Alex is Six Months Old!

Half way to one?!  WHAT?!?!?!  Just stop.

 I won't have any official Dr. Office stats this month as far as weight and length are concerned. But on my scale he's weighing in at about 20 lbs right now.  Which means I really need to get on that convertible seat, cause I hate the infant seat with a passion and he's about to outgrow the damn thing anyway!

Alex spent his first night away from me at Grandma Sharon and Poppa Larry's house.  He did just fine (aside from giving them a hard time about sleeping alone once he woke up at night, whoops, co-sleeping tends to have that affect.)  But while he was there my mom noticed as he was chomping away on a raw green bean that he had the starts of a tooth popped through his gums.  Would NEVER had known he was even teething!!  Other than a little drool he never gave us any sign.  He has been battling a randomly awful first time hes had one diaper rash, perhaps that was brought on by the teething?

We just made the switch over to 6-9 month clothing, I have a thing about squeezing my kid into clothes as long as possible I guess, cause he can actually fit into 12 month clothing already too.  I guess that way he gets his use out of them!

In size 3 diapers, hoping that his "diaper rash" was a diaper rash and not a reaction to his diapers.  Through some elimination trials we will find out I guess.

He loves to chatter to himself in the carseat or when he's trying to fight sleep.  You can hear him making raspberry/lip noises a lot lately.  Still content to just sit around and take things in, quite often you can forget he's even in a room he's so quiet.

He's majorly interested in food.  Often swiping your plate/fork whatever.  I've been letting him have little tastes of things here and there but haven't officially started feeding him foods yet.  I'm in no rush and will probably not even use puree's this time around.  Baby led weaning for this busy mom.  But so far he's actually tried quite a few things like banana, strawberries, potatoes, avocado, green beans, rice from stuffed peppers (LOVED), carrots.  You know whatever's on my plate that he wants to taste, I let him.

And to end this I'm just going to leave you with this bit of ridiculousness...

Alex is Five Months Old!

Five months?  Seriously dude, that's basically like half a year already...I blink and he is going to be walking!

At Alex's 4 month well child visit, which technically happened 2 days before 5 months so we're counting it for five month stats, he weighed in at:
 17lbs 12 oz
26" long
17.5" head
He's happy and healthy.

This month he's mastered grabbing things, learned to like life on his belly a little bit more, and worked really hard on sitting unassisted.  He currently is able to sit up with no support for a little bit on his own but he soon topples to one side or the other, or forward/backward.  But he's very happy to sit up and take things in.

We are very close to outgrowing all thing 3-6 months, some of his onesies are busting at the snaps.  Time to drag out the 6-9 month bins!

He's wearing a size 3 diaper now, no more squeezing into 2's!  I'm ready to move him into a convertible car seat.  I HATE trying to lug around 18lbs of baby, plus his car seat.  Most of the time, I leave the infant seat in the car and wear him anyway.  (Which did I mention, we got a TULA!...LOVE!  Tony doesn't understand the need for a $150 carrier but I'm the one wearing him on me and it's so much easier!)

Alex likes to babble a lot now.  Lots of new sounds and a lot less silent moments. :)  He likes to have yelling/squawking matches.  I frequently hear him cooing away in by back seat talking to his feet, hands or a toy.

Alex is still exclusively breast fed.  Still eating every 3-4 (usually 4) hours.  He nurses like crazy on nights that I've been gone at work, and if he's gonna be fussy it's going to happen at night (witching hour right?)  (or when dad has the kids solo.)

Sleeping from 9-about midnight, eating and going back to sleep until around 4 am most days when he wants to eat again (see every 4 hours!) If I'm off work he goes back to sleep until somewhere between 7-9am, if we are working he gets woken up for the sitters at 5:15am happy as a clam.  Please let that continue, sister is a bear :)

This month Alex got to celebrate his sisters birthday, go to a fair, go to Soaring Eagle Waterpark, go to the hot air jubilee, share some of his breast milk with a baby in need, and just be awesome in general.  No matter what we do he just goes along with it, he's truly the best baby!

Addison You're FOUR!

Addison,

Everyone says it, it sounds so unbelievably dumb, but how in the world has time gone by so fast?  Not only that you JUST turned three, but you were just born I swear it!  But here we are another year has passed. It's true what they say, time passes so quickly when you have kids!  (Mostly I'm sure because life gets crazy and I barely have time to think at the end of the day!)

As far as personality is concerned, I wouldn't say you've done a whole lot of changing in the last year, if anything, you've reinforced who you are.  You have a very, very strong willed personality (get the stubborn out now, before you really do turn into a teenager!).  You test every boundary that is set for you.  If someone tells you you can't do something its the first thing you are going to try and do.  If I tell you your not big enough to do something cause you'll get hurt, chances are you'll get hurt trying to do it anyway.  If nothing else, you keep us constantly on our toes.  And my are you mouthy now...I swear you may as well be turning 14, that't the kind of attitude you've been dealing out around here!

What you hand out in defiance you make up for with sweetness.  You are quick to apologize, easily embarrassed, and always ready with a hug and an "I love you".  You are often incredibly emotional when your feelings are hurt often crying just because someone yelled at you rather than the fact that you got into trouble.

When we tuck you in at night you still request a song (usually Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) every now and then, though not nearly as frequently as before.  (ok when I tuck you in, Daddy tries to keep bedtime to a quick as he can possibly get in and get out.)  Most nights you still tell us when we leave your bedroom that you "love you more than chocolate ice cream".  (Chocolate potatoes, Chocolate hot dogs or various other chocolate item...You sure love you some chocolate.)

You became a big sister this year and stepped into the role like you were made for it.  You LOVE your little brother SO, SO, SO much.  I think part of it is jealousy (okay, I know part of it is) but you truly LOVE him.  You see him getting attention from someone and you immediately have to rush up to him and make sure that you are the one giving him the attention.  As much as you want to squeeze, hug, kiss, squish him, he lights up when you talk to him.  A huge smile and now a squawk of happiness, no matter how much it looks like you are tormenting him.  I just love to watch you two interact even if I have to tell you 40 times in 15 minutes to "keep your hands off his face", "stop squeezing him", "your going to hurt brother" or "we don't put our feet on people's faces, Addison".

Speaking of repeating myself....OMG, do you make me repeat myself.  So many times that I'm ready to rip my hair out.  I love you kid but seriously, we have to work on these listening and comprehending skills.  Someday's I feel like I need a serious brain vacation after an outing with you.  I refer to an afternoon with Addison currently as being brain raped....my god the chatter never stops.  :) We're in a huge curious question asking phase too so on top of the not listening you question everything.  Sometimes you ask silly questions that you already know the answers to.  Sometimes it's just why?, Why this and why that?  Other times you question something you saw or heard like the other day "Is the moon really made out of cheese?"  Bummer, its not.  You remember the smallest details about the most random things that happened weeks/months ago.  Sometimes you'll ask about something that even I've forgotten about but you can recall every detail.   (It must be a fresh kid brain thing, my old used up brain is running out of room.)

You are funny, you are fun, and you are fearless.  You love to be the center of everyone's attention and I love that you remain very outgoing.  There is not much of a fearful bone in your body, you want to do everything taller, faster, louder.  You are really starting to understand what it means to "pick on" someone (which thank God, cause your in the wrong family to not be able to handle being picked on!) and you like to make up jokes to tell or silly names to call people now.  Which really isn't nice but it's funny to hear you call someone a potato fart face.  And your Knock, Knock jokes are just plain silly.

You love to make up songs and can frequently be heard singing some song that you just made up about whatever it is you are doing.  You also are getting really good at playing make believe house with your baby dolls.  You continue to occasionally have an invisible friend though the name frequently changes.  Currently you have a boyfriend named Igloo but he kind of sounds like a jerk when you talk about him, so I'd find a new one if I were you.  You keep talking about getting married, and recently decided you like dresses and girly things a little bit too.  You actually for the first time ever last week insisted on leaving the house in your princess dress up garb.  So you got to parade around Dollar General in your click clack shoes, princess dress and tiara.  Everyone told you you were beautiful and you ate it up, I'm actually surprised that you even removed the princess outfit after that!

You love to be told that you are beautiful, and frequently look in the mirror (also a new obsession to carry around) and say you are gorgeous.  Of course we need to work on the "thank you" response because you are likely to respond by saying "I know" right now. :)  Which is good to be confident, and yes you are beautiful, but let's be a little modest. You still refuse to have your hair done most days past being brushed, "just leave it like this, I like it crazy" is your go to phrase.

 Like I said you haven't "changed" this year just gotten bigger.  Bigger personality, bigger vocabulary, bigger attitude, and a little bit bigger in size.  Still "My favorite girl in the whole wide" (as you say), and I couldn't begin to imagine our world without you.  Love you baby girl.

Happy 4th Birthday!