6 Months!

Look at this handsome one!

Oh my gosh I forgot how sweet this age is!  Haven is full of smiles and giggles.  He's so easy to entertain.  I just love this boy SO much!!!

Haven's 4th and 5th months were great!  Here are a few of his milestones:

~ The MOST exciting one to me is he's finally sleeping thru the night.  Hooray!  Oh. My. Goodness. This boy was stubborn at night.  I thought I knew exactly how to get a child to sleep thru the night since Jill was at 15 weeks.  NOPE.  I tried everything with Haven and he was stubborn.  About 2 weeks ago he finally slept from his dream feed at 10 til 7:30.  finally!  I definitely had to push him towards it, but he finally did it.  The past few nights I've stopped the dream feed and now he's going 12-13 hours at night.  I'm one happy mama!

~ For about 2-3 weeks now he's been pulling his knees up and rocking.  He can scoot around on the ground or roll to where he wants to get.  I think he'll be crawling in the next month.  He wants to be on the move so bad.  This is (again) so different than Jill. Jill didn't get her hiney in the air or start rocking til she was close to 9 months.

On all fours:

The push-up position!

Jill's giving him lessons on crawling

~ He eats 4-5x a day and eats solids twice a day.  He loves anything I feed him - bananas, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, pears and avocados.  We've been SO blessed to have kids that are so easy and eager to eat.  The portions I'm giving him are close to the portions I was feeding Jill when she was 8 months or so.  I always make up quite a bit of solids and think 'he won't eat all this' and he always does. He'll keep leaning forward and whining for more.  Love our little eater!

~ Pretty good napper.  Still on 3 naps a day, with his first 2 being the longest.  Still in size 3 diapers and mostly 9 month clothing.  I'm happy to report nursing is still going great!  

~Sitting up by himself!  Now this was the coolest milestone for Jillian; she was so content just sitting and playing with toys I'd hand her.  Not Haven. He isn't too keen on sitting up and just looking around.  He'll sit for a minute and then get on all fours.

~ Jillian is so sweet to her little brother.  She's knows to be quiet when he's napping and is usually pretty good about that.  Loves to give him his paci back, wipe his mouth, talk to him, make him smile, make him giggle, kiss him, always wants him to watch her do something cool, and really loves taking baths with him now that he's in the big boy bath-seat.  

Here are a few more pictures from the past couple months.  

I love this picture! About a month ago I took Haven with me to my very last Dr appointment for my toe.  It was first thing in the morning, so right in the middle of his first nap.  After playing for a while, he got really still in my lap. I look down and he's zonked.  So precious!  He slept like that for 30 minutes or so.

We love you sweet Haven!  Can't wait to watch you grow over the next months!

Thanksgiving

We made the annual trip to El Paso this year and spent 5 days there.  We had a great time!  The food was so yummy, the kids were great, and traveling with 2 was a breeze!  We have so much to be thankful for, I could never count all our blessings.  Especially Jillian and Haven - they are the biggest blessings to Jeff and I.

Nana loved having both J&H at her house all week.  Jill had so much fun playing with Nana!

 Gigi and Jill taking a break from playing with her castle for a quick photo.

 Jill wanted to play in the rain, so Jeff took her out.  Jill has her dad wrapped around her finger.

I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do - it was more hectic this year with 2 kiddos and holding Haven quite a bit.  I will get better!

Halloween

I know this is super late, I started this post weeks ago and am just getting around to finish it.

Jillian had a great Halloween! We kicked off Halloween with her school party on Thursday, Trunk or Treat at church on Sunday, and trick or treating Monday night.  Nana and Papa were also in town that weekend, so she had so much fun seeing them!

Jillian was Abby Cadaby from Sesame Street.  I used a few key pieces from last years costume and added a couple things to make her a fairy!!

School party... Jill didnt nap at school that day because after nap time was the party.  Jill has learned that when something is a PARTY, it will be so fun!

One of her teachers - Ms Anna.  I think she is Jillian's favorite.

Face painting.  Always a huge hit with Jillian.

Jill crashed on the way home.  No nap + party = Tired Girl.

(wow, her car seat straps are falling off her!  oops!)

Helping dad carve pumpkins in the adorable princess dress Nana and Papa gave her.  

We also took turns taking photos with Jillian in her pumpkin outfit - another ADORABLE outfit from Nana.

Halloween night:  Our neighbors and some of Jill's favorite people - Haley and Braden.

We spray painted her pony tails hot pink to look more like Abby Cadaby, but I wasn't crazy with the color it turned out.

Jill went to a couple houses for trick-or-treating and then she was done.

She had so much fun handing out candy instead!  She wanted her couch in front of the door and loved seeing all the kids.

Cereal

I decided to go ahead and start giving Haven cereal.  Sigh.  He's not as much of a baby anymore.  After talking with the Dr at his 4 month visit about him still not sleeping through the night, he thought it might be a good idea to start solids. He's a growing boy and needs lots of calories.  He's probably right.

Haven was 17.0 pds at his 4 month appt, which is the 75%.   He's 26.75" tall which puts him in the 95% on height.

3-4 Months

Our precious Haven is 4 months old today!  He is so fun, so happy, full of smiles and so handsome!

~Eating 6x a day, about 5 oz and one early morning feeding where he doesn't eat too much.  He's about to start wearing size 3 diapers when I use up the 2s I have left.

~Night sleeping is improving.  He goes to sleep around 7, and gets up around 7:30am.   We are down to one quick feeding between 5-6 am.  Jill started sleeping through the night at 15 weeks (H is a few weeks older than that now) so I was hopeful he could do the same.  I'm thinking in a few weeks he'll be sleeping through.... fingers crossed!

~Rolled from back to tummy on Oct 5 and hasn't stopped since.  He rolls to his tummy immediately if you lay him down.  This caused a major hiccup in sleeping for about a week.  He wanted to roll to his tummy but couldn't get comfy and cried.  I was also freaking out that he was on his tummy trying to sleep when he was 3 months old.  After one long night of Haven rolling over every hour, screaming, and me rolling him back to his back, I let him cry.  He cried for 5 minutes and then started trying to get comfy to sleep.  I watched the monitor for 1 full hour just terrified he wouldn't be able to breath.  Anyways.... he has proven to me that he can sleep on his tummy so I dont worry about it anymore.  In fact, Haven sleeps in a different position almost every night.

Sleeping on his side (which I think is just precious since he's so young)

Trying to get that hiney in the air to sleep.  Jill didn't start sleeping on her tummy with her hiney in the air til she was closer to 8 months.

~ Loves sitting up.  Wants to be up all the time now.  He loves sitting in his bumbo or sitting in our laps and holding himself up.

~ Loves staring into our eyes and flashing the biggest gummy smiles.  He's starting to giggle too.  Oh how I love that!!!  He does it all the time!  The cutest is when he's eating -  he'll eat just enough to get comfortable, and then he wont stop looking up and smiling at me.  I just love it.  Nursing takes a little longer now, but he's so stinking cute, I don't mind.

~ Haven is BIG!  I'll get his stats this week when we see the Dr, but he fits perfectly into 6 month clothing and some 6-9 month clothing.  I'm guessing he weighs 16+ pds.

~ I can't believe when Jillian was his age we started her on cereal.  Maybe this has to do with Haven being the second and the months are flying by even quicker, but he seems like such a baby to be eating off a spoon!!  So we'll put eating cereal on the back-burner for a little while longer.

Here's a few pictures of him from the past 2 months:

We pulled out Jillian's Jumperoo for Haven and Jillian is OBSESSED with it again.  Too funny!  Haven took a lesson from Jill on how it all works.

(this is just temporary - yes it's quite pink for a boy.  My sister is letting us borrow hers in a few weeks)

This is from Jaden's 1 year party this weekend - it was SO fun!!  Post on that coming soon.

I think Haven looks more like me!!!!  Which I love!  

When I look at Haven's eyes, I see my sister!  It's the coolest thing.  No one else really sees it, expect my parents (a little), but I see Shelby every single time I look at him.  Very cool.

Haven we LOVE you!  So immensely.  You are the perfect addition to our family and such a blessing to us.  Now, if you could just figure out how to nap longer, we'd be set ;)   

Cherished Moment

I can't tell you how much I LOVED this moment with Haven.  It was beatiful.  Perfect.  Quiet.  Just what I needed.  I'm sure it was exactly what he needed.

Haven is just the perfect baby - BUT he's pretty bad at napping.  He only takes 3 naps a day and they are 30 minutes, one might be 45 minutes. He used to finish naps in his swing and now when he wakes he screams!  It's so hard for him to be soothed.  By late afternoon Haven is SO tired.  So.... after days of bad napping and trying different things I thought maybe I needed to be a little tougher.  Let him fuss more when he wakes after only 30 minutes, hoping he'd get back to sleep.  This has been really hard.  After hearing him fuss for a few minutes I went in, scooped him up, and rocked him.  He melted in my arms and fell asleep.  He never does this so I had Jeff take a picture.  I loved rocking him while he slept on me for 20 minutes.  I kept kissing his head.  Smelling him.  Praying over him.  And just loving those 20 precious minutes.

Sweet moments like this make you forget about the hard day you're having.

Fall Fun

We have had so much fun the past few weeks.  My foot is feeling better so walking around for longer periods of time feels normal again.  The weather has been spectacular and I'm feeling more and more comfortable venturing out with 2!  Haven definitely has his limits, but if I time it right, he can usually be so happy and content for about an hour and a half wherever we go.

Last weekend Jeff was gone on Saturday attending the A&M football game.  There was a REALLY fun carnival at the end of our street.   I took the kids  and crossed my fingers neither one would have a melt down.  They both did great.... til the very end.  Jill had the best time playing and Haven chilled in the stroller and baby bjorn.  We stayed for nearly an hour and a half and it was crystal clear when both kids had enough.  They both decided to have melt-downs at the same time.  Oh the looks I was getting as I had Haven SCREAMING in the baby bjorn and Jill crying, hungry, tired and angry I forced her into the stroller as we left.  Regardless, it was so fun.  I'm glad we went!

Jill had a blast in the bounce house.  Took A LOT of convincing to get her out.

She also got her face painted... of course with pink hearts.  

Pony ride.  

Wednesday we went to Owens Farm with our friends from Sunday school class.  Wednesday was a cooler, windy day and I totally forgot to bring Haven a hat for his ears.  I'm a little rusty at times with having a baby again.  We stayed for about 45 minutes and took off.  Jill was expecting a carnival like we went to on Saturday.  She was so sad when she kept asking: Get my face painted? - I'd say no.  Ride the ponies? - I'd say no.  Jump in Bounce house? - Nope, they don't have that either.  After we did the hay ride, picked out 2 pumpkins and fed the goats Jill didn't put up a fight leaving.

Another day we went to the Park, and had the playground ALL to ourselves!  Sweet Haven was such a champ - he snooozed for about 45 minutes in the stroller (which he never does - he must have loved the weather too).  It was like old times running around the playground with Jill.  We both had so much fun.

This playground is HUGE.  This part is clearly made for big kids.  Jill was still obsessed with climbing this,  it's about 15' tall.  Don't worry I didn't let her climb far, and I spotted her the whole time.

Last story - last week we went to our MOPS fall playdate.  It was so fun.  I left my phone in the car so sadly I didn't take any pictures.  Haven (again!) was awesome and was happy in his stroller most of the time.  They had 2 bounce houses there, which has got to be Jillian's new favorite thing.  She LOVED the boucehouse for bigger kids.  It has stairs you climb and a huge 20' slide.  All inflatable.  She was pretty careful since 3-4 year olds are much rougher; she would only slide when the slide was completely clear.  While she was waiting for the slide to be clear there was a landing at the top where she'd jump and watch all the kids.  I was talking with one of my friends and watching Jill from the bottom and all the sudden she taps a boy on the nose and says 'you're turn!'.  We almost died laughing.  The little boy looked at Jill like she was CRAZY.  Jill went back to jumping.  Like she had done her job directing traffic and could resume her jumping.  Too funny.