Our 3 littles...

With a new baby and my oldest being 5 I'm seeing first hand how fleeting the baby days are. The saying, "babies don't keep" is painfully true. So I'm not only holding on tight to every little moment with Aurelia, but also each small interaction with Malakai and Desmond. They are growing so fast, too fast, and I want to make sure to remember all of it before I'm longing for these days, no matter how hard they seem (and are).

Aurelia is already 2 months old. It blows my mind that it's possible that we've been a family of 5 for 9 weeks. It seems like she just got here. Malakai is in his 3rd month of school, something that also seems impossible. Desmond just turned 3 last month and keeps us all very busy each day. Watching the 3 of them interact with each other is by far the best part of each day. The boys are sweet + gentle with "baby sister" and ask for her all morning until she's awake, then they clamor to see her and be the first one to make her smile.

Aurelia is cooing and gurgling and just making the best baby noises. She started smiling at 5 weeks old and I swear she's going to bless us with a giggle any day now. She's impossibly ticklish, but she just wiggles and grunts in response for now. She is growing like crazy and the number 1 compliment she gets these days is in reference to her sweet chubby cheeks and her little dimples. Her eyes are a bright blue but we would be pretty shocked if they stayed that way. The boys have Ben's hazel eyes (although Des' have a little green in them like Mima) and since her hair color already favors daddy's, I'm guessing her eyes will be the same. Only time will tell. 

Malakai is reading like crazy these days. He devours any book you give him almost immediately. The words he is able to read and the concepts he understands surprise me often. Ben + I are sad to see the days of spelling things to keep secrets in front of the kids go by, but we know Malakai is much too smart for us to get away with that anymore. I got to visit his class for their fall party on October 30th and I loved being a "fly on the wall" so to speak. Watching him interact with his friends and work on activities throughout the afternoon was such a joy. He loves school so much that he can hardly wait to get to his homework and he will make more "school work" for himself regularly. He's constantly writing letters to people and drawing pictures. He loves learning, but we do have to be careful he doesn't get too much of a good thing because he will get frustrated if he doesn't get it right or do it how he wants it done sometimes. 

Desmond is our imaginative little buddy. He is the best at playing pretend and making friends with strangers. He is talking all the time and any willing participant is a perfect playmate. He loves to make forts or pile blankets into "cars" to drive or  "airplanes" to fly. He loved being an astronaut with Malakai for Halloween and continues to play with his costume. Like Malakai he will quote movies and shows and recite books easily. If you aren't familiar with what he's been reading or watching lately his dialogue can be pretty confusing. Three has proved to be the hardest age in this household for the 2nd time around. Desmond has learned how to be defiant and throw a master tantrum, but boy can that kid snuggle!

These three are keeping us on our toes and the days are flying by faster than ever before. Sadly Malakai had a reoccurring double ear infection recently and we are waiting to hear back from insurance on whether they will authorize his getting tubes to prevent having the doozy of a winter we did last year. If they won't authorize it we may have to wait to see if he gets another infection with his next cold (because sickness is inevitable with kids of this age) and perhaps they will then see a need. We are hoping that won't be the case, so we can avoid him having to endure more pain or any hearing loss. 

Other than that and the boys having a mild cold earlier we've been able to stay fairly healthy so far this fall. I'm so thankful that Aurelia hasn't yet gotten sick but I'm sure we won't make it through the season unscathed. I can honestly attribute much of our healthy days to essential oils. I felt a cold (sore throat) coming on and used some On Guard/Shield/Thieves oil right away and felt better the same day. The boys' colds were relatively short lived and Desmond fared better than he ever has, as he's susceptible to breathing issues when he has any type of respiratory symptoms with a cold. I'm honestly so thankful to Amy for getting us started with eo's. If you have any questions about using essential oils, she's a wonderful resource...find here HERE.

So there's our little update, hopefully I'll be back to post sooner rather than later but only time (and my kiddos) will tell. 

the latest

We just finished the process of refinancing our home. We'll save a nice amount of money every month, but it was a NIGHTMARE of a process. I'm so glad we won't be doing that again anytime soon! Thankfully my wonderful husband took care of every little detail and all I had to do was gather a few documents here and there. Thank God everything turned out well after missing the window once and having to apply for an extension (at the fault of our broker). So beyond glad to be done with that!

As the weather warms up and spring fades into summer we are in full swing planning to re-landscape the backyard with my father-in-law. It was actually our Christmas gift from Ben's parents to re do the yard and we are so excited to have nice grass! When we bought the place the yard was pretty nice, but unfortunately as it sat on the market, empty, nobody took care of the grass. So the leaves from the two towering maples fell and created a ton of muddy holes that were then filled by weeks and subsequently moss.

Unfortunately our raised beds that were here from the beginning weren't very well built. There was no foundation to secure them to the ground and they were all warped. We decided it would be best to take them apart and rebuild after the ground gets torn up with the rest of the yard. I won't be planting anything until we can rebuild, which is a bummer because who knows if I'll even make it in time to have anything edible, we shall see!

Desmond and Malakai are growing bigger and smarter every day. Des is really talkative and very close to crawling forward (instead of scooting backward). He can move himself from sitting to crawling and back. He's all over the place these days! Malakai loves to "see Desmond" and is doing much better at interacting with him gently...most of the time.

Ben + I finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy last week and are possibly going to see the movie with his parents this Friday. We have really enjoyed reading them simultaneously and talking about all the drama. We've been able to go out quite often with thanks to numerous family member willing to babysit.

Work has been busy as ever and I'm doing my best to keep up, which is one of the main reasons I haven't been updating here lately. I save blogging for times when the kids are napping simultaneously, IF I'm caught up on work that I can do from home. Since the boys haven't been cooperating by napping at the same time I've been behind on work and thus not blogging. I'm finally caught up for the moment since they finally slept for a few consecutive hours during the day!

Speaking of sleep, Des has been transitioning to only sleeping in his crib and it's been so great! He only comes into bed with us when he wakes to nurse after 5am and we both go back to sleep for a couple of hours (if Kai lets us). There have been a couple of rough nights between both kiddos the last couple weeks, but not unbearable! This morning though for some reason they both woke up at 5:45am ...OUCH!

There's surely a lot more going on that I'm missing, but that's just a quick recap of what is at the forefront of my mind at the moment...

Desmond: 6 months.

Yep, it's been another month and suddenly Desmond is 1/2 a year old (as of April 10th) and yes...I'm thinking about his 1st birthday celebration already. It'll be here so fast I have to at least have it on my mind and on my pin boards now!

At 6 months Desmond is super active. He is sleeping much less during the day which is a lot of fun for both myself and Malakai. He absolutely loves his big brother. My favorite part of the day is after Kai has been up a while and Des wakes, I'll bring him in and it's like they are reuniting after being apart for days. Kai says "Desmond! He's awake, I wanna see 'im!" Then comes right up to his face and says hi. Des lights up, giggles and wiggles his whole body with excitement. Every.single.morning.

{these look posed, but Kai totally just came up and did this on his own}

Des has been a drooling machine for the past couple of months, teething like crazy but nothing has popped through yet. He loves to blow raspberries and is babbling more and more every day. Lately he has been kind of growling/shouting and it sounds like he's angry but he'll be grinning and laughing all the while. We call it "testing his voice". Kai used to do something similar but he did high pitched squeals.

We just had Desmond's 6 month well-check this morning. According to Dr. B he's perfect...confirming what we already thought. He's 27 inches long (tall) which puts him in the 75th %, 22lbs 1oz. which is off the charts as he has been since about 2 days old. His head is 18 1/4 inches, big ol' noggin just like his brother.

At just 6 months he's growing out of 9 month clothes and fitting Kai's hand-me-down 12 month clothing which just boggles my mind. For those of you who don't know, Ben's younger brother is actually quite a bit bigger than him (Ben is 6 ft. tall and David is 6' 5") so we often wonder if Des and Kai will be the same in that regard.

At the end of March he started pushing up on to his hands and knees and sometimes onto his toes, lifting his whole body off the ground! He is one strong little man! Then he started trying to crawl towards toys but ends up scooting backward which really frustrates him. Late last week he actually crawled a tiny bit forward on his knees for Grandma Debbie + I! It was so exciting, but whoah it seems too early to already have a mobile baby.

He is also sitting upright really well, but I always put a boppy or other pillows around him because he'll randomly get excited and fling himself backward. He almost instantly figured out how to move from sitting to a crawling position on his tummy without any issues.

Unfortunately he has started crying more. He never really cried when he was upset, just got a bit fussy. He's been a good sleeper since he got over his first bout of colick around 1 month old. BUT once he started learning so many new things he started to wake more and get more crabby. The other night he woke up at 4am and wouldn't go back to sleep, which was a first. Big bro has always been our difficult one when it comes to sleeping, I'm hoping Desmond doesn't follow in those footsteps! Last night he did sleep unswaddled all night, but he was nursing pretty frequently and ended up staying in bed with us from 4am-7am. After chatting with Dr. B we'll be trying some no-cry solutions to get him sleeping longer and more independently.

We started him on "solids" over Easter weekend, just doing some baby oatmeal cereal and breastmilk once a day. We'll ease him into my homemade veggie and fruit purees soon and more frequent solid feedings by 9 months per his Dr's recommendation.

About once every week or two he had a couple of days of almost constant spitting up, but it never bothers him. When I mentioned this to Dr. B she laughed and said that "happy spitter" is a actual medical term, we all laughed. It was good to know that it's common enough to have a term and that it's not something to worry about.

Des is still quick to smile and easy to get laughing. He is so friendly and snuggly. He was smiling and babbling to the Dr and nurses during the whole visit. After his vaccines he quit crying as soon as I picked him up and nursed to sleep. He only recently is able to stay asleep during transitions from car seat or mama's arms to his crib, which has been really nice.

Overall he is a happy healthy big baby boy and we are enjoying the journey of watching him grow, both in body and in skills and personality.