3 Months

Our sweet boy continues to grow and grow!  This month has been extra fun as we have begun to see more of his personality come out.  He definitely loves to snuggle and the way he just wraps himself around us to snuggle is the sweetest!  He is super smiley and recently started giggling a lot!  He is mostly chill but when he is hungry - watch out!  He is pretty easy to get to fall asleep with a quick little snuggle but there's still a bit of a song and dance to get him down at night.  

We are making great progress at night! He sleeps all night now - a solid 7-8 hours which is awesome!  Much to Peter's appreciation we've been getting him to a more reasonable bedtime (no more 1-2 in the morning)  around 11ish.  Generally during the day he will be awake for about 1-2 hours and then go to sleep for a couple hours. So we are definitely starting to feel a bit of a routine with him!

I feel like he's quite the chunk and is around 13 1/2 lbs now.  He's still wearing 0-3 month clothes and size 2 diapers.  I was surprised to find out he is actually in the "lean" category per the pediatrician. He's 54% for height and 34% for weight.  Guess he just carries all of his chubby in his face :)  We are finally into a great groove with nursing and I am so proud of him because he totally weaned himself off the shield we were having to use! In general it just feels like everything has fallen into a great schedule and we know him well enough to know his routine and desires!  

Mr Leeland, aka Baby Dale aka Baby Boo,  

We are just loving life with you!  You are the sweetest little gift and addition to this family! We are finally getting into a routine with you and now you just feel like you're part of the family. I love how much your big siblings all adore you!  I love how smiley you are, how much you love to talk, and your new giggle. I love how much you light up when you see your Daddy, even if that means you're gonna be a Daddy's boy.  I love your squishy kissable cheeks and your adorable chunky chin! You just make life so sweet by just existing and that is pretty amazing! You are so loved and I am just going to absorb these next couple months with you because they are some of my favorites of the baby stage!  

 

The end of 2021

Well it looks like I am pretty much caught up after this post :)  Thanks for bearing with me!

Baby Boo was born and we survived the NICU and were finally settling into life with 6 kids.  Ayla loved Leeland from the second she met him. She is pretty much a second mother and keeps us all in line as far as his needs go! We really just tucked in as much as we could for his first couple months as we were instructed to do per his pediatrician.  But it was a sweet time for our family as we adjusted and got to know this sweet little guy!

We purposely decided to not do school from Leeland's birth thru the holidays so we had plenty of bonding and play time! 

Halloween was quick on the heels of getting Leeland home! 

Leeland really started growing fast!

Even though we weren't spending time with others we still tried to get out as much as we could when the weather permitted! 

We started the transition of Peter getting his own office space and ALL the girls transitioning to the bigger room 

All the kids participated in their first timed race and did awesome. They spent a lot of the late summer/fall out running with Peter.  It was still a virtual race but Eli finished 2nd in his age group with a time of 30:13.

Sabrina helped her Daddy prep for Thanksgiving!

And ran her race where she finished 2nd in her age group with a time of 30:20

Then we had a small Thanksgiving with my family where we had far far too much food! 

And played our traditional Bingo

The next day we woke up to celebrate the first day of Christmas!

We decorated and Ayla was so much fun this year! She was just in awe of it all! I love Christmas through a toddlers eyes!

 

Malachi ran his race and finished 1st in his age division with a time of 26:09!

Leeland came down with some horrible newborn acne all over his little body. We went clothing free and used some special skin wash that fortunately cleared it up quickly! But poor guy was pretty miserable for a couple days! 

We moved the girls into their new room and got to work

The girls picked the bright cheery color and it is very much them! Replacing the trim and painting everything else white is still an ongoing project but we will eventually get it done! 

After 2 months of pretty much avoiding society we slowly started going back out again. Of course then the next strain hit and our pediatrician sent us back into hiding until the middle or end of February, but we are hopeful that eventually we can get out again!

The kids loved Zoo lights!

Sabrina was in another year of Nutcracker

Once we got back from the beach, the kids couldn't wait to decorate cookies and do some of our other favorite Christmas traditions!

Peter just about finished up his office just in time for the new job to start!  He's quite happy with how it all turned out and how nice it is to have his own space! 

Ayla discovered a love for baking!

We finally splurged on the infamous "nugget" and it has been endless hours of fun. They do seem to live up to the hype! 

And we enjoyed the magical season of Christmas with our sweet little guy!  

And now we are all caught up!  Stay tuned for more of life!