Bill and Miss (plus three)

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Wow, time has sure flown by.  Aubrey is 7 months today and doing so many new things!  This past weekend my mom and I went and got her ears pierced.  She cried pretty hard after the first ear, squirmed a little through the second but once I turned her around and hugged her tight, she was fine after a couple of seconds.  She looks so beautiful with her ears pierced!  So now that she is 7 months, she is eating baby food, most of which I am making her and she seems to enjoy her food, but she doesn't eat too much of it.  By this point, I feel like the boys were eating double what she is eating in a sitting.  But that's okay, I'm not going to force her to eat if she doesn't want to. We know when she's done because she starts to blow "raspberries" This is a habit of hers normally.  When she wakes up in the morning, that is one of the first thing she does (after smiling of course).  She loves to stick out her tounge and "spit."  She has been so bad and done it with food in her mouth and the food goes EVERYWHERE, including my shirt!  She is sitting up and pushes up on all fours and rocks back and forth.  I think she will be crawling sometime within the month.  She loves to chew on anything she can get her hands on.  She is pretty much sleeping through the night.  On a normal night she will fall asleep sometime between 7 and 7:30 and then wake up at about 4:30 for a bottle.  Once in a while she wakes up at 2:30 for a bottle.  She is waking up sometime between 6 and 6:30.  She loves to be around her brothers and watch them play, that puts a smile on her face.  She has finally stopped crying when she's in the car!  thank goodness!  She does however still have poopy blow outs.  I don't know how to fix that, but it seems like every time I put her in her carseat, when we get to our destination, she has poop in her diaper and 3 out of 5 times, it's all over her clothes too.  Frustrating to say the least.  She has a beautiful smile and laugh and she LOVES to be held.  I'm being a mean mommy and as of two weeks ago, I've been putting her down in her crib awake and letting her cry until she falls asleep.  For about a week and a half, she would cry for 45 minutes and then sleep for 45 mintues.  Last week she cried for only 20 minutes, but still slept for 45 minutes.  Today, she cried for 20 minutes and she is going on an hour and 20 minutes...this is a first for her!  She is learning how to hold her own bottle, but she enjoys when mommy holds her and gives her her bottle.  I still rock her to sleep at night and I think I'll do that until she's a year old.  I don't want her to be too independent of me :)  She is such a blessing in our lives.  I can't imagine our family without our little girl!

Braden is hysterical!  If I just watched him all day and didn't care about disciplining him or making sure he was safe, I think I would be laughing all day.  He LOVES LOVES LOVES Aubrey.  He has such a sweet spirit about him.  When he wakes up in the morning he makes sure to tell everyone Hi.  He LOVES giving kisses and hugs to anyone who will receive them.  He loves to eat fruit.  If I let him, I think that's what he would eat all day long.  His favorites are banana and strawberries (apples, like he calls them).  He's a pretty good eater at dinner time and likes to snack all day long.  He loves drinking milk!  He wants to do everything his big brother, Jacob does, including going to school with him.  There have been a couple of occasions when we picked up Jacob at school when Braden pulled up a chair next to Jacob so that he could sit next to him while he ate his lunch.  He likes running around with Jacob and their friends Alexander and Anthony after school.  He tries so hard to keep up with the big boys, but he always 10 steps behind, but he does EVERYTHING they do.  It's funny because he wants very little to do with kids his own age...he would much rather be with older kids.  He is finally sleeping through the night.  He goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up about 6 or 6:30.  Rarely does he wake up in the middle of the night.  He does want someone in the room with him while he falls alseep even for naps.  I am trying to break him of this habit, but because he's older, it's a lot harder to do.  He started swimming lessons in January and is doing well now that he can be in the pool without mommy in there and not cry with the instructor.  He is quite stubborn and he fights the instructor when he doesn't want to do something.  But we can tell that he really enjoys his lessons.  He was in a music class in February and March and a couple weeks in April.  He loved moving around to the music and his favorite part of the class was when the teacher got the scarves out and played peekaboo with them.  He would crack up and he liked putting the scarf on Aubrey's head and then pull it off of her and they would both start laughing.  ADORABLE!

Jacob is doing so well in school.  He looks forward to going and is learning a lot academically, socially, spiritually, and physically.  He got an award for Loyalty and I hope that he keeps that way about him always.  He is a good friend and so caring for others.  He is definitely my child as he is a rule follower and rule maker upper (if that's a word).  He likes to play games with me and his daddy and one of his favorite things to do right now is to color and draw.  He is really getting to be a good colorer and drawer.  There are LOTS of papers up on our walls (all over the house, I might add) that shows off his artistic abilities.  He started playing baseball in late February.  He played in the Pony league.  It's coach pitch for 5 pitches and then they hit off the tee if they don't hit off the coach.  He has hit off the coach pitch a couple of times.  When he hits off the pitch it ususally doesn't go past the pitcher, but the last few games he hit it hard enough to make it past the pitcher.  He will typically make it to first base and then run the bases to score.  He gets a little distracted out in the outfield and I think sometimes gets bored, but for being 4 and one of the youngest kids on the team he is doing alright.  It's fun to see him interact with his teammates especially at their pizza parties.  It's a totally different crowd than what he's used to with his friends from Stroller Strides, but he's having fun with them.  He is such an awesome big brother.  He is so loving and caring to both Braden and Aubrey.  He loves playing with Braden and teaching him new things and he also likes to fight with him too.  He is such a sweetie to his little sister too, sometimes wanting to feed her.  He makes sure that we pray before we eat

After 4 months in our room (with one of those months in our bed in my arms) Aubrey spent her first night in her room.  We got to the point where I was not sleeping at all during the night because she wanted to be in my arms the entire night.  It was getting out of control and fast.  So, after her 4 month check-up (where she weighed in at 14 lbs. 14 oz and is 24 1/2 inches long) where I talked with her doctor about how to get her to sleep alone, we tried it out.  The night of her appointment she got a fever because of her shots so the next day she was still recovering from that.  So Wednesday after we dropped Jacob off at school, we came home and she got sleepy.  I rocked her to sleep in my arms, then layed her in her crib.  She immediately woke up and started crying.  I tried to pat her for a couple of minutes but that didn't help, so I left her room and closed her door.  Braden and I were in the next room folding clothes.  She cried for about 30 minutes.  It was hard to hear her cry, but the laundry and Braden helped keep me distracted and kept me from going in to her room to pick her up.  After about 40 minutes and I went in and picked her up.  I think she was pretty upset with me.  She had her bottle and we went on with our day.  We picked Jacob up from school and then it was time for her to take another nap.  I rocked her to sleep again, then layed her down.  Again, she woke up and started crying.  I let her cry for about 15-20 minutes.  Then I went in, picked her up and put her back to sleep (in about 2 minutes).  This time when I layed her down, I put her on her tummy.  This is a no no according to doctors, but she stayed asleep in her crib for about 25 minutes.  YIPPEE! 

Last night we tried again.  I rocked her to sleep, layed her down and she cried.  About 30 minutes later I picked her up, put her back to sleep, then layed her down on her side.  She slept soundly until about 1:30.  She was awake in her crib just looking at her hands.  I think I did the mistake of going in her room to help her get back to sleep!  BIG MISTAKE!  I think she might have fallen back to sleep, but once I got her it was 2 hours and a bottle later that she finally fell asleep, in my arms IN MY BED!!!  UGH, big mommy fail! 

Today, she is currently asleep in her first nap.  She cried for about 40 minutes.  I brought her back downstairs where she fell asleep and then I put her down on her tummy and she's been asleep for about 45 minutes now.  Let's hope nap #2 and bedtime go smoothly.

On another note...Jacob is LOVING his baseball practices.  He is doing really well and learning a lot from his coaches.  He especially likes it when his daddy gets to go to practices and also likes it when Papa can got to practice too.  His favorite part about baseball is going up to bat.  so cute!  Their first game is on Feb. 20th.  We can't wait.  He looks so adorable in his practice clothes...I can't wait to see him in his Nationals uniform. 

Braden is still Braden.  He loves to play with and also torment his brother.  He loves loving his sister.  He is doing well in his swimming classes that started about a month ago.  I am in the pool with him because he isn't used to Mr. Gio yet.  He likes sitting on the side of the pool and jumping into mommy.  He loves drinking the water and burping when he comes up...ugh, typical boy.  He is floating on his back when he wants to and is learning to turn from his tummy to his back.  He also started his Kindermusik class last Friday.  He LOVED it.  He was a good boy and listened to everything his teacher said.  He even helped put the toys away when asked.  His favorite part was when they played with the scarves and we played peek-a-boo.  He lived putting the scarves over my head and over Aubrey's head (she kinda liked that too).  Overall, all three of us had a great time.  Aubrey enjoyed watching all the kids and listening to the music.  We can't wait for our next session.

So until next time...mommy and daddy love you all!