Claire - 5 Months

Claire is 5 months old and I do not know where these last 5 months went? I feel as if in the blink of an eye our baby girl went from little tiny infant to a babbling 5 month old who eats rice cereal and sits in a bumbo. She has rolled over a lot but not on a consistent basis. Her reflux is still in full force but she smiles through all her spit-up. I think she’s starting to really recognize who Mom and Dad are because she grins from ear to ear when either one of us walks in the door. She is a very happy baby and we are truly blessed!

Schedule

7:30am – awake and 8oz bottle

9:00am – cereal

9:30am-11:00am – nap

11:30am – 6oz bottle

1:00-2:45 – nap

3:30 – 6oz bottle

4:30 – 5:00 nap

5:30 – cereal

6:30 – 7oz bottle

7:00pm – lights out until the next morning (YES, we have a sleeper on our hands)

She devoured the rice cereal for the first time as if she had been eating it for months. She then wanted nothing to do with it for a few days and is now back to enjoying it. I hope we don't have a picky eater on our hands! 

Who can resist that adorable smile!

Elliott - 32 Months

Elliott seems to have moved out of the terrible two's...kind of. Don't get me wrong, he still has his normal toddler tantrums and certainly still knows how to press our limits. The limit testing has just moved to a more strategic plan rather than just screaming for what he wants.

Take for instance the simple request of asking for milk (the kid drinks a lot of milk so we have to limit his consumption a little). Elliott used to just scream and kick when we told him no. Now he’s learned to ask with such a sweet little voice “can I have just a yi-ttle bit of milk, Daddy?” No, you can’t. “Can I have just a yi-ttle bit? Just a yi-ttle. I promise.” How do you say no to that?

Some other conversations:

Dad: Good-bye Elliott. I’ll see you when I get home tonight.

Elliott: Ok. Have a good day Daddy. I love you.

Dad: Thanks. You too.

Elliott: Drive carefully. (Are you kidding me. What 2.5 year old worries about how you drive?)

Mom: Ok Elliott. I’m going to leave for work.

Elliott: Awe, but I didn’t give you a hug and a kiss (shrugging his shoulders and putting his hands in the air).

Responding to Claire’s crying: It’s ok Claire. We are right here. You don’t have to cry.

After stepping on mom’s toe: Oops sorry for stepping on your toe Mommy.

Mom: It’s ok.

Elliott: Are you ok Mommy?

He has a nasty cough and runny nose right now. He’s always bringing over a Kleenex and asking me to blow his nose. When I’m done he says “Thank you for blowing my nose, Mommy.” Such a sweet boy! 

My much wiser and older sister once said "Don't worry so much about raising a good kid that your forget you already have one." SO TRUE! 

Helping Dad with the Christmas tree

Writing his letter to Santa 

Meeting Santa at the Ankeny Prairie Ridge Aquatic Center 

Thanksgiving

We had a Thanksgiving holiday filled with family. Pops, Mimi, Ab, Drew, Kat, K'Lyn, Aaron, and Addison all came over to our house on Thursday for the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Most of the day was spent watching Addison and Elliott roughhouse and pick out the toys they wanted from the piles of Black Friday ads.

On Saturday we made the 1 mile trip to Ab and Drew's house and had Thanksgiving there with Mom, Jeff, and Megs. Drew is a much better cook and it thoroughly showed with a text the day before asking everyone their choice of steak, pork, or chicken. What is this? A fancy wedding? At our house you will eat turkey and like it! :)

Pops and Mimi giving Mom and Dad the morning off 

The boys coloring 

I want this and this and this and this for Christmas 

Future Bob Ross's
"And we'll put a little tree up here next to the log cabin"

One of few family pictures 

Cousin Love 

Don't let them fol you, they aren't always this innocent looking 

Aunt Meg with her nieces 

I Love You, Mommy

I Love You, Mommy

I had just laid Claire down for the night and started doing all the things we Mommy's do once our kids are in bed. Wash bottles. Do laundry. Pick up toys from the day. Then Elliott asked in his sweet little innocent voice "Can we please watch cuggin-ging (Chuggington), Mommy?" I must have given him the look because he said again, "please, Mommy? Please please?" He even still does the baby sign language for please when he says the word. So I caved...again. How do you turn that sweet face down? We snuggled in together on the couch, covered up with his tractor blanket, and turned on Chuggington. Elliott gave a big sigh, laid his head back on my shoulder, looked up at me and said "I love you, Mommy."  

I melted! I was awestruck! My son just told me he loved me without my prompting. Elliott can certainly have his ornery moments, throw his fair share of tantrums, and he seems to know just how far he can push our limits. I find myself yelling, begging, pleading, trying to get him to behave. 

To pick up his toys. To eat his food. To be nice to his sister. To stop asking to watch TV. To stop asking me to play with him. To stop doing whatever he is doing. So when my son told me he loved me I actually felt a little guilt. How can he love me after my constant nagging throughout the day? 

It's because I kiss his boo-boo's when he falls on his bike. I read him books before he goes to bed. I fix his lego truck when it falls apart for the umpteenth time. And most importantly, 

I tell him I love him. 

All the time. 

Now back to realty. The kid is smart enough to know that when he behaves we tend to push back bedtime. Saying "I love you" just bought him 5 extra minutes of TV time.  :) 

Claire - 4 Months

Claire ADORES her older brother. She can sit and watch him for hours minutes. She used to be pretty crabby every time we sat down for dinner. Her unwinding hour always happened to be just as we started to eat our first bite of food, which meant one of us would pick her up and wait to eat while the other devoured their food so we could trade. Now we can sit her in the bumbo on the table and she just laughs at Elliott the whole time.

She is starting to have a little bit of a schedule. She sleeps from 7pm-7am with naps around 9-10ish, 12-2ish and then a short 30 minute nap around 4:30. She takes an 8oz bottle when she first wakes up and a 6oz bottle before bed. She still eats at pretty random times during the day, depending on how much she “gives up” in between bottles.

Highlights:

- Her acid reflux is still in full force, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain and she’s not fighting bottles anymore so we took her off the medicine.

- We still swaddle her for naps and bedtime. She is extremely “handsy” and wakes herself up every 20 minutes if we don’t use a swaddle.

- She rolled over 6 or 7 times in a row on November 13^th but hasn’t shown much interest since then.

- She almost skipped 6 month pajamas and went straight to 9 month. She does wear 6 month outfits as long as they aren’t one piece, otherwise they are too short for her.  

- She has turned into a pretty happy baby and we love to see her giggle!
- Update - Claire was 15lbs 2ozs (68%) and 26.75 inches (98%). We have a long and lean girly on our hands!

Laughing at Elliott

Ok, so how do I grab that thing and put it in my mouth?

This does not taste like I thought it would 

So smiley 

First hornet sting. She was ok. She was even hamming it up at the doctor's office.

Just relaxing and watching TV at Pops and Mimi's house

Grateful

I was sitting at Panera Bread sipping my coffee, reading the paper, and responding to emails on my laptop. Worrying about daylight savings and my kids’ sleep schedules…whoever came up with the idea of daylight savings did not have little kids. Stressed out about the fact that Claire’s reflux had not gotten any better…if anything it had gotten worse. Mad that I had gotten up at 5am that morning and couldn’t go back to sleep…Ugh, I really needed that extra hour of sleep.

This was all going through my head when I saw a middle-aged man roll out of Panera in his wheel chair with a cup of coffee in his hand. He rolled up to his truck, opened the driver door, and then hoisted himself up into the truck with his arms. He then pressed a button in his truck and an “arm” rotated from the back of his truck and dangled a pulley over the wheel chair. He hooked up the wheel chair to the pulley, pressed another button and the wheel chair slowly raised off the ground and rotated into the back of his pickup. This whole process took probably 10 minutes. 10 minutes! Ten minutes for him just to get into his car and drive away. All for a cup of coffee. And what was even more surprising…he did it all with a smile on his face. I have no idea what this guy’s story is but he seemed to love life. Maybe loving that he can actually drive like a normal person. Maybe loving that he still has use of his upper body. Or maybe just loving that he was about to indulge in a cup of his favorite coffee.

Whatever his story, he certainly made me stop and think about what now seemed like such little worries that were running through my head that morning. 

Elliott - 31 months

I can't believe I'm already writing Elliott's post for 31 months. I feel like I just wrote one a week ago.

Highlights:
- He LOVES tractors, grain bins, grain carts, augers, combines, and semis. He now practices his "gobbling up corn" so he can help grandpa in the field.
- He has a mind of his own.
- He has a mind of his own.
- He has a mind of his own. Oh wait, I already said that...
- He already wears size 9 shoes. Yikes!
- He loves to read books before bed. Right now I think it's more a stall tactic then the actual thrill of reading the book. He knows some of his books by heart and can finish sentences and knows when you skip a page.
- There is a fine line between being sweet with his baby sister and terrorizing her.

Conversations:
Mom: Can you please help me set the table, Elliott? (for the 3rd time)
Elliott: Of course, Mommy.
Mom: Well thank you, Elliott.
Elliott: You are sooo welcome.

Dad: Elliott, what are the rules when we get in the tub with Claire?
Elliott: No splashing and no scaring, baby Claire.

(Elliott heard the story of how both Grandpa John and Great Grandpa Marvin got the combine stuck twice in one morning)
Elliott: (Playing farm with Dad) The combine is stuck in the mud, Daddy.
Dad: It is? How are we going to get it out?
Elliott: We going to get the blue rope and pull it with the tractor.

Mom: Elliott, how do we get the corn out of the field?
Elliott: We gobble it up with the combine.
Mom: And then what do you do with it?
Elliott: It goes in the grain cart and then the semi.
Mom: How does it get there?
Elliott: With the auger.
Mom: Then where does it go?
Elliott: To the elebator.

Don't let that smile fool you...

Movie night with Mommy

Scooping snow with Daddy

They started developing the field to the north of our house. Elliott was glued to the window the first few days.

Play-Doh bridge

Claire - 3 Months

Three months is such a pivotal age. I truly believe they start developing their only little personalities at this age. They don’t just lay there staring into space all day. Peeing. Pooping. Eating. Crying. Claire has actually started to interact with people around her. She smiles when she hears my voice. She laughs and giggles when you play “so big” with her and raise her hands above her head. Unfortunately, she also knows when she’s being held and when she’s not. And little missy prefers to be held. Claire weighed in at 13lbs 7ozs and reached 24 ¾ inches. 

Elliott - 30 Months

Elliott is ALL boy. He loves to roughhouse, jump off the couch, throw toys, and do anything to irritate Mom and Dad. He has one speed. Fast. He talks fast. He rides his bike fast. He likes to drive his cars fast. He walks fast...actually runs, the kid never walks. Gotta love boys!

Highlights:

• We hired a sitter to come to the house and watch the kids, which means Elliott no longer goes to school. Elliott was pretty excited when we told him that his teacher, Elaine was going to come to the house instead of going to school. 
• We are close to being potty trained. He still doesn't tell us when he has to go so we have to sit him on the potty about every 90 minutes.
• We've been battling some nasty eczema so we took him off dairy and found out he has a sensitivity to milk. Poor guy! Almond milk it is. 

Look at my pretty color, Mommy!

He LOVES his sister.

Family picture

Reinhardt Christmas

We had the annual Reinhardt Christmas in October at our house last weekend. I think we counted 34 people including 9 kids. Wow, Grandma Marilyn's family continues to grow! She is very blessed! 

I had to post all the pictures because who doesn't love looking at outtakes of kid photography! I love how Gavin is the only one looking and smiling in every single picture. :)

Parenting Is A Roller Coaster Ride

Now that I'm back at work and I don't get to spend as much time with my kids I find myself wanting to love on them the instant I walk in the door. I miss them like crazy during the day! But after an hour of diaper changing, bottle feeding, filling sippy cups, and telling my 2 year old not to be so rough with his little sister for the umpteenth time I'm ready for their bedtime to come so I can relax again. Parenting is a roller coaster ride of emotions. But I'm ok with that. No one ever said it's easy and I think it's perfectly normal to be completely frustrated and ready to give up one minute and then want nothing to do but love and hug your kids the next....at least I hope it is! 

  

Last Day of Maternity Leave

I can hardly even bring myself to write this post because I can't believe it's already here! It feels like just yesterday Mark arrived home just in time to drive me to the hospital, only to welcome our new little baby girl just 2 hours later. Ten weeks came and went in the blink of an eye. I thought it would be easier to leave my child the second time around...but I can definitely tell you it's not. Off to the real world again.

Some of my favorites from maternity leave:

Elliott asked to hold Baby Claire almost every morning for the first week

Family movie night

First walk with the 2 of them. It didn't end well, Mom had to carry him home and push the stroller for the last block.

Elliott loved to talk to Claire when he got home from daycare

Nap time with Mommy

One of many play dates with Berklee (Heidi's little girl)

Snuggle time

Claire was pretty upset when I told her this was our last day of maternity leave...