Thankful for Thanksgiving

We had another wonderful Thanksgiving...in fact, it was one of the nicest I can recall!  We missed seeing the Lion family in Northern VA, but we got to see everyone else and really enjoyed our time together.  Max was an angel throughout all of it, and while he didn't get any turkey this year, I am sure he was happy to be with everyone too.

It was really more like Thanksgiving week for us.  The O'Donnell clan arrived from FL on Saturday.  We'd planned to spend the day with them, but Emory had strep throat, so we let him rest and moved our plans to Sunday. We had a great time playing with Emory and Ellie at Grandma's house! 

Emory introduced us to the ripstik.  For those as clueless as me, it's like a skateboard that twists in the middle, adding another huge layer of difficulty.  

and Jack thought he should give it a try...

 

Ellie helped Jack with his back hoe 

 

while her American Girl doll watched on...

Kenny helped Emory dunk a few balls...

 

Then we moved inside and the boys worked on a great puzzle that Emory brought to Jack...

 

and then Ellie and Jack built a great train...

 

Max slept a lot...

 

Tuesday night we got to spend some more time with the O'Donnells. 

It was a lot of fun watching these cousins play together as this was really the first time Jack had been old enough to really be interested in playing with them much.  He was smitten and would have stayed and played with them all week if we'd have let him.  I was so impressed with how sweet and patient Emory and Ellie were with him.  Thanks guys - you are great big cousins! 

Wednesday night Uncle Aaron and Granny arrived and we got to hang out with them a bit before the big turkey day!   

 

  

Thanksgiving day was wonderful!  Grams and Gramps always cook up quite the feast...Uncle Aaron is a big help too. 

I'm so fortunate to be able to share the holiday with my immediate family and my mother-in-law.  She fits right in with us and I love that Jack and Max get to see us all together.

This year was extra special because Grams and Gramps got a gorgeous new dining room table.  It was really pretty all set and waiting for us to eat...

but even prettier once the chairs were filled.

 

We had some special guests this year, Peter and Margaret, Grams and Gramps' next door neighbors.  They are British and don't celebrate our Thanksgiving of course, but were lovely guests and enjoyed sharing the meal with us.  I really enjoyed talking with them and hope they will join us next year as well.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is Gramps' reading of this passage by Mother Teresa.   It always brings tears to my eyes...

Jack isn't a fan of meat, in any shape or form.  He did TRY some turkey but insisted it was ham!

Uncle Aaron let Jack drink pomegranate juice out of crystal...Jack loved it!

After dinner, Uncle Aaron and Max watched a little football...

Jack organized a jumping contest for he and Gramps.  I think Jack won! 

 It was just a wonderful holiday!  Hope yours was too!

The time has come

Tomorrow, bright and early, I head back to work.  It's been 12 wonderful weeks and just as I expected, it's felt more like 12 days.  I am going to miss my sweet pickle so much, I can't even describe it.  I made sure, on this maternity leave, to take more time to snuggle than I did with Jack (don't worry, Jack was snuggled plenty too!).  I learned with him that everything else can really wait, and that you only get those 12 weeks to really snuggle your tiny guy.  So while I'm really glad I did that, it makes leaving him really hard.  

In some ways, this time, it's easier too though.  I trust our daycare providers completely.  They have not only kept Jack safe for his 2.5 years there, but they've loved him and taught him so much, I can't imagine who he'd be without them.  I'm excited for Max to share in that and get to know his family there too.  I love Miss Gay, his teacher-to-be and I am excited for her to love on Max.   Just a little story about Miss Gay that always makes me smile...or tear up actually, but in a good way.  When Jack and I were laid off and he wasn't in school anymore, he and I went there to visit one day, just to say hi and to make sure if I did get a job one day, he'd have not forgotten the place.  He was about a year old and in a very clingy stage.  He didn't leave my arms for anyone.  But...we walked into the Baby Birds room and Miss Gay smiled at him, and he smiled back at her and reached out his arms to her!  I was so taken aback by it and commented that he never reached for anyone but me.  She smiled at me,touched me on the shoulder and said "honey, they don't forget love."  It made me tear up when she said it and it does every time I think about it.  She's so right.  It was so clear to me that Jack LOVED her and loved being there.  There's nothing more reassuring than knowing how much your child loves the place he goes to spend his time without you. With Jack, it was such an odd thing, leaving your most precious gift in the hands of someone you'd barely met.  Jack can now tell us how much he loves school and he is so excited for Max to go to school too!   This time it feels a lot different, and I'm so thankful for that.  But it won't make me miss him any less...

Max, I'll miss your sweet smiles and coos and your cheeks, so perfect for kissing, all the time!  I'll miss our playtimes and having you by my side as we shopped, or caught up with friends or met Sammy and Ansley for coffee. I'll miss watching Ellen with you and dancing around the living room with you.  I did this with Jack too and he still loves music! I'll miss the times we spent with Grams running around town while her elbow was broken.  I'm so glad we had this time together and look forward to all the times to come.  I know that work shortens our time together, but it also makes the times we are together sweeter.  I work so we can afford to go and do fun things and show you the world.  I'm glad I have a job to go back to and that you have a great school to welcome you.  I'm especially grateful that we could afford for me to take this time off with you.  There's no greater gift than time with your babies.  I've watched you grow so much and we've battled so much together already.  Three colds and a handful of nursing troubles that you were so patient with.  I just can't wait to see what we'll do next! I hope you love school as much as your brother does.  I love you sweet pickle.  Thanks for being mine and for being so precious.  Love, Momma

You be the judge...

Just a little comparison of Jack and Max at 11 weeks...they still look a lot alike to me...what do you think?

2 month checkup

So we were a little late getting there, but last week Max had his 2 month checkup and got a great report!  

The stats:

Weight: 12 lbs 12 oz (in keeping with our doubled theme of 3/3 and 9/9) 90th percentile

Length: 23.25 inches 50th percentile

Head circumference: 16.75 inches 90th percentile

He's clearly growing very quickly and really seems to be taking it all in now.  He's very alert and unless tired or hungry, always pretty happy.  He's still getting up once a night for the most part, but eats and goes right back to sleep, so it's ok with me!  I am still dairy-free for the most part, though he seems to be able to tolerate a little butter and such from time to time.  It's not as hard as I thought and I'm really glad I stuck it out.  He has a little cradle cap still, and she recommended Head and Shoulders to get rid of that!  We got back at 4 months and we'll see how he's doing then!

Cuteness

 

Really, have you ever seen a cuter toddler?  I know I'm a bit partial.  He's at such a cute stage (when not throwing a tantrum) that we find ourselves really wishing we could freeze him at this age.  Here's a good example...yesterday I bought him some vitamins at the grocery store.  I was kind of worried he wasn't going to like them, so before I gave them to him I told him they were going to make him big and strong and make him run faster.  He willingly took the vitamin, chewed it up and said "it's yummy momma!"  I declared it a success at this point because he'd eaten it but had to laugh when the next thing he did was get up off the couch and run across the room!  Then he looked at me and said "SO FAST MOMMA!  Need more!"  This morning when he got up, he asked for another, since I'd told him he could only have one a day.  I gave it to him and he did the same thing - chewed it up then got up and ran across the room.  He's definitely testing me.  I imagine in a few days he'll decide they don't work and will stop eating them.

Last week we had a dead tree removed (sadly, a gorgeous old dogwood that I was very much in love with) and Jack was home that day and got to see it come down.  We talked a lot about the tree as it was coming down.  We talked about why one would ever cut a tree down, why trees are important, why we like them etc.  I taught him to yell TIMBER when each piece came down, which he thought was pretty fun.  So this morning, we were talking about the tree coming down again and I asked him what you yell when you cut a tree down.  He looked at me for a second and then yelled GREEN BIRDS!  Sounds a bit like TIMBER I guess! ;)!  (If that story makes no sense, you might need to know that at Jack's daycare, each age group is named after a bird...baby birds, chickadees, orange birds, green birds, etc.  It's what's on his mind I guess!).

Toddlers can surely test your patience but really, there's nothing cuter!

(PS...yes that is Jack sitting in the Bumbo which is designed for infants...he clearly needs the vitamins, right?)

2 months old

 

Wow, it's going by so fast!  Even faster this time than the first I think!  Max turned 2 months old yesterday and is getting so big and interactive.  He smiles more every day and can sit and watch a toy or swing for longer stretches now without being held.  No worries, he gets plenty of snuggles, but I can actually shower now...most days anyway!  He hasn't slept through the night again since that one time last week but he will make it almost 7 hours most nights.  During the day he still wants to eat often and I'm trying to stretch that out a little since I have to go back to work in 3 short weeks (eeek!)  and I'm pretty sure Miss Gay won't have time to feed him every 2 hours.  He loves to get out and about and see new things and we're loving our little life as the bumps are smoothing out and a routine is starting to fall nicely into place.  

I made it through my 2 weeks of dairy-free and now we get to add a little back to my diet and see how it affects him.  I will say it has been hard!  No milk, cheese, sour cream, yogurt, casein, whey...it's hard to avoid.  He seems happier without it, though the 3 days I had soy milk he seemed to react just like he did with milk, so I guess that needs to be eliminated too.  An egg salad sandwich also did him in, so maybe he doesn't like eggs either.  I am still hopeful it's all dose-dependent and I can have a little bit of anything, just not a lot.  Cross your fingers for us!  Nursing has been such a great experience for us this time around and I'm not ready to quit just yet.    

Jack is still very curious about Max and always worried about his whereabouts.  Max and I picked Jack up from school the other day and all of the Orange Birds came running to see Max.  Jack proclaimed "that's MY baby!" - just in case they were considering taking him home I guess.  He's a great big brother and seems to be settling into the new normal right alongside us...see...

 

:)  Things aren't always as crazy as this...but sometimes, sometimes they are!  Life is good!

8 weeks and 8 hours

Max turns 8 weeks old today and to celebrate, he slept over 8 hours last night!  GO MAX!  Momma thanks you buddy!  I was up every few minutes after 4AM watching the monitor to make sure he was still alive, but that's ok, hopefully he'll do it again tonight and I'll sleep on through it.

Here's a little yawn for you all on this cool rainy day...

 

For the record, Jack didn't sleep this long until he was 4 months old, but this morning, he slept until 8:15 (he was up a few times in the night but only because he wanted Daddy snuggles)!

Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween this year with Jack being old enough to kind of understand it and be excited by the events leading up to it. 

We started with a trip to the pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful day, everyone was in a good mood, but I forgot to charge the camera battery.  BOO! I am still mad about it. Then we invited Grams and Gramps over to carve the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch.  My Dad always carved our pumpkins growing up and always did a great job, no matter how ornate the design.  It's one of those treasured childhood memories of mine, and even though Jack wasn't as excited about  pumpkin carving this year as I might have hoped (he mostly wanted Gramps to play soccer with him instead), I sure enjoyed it!    

Jack wasn't much on helping prepare the pumpkins for carving...

 

He rolled his sleeves up, ready to dive in...

  but quickly changed his mind once he saw what was in there!

Max wasn't much help but did look super cute in his pumpkin jammies!

Gramps and Jack sketched out a few possible designs earlier in the day.  We only had two pumpkins, so we couldn't do them all, but we'll save some of the ideas for next year.

 

 Jack decided he didn't want to help with pumpkins but would like to color while Gramps carved.

 Look how great they turned out!

That's a "J" nose and an "M" mouth!

Max got a few snuggles from Gramps before they left.  What a nice night!  Thanks Grams and Gramps!

Jack was a monkey this year after much deliberation.  Every day we asked what he wanted to be, he had a different answer!  Dinosaur, giraffe, monkey, conductor, and lion all made his list.  I was hesitant to buy anything for fear he'd decide it wasn't the right thing on Halloween morning.  I did find a really cute monkey costume for Max though (thanks Dianne!) and once Jack saw Max was going to be a little monkey, he wanted to be a big monkey!  They were super cute!

Friday, Jack's class paraded their costumes through Carytown. Max and I had planned to go and see their cuteness, but Max didn't sleep much the night before (hence I didn't either) and so our morning was a bit rocky and we had to miss it.  Next year will be better!  Jack was the line leader though and seemed to have a lot of fun.  That evening, there was a party at school.  We always look forward to those - Jack loves them and we love meeting the other kid's parents and getting to watch Jack interact with everyone.  Max even got to meet Miss Gay, who loved on Jack while he was a baby bird, and will get to do the same for Max here soon.  Jack's class pumpkin was really cute...

 He loved playing the games and winning treats!

Saturday the Seaborns invited us a Fall Festival that was a lot of fun!  Jack got to decorate a pumkpin...

 and decorate a trick-or treat bag...

Max got to snooze while looking extra cute in his monkey suit...

I think Jack enjoyed the Carillon steps the most though.  I can't tell you how many times they went up and down them.  I stood at the bottom in awe of my little life.  Just 4.5 years ago some of my best girls and I gathered here for a lunch on the day before my wedding.  And look at how that all turned out!  I still have that wonderful husband and now we have these 2 perfect little boys!  I am just SO lucky!

Halloween morning we set off to explore a part of the River we'd never visited before and had such a good time.  It was a gorgeous morning and everyone was cooperative (even me!)!  I think it's my new favorite spot and look forward to going back soon!

Saturday night we headed over to Grams and Gramps house for trick-or-treating.  Their neighborhood had a haunted walk for the kids that I was sure was going to scare Jack to death, but he loved it and asked to go through it again as soon as he got done the first time!  He kind of got the hang of trick-or-treating, though I think he only actually said "trick-or-treat" a few times.  He loved getting candy though - lollipops are his favorite!   Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween too and are enjoying your treats, or "Halloweens" as Jack calls them!