Carter’s Third Birthday Party

As you can see, I’m trying to catch up on blogposts today.  Justin is at church with Carter while I’m at home with Garrett (momma didn’t sleep well last night and didn’t quite feel like going to church today).  So anyway, Carter turned three years old on December 28th.  His birthday party was on Saturday the 27th at a place called Pump It Up.  It’s basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses for kids to jump around.  Carter LOVES  bouncy house so I knew this was going to be the perfect place for his birthday party.  When you have a party there, you have the entire place rented out for two hours.  You start in one room that has a few bouncy houses/slides and stay there for about 45 minutes, then you go to another room of other bouncy houses/slides for another 45 minutes or so.  Then you go to the party room where you cut the cake and open presents.  I cannot begin to express how much fun that Carter had at this place!  It was the perfect place!!!  The only bad thing was that a bunch of his friends couldn’t come.  It’s the downside of having a birthday so close to Christmas.  Lots of his friends were out of town visiting family.  On top of that, there’s an insane flu epidemic and I got several responses from parents who had the flu or whose kids were sick and didn’t want them being around other kids to get them sick.  He still had a good turnout, I was just sad that a lot of his friends weren’t able to make it.

Here’s a few pictures from the day:

This was the first room.  I know….Heaven for a three year old!

One of Carter’s classmates, Anika.

Our friends two boys, Vaughn and Fisher.

Sweet Mary and James, who wasn’t quite old enough to slide down the big slides.

 

Clearly Carter and his cousin Celia are having a BLAST.

One of the slides was so tall and climbing this thing to get to the top of it was pretty difficult, even for me!  I can only imagine it was like Mount Everest to a three year old!

This may have been a record for the longest Garrett had been awake.  He was awake in my mom’s arms the ENTIRE party.  I don’t think he’s ever stayed awake that long!

 

Some of my favorite mommas!

And here’s several “in action” shots using the slide…forgive the fact that a lot of these are blurry because it’s impossible to get a good picture when kids and adults go that fast down a slide!

   

 

These two LOVE each other!!!  And apparently they both say “cheese” by grinding their teeth together!!

 

All the kids had a blast and I found a new place to take Carter that’s not the Zoo or the McWane Center or the park.  He’ll love coming to open play at Pump It Up!!!  Happy Birthday my sweet baby!!!!

Christmas 2014

This Christmas is what I consider Carter’s “first Christmas”.  It’s the first Christmas, just days shy of three years old, that he truly understood Santa and all things related to Christmas.  He knew why we were leaving cookies and milk out on Christmas Eve night, he knew what Santa did for a living, and he got excited, for the first time, about coming downstairs Christmas morning.  Let’s begin by taking a look at Carter’s FIRST time ever for taking a picture with Santa and not crying!!!

Garrett wasn’t quite comfortable in Santa’s lap, hence his face, but this is the very first picture of both of my boys with Santa.  I will cherish this picture forever!!!

After that came the Christmas with my extended family that lives in Gordo, AL.  We only really get to see them once a year at this time.  One of my cousins, Quinn, had just had a little boy (after having 3 girls she finally got her boy!) and is roughly 2 months older than Garrett so it was nice having 2 babies for everyone to love on!

My aunt Delane (left) is holding Garrett.  To the right is Emily holding baby Cole.  These women loved on these precious boys most of the evening!

These are all the kids in the family.  That’s a lot of kids!!!  Thank heavens for Quinn and her three girls…otherwise our family would be nothing but boys!!!

Cole and Garrett….Love Cole’s face in this picture.  He’s like “ummm…why is this kid laying on me?!?!”  And for being 2 months apart, they’re basically the same size.  Garrett’s in the 75th percentile for weight while Cole is in the 25th percentile, which makes sense for why the look the same size!

Where our families started.  To the left is my grandmother and to the right is her sister.  Love them!

 

Love this boy!!!

And then came Christmas Eve.  We do Christmas Eve with my side of the family-this time it was just my immediate family instead of the whole extended family.  We went to my sister’s house in Tuscaloosa again and we had so much fun!

My grandmother held Garrett the majority of the time we were at Lindsey’s house.  Unfortunately, she had to ask whose baby he was several times (Alzheimer's) but you could tell that holding a baby again absolutely made her day.  And I will absolutely cherish this picture whenever my Nanny goes to be with the Lord.

 

On the left…these two boys.  They so love eachother.  I’m pretty sure that this was when I was playing “Turn Down for What” by Lil’ Jon on my phone.  Carter calls that his song and he loves dancing to it.  So I’m pretty sure this was him dancing on the ottoman and then Anderson hopped up there with him to dance too.  On the right is us skyping my other sister, Jennifer, who lives in Tampa and couldn’t be there.

My photographer sister found these fun props at Target and had to buy them.  So glad she did because we got some super cute pictures with them.  See:

 

When you have a baby, you can almost always count on never once holding him during a family function.  Everyone else wants to!

All the fun wore this kid out!!!  We were trying to get home in time to see Santa on the fire truck driving through our neighborhood, but we left too late and missed it.  So we decided to go to church where, shocker, Papa held Garrett the entire time…

 

We really wanted Carter to see Santa on the fire truck, so we went to Papa and Nana’s house after church because he was supposed to be on there street at 8pm.  Well he never showed up so we sent Justin to drive around the neighborhood to find him.  He found him alright…but he was leaving the neighborhood!!!  Justin came back to his parent’s house and we piled the kids up quickly.  The website said Santa would make one last stop in another neighborhood so we drove around trying to find him.  When we finally found him he was leaving the neighborhood!!!  We followed him in the fire truck back to the fire station and when they were in the turning lane, we pulled right up next to them and he waved at Carter through the window.  We went through A LOT of trouble, but finally got Carter to see Santa!  After all that drama, we went back home and put out cookies and milk.

 

You’ll notice that each cookie has a bite taken out of it.  That’s because this three year old decided he needed to make sure the cookies tasted ok for Santa.  He also took a sip of the milk to make sure it was ok too.  He cracks me up!!! 

Then came Christmas morning!!!

Carter’s main gift from Santa was a fun little dune buggy.  He also got a cookie monster toboggan (he still LOVES cookie monster) and that thing he’s eating??….well when you asked Carter what he wanted for Christmas he ALWAYS said “double cookie” (a double doozie cookie from the Great American Cookie Company).  So naturally, Santa brought him a few of those to put in his stocking ;)  I’ll have to learn how to better spread out the money for Carter and Garrett’s Christmas.  At Carter’s age, the toys are just more expensive…for Garrett’s age…I mean what do a baby need other than clothes, books and a toy? 

Santa got all of Carter’s favorite things in his stocking….candy canes, double cookies, twizzlers and blue M&M’s!

Why are there no pictures of Garrett??  Well, because my master sleeper did this while Carter was downstairs opening his presents…

 

After a while, we got Carter dressed and took him outside to drive his dune buggy!

I didn’t want him to eat only double cookies for breakfast so I gave him a bowl of fruit and he insisted on eating it while driving.  Toddler’s first to go food I guess :)

 

This is why I love our neighborhood and particularly our street.  All the kids were in our culdesac playing with their new toys so all the kids got to play together while us parents enjoyed cups of coffee in our pajamas :)

Carter thought Garrett wanted to read his Farm Animals book so he gave it to him.  But then he wanted to show Garrett his brand new lunchbox so he brought that to him too.  Poor Garrett!

After playing with toys for a bit, we packed up and headed to Papa and Nana’s house for lunch with the twins!  I didn’t take many pictures there because we were outnumbered by kids!  I took a great video of them all opening presents, but for some reason I can’t put videos on my blog via Windows Live Writer anymore.

 

Nana gave the kids Gingerbread Cookie Decorating kits so after opening presents, all the kids decorated their cookies (there may have been some assistance from the adults!).

 

That was our Christmas!!!  It was great!  We only had a couple of days before we had to gear up for Carter’s birthday party (will add that stuff to another post).  After his party we drove to Florida to have Christmas with extended family and stayed for a few days before coming back home.  Our December was super busy!!!

Garrett - 2 Months

Diapers

Size 1.  I’m hoping to stay in these for a while, but sometimes I wonder if he’s ready for size 2 because he frequently poops through his diaper!

 

Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!

Clothes

Some of his clothes are 0-3 month and some are just 3 month clothes.  For the ones that are 3 month clothes, they’re a bit baggy on him, but they fit enough for him to get away with wearing them.  He’s definitely bigger than Carter was at his age, but he’s also wearing all of the clothes that Carter wore, which have been washed and dried countless times.  So some of those 3 month clothes that almost fit him have probably shrunk a bit since Carter wore them. 

Feeding

Last month I mentioned that his middle of the night feeding was either a breastmilk or formula bottle.  Well, Garrett is now strictly breastfed…I can’t remember the last time we gave him formula.  For most of month 2, when Justin was in town, I would nurse the last feeding of the night (somewhere between 9pm-10pm) and he fed a breastmilk bottle in the middle of the night when he woke up (around 3am or 4am).  Then he would wake up for the day somewhere between 7am-8am.  That was most of month 2, but for the last two weeks he hasn’t woken in the middle of the night.  He still gets the 9pm-ish feeding, but then he usually doesn’t wake up until roughly 5:30-6:30am, at which time I will breastfeed again and then he will go back down and wake up for the day around 8:30 or 9am.  During the day he eats about 5 times a day (every 3 hours).  9 times out of 10, I have to wake him up for his daytime feedings.  My overproduction is still going strong.  I have found the number to call about donating my milk.  I have to fill out a big survey about my lifestyle and then give blood just to get approved to donate it.  I haven’t called yet, but probably will in the next week or so once Christmas/Carter’s birthday stuff dies down a bit.

Babywise

This is still working well with Garrett.  The whole point of Babywise, basically, is to put your baby to bed while they’re still awake so that they can fall asleep on their own without needing to be rocked, pacified, etc.  Garrett has been doing this since birth which has been extremely nice.  Each cycle he eats, then has waketime for about an hour and then goes down for a nap which usually lasts between 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours. 

Sleep

Naps are great.  He falls asleep for them on his own without needing a “sleep prop”.  Each nap lasts anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours and most of the time I have to wake him up to eat.  His “middle of the night” feeding isn’t really in the middle of the night anymore.  It’s somewhere between 5:30-6:30am.  His last meal of the day is around 9-10pm and then he has that 5:30-6:30am feeding and then he’s up for the day between 8-9am.  At this age, Carter had slept through the night a few times, but he was still waking about every 4-5 hours on a normal night.  Garrett’s longest stretch so far has been 9 1/2 hours.  After spending a large portion of the night at a family Christmas get together in Tuscaloosa with my family, we got home around 10pm.  I fed Garrett and put him down and he didn’t wake up until 7:45 the next morning.  The incredible thing about Garrett is that as soon as he’s done eating and has his diaper changed and put back in his woombie, he falls asleep immediately.  Pretty much never cries at all!  It makes the feeding go by quickly for sure!  At this moment, Garrett’s nighttime sleep is anywhere from 7-9 hours.

Waketime

Still doing various things for waketime such as playing on various playmats and having tummy time.  He’s getting much better at holding his head up during tummy time and is finally using his arms to support himself while doing it.  He has rolled from tummy to back  several times, the first time being the night before he turned 7 weeks old!!  We also started Baby Einstein DVDs this month, but he doesn’t seem interested yet.  I’ll put him in front of the TV to watch it, but he usually ends up staring at the Christmas tree or the ceiling fan.  I hope he likes Baby Einstein as much as Carter did.  There’s a lot of learning that was done on Carter’s part because of those DVDs!

**This is Cole.  He is my cousin Quinn’s son and is 4 months old, while Garrett is only 7 weeks old in this picture.  They look the same size!!!  Turns out that Garrett is in the 75th percentile for weight while Cole is in the 25th, which explains why they look the same size!**

Mother’s Day Out

Garrett will go to the same KIDS program at our church that Carter goes to.  Unfortunately, he can’t be enrolled until he’s 6 months old.  His first time to go will likely be during summer school next summer.  Our church offers a summer program for 4 weeks in June where the kids go Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9-1.  I always enroll Carter and will likely put Garrett in next summer as well.  I am definitely not ready to let anyone else take care of him other than me for right now, but by next summer he’ll be about 8 months old and I want him to get used to being taken care of by other people.

Justin’s Travel

Justin traveled the majority of December.  I felt like he was NEVER here.  He was gone 3 weeks in December.  One week was Sunday-Thursday (back at 11pm Thursday night), the next week was supposed to be the same, but his flight got cancelled so he didn’t get home until 3pm on Friday.  Then the third week he was gone Sunday through Wednesday night (back at 9pm).  So December was a month where I was doing almost EVERYTHING by myself.  It was exhausting but I got through it.  Thankfully he is in town now and won’t go back out of town until the very end of January.  Carter loves having daddy at home.  He misses him SOOOOOO much when he’s gone.  Garrett doesn’t know any better yet, obviously.

Statistics

Garrett’s 7 week appointment was on December 15, 2014.  He weighed 12lbs, 2oz (75th percentile), 22 1/2 inches (60th percentile) and his head was in the 90th percentile!  I honestly thought he was going to be higher than the 75th percentile.  Carter was 10lbs 6oz at his 7 week appointment and at that time, that was the 75th percentile.  I thought that was weird since it’s almost a 2lb difference and yet the same percentile, but I think it’s because it’s different years.  Carter was 75th in 2012 and this weight is apparently the 75th in 2014.  Garrett had his shots which, like most babies, was traumatic.  Props to me y’all….daddy was out of town so I had to take both kids to the doc.  Carter tends to get really upset if Garrett cries so I was trying to console two babies at the same time.  It was a tad rough, but we got through it.  Doc said everything with Garrett was great and he didn’t have anything to report to me.

Abilities

We’ve been doing tummy time more and more and he doesn’t mind it at all.  In fact, he sometimes falls asleep.  Justin and I joke that most kids don’t like tummy time so they roll over to get off their tummy.  We think that’s why Garrett’s so big-tummy time doesn’t bother him so he just lays there most of the time!  The day before he turned 7 weeks old, he rolled from his tummy to his back for the first time.  This is about the same time that Carter did it too.  It’s one of those things that happened and then you’re not sure if they meant to do it, but then they did it again over the next couple days until they eventually just do it all the time.  I facetimed Justin immediately after he did it and tried to get him to do it again but he never did.  Daddy usually misses those first milestones because he’s out of town so much :(  He’s also starting to make those baby babbles.  You can tell he’s finding his voice.  With a brand new baby, the only noise they make is crying or grunting.  Now Garrett just makes a consistent noise to hear himself “talk”.  It appears he’s also beginning to reach for things that hang above him.  Again, not sure if this is actually what he’s doing, but he has been putting his hands up and touching the toys that hang from the playmats.

 

Teething

Definitely not there yet!  

Discipline

Again, definitely not there yet!

Other Notable Things

Likes

• Sleeping
• Car rides – he usually falls asleep and doesn’t make a peep.  He rode from Justin’s grandparents house in Florida all the way to our house and never woke up.  That’s about a 3 1/2 hour car ride!
• Watching brother walk around and do things
• His ocean mat.  He likes looking at the octopus that hangs from it.
• Lights and ceiling fans-this probably won’t change for a while. 

Dislikes

• When brother steps on him on accident.  I kinda don’t blame him on this one!
• When Gizmo gives him kisses.  It takes him by surprise and I don’t think he’s a fan.

How Mama Is Doing

It’s been 2 months now and I can finally say that I’m fully recovered.  Y’all, that was a rollercoaster.  You can read my birth story with Garrett here, but needless to say, A LOT of healing was needed.  Unfortunately a lot happened to me afterwards as well.  The pain from the 4th degree episiotomy was excruciating.  Way worse than it was with Carter.  I finally broke down and went to the doctor because it was just not normal, in my opinion at least.  She noticed that the knot at the end of one of the stitches was rubbing against a sensitive area so she took care of that for me.  I was able to walk better immediately.  It felt so much better.  A few days later, just when that area started to heal, I started getting a sinus infection.  I get really BAD sinus infections.  I usually run fevers and have bad headaches and it’s just unbearable.  Since I was breastfeeding though, there wasn’t much I could do but let it pass because anything you take for a sinus infection will dry up your milk.  The grandmothers helped a bunch and took turns taking care of Carter for me so that I could rest and get better.  Once I was finally better, I got a yeast infection.  Ugh.  Once that cleared up, the symptoms of the sinus infection came back.  I had the WORST headache I have ever had in my life, to the point where I couldn’t stand up or eat or function.  I was assuming it was a migraine (I’ve never had one before then).  After two days of this, I ended up going to the doc in the box on Thanksgiving morning.  What I didn’t expect was the diagnosis of a walking pneumonia.  What I thought was a sinus infection that entire time was actually a walking pneumonia, which is extremely contagious.  So not only did I not get to spend Thanksgiving with our families, I didn’t even get to spend it with my own family.  Justin took the boys and left so that I wouldn’t get them sick and I spent Thanksgiving in the bed.  It was awful.  A few days later I finally started feeling better from that and to be honest, was waiting on some other thing to happen to me.  Luckily my bad streak of sicknesses was over and I never got sick again after that. 

I started working out again around 5 weeks postpartum.  I slowly got into the P90x workouts and now I do them about 5-6 days a week which is what I was doing before I got pregnant.  I’m down to only 5 measly pounds to lose to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight so I’m hoping that will come off quickly.  Justin also bought me another package at Pure Barre for Christmas so I plan to start taking classes there again soon.  I think that’s about all the updates I have on myself.  We’re getting into a new normal with two kids and it isn’t bad at all.  It really helps to have a big brother that likes to help out as much as Carter does and also to have a newborn that sleeps as much as Garrett does!  It all makes for one happy momma :)