Henry, 2.5 months

Henry is 2.5 months old!  He weighed around 11 lbs at his 2 month appt and was pretty average for his head size and height as well.  It's a blessing to see him growing and progressing the way that he's supposed to, considering the rough start we had.

He has his smiley and happy moments.  Sometimes he laughs (or, tries to laugh.. it's more like a little shriek/gasp) and it's absolutely heartwarming to hear.  I love when he's happy.  

He's not the greatest napper, usually. He's certainly not the baby who will fall asleep in his carseat and then take a full 1-2 hour nap while I cart him around on errands, or even when I get home and try to put him (in his carseat still) in a quiet room.  He wakes up right away!  Some days he will take a couple long naps, and he will be happy for most of the day.  Other days, he cries a lot and doesn't nap at all or just takes very short naps, which makes it really difficult for me to get anything done!

He loves to be swaddles - loves it!  He could be crying and fussing but as soon as I lay him down and start swaddling him, he calms down for a few seconds and even gives me a little smile sometimes.  Then he usually starts crying again, haha.  But I do know he likes to be swaddled, and he sleeps so much better when he is swaddled.  If he's not swaddled, his arms move around while he sleeps and then he startles himself and it wakes him up.

Thankfully, he does usually give me a decent night's sleep.  He is generally pretty fussy in the evenings, no matter how his day went, but he will usually calm down around 9 or so (but really anywhere from 8-11pm).  He sleeps in his rock & play rocker every night, next to the couch, where I still am sleeping.  Honestly I'm not really too sure why we are still sleeping in the living room.  Well I kind of do - Henry still wakes up around 3:30-ish, and I don't want to disturb Garrett.  It's just easier and less stressful for me to deal with him downstairs, and I don't want to be carrying him up and down the stairs when I'm tired. Thankfully he's never awake for long, most nights he just eats and then goes right back to sleep.  Usually I'll make his bottle right before I go to sleep around 11, so when he wakes up at 3:30 I just pop the bottle in (not even getting him out of his bed next to me), and we eats and falls right back to sleep.  So really I only wake up for about 10 minutes (but WHY does it feel like I'm still lacking so much sleep??  I really need to get to bed earlier.. says the girl who is up blogging at 1:40 am).

(Just a note about the picture above... I just noticed that he's wearing my Florida hat, I'm wearing a Wisconsin tee, and I'm also wearing a New Hampshire necklace!  I feel lucky that I have lived in so many fun places!  Also... those Target pj's that Henry is wearing are the best.  They are cheap (3-pack for $12 I think?), they are cute, and they zip down from the top, which is genius.  I bought a 3-pack in newborn sizes, then a different 3-pack in 3 month size, and another 3-pack in size 6-9 month.  I love them) 

Nursing never got any better after that first month.  In fact, I stopped nursing altogether and just started pumping.  Even that wasn't enough, though.  We were supplementing 50/50 with formula.  To be honest, I was really bummed it didn't work out.  Nursing is so convenient and I do believe that it's the best way to go for the baby.  It's also free!  Instead, I'm paying $75 a month to rent a hospital-grade breast pump, spending about $60 a month on formula, and feeling guilty that it's still not working.  Every day I feel like my supply gets worse.  Right now I'm only able to pump about 6-8 ounces a DAY (split between 3-4 sessions).  Pretty pathetic!  Sure, it's partly my fault. I suppose I could force myself to attempt pumping every 3 hours around the clock, I could take some supplements, I could meet (again) with the lactation specialist.  But I'm so tired.  I just can't pump every 3 hours on top of bottle feeding him, and taking care of 3 other kids.  I was running myself ragged. As soon as I accepted the fact that nursing wasn't working, a weight lifted off my shoulders and things got better for both of us. He was still getting breast milk, but we were both less frustrated and I had more time to get other things done. But, I think that after this month I will return the breast pump and accept the fact that it's just not working this time around.  It's not ideal, and not what I would have chosen - especially since he's my last baby.  This certainly isn't what I imagined.  But I'm trying to see the silver lining.  I have more freedom since I'm not nursing.  Garrett has taken a "night shift" here and there, letting me sleep up in our bedroom while he slept in the living room with Henry.  I slept for 10 hours one night, by myself in our king bed, with a white noise fan on and blackout curtains.  It was glorious.  Couldn't do that if I was nursing!  So, trying to see the positives.  And being soo grateful for formula. 

We love having Henry in our family!  The girls just love playing with him, talking to him, entertaining him.  I love to hear his coos and see his smiles, and I can't keep myself from constantly kissing those chubby cheeks. Such a little sweetie.

Walking trails

One thing we really loved about living in Wisconsin was the wide variety of walking trails in the city and near our house.  Nearly every weeknight in the summer, we would get in the car and drive to a nearby trail or down to the lake to enjoy the fresh air and gorgeous weather.  Tennessee doesn't have quite the same amenities as Madison, though.  We did manage to find one trail not too far away, and we went a couple times after Henry was born while the weather was still nice in the evenings.

I don't think this picture quite captures just how steep this hill was!  The whole trail was very hilly and very steep at some points.  I'm not going to complain, though, because my glutes could use it and it felt good to put in the effort after being pregnant and sore for so long.  Sadly, the evening light and warm weather didn't last too long after Henry was born so we've put our evening walks on hiatus for a while.  Hopefully we can pick things up again when the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, which should hopefully be by March or so here.  Maybe even by this summer we will live in a house, in a neighborhood with sidewalks.  Then we can just walk out our door and go walking every night like we did in Florida, if we don't want to drive to a trail.  Here's hoping!

Henry's baby quilt

My mom always makes a baby quilt for her new grandchildren, and it's something we treasure!  For Henry, I actually came across this quilt on instagram over a year ago and always had it in the back of my mind in case I ever had a boy.  Thankfully, Mom was happy to make it for me exactly like I wanted it! (she usually chooses out the fabrics and patterns)  She brought it to us when she and my dad came down for Thanksgiving.

 For now it's just a tummy time/snuggling quilt.  It's a big size, though, and will be perfect on a toddler bed someday.

Henry certainly won't suffer from any lack of attention at our house-

Future pilot, perhaps?  

Thanks, Mom, for the beautiful quilt.  We will treasure it always!

Hands On Museum

Something fun we have found to do is the Hands On museum downtown.  I took Olivia a couple times before Henry was born (we bought an annual pass), and Garrett took all the girls a couple times after Henry was born while I stayed home with the baby.

Probably the neatest part is the huge "Make it, Take it" room.  They have all sorts of crafting supplies that you can use to make pretty much anything you want.  Then you can take it home.

On this day, Garrett helped Ellie build a house for one of her little stuffed pigs (his name is Bacon)-

We came across another little art room with some easels downstairs, so the girls set to work on some masterpieces:

Shopping at the "grocery store":

Digging for fossils and shark teeth:

There's also lots of other things.. a pretend "bank", one of those shadow rooms that takes pictures of yours shadows on the wall, a black light room, huge building blocks, a stage for "performances", dress ups, lots of bubble stations, a big water feature for floating little boats down a river, etc.

I'm glad we have found something fun to do while the weather is cold or rainy.  The best part is that there's hardly ever anyone else there, as you can tell from the pictures - even though we mostly go on Saturdays (with all 3 girls, anyway... I've been a couple times with just Olivia during the weekdays and it's just as quiet).  I hear that it gets pretty busy in the summertime so we probably won't go then, but I'd prefer to be hiking or just outside anyway so I don't see that being an issue.  Now we just need some friends to meet up with there!

Christmas Parade

We went to our city's Christmas parade a few Saturdays ago.  It was pretty chilly (in the 40s) so we bought the girls some hot chocolates while we waited for it to start (I think we were near the end, so we had a good half hour wait at least).

It was a pretty typical parade... mostly churches, the high school band, the local university band.  Radio stations and pageant queens.  The girls liked it because they got lots of candy.  

Afterwards, there was a little Christmas "festival" at the old train depot downtown.  We went because they said there would be food trucks and we were all feeling hungry.  Sadly there were only 3 to choose from (besides ice cream and donuts), but we tried out some street tacos from one and they were okay (not nearly as good as our favorite food truck that we visit at least once a month, but it was fun to try something new).

I wore Henry on me in the Moby wrap during the parade, and he slept most of the time.  He was wide awake for the food trucks, though!  He finally started smiling a few weeks ago and it's been so much fun.  Such a cute little guy.  Most of the time he's either sleeping or eating or fussing, so it's nice to get a smile out of him every once in a while.

Baby Blessing

Since my parents were in town for Thanksgiving, we blessed Henry on Thanksgiving night at Garrett's parents' house (we went over for pie after Garrett got home from work).

Henry with my dad, Garrett, Garrett's dad, and Jared (Garrett's sister's husband).  Garrett gave him a very nice blessing.  As you can see below, Henry was a bit fussy afterwards (what's new) but thankfully he stayed decently quiet through the blessing.

I feel really lucky to have these Priesthood holders in my family.  I'm especially grateful for Garrett and the Priesthood that he provides for our family.  I'm thankful that Henry has all these wonderful examples to look up to as he grows.

New glasses

After 4 years of having the same glasses, we thought it might be time for Ellie to get some new ones.  Her old lenses were a bit scratched up, the pink color had faded years ago, and they were just a bit too baby-ish for her (according to her... I thought they were perfect and adorable!).  

We ordered these through Zenni optical, which seems like a nice concept. Cheap glasses that you order online after you put in your prescription.  Garrett had good luck with them a few months ago so we thought we'd give it a try with Ellie.  These were originally listed at like $17, so I planned to get her two pairs in case one didn't work out (or just so she could rotate in between them as she wanted).  However, by the time I put in her prescription and opted for a few of the "upgrades" (like scratch free lenses, etc... plus her prescription is so strong that the lenses cost an additional $20), we were clocking in at $50.  No longer "cheap" glasses, so we just got one pair for now.

We all love them, and she loves them too which is the most important part.  They are a little big, which bugs me because we measured so well and the reviews said they were even a bit small for their 6-year-olds so I thought we would be okay.  But, oh well.  She will grow into them I suppose.

I can't say I blame her for picking out those cute pink frames.  She looks adorable!