Four Boys... One Month

I should be cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast right now, but instead I'm looking through old pictures of the boys.  I get completely sucked in when I start doing this and it's hard to stop looking at all of them as babies!  Here they all are at one month old.

Jackson... our little skinny man...

And then our two chunkers... first Emmett...

Then Reid...

And, finally, the man of the hour... Davis...

I caved and bought those onesie sticker things that are all the rage now and am going to try HARD to take a picture of him with the appropriate sticker every month this time.  But given my past track record I will probably only make it to month three.  It really amazes me all of the new things that are available now for babies, even since I had Jackson six years ago.  Like these stickers, this cradle thing that we borrowed from a friend that Davis is sleeping in that is amazing, and the Diaper Genie, which has been reinvented... it is SO much better now (we didn't buy another one... I just used one at a friend's house and couldn't believe how much better it is now).  I sound like an old lady when I say that ("Gee... I wish we'd had that when my kids were little!") but it's true.

That is Reid's hand and this would be a sweet picture if it wasn't for D's scrunchy face. That face was because Reid wasn't just stroking his head... he had run over and was patting (smacking) the top of D's head saying, "Hi, Dabis!  Hi Dabis!  Hi Dabis!" really fast over and over.  Reid is very loving to Davis and is always happy to see him and especially to help me burp him, but you know the two-year-old enthusiasm sometimes has to be reined in.  :)

I don't know why, but whenever I take Davis's picture in a furry animal-like blanket (and especially with these velour pajamas on) it makes me laugh because I think about George Costanza's photo shoot on Seinfeld.  Maybe because of the velour couch George was on and the fact that Davis kind of has a hairline like George right now?  I don't know but it makes me smile every time.

 

Hahahahaha!!  Okay, sorry... back to cute baby...

He looks like he is so bored with life here... or maybe he's just doing a blank stare because he's tired from being up at 1 AM, 3 AM, and 5 AM every night!  This boy loves to eat!

Googly-eyes!  I love newborn crazy eyes.  :)

Kind of smiling, but probably pooping.  :)

Lately...

Really quickly, here are some pics and some things we've been up to these past few weeks...

Jackson and Emmett had tea parties at school for letter "T" week.  J had to wear a tie and looked so handsome!  It looks a little weird at the top because I had to google how to tie a tie to figure out how to do it and it was my first time.  

I decided to try to venture out for the first time with Davis and Reid to visit Emmett's class for his tea party.  Davis wore his tie, too.  :)  He's two weeks old here...

So I successfully got D and R dressed and out of the house and into the classroom on time and everything was great.  Until we were about to pour the tea and the fire alarm went off!  Seriously.  Luckily, it was no big deal and we all got outside and back in again uneventfully.  D stayed asleep the entire time we were at school, which was great.

Here's Emmett in line with his class waiting for the "all clear"...

And Reid and Davis in their own line...

And then it was party time.  His teacher had the table all decked out... so cute.

Reid was super good, too.  I strapped him into this umbrella stroller to keep him contained and he was happy just to sit there and watch the kids (and eat some gingerbread cookies)...

I've been trying not to wish the weeks away with Davis, since this is seriously the last baby I will ever have (yes, seriously... I know I've said that before but this time I mean it for sure!) and spend as much time cuddling him as I can (while also trying to make sure he gets used to sleeping by himself in the crib and keeping Reid from burning the house down... haha!).  So we've been doing a bit of this while J and E are at school...

D's umbilical cord fell off around two weeks, so he got his first tub bath!  A big fan, like all the others.  Is there really any baby that hates the bathtub?

Here he's about three weeks old and getting chunkier!  A few days after this he had to go get his tongue tie snipped... the little thing that connects his tongue to the bottom of his mouth was too close to the end of his tongue, so the pediatric surgeon had to snip it to the right length.  Sounds terrible and I was freaking out about it, but it seriously took like 3 seconds to do and he barely cried.  He cries more when I change his diaper before a feeding at night!  I was very relieved to have it done so quickly and easily.

J is such a loving big brother...

"Here's my surprised face..."

We think that in the face he looks just like Jackson when he was a baby, but Davis is chunkier and has Emmett's coloring.  I think he has a dimple on the right side, too.  It's so neat to see the characteristics that they all share and how God mixed their similar features up to make them all unique.

Aaaaaahhhh... baby feet!!  He has super long toes!

Just for the record, Davis has been eating and sleeping almost exactly the same as Reid was at this age.  The other day I was feeling a little frustrated over the night wakings and fussiness til I went back and read what I had posted about Reid at one month.  Apparently R was also really fussy and still up all night when he was one month, and then a few weeks later I posted that things had gotten much better, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that's the same with Davis!  He's really not that difficult... just has lots of gas from my oversupply of milk and that makes him really fussy.  And he's still nursing every two hours or less all day (and all night).  But he's growing really well and the doctor says he's doing great... he has already outgrown these crab pajamas...

I love this pic of him staring at Emmett...

All the boys were watching Thomas the other night and just happened to be lined up on the ottoman like this...

Whoa!  That's a lot of boys!  They were all running around crazy-like the other evening and Phil and I looked at each other and said, "This is a lot of kids!  Whose idea was this, really?"  :)  But we're just kidding, of course... we love them so much!

So... in a nutshell.... lately we've just been trucking along trying to make sure that this and that document gets turned in for our home loan or neighborhood approval, that the boys have lunch or snack or money to take to school when they need it, that we meet the deadline to sign up for preschool next year or swim lessons, etc., that J makes it to t-ball pictures with all of his gear and to his game the next day on time, that no one slugs another one over a train or breaks an ankle while they're wrestling on the floor, while also snuggling baby, taking care of chores, and making sure everyone has food to eat, etc., etc., etc.!  Life is totally hectic and crazy right now but it also makes us realize how blessed we are.  And even though sometimes I feel like this...

...when I'm in a frumpy t-shirt and yoga pants on the couch nursing for the thousandth time that day (haha... I took that pic to text to my friend Michelle in OR when she was getting ready to go to a fun party and I thought it turned out funny)... I know that all of this is temporary and I'm so excited for the future fun and adventures we have with these precious boys!

Happy Birthday, Reid!

Reid turned two on the 23rd of February!  Although it seems to me like he's been two for a long time now.  I feel like he should have turned three.  Is that weird?  Anyway, it was a rainy day so we decided to try bowling on base, but that didn't open until naptime.  So then we went to the marina to eat lunch, but they didn't serve food until naptime.  So we settled for a mediocre meal with bad service at Beef O'Brady's.  The boys were all really good, though (D slept the whole time, thankfully) and I think they enjoyed it.  Oh, and on the way back home we stopped to "feed the goats"...

There's this random house/farm on the way to the base where the owners have eight million goats (seriously... do you see them all?) and usually a donkey or two (although we didn't see any that day) that come right up to the fence and love to be fed.  You can find a car pulled over with people feeding these goats at almost any time of any day.  Any old Tyndall peeps reading this remember these goats?  They're still there!

This was obviously the patriarch of the bunch.  He was enormous and he had about 400 little babies running around underneath him.  I was kind of gagging the whole time... they all smelled like dirty, rotten goat cheese to me.  And I love(d) goat cheese, but I may never eat it again.  

The boys loved it, especially the birthday boy.  :)

When we got home we had packages from Aunt Leslie to open that the boys were SO excited about! J and E got a dreamlight (night light that puts colored images on the ceiling and walls) to share and R got some monster trucks.  They really loved them, Les!  Thank you so much!

Poor Reid didn't get a party this year (but, really... he's two and we just moved to town so who would we have invited?  And would he even have known what the heck was going on?) due to having an 11-day-old brother and parents who barely have the energy to throw dinner together.  I did manage to get our favorite chocolate cake made, although it was questionable towards the end of the evening whether it would actually get frosted or not (but it eventually did).  I did also manage to get a "Happy Birthday" banner hung and we sang and had cake and opened some presents, and these three boys seemed "Happy, Happy, Happy"...

This one, however, was NOT!  I would scream, too, if I had to miss out on that cake!

These pics are weird because Phil was trying to video and take pictures at the same time.  :)

You know the best part of the cake is the frosting on the bottom of the candles, right?

"CHEESE!"

Oh, Reid... we just love you so much!  Our world would just not be complete without sweet, smiley, happy, curious, loving, fearless YOU in it!  Even though somedays you frustrate me so much that I want to put you in the front yard next to a sign that says, "Free to good home," (just kidding) not a day goes by where Daddy and I don't have some story to share with each other about something funny you did or something sweet you did or said to us or your brothers.  You are such a blessing to us all! :)