Five Months Old!

Dear Ethan,

You are five months old and you sure are cute!

You are loving life and we are loving our lives with you in it!

You are a joy to be around and are almost always this happy!

Here is what you have been up to:

-Size 3-6 month clothes
-Size 3 diapers
-You are eating one meal a day.  Right now it tends to be around breakfast.  You are loving rice cereal mixed with any fruits and we have tried bananas, apples, pears and peaches.  I tried giving you an evening meal the other day, which I think you are ready to eat.  However, you were not a fan of squash!  We are going to try sweet potatoes next.
- You are eating 6 oz. bottles about four times a day and once at night.
- You are still a pretty inconsistent napper . We go back and forth from your crib to the swing and some weeks you do great taking 2+ hour naps a few times a day and then other weeks you will only sleep for  45 minutes at a time.
- You are sleeping in your bed at night and doing wonderfully.  You still get up once usually between 12 and 3 and then sleep until about 6 or 6:30 in the morning.  Bedtime is around 7 in the evening.
- You just rolled over from your back to your tummy!  You love to lay on your back and grab your toes and sing.
- You are very vocal!  You have taken to chatting quite loudly most of the time you are awake and usually lull yourself to sleep with these little chants as well as wake up to them.
- We got out the exersaucer and put it in the playroom and you are loving it!  At first you just stared at the toys like, "what are these things?" and now you are starting to grab them and try to put them in your mouth.
- You love your playmat and the walker, but no longer have an interest in the bouncy seat.  You like to be sitting up and looking around at the world and I have even noticed you trying to pull yourself into a sitting position when I set you down in a chair.
- You love to be outside and take walks in the stroller.  That is always a pleaser.
- You are also a pleasant car rider now... LOVE!

Life has been very busy lately.  There is very little down time, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  You are such a good and sweet baby and we love you so much!

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

~Psalm 16:11

                                   

Reilly's Farm & Pumpkin Patch

This past Friday we went to a local farm for a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch and a few other fun festivities.  My sister invited us along as she had organized the trip for her kids and several other homeschool families.  We were delighted to join them!  I knew James would love it given his affection for tractors, trucks and all other moving vehicles.

It was a chilly morning... 40's and windy!  So we left the babe at home with my sweet mother in law, put on our winter jackets and braved the cold.

Here are the boys in the parking lot before we started off on our adventure.

James was all googly eyed when he saw the tractor.  This is pretty cool stuff for a two year old boy!

Here are all the kids on the wagon.

We rode up to the pumpkin patch

And then we got to walk through and pick our pumpkins

James didn't really seem to understand that they were pumpkins and not balls.  He kept picking them up and throwing them!  Amazingly both of our pumpkins made it home with the stem still in tact.

Did I mention that it was cold?  Brrr... our little eskimo

After we picked our pumpkins we took a tractor over to this interesting little area that had a small corn maze called Candy Land and various different nursery rhymes depicted with pumpkins.  A nice woman shared with all the kids about how pumpkins grow.  James had very little interest.  Maybe next year!

At the very end there was a really fun slide that they had built down a hillside.  I thought James would like it.  However, it was like something out of the movie A Christmas Story.  Ho, Ho, Ho!  I sent him right down and it was a little faster than I initially thought.  Poor little guy screamed all the way down and had to be rescued by someone at the bottom before I got to him.  I took him down a second time trying to redeem myself and this time he rode on my lap.  I will say that there is a picture circulating... and it will not be posted!

By noon the sun had come out and it had warmed up a bit, so we ended the day with a picnic lunch.  At this point we were reaching total meltdown with several of the smaller kids including James, so it was a brief lunch, but enjoyable all the same.  

There are so many fun activities to do in the fall and this is the first year that James is old enough to start enjoying them.  It's so much fun!  We are looking forward to several more festivities before the season ends!    

Snips and Snails

On any given day this is the scene around our house...

My little James loves trucks!  It's all trucks all the time.  We carry them all over the house and load various different things into the back of them.  We go to bed with them...

We get up with them...

We eat with them too...

Coming from a home of all girls this is completely foreign territory for me!  I never in a million years thought God would give me all boys and now I am living in a house with four of them!  The past three years have been an adventure for me... a time of learning and growing in unexpected ways.  And I must say I am starting to really love all the craziness and chaos that comes with these guys.  I love that God has uniquely created each one of them and given them a natural bent for all things "boy".  

My boys are passionate.  They are loud!  They are silly and energetic, but also sweet and tenderhearted. And they love their mama!  I realize what an awesome responsibility God has given me to raise them into men for His glory.  

Some days I feel overwhelmed, intimidated and totally out of my league.  But I am coming to realize... albeit slowly... that He has designed me for this and I know that He has not lost sight of one detail.  That is incredible to me.  Not one detail!  He has equipped me with all that I need to be the mom He has called me to be.  

Today I am so thankful for all four of my boys! 

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

~Psalm 100:4-5

James & His BFF

Yesterday my poor little Jamesy was under the weather with some sort of virus... fever, chills and no appetite.  I knew he was really sick when he wouldn't eat!  Two year olds are so resilient though.   When I went in to get him this morning his fever had disappeared in the night and he was chatting happily in his crib.  Nothing makes a mama happier than when her children are happy and well!

It's amazing how even a short bout with the flu can make you so thankful for the normalcy of day to day routines.  I am thanking God today for the simple and quiet rhythms of mothering my two young boys...

A short video of my sweet James who is well on the mend and partaking of one of his favorite pastimes.  I love his laugh.  It is positively contagious.  Enjoy!

Ethan's First Meal

Last week Ethan had his first meal!  He was four months and one week old.

Here he anxiously awaits his first time in the highchair...

We started with 1 tablespoon of rice cereal mixed with about four tablespoons of formula.

How sweet is this face?

He was happy until the second the spoon hit his mouth!  He was less than thrilled with the taste and consistency and he was completely dumbfounded by the spoon.  It was quite entertaining to watch!

He seemed to mostly prefer sucking on the bib...

Since then we have tried bananas mixed into the rice cereal and he is already getting better at eating.  It is a whole added step to our morning routine, but I must say I am really enjoying feeding this little guy. He is my happy little camper!