

May

Got Nate tested for preschool--he got in!

Six year anniversary. We got a minivan.

I finally renewed my driver's license... Four months late. Not like I was driving much anyhow.

Mother's Day. My boys got me a honeysuckle plant--my favorite flower.

Last IV of the pregnancy til delivery.

June

Father's Day. 

Made it down to St. George for a big wedding.

Nathan's birthday. Lots of pirate goods. Graduated from speech services.

Gabe finished his year of pre-school with Ms. Kirsten.

July

Fourth of July. The boys enjoyed watching everything. I didn't love the cannon booms til midnight every single night. 

Saw our hyper dog the most mellow EVER when she got fixed... But I secretly was very grateful for a break for a few days.

Gabe rode in a bike parade.

August

The boys started school--together! 

Labor kicked in that night on the first day.

Two days later our September baby arrived in August!! Peter had us all 1000% smitten!

September

We brought Pete home on the first, Labor Day.

Garrison took great care of us all while we recovered and adjusted.

October

Getting a little busier--lots of little things etched on the calendar.

Halloween. 

Pumpkin patch.

Family pictures.

November

Lots of small events again. 

Lots of time with family. And friends.

Thanksgiving.

December

Gabe turned five! 

Lots of Christmas gatherings with family.

Got to see the last uncle return home from a mission!

2015 is looking like it'll be a big year for growth for each of us! I'm excited for how we'll all change.

Cycle

This winter has been so mellow, and yet nothing has been different this year for us. Nothing much going on. It's because of the sick cycle.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but I get increasingly frustrated with the colder months as January and February roll along--and it's not even been that cold. Nevertheless we get caught in the sick cycle. We try to function normally, attending school and church and grocery shopping. Someone gets sick. We do our duty to society and stay home, cancel our play dates, and try to keep our germs to ourselves (heck, we even stay home from Wal-Mart 95% of the time). We get cabin fever, go stir crazy, and even grouchy. Then we recover and slowly peek our heads out the front door... Cautiously attend church and school again, washing and sanitizing our hands a lot... aaand then someone gets sick and we're knocked back off our feet to start the cycle all over again.

It always finds us.

The last two weeks we started off with "just a cold." Sorry to use the "h" word, but I HATE that phrase. And it morphed into a croup cough in Nathan's lungs--our family's most vulnerable set. After many days of wheezing and coughing, and Albuterol, and almost pulling out the nebulizer for the first time in two years, Peter started to bark. He spent a couple nights in Insta/KidsCare due to wheezing and chest retractions while breathing, etc. etc. Bronchiolitis. The kind where the doc says "Could very well be RSV..." but we don't care about the official diagnosis because it's just viral, and it'll only differ by what we call it, not what we're seeing. Luckily his oxygen saturation/respiratory rates remained stellar, so he just got to go get "suctioned" a couple times to clear the gunk in his airway. He didn't need hospitalization or oxygen like Nate did as a baby. But then it got fun as the older kids had such a hard time with the gunk in their airways that they both spent two nights a piece throwing up through the ugly AM hours of the night.

And just short of two weeks later, we finally feel well enough to start creeping back out into the real world.

Phew. My fingers on the keyboard feel "out of breath" after that story.

But let me not forget to leave out that I, myself, have hardly been sick (knock on wood), and given the strength to get everyone else through these cycles. See? Silver lining!

A picture of the youngest, just because he's growing up the fastest right now.

I'm learning a little more clearly during these cycles that Earth life is not the period for reward. But how we get through matters, so we go through it all. Even young Peter does his best to put on his smile when he feels awful, and I think I can learn a whole lot from that.

Four Months

Peter is four months old. He's changed so much in the last few weeks!

He started rolling and scooting everywhere and putting everything in his mouth just before he turned four months old. He's usually busy trying to sit up and loves to stand too--and he's got the STRONG legs for it.

Somewhere in time he did NOT get the memo on how to stay my baby for long.

He's full of lots of GIANT smiles for Mom, some for Dad and other familiar faces. He's a reserved baby--he only actually laughs every once in a while and rather softly. Someone once observed that he seems like he has an old man's soul. I think they nailed it on the head.

For his checkup he measure at like the tenth and fifteenth percentiles for weight and height (but 50th for head circumference... big head for that little body). This momma just doesn't do chunky babies without formula intervention. And Peter's had the least amount of formula thus far between my boys.

His cute head of hair has thinned a ton, and he still gets compliments on the amount of hair he has--which I feel like is none after what he had. He sports the classic bald spot on the back of his head.

It's strange to think of him as so little anymore. The newborn phase came and went in a single blink! He's been a part of our family's life for four months, but his presence has been very much a part of mine for a year now. I just wish these kids' little bodies would stop getting any bigger so dearly.

Minister to the Sick

Good thing we have our three year old, who fell sick first with this week long cold, to tend to the rest of us all the while.

Reading books to us in bed and administering shots--nice deal!

Five

Our family has a five year old now! 

On his birthday, Gabe woke up and came down the stairs and whispered in awe, "I turned five!" like it was a magical process that happened overnight.

He opened his Geotrax airport, opened a box of 5T clothes, went to school, played at an indoor trampoline place,  ate dinner at Chuck-a-Rama (his choice), and ate cake.

The day before we let his five favorite neighborhood friends over to play their hearts out--little boy style! Aaaand the day after we had grandparents over for cake, ice cream,  and presents--a couple more contributions to our new Geotrax. Whew!

At five, his favorite color is blue, he still loves trains, his favorite food is alfredo, and his favorite thing to do is ride his bike. 

This kid is still very smart. He can read books to us and picks up on store names and street signs when we drive. He's figuring out adding (with his fingers) and counting by two's, etc. 

Gabe's had quite the autism month--the holidays with so many gatherings and excitement make it a long month, and I seem to forget that until it's already happening. But unbelievably, his preschool teachers say that he's doing so well that me makes a better peer than the model peers in class. 

After his birthday was done, his thought process moved on to looking forward to turning six, going to kindergarten, and maybe losing some baby teeth. Whoa down, 'migo.