I was a lot better at this...

...when I only had one child! And it's funny how every little milestone seemed so interesting with Will. I mean of course I am proud of all of Reed's milestones too, but I don't feel the urgent need to blog about them. But just to catch you up...Reed is 7-months-old now. He started sitting up sometime in September (or was it August?). He started eating real [baby] food in October. He loves the baby food I make him and Puffs. I am trying to switch him from Puffs to Cheerios, because we will go broke feeding him Puffs at this rate. He started crawling a few weeks ago. He never even went through the rocking stage...just decided to start army crawling one day. He started crawling on all fours a few days ago and now he is really going fast. And Chris found his first tooth a week ago and another one today (the bottom middle two)! He is such a joy! He is so happy, sleeps great at night, loves to cuddle, admires his big brother...pretty much his only flaw is that he doesn't take naps. Oh my. That is a pretty big one. But we will get through it. Really the only time he cries is when I put him in that darn crib during the day. At night, he goes right to sleep and doesn't make a peep for 10-12 hours. Somehow the crib is not a happy place during the day though. This pretty much makes me crazy everyday, but it is worth it because he is my baby and he is SWEET when I am not trying to get a nap out of him. I love him so much!




Will is approaching three-and-a-half-years-old and he is so much fun. This is the best age. He constantly makes me laugh. Sometimes he is trying to be funny, but most of the time he is funny without trying. He always has a pretend football game going on and it is pretty entertaining to hear all about his games everyday. Sometimes I am not allowed to call him by his name. He will correct me by saying, "I am not Will...I am football player." He still enjoys playing with cars, coloring, reading, painting, and watching tv. He recently learned how to play the Wii and he is pretty good at it. He likes all the sports games and Mario Cart. He has also been very interested in helping me in the kitchen lately. His favorite thing to do is pull a chair up to the sink and wash dishes. This will come in handy someday. He loves his baby brother and wants him to be in the same room with him most of the time. He is a great kid! He is hilarious, very smart, sometimes sensitive...always my little buddy! I love my Will!


Picture taken by Therese Barrett Photography.


I am so thankful for these two amazing little guys!

Reed is 3 Months!

My little Reed turned 3-months-old and he is just as sweet as can be. I will say he is a homebody to the extreme. He is so happy at home and rarely complains, but the second I start to put him in his carseat he starts arching his back and crying. You would think I am torturing the poor little guy. He will just scream and scream in the car until he falls asleep or until we get somewhere and I get him out of his carseat. But even when he gets out of his carseat and we are not at home, he is not 100% happy. I guess he is very aware of his environment and feels most comfortable at home. It is probably a good change of pace for me. Sometimes I like to just go go go and now that I have Reed that doesn't like to do that, it keeps me at home a lot more and I am learning to be okay with that.

He is a GREAT sleeper. He sleeps 10:30-8:30 most nights. He slept until 9:15 this morning...talk about spoiling mama on a Saturday!! His naps have gotten shorter, but he still takes several 30-45 minute naps throughout the day. I think he is going through the 3-4 month wakeful period and just doesn't want to miss out on anything right now. But I'm sure we will be able to work on stretching his naps eventually. I'm not too worried about it right now.

He is still a big boy...at least in comparison to Will. He was 14.5 pounds a few weeks ago. He is a good eater, but currently hates the bottle. He doesn't do any tricks yet...but to be honest, we have only done tummy time a few times, so I haven't really given the opportunity to learn how to roll yet. I just hate to mess with him, when he is so content to be just laying on his back all the time. The doctor said not to worry and we can start working on this at 4 months...so that's what we will do! He has really started to watch his big brother and thinks he is pretty funny.





We love you sweet Reed!!!

Will is 3!

I seriously cannot believe I have a 3-year-old. That seems so old! We had a race car birthday party for him this year. I said last year that it was the last birthday party we would have for Will at our house, but of course we ended up having it at our house again. When I first mentioned the idea of having the birthday party at Chuck E Cheese or McDonalds to Will, he said, "Nooo...I want the kids to come to my house!" I started to try to convince him to do it somewhere else and he did warm up to the idea, but then I got nervous that he would clam up like he sometimes does when we are out in public and I wanted him to have fun at his party. So we did have it at home...hopefully next year will be the year we have it somewhere else. It's not that having it here is the worst thing ever, but it always seems to stress me out and I can't enjoy the party myself...but this year, I just decided not to do food (just snacks) and that helped a lot. Oh, and Chris let me hire someone to clean the house!






I really wanted a flag banner for the "Pit Stop" but I couldn't find one anywhere (it was too late to order online), so I made this one out of a table cloth and string.




Chris and I made these cars out of boxes and the kids decorated them and then raced them on a little race track we setup in the backyard.


This was the little kid heat.


Chris has been collecting Hot Wheels for Will since I was pregnant with him and we found out he was a boy. Since all the Hot Wheels stuff says it is for ages 3+, I told Chris we would have to wait until his 3rd birthday to give them to him...even though he already has a bunch that he has played with for awhile. But I think this might have at least triple his collection of cars and he only had a really simple race track before...now Chris and Will spend their evenings designing all kinds of cool race tracks. It really is pretty cool...I didn't realize what the race tracks would be like.


I went to Walmart right before the party to pick up a few last minute items and found all these car shirts for cheap (they all just happened to be red)! They didn't have one in Reed's size so I bought him a red onesie and put a car sticker on it.



I will have to write more about my 3-year-old later, Reed is calling! :)

Rainbow

Call us doting parents, but Will drew this rainbow from his heart this morning and Chris and I think it is pretty special. It is the first time that he has drawn something, told us what it is, and it actually looks like what he told us. :)

Reed Laughs

Smartie

I just have to write this here so that I won't forget how smart my boy is at a month shy of 3-years-old (and how much he doesn't like change of any kind). The past two Thursdays we went swimming in the afternoon followed by Firehouse Subs for dinner and Spoonfull for dessert. Yesterday we went swimming in the afternoon and I had started dinner before we went, so we came home to eat but Spoonfull sounded really good, so we decided to head that way after dinner.

As Chris and I were talking about it, Will asked if we were also going to Firehouse Subs. I told him that we weren't going to Firehouse Subs because we already ate dinner. He was disappointed, but eventually gave up asking why we couldn't go there. When we have gone to Firehouse Subs, he doesn't act like he likes it more than any other place that we go...we can barely get him to eat anything just like everywhere else, so I am pretty sure he just wanted to follow the routine we had set in the past. He doesn't like change!

About 30 minutes later, we are in the car headed to Spoonfull and Will announces that he is thirsty. I tell him we have water in the car and he says he wants Sprite (which he usually doesn't request unless we are eating out somewhere). I told him we didn't have any Sprite and they don't have any at Spoonfull either. To which he replies that we need to go to Firehouse Subs to get him a Sprite. I couldn't believe that he had thought of a way to try to get in Firehouse Subs. So funny!

So then we get into Spoonfull and Will gets his usual thing - sprinkles with a side of yogurt, which Will says is "kind of like donuts." Again, I think he has forgotten about Firehouse Subs....wrong. After he finished his treat, he tells me he is hungry again and he needs a sandwich from Firehouse Subs. It still didn't work, but kudos to Will for trying so hard! ha!

Quick update...

Reed will be 2 months old on Saturday! He has changed so much already. For one thing he is BIG...13 pounds last week and in the 90th percentile! Will never passed the 25th percentile. He also started sleeping through the night four nights ago...10:30 to 7:30 and it is awesome!! He is sooo happy when he wakes up in the morning. I love that sweet boy so much.

I am definitely adjusting to having two kids now! I am starting to feel normal again. I don't think I got the baby blues this time, but I just had a panicked feeling for awhile....like I couldn't handle two kids. But I can, and it's not so bad!

I took some pictures today for Father's Day and I couldn't help but ruin the surprise...they were just too cute not to share!







In other news....now that Reed is 8 weeks old, it is time to start shedding the baby weight. I started the Couch to 5k program tonight with some friends and it felt pretty good! I have done it before and liked it, but I never actually ran a 5k. I am planning to do it this time though...I will let you know how it goes. So far the the C25K and Lose It apps on my iphone are really making me feel motivated.