1 Month Pictures

I love these pictures ♥


The first is the standard natural pose for a one month old, don't ya think?


This guy's figuring out the whole big brother thing ;)

November

Pictures are chronological.

Riding a scooter at a neighbor's.  He really likes the scooters, he likes to ask me if we can go over and ride them.  We haven't been a ton because I only say yes if they're already playing out front.


We're excited to meet our baby!


Bathtime & The Man in the Yellow Hat


Our silly preschooler got out all the toys two at a time. He'd give his little brother the choice of which of the two he wanted and then move on to two more. By the end they each had a huge pile of toys. It was pretty sweet, I'm a sucker for when they're playing happily together.  Which happens quite a bit :)


He wanted paper and tape so he could write and attach the twelve numbers on the clock. I suggested he use these little post-its instead, and should have known he'd keep going til they were all gone. (He's only over 100 because he skipped a lot. 1-25, 50, 75, 100 then by ones again. We have a counting book that does that so he often uses it as a quick way to get to 100.)
Also, tracing and cutting from Halloween crafts.


The first time I found him sleeping on his big brother's bed at naptime! Fairly common now.


Love love love this guy! The day we came home ...



Kiss, ugga-mugga, hug. The affection pattern in our home, often proceeded by high-fives.


They brought down their pillows and bedtime stuffed animals to sleep on the couch. He has his eyes closed because he's "sleeping".


After a bath.


He loves his turn on the tablet!


Face paint from a birthday party!


With Grandma


Wheels On the Bus with big brother ♫


With Grandma


My 2 younger boys.


Over 60 degrees, yay!


He loved reading pat-a-cake with daddy!
And had George keep at it even after daddy fell asleep.


Early in the month our oldest participated in the primary program at church.  He wanted me to join him up there so when it was his turn to talk I went up (with my oversized belly) and crouched down next to him while he said his part.  He used kind of a silly voice since he was nervous but I'm super proud of him for sitting with his class up there and for saying his part!

Both boys are talking tons, I think I've been saying that every month lately. Our toddler still quietly repeats everything he hears and is using longer sentences. A fun phrase he says a lot is "here you go, buddy." His big brother says that to him.  I call them "buddy."

Our toddler likes to copy everything his big brother does.

Big brother likes to be the boss.

Both the boys love their little brother. I think our toddler is taking his brother's lead to an extent, he does love to do what big brother does, but he really loves the baby too. He tells the baby that he's "so cute," which is something he hears his big brother say to the baby a lot. Big brother also likes to say he loves the baby "sooo much!"


Our newest baby is a delight and always content.  At his 2 week appointment the doctor said he's doing great.

Thankful

With our baby being only 2 weeks old I wanted to stay home for Thanksgiving this year.  So my parents and my big sister and her partner came for a fun little gathering and quite a feast!  And I didn't cook a thing!  My dear husband smoked the turkey and made bread sticks and eggnog.  And our guests made everything else! I didn't take a picture of the pies, but you can see our toddler enjoyed them!



On thanksgiving we made a little thankful turkey, the design was inspired by an idea my mother-in-law found. Our preschooler helped me make the turkey body and then we all traced our hands and wrote things we were thankful for. Our preschooler loved this activity and made 5 hands (the rest of us just did 1), he wrote on them and cut them out himself. I took this picture the next day when he was making more - he did 4 more and had his dad do a few more too.
The second pic is a turkey he make in pre-k.


My sister came by for a bit the day before to meet her newest nephew and brought lots of goodies and a banner for us to decorate (see above).


Our preschooler had tons of fun with the banner, he did 5 entirely himself, and left his mark on all of them except the one his little brother made (on the far right).


I couldn't help but realize how blessed I am to have a wonderful family and so much support after having just given birth.  My husband took a week off work, friends in my ward dropped off meals 4x, and my mom came and stayed 4 days (the final being Thanksgiving).  So I was able to spend the first 2 weeks healing and bonding with my baby without worrying about meals, cleaning, and how to keep up with my two other boys.  Doing it all would have been impossible!  It can be overwhelming and exhausting now that things are back to normal, but I love my little family and my amazing husband does a lot, so we're okay :)

Pre-K

We started off November with a Parent Teacher Conference.  It was nice to talk with his teachers and hear how he's doing.  They seem to enjoy him.  They're impressed with his understanding of letters and numbers and ability to write and draw.  He displays a lot of pre-reading skills and they expect he'll be reading before the end of the year.

He started the year with 5 goals.  He's always polite and interacts well with others so they are marking his 2 social goals as complete.  He'll continue to work with the PT but she said that he's willing and able to do whatever she asks.  And the speech specialist says he's very cooperative and works hard and remembers things they've covered and they've been able to keep moving onto more and more sounds.  They are marking one of his speech goals as complete.

One story they told us about him was that the very first week they had "jobs" his job was to be the caboose.  And one time when they were walking down the hall as a class, a classmate stopped so our preschooler went up to him and said, "You have to stay in front of me, I'm the caboose."

He really loves school and it's fun to hear that he's doing so well.

The last class day before Thanksgiving families were invited to come in for a little bit.  Our baby was 8 days old so I stayed home, but our toddler and their dad went.  And brought me back these pictures. Our preschooler finishing a project, and a thanksgiving snack/feast.

Introducing & Details

Our little one:


A little after 4 on Thursday is when contractions began.  About a half an hour later our preschooler got home and wanted to go down the street to play at a neighbor's who has a daycare.  So we went, they were outside playing hockey and my boys joined in.  After dinner the contractions were pretty long and frequent so I decided to call my visiting teachers and my mom.  I thought it would be best to get the boys to bed normally before leaving but wanted to call to let them know it was coming.  My visiting teachers showed up as we were getting them into bed so we were able to leave right after ... probably 8:15 or so.  My mom would take over for them when she arrived.

Thankfully triage was full so I went straight to a delivery room.  I was 8 cm.  After one particularly long and difficult contraction I looked at my hands and my fingers were all stiff and straight and I swear they looked discolored but my husband said they weren't.  I thought I was gripping his hand so it was freaky to see they were like that.  Anyway, at that point I asked if the midwife could come in because certainly this couldn't go on much longer.  A little later I felt a bit silly about that because the baby still hadn't come.  The midwife left for a little bit and I didn't ask for her again until it was definitely time to push.

She broke my water before having me push and within a few pushes he was out.  At 10:17.  I felt pretty good about how I did except for screaming at the end.  Not sure why I felt I had to do that.  Besides the pain, obviously.  I'm just saying I didn't feel too out of control so shouldn't have done it.

Anyway, then I got to hold my baby for the next hour ♥   I got 4 stitches for a 1st degree tear.  He almost immediately started to make his way to breastfeed and by 11 had figured it out.  When he was an hour old his dad had a quick turn with him and then they weighed, measured, and washed him right in the delivery room.  In fact, he didn't leave me until about 4 am Saturday morning when they took him for shots.  My other boys had their baths and their hearing tests away from me.  He was 7 lbs, 20 inches.  I love when he stretches out those toes!



My mom brought the boys over in the morning and it was really fun to introduce them to their baby brother! (I couldn't seem to snap the camera at the right moment for a kiss from our toddler, though he gave me lots of opportunities.) Both boys were really sweet.





Before they left my preschooler came and patted my belly and said "You're growing another baby, mommy." I gave what I thought was a decent though brief and simple explanation of why my tummy was still big but his response was just to repeat "You're growing another baby, mommy."



After dinner that evening the boys came over again.  My dad had made it up too and got to meet the little guy.


Love these of him with his dad!


My parents and boys came over again in the morning and we all left the hospital together.