On sleep

We have truly been in just about every situation imaginable when it comes to sleep with our 3 little ones. This post is about our journey and what has worked for us with each child (to the best of my ever-fleeting memory) and hopefully a little help for you in your current struggles to get yourself and/or your littles to sleep peacefully.

going, going, gone! 

Our oldest, Malakai, was born during a heatwave in the summer of 2009. At the time we didn't have air conditioning except a small portable unit in the main living space. We had not planned to co-sleep because we honestly had no idea what that was or what it meant. Malakai had his own set of plans. We had an antique bassinet by my side of the bed for him to be in our room, but he slept best in my arms, and so that's what we did. He napped fairly well, it was mostly night time that was the struggle. Him being our only child and my staying home full time meant that we could be flexible with sleep for the most part. We thought it was bad, but my current experiences scoff at how easy those days were.

I thought Malakai would be swaddled until he left for college ;)

By 15 months old though, Kai was still not sleeping through the night. He didn't take a pacifier and was weaned but still needed soothed to sleep. This meant myself or mostly Ben walking him around until he fell into a deep enough sleep that he didn't notice when we'd set him down. Letting him cry to sleep was not an option for our situation. He would get hysterical (to the point of vomiting, rather quickly) and we just couldn't stand it.

We read Elizabeth Pantley's "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and implemented the routines that worked best for us and he was soon sleeping through the night. It only took a couple weeks and it was so wonderful. I still recommend this book as it's suggestions and habits have come in handy with all of our children. Sure, there was sleep regression when we hit a tough bout of teething or a cold, but ultimately we could always retrain using the tactics we learned and going back to our routines.

In the fall of 2011, Desmond joined us. We received a co-sleeper that attached to our bed and were wondering where this magic had been the last couple years! Then we had our first experience with "colick", I was reduced to tears on several occassions and frequently felt like a failure. After a few weeks of it went by, it settled as it often does (cling to that if you find yourself in the throes of colick, it ALWAYS gets better!). From then Des was pretty content to sleep just about anywhere. He napped fairly frequently in a bouncy type seat with his special "lovey" in the middle of the living room while I made lunch and Malakai (then just over 2) played rather noisely as usual.

Malakai, Desmond + Aurelia...swings + bouncy seats to the rescue!

Desmond regressed into needing constant soothing to sleep and at about 15 months had learned to swing one leg over and hoist himself out of bed. We were NOT ready to transition to a toddler bed (and of course, neither was he) so we found our solution in the form of a few sleep sacks. First it worked but the bottom was so wide that he could still climb out, just with more effort. So, I sewed up the sides to make them narrower and ta-dah! no more crib-climing baby. When he learned to work the zipper (because he was baby houdini) we turned them backwards, but eventually he was in a toddler bed and ready to roll. In order to get him to sleep and not play we got into a bad habit of soothing him to sleep and laying him down every night, every nap. This continued even when we put the boys in the same room and turned the other into a "play room" to keep the toys from being a distraction. Someone always had to lay with him to get him to bed, which meant Malakai wanted that too.

Malakai stopped napping, so he would play in the other room while I lay down with Desmond for a nap, which often took a LONG time. At night Ben and I would both find ourselves laying in their little beds, waiting for them to fall asleep. We remembered our previous routines and began to implement them again. It took a while but things got better. One of the best tactics was agreeing to snuggle with each of them, but just for a few minutes. We had worked it all the way down to 1 minute and eventually stopped laying with them after stories and devotions altogether. They've had moments of bothering each other over the years, but for the most part they have always done really well sharing a room.

More recently, Malakai has had a run in with some anxiety and nightmares so I have started to lay down with each of them for "one minute" after lights out. I don't mind this at all, in fact, I look forward to it. I get a small amount of snuggle time with each of them. I pray over them, run my fingers through their hair and kiss their heads before tip-toeing out and whispering "see you when the sun comes up" which was something that we started to tell Malakai years ago and it just stuck. I will continue to do this for as long as they want me to.

Another way we have battled night time worries, bad dreams, and other sleep disturbances is implementing the use of essential oils. We have been using oils regularly for nearly 3 years and the more I use them, the more I am pleased with the outcome. I'd love to share details about this portion of our journey with you. Please feel free to email me to find out which oils we use and how to get some to try!

The boys were 5 and 3 when Aurelia was born. Raeli has been all over the map in terms of sleep. As a newborn she slept wonderfully, and it lasted until we had to stop swaddling her around 6 months because she would roll over in her sleep. We tried all methods of soothing her to sleep, including the multiple different ideas in our go-to resource, "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" but the only thing that worked was to ease her into bed time as much as we could, get her drowsy and lay her down, letting her cry a bit and put herself to sleep. Even still, this really only consistently worked for naps.

Once she got close to a year old she was struggling to get to sleep and stay asleep every single night. I went away for a weekend and we used the opportunity to start to wean her from nursing. I figured we would keep the bed time feeding and wean that one slowly as that's what worked best for her brothers. It did NOT work for her. She would nurse to sleep and then wake screaming as soon as I tried to put her down, no matter how long I held her or if I tried to get her to stay awake. Nothing that included nursing her before bed was working. Then she weaned herself completely. We put her to bed drowsy, but awake and she cried but not for long. Then she slept ALL NIGHT.

It was very foreign to us to let a baby cry to sleep as that would not have come close to working for our sons (or us) just years prior. It's what she wanted and it worked for her. I still have to retreat to the shower if she has a hard time getting to sleep. We also still go in to soothe her if she's having a rough go or cries for "too long"(for us that is over 15 minutes without calming down). At 18 months she still has bouts of waking and being difficult to get to sleep again. Just recently she struggled to sleep at night due to illness and teething, but we went back to our routines once we knew she was healthy and able and she cried a bit, but for less time and she went back to sleeping all night. The more nights go by, the less she protests. Now, she often just whimpers or makes no noise at all and lays there quietly before drifting off to sleep. I consider it a miracle each and every time.

When we've been out late or have had guests over, causing the kiddos to be a bit rowdy instead of sleepy, we usually turn to our favorite essential oils to encourage them to get to sleep calmly and quickly. We've had so much success with using them in this and many other ways that I can't help but sing their praises! They've also done wonders for Ben + I. With how often we were waking to soothe little ones, Ben + I had been used to waking frequently and struggled to sleep all night once they were all staying asleep. We turned to oils and they immediately worked to help us get to sleep quickly and stay asleep all night. All these benefits without the side effects of feeling too drowsy to get up in the morning or if the kids needed us in the night.

All that to say two things 1. never say never! 2. each kiddo is so totally different, let them "tell" you what works for them. As long as it also works for you and is safe, do it! I would never have thought that we would let a kiddo cry to sleep, it's just not something that was comfortable for Ben or I, but it's what works for our little girl and she sleeps well and wakes happy, so we do too!

edit: I wrote the bulk of this a week or so ago and of course Aurelia is in another sleep regression due to her 2 year molars taking FOR-EV-ER to come in all the way. We even went to her doctor to make sure she doesn't have an ear infection. Thankfully she is healthy, just having some referred pain from her teeth coming in. Since she is uncomfortable we do our best to soothe her to sleep in her own room if she wakes unahppy, but when she's just too miserable we pull into our bed to get some sleep. Seasons come and seasons go and if I've learned anything new over the last 6+ years of parenting it's to remain flexible and don't get too used to something because it's bound to change in the blink of an eye!

Aurelia Ann: 18 months

Welcome new readers! If you're new to Breaking New Ground, as many of you are, be sure to head over to the "about" page to get to know a little bit about my family. This post is an update on my youngest child as I like to keep record of their ages and stages here to share with family and friends, connect with others in our similarities + differences, and to look back on over the years. 

________  _____________   _____________   _____________   _____________  ________ 

In my book, little ones are still "babies" until they turn 2. However, I think with Aurelia being our last baby she might stay that way for good. Growing up we were neighbors with a family that called their youngest "Baby" almost exclusively and as she grew well beyond the title, now I can see why it would stick. All my kids will always be "my babies" but knowing this is our last little one makes all the stages she passes through so bittersweet. I keep clinging to the fact that we will hopefully have plenty more neices + nephews to satisfy the baby fix in the future. I'm also really enjoying this thing called sleep. I'm sure there will be sleepless nights for plenty of other reasons in our future, but coming out of the sleepless nights stage of having a baby is rather nice.

Previously, Raeli has been all over the map in terms of sleep. I have an entire post dedicated to our journey to get our babies and kids to sleep coming soon. Aurelia struggled with sleeping at night when she should have been able to, which was the same for our sons, but getting each of them to the point they could sleep was very different. Now she sleeps well and wakes happy, so we do too!

Aurelia is going through so many new things right now, it's been difficult to keep track. She just had 3 out of 4 of her "two year molars" come through, it was not a happy experience for anyone. We are really dreading the time when the 4th one decides to make it's way out.

Lately she has been our kiddo in the "spotlight" because her brothers refuse to have their photos taken. I want to respect that, and also, they run away if I try...so there's really no fighting it most of the time. Sometimes I can ask Malakai really nicely to comply and he will, but usually with a very cheesy posed grin. Desmond usually needs bribed, with snapchat. Yes, my 4 year old asks if he can snapchat. Thanks to my twenty-something brother who introduced him to all the crazy options it has for photos and videos. The only people I'm connected to on snapchat are my mom and brother, so it's not as weird as it sounds. For those of you who have noticed that Raeli appears 3x as much as the boys do on social media, now you know why!

Her most recent accomplishment has been verbally. She has been pretty quiet for a long time, she signs when she's "all done", wants "more", and to say "please". She blows kisses and waves her good-byes and dances every time there is even a hint of music (like running over to dance to theme songs whenever her brothers are watching a tv show). She nods and shakes her head to answer questions. She has had a few words here and there but she's finally starting to use them more and try out new ones. She hollars "HI!" most mornings when she sees our favorite neighbor, Amy. She has recently started saying "yeah" and nodding her head, she grunts "uh-uh" while shaking her head no. For the longest time she's been saying "dah-dah" for dog, and subsequently any other animal. When you ask her what sound they make, she makes a sound like a cat hissing. It's pretty hysterical. She is trying to say more animals names and sounds, but when she gets excited she still points and yells "dah!"

{looking at the flamingos at Wildlife Safari}

One of the sweetest things she's been able to do, is follow directions. When she is asked to go get something or do something she usually complies correctly. We moved her changing pad to underneath the dresser and I started asking her to put it away, now she does it on her own after nearly every change. She likes to "clean up" and "put away". She also likes to go get books or toys and is so proud when she gets what you've asked for. She helps me unload the dishwasher by handing me all the plastic utensils out of the basket. It takes much longer, but it much more fun than doing it on my own. 

{mama's sweater + some sassy red shoes}

Aurelia loves shoes and has to have them on when she gets a hold of a pair. Last week Mima (my mom) gave the kids an early Easter gift of slippers and she adores wearing hers. Her newest obsession is coloring. Desmond has a table set up for our homeschooling time, which we usually do when Raeli is napping. There is a small bucket of crayons and paper set out, she will sit and color for 20-30 minutes, sometimes longer! She loves to look through books and babble her own little story as she turns the pages. 

As the youngest, and the only girl, she's predictibly grown into quite the little sass. Since she doesn't use a lot of words (so very different from her brothers at this age!) she tends to scream and protest when she's misunderstood or wronged in some way. We are definitely working on getting her to speak in effort to stop this behavior! She can totally hold her own with her brothers, and her scream does serve her well when they are not being gentle or kind towards her. 

It is so fun to watch Aurelia grown, to see how she's similar to her brothers and embrace how she's different. She'll be a baby for at least 6 more months, but she'll be my baby for always.

{ain't no party like a toddler tea party...}

We have a winner...

Wow! What a great giveaway! It's always fun to see so many people interested in winning cloth diapers. Welcome to all you new followers, thanks for joining us here and participating in the latest giveaway! I just love being able to share with readers here, so if you love giveaways, be sure to follow along with us in your favorite way, just click on the circular watercolor icons on the left to subscribe to blog posts, follow on instagram, twitter, and facebook! 

{images property of Buttons Diapers}

Of course, there is only one winner for this giveaway, and that would be Sarah Hayes! Rafflecopter randomly picked her entry as the winner of the Buttons Diapers trial pack. Sarah has 48 hours to reply by email and claim her prize. If the prize goes unclaimed an alternate will be chosen and notified by email. 

Now do me a favor and comment below with the answer to the following 2 questions so I can make sure to keep the fun posts and prizes coming. 1. What are your favorite giveaways to enter? 2. What products do you actually take time to read through the reviews to learn more about? 

Thanks again for your participation, I love being able to interact with the little community here on my teensy corner of the internet. 

Have a great week, and thanks again to Buttons Diapers for the opportunity to share cloth diapers with BnG readers! 

Buttons Cloth Diapers: Feature, Review, + Giveaway

We have been a cloth-diapering family for 3 years now and I am still so glad we made the switch from disposables when we did. We have saved so much money and cloth diapering has lent itself to a lot of other lifestyle changes as well. Plus, they are just so stinkin' cute!

I recently came across Buttons Cloth Diapers on facebook through a cloth diapering blog that I follow and asked them to partner with me here to share more about their product, and of course give one of you the chance to try them out!

They sent us a lovely diaper cover of my choice, and since most of what we already have is very gender neautral I chose a girly print with pink flowers, called Afternoon Tea. Since then they've launched several new prints, my favorites are Brave and Precious, head on over to their site to choose your favorites!

I really love the fit of this diaper cover, it's very adjustable for a custom fit around baby's tummy and legs. I first tried it out when Aurelia was just a year old. She's 17 months today and because of the elastic and snaps it fits just as nicely, with room to adjust up as she grows. I like how the inserts snap in and my favorite part is how the legs have extra protection from leaks, with a double gusset.

Buttons Cloth Diapers is generously giving away a trial pack (1 diaper cover and 1 daytime insert) to one Breaking new Ground reader. Enter below through rafflecopter for your chance to try out these adorable and affordable diapers...if you can't wait to see if you win, click through to their site to buy some of your own. They're too cute to pass up!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This contest begins Saturday February 20th, 2016 and is open until midnight Saturday February 27th, 2016. All entries will be verified for correct terms met to qualify. A winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter. The winner will be announced here and notified by email at the address associated with their Rafflecopter entries. The winner will have 48 hours to reply to the email to claim their prize or an alternate will be chose.

Interested in seeing your product featured here, see the PR + Disclosures tab and contact Breaking New Ground by email to be considered. Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  Click for additional disclosures and PR policies.

Questions, concerns, comments unrelated to the nature of this giveaway should be emailed to Breaking New Ground. See the contact tab at the top for information.

Aurelia's 1st Birthday

 I still have Malakai's birthday to post about, but since it's most fresh on my mind and in my camera card, I'll share how we celebrated Aurelia's very first birthday.

{the coral dress in these photos is the same newborn sized dress}

Aurelia turned one year old on September 5th and I mourned the fact that her baby days are slipping away. I'm still wondering where the last 12 months disappeared to. We celebrated her growing and learning and the joy she brings to our little family. Sadly, she had been very sick the entire week prior with 3 visits to the pediatrician, 2 trips to the pharmacy, and numerous called to the triage nurse. It started the week before when she had been acting fussy and spiked a fever for just a day. It broke on it's own and she didn't really have any other symptoms beside being extremely irritable. On Friday I decided to take her in just to be sure before the weekend hit and we had to resort to urgent care if things got worse. We saw one of the new providers at our pediatricians office and she checked Aurelia's ears, which were my suspicion because of her behavior, and despite no other symptoms she did in fact have an ear infection. 

She was limited in what antibiotics she could take due to previous side effects, so we decided to try the same one she had with her last ear infection in early June. After 2 days and no real improvement in her mood, she woke with a mild case of hives on her belly. That night she vomited shortly after taking another dose of her medicine. The next day we went in to the doctor to chat about her reactions and changing medicine. Then Aurelia started refusing the medicine, she'd spit it no matter how we tried to give it to her. By the Friday, a full week from when we previously took her in we were back for the 3rd visit to see if her meds were doing any good since she was spitting them out. Thankfully her ear was improving, so we kept attempting to get to to swallow as much as possible and prayed for healing. We were able to celebrate Grandma Debbie's birthday that day without too much of a fuss. 

On her birthday she was in great spirits. We went out to one of our favorite places, Johnson Brothers Greenhouses out in Coburg, Oregon. They do a really sweet little kids' event the first Saturday of every month. Then we actually celebrated her little friend who happens to be 8 days younger at her birthday party and ended the day playing at home together.

Sunday after church we threw her a simple little garden party at our dear friend's home and she was just a peach the entire day. It was so nice to have her finally feeling better.

{Mima outdid herself again with a beautiful cake}

We had some light snacks and drinks for our guests and played lawn games and had a good old fashioned visit.

We watched her daintily eat her very first bites of cake and frosting, and play with tissue and wrapping paper as she opened up gifts.

{banana applesauce smash cake}

She watched the big kids play and got passed around from grandparents, to aunts + uncles, to friends and crawled around in the grass with here cousin, brothers and little friends. 

It was a perfect little afternoon celebration for our sweet and sassy little girl. 

oh hey...

Just dropping in to say hi...and that I can't believe this pretty little girl of mine will be turning 1 year old in just over 6 weeks...

...carry on. 

Events: Spring Bazaar

Hey friends...I just wanted to let you local readers know of an upcoming event that is a definite must! I usually tag along to a few bazaars in the winter time around the holidays to shop and to sell some of my handmade items. This year I found a great opportunity in the Poppies and Petunias Spring Bazaar and  had to snag a table to share some handmade goodies. 

My mom's precious little dolls will be there in a variety of styles... you HAVE to come see them and snag one for your favorite little girl (or guy!). 

My aunt + I have been crocheting up a storm and will have a variety of items. My most popular has been these crochet baby toys. 100% cotton, no filling. Get them wet, freeze them, or use them as is and just throw them in the wash whenever needed! Super easy and very popular with teething babies! 

We'll have hats, headbands, spa items, spring scarves, and more. 

Everything would make great gifts, especially with mother's day around the corner! Click on the link above to check out the Facebook event page and see items from us and other sellers ahead of time! Hope to see you there! 

Aurelia Ann: 6 months

Aurelia crossed the half year mark earlier this month and I'm being a total sap about it. She's our last baby and I am soaking in every single minute of her babyness. I'm mourning that fact that the little baby days are gone. However, I'm thoroughly enjoying each new stage as it comes.

Right now Aurelia is an expert roller. She loves tummy time except when she's tired- she'll plant her face down into her hands and fuss until she's picked up. Since she started rolling we haven't been sleeping that well as she wakes frequently and is struggling to get back to sleep because she just wants to roll around or if it's in the middle of the night she thinks she needs to nurse. 

She is the smiliest baby I've ever met. She smiles almost immediately when anyone looks her way. My favorite smiles are when she's so happy that her little body can hardly contain the joy and she stiffens up and wiggles all over with excitement. She does this a lot for her daddy and her brothers. She loves to watch Malakai and Desmond play and they love to perform for her. I hope that lasts forever, it's so sweet to witness.

She recently went through a phase where she wouldn't let me put her down without a fuss. It lasted about 2 weeks and I'm so thankful for the Ergo carrier we were gifted a few years ago, total life saver...or at least arm saver. My big girl is growing fast!

We had her well check last week and she is weighing 17 lbs, 8 ounces and is 26 1/4 inches tall and believe it or not, that makes her our smallest baby at this stage. Malakai was 20lbs 28 inches and Desmond was 22lbs, 22 inches tall by 6 months. Sometimes I feel like she outgrows clothing faster than they did, but now I'm just realizing it's probably because she has more clothing than they did at this stage so we end up with outfits that I set aside or forgot about that she'll wear once or not at all. I've since gotten better at breaking out the next size so it's ready and waiting by the time she's grown into it.

Aurelia has been loving her jumper that we just broke out a month ago and she also sits in a high chair at the table with us now. She tasted her first food last week at dinner, mashed up avocado. She made a few questionable faces, but ate it up pretty easily! We gave her pureed carrots this week and she always makes a funny face at first but then eats it up like a pro!

I can hardly believe how quickly she's grown. I miss the tiny baby stage but am loving this interactive stage of watching her learn as well. She's developing such a sweet personality. 

Freshly Picked: A giveaway!

It's finally here! Your chance to win an adorable pair of Freshly Picked moccasins for your favorite little person!

If you're new to Freshly Picked you've definitely been missing out. They have the cutest leather moccasins for newborns on up to older kiddos. They've come out with lots of new styles and colors and all of them are absolutely precious. I had a hard time choosing for our little gal but I just had to stick with her signature color, coral.

Coral is a color that can definitely be up to interpretations. Some would liken it to orange or red, while others still would say it's closer to pink or peach. I'd say FP's version is definitely on the peach side, which I love because that is our other favorite color for little miss Aurelia.

It won't be long before Aurelia will be running around in these pretty little things, but until then they make a fabulous addition to her coral + peach nursery decor.

Okay- 

so by now you must be ready to find out how you can win a pair! 

Just follow the rules on the entry form below and you're entered to win. 

The more entry methods you complete, the better chance you have of winning...

a Rafflecopter giveaway


This contest begins Monday February 16th, 2015 and is open until midnight Sunday February 22nd. A winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter. The winner will be announced here and notified by email at the address associated with their Rafflecopter entries. The winner will have 48 hours to reply to the email to claim their prize or an alternate will be chose.

Interested in seeing your product featured here, see the PR + Disclosures tab and contact Breaking New Ground by email to be considered. Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  Click for additional disclosures and PR policies.

Questions, concerns, comments unrelated to the nature of this giveaway can be left on other generic posts or emailed to Breaking New Ground. 

Aurelia Ann: 4 months {w/ a comparison}

{with Gertie, her handmade doll from Mima}

At the risk of becoming redundant, I can't help but try to express just how fast the days are going by. I  honestly feel like Aurelia was born 2 weeks ago, and somehow our lives fast forwarded to today. Our girl is such a sweet and relaxed baby that even at our most difficult moments with her (in terms of fussiness or sleeplessness) it has been a breeze in comparison to how I remember moments when her brothers were babies. Don't get me wrong, I've loved raising all my kids up and the baby stage is one of my favorites (ok, I love all the stages for different reasons) but Aurelia has been...dare I say it...an easy baby. I could attribute some of that to her being the 3rd child; everything is sort of crazy all the time so she just has to go with the flow. Mostly though, I think she just has a pretty chill disposition.

I say all this after over a week of very regular night wakings. Maybe if this was my first time around I'd be singing a different tune. I'm surely used to small chunks of sleep at this point. Des dropped his nap when Aurelia was 2 weeks old so I couldn't do the "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing, but thankfully everyone pretty much goes to bed at 7pm these days. While I'm still wrapping up the day and attempting to spend time with Ben at that point in our evening, it's restful to have a quiet house for an hour or two. 

Aurelia is really developing a sweet and happy little personality. She is smiley and cooing as soon as she wakes for the day. She brightens up when she sees us and giggles easily for her brothers. Malakai and Desmond are always trying to make her laugh, they'll literally do a song and dance just to make her smile. She is ticklish and just started belly laughing when we play peek-a-boo, it's the best sound ever. 

She's been grasping at things for a while now, putting toys and clothes and whatever else is in her reach straight to her mouth. She won't take a pacifier or a bottle yet, but she'll chew or suck on her teethers all day if you let her. She is also in the distractible phase as she's learning more about the world around her, she loves to nurse but will take her time if something catches her eye while she's eating.

{Mima made this dress too!}

Baby girl will often tolerate my "playing dress up" as Malakai calls it. She lets me take her in and out of outfits and accessories pretty regularly while staying fairly happy. I appreciate this about her because at the rate she is outgrowing clothes, I'm constantly trying to figure out what still fits and what bigger clothes I should be getting out before she outgrows them. I made the mistake of saving a couple outfits for special occasions and she's already outgrown them. I snapped a couple pictures of her barely fitting in them and sadly put them away.

{2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months}

Aurelia is a chunky baby but nowhere near as much as Desmond was. Since she's not as heavy she seems taller. She measured 24 1/4 inches (49%) at her well check on Wednesday and 15lbs 3 oz (85%). I was surprised when I found Desmond's 4 month stats and he was 26 1/4 inches (85th %) and nearly 19lbs (over 95%). First I thought Aurelia was our tallest (she was at birth but she's actually the shortest at this point) Second, I was shocked at how much heavier Des was at just 4 months. I knew he was a chunk, but whoah! At 4 months Malakai was 17 lbs 8 oz (88th %) and 24 3/4 inches (43%).

Other than a little eczema she is a perfectly healthy little girl. She hates her shots though. At 6 weeks it was almost unbearable. I had Ben come this time and she took her first shot like a pro, but then the 2nd (which the nurse said stings) she lost it. Her brothers were so sweetly concerned, they'd never seen her so upset and weren't sure what to do about it. She's been fussy the last few days since and it's obvious her little legs are sore so sleep hasn't been as great as it had been. As usual we're rolling with the punches.

We are waiting to introduce any foods until 6 months. We started at 4 months with Malakai and waited until 6 with Desmond and from their first feeding we noticed a big difference in the ability and interest in eating solids.

So that's our little Raeli in a nutshell. Growing faster than my heart can stand.