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Friday, February 13, 2015

Walker is 6 Months Old!

6 month old Walker is such a happy little fella! He's had a big month. He got 2 teeth, started pushing up on all fours and rocking and said his first word "dada". He rolls faster than I can keep up and will go from being flat on his tummy to jumping his knees into a crawling position in no time. Walker loves cuddling with his loveys at bed and nap time and is still all around a happy little dude…UNLESS you take a toy away while he's holding it. That does not make him happy…AT ALL. Otherwise he is so easy going. Basically all you have to do is look at him and he will break into a huge toothy grin. He really only cries if he is tired, hungry or has a poopy diaper. He cannot stand to have a poop in his diaper and expects…no demands to be changed immediately. He will only really sleep in his crib so we've been on lockdown for several months now. Really only leaving the house if and when we have to (i.e. preschool drop off/pick up for Nicolette, grocery shopping, etc). He's gradually starting to stay awake longer in between naps so hopefully we'll get out and about soon. Up until this week he was only able to stay awake a maximum of an hour and a half in between naps but now he's inched his way closer to 2 hours in between naps. He takes 3 naps a day and pretty much sleeps through the night. Many nights he'll wake up once, maybe around 3/4am but I just go and nurse him and he's usually back to sleep within 15 minutes so I really can't complain about that. Walker and Nicolette are starting to interact more. He stares so intently at her when she talks to him. She makes him laugh and smile and it absolutely melts my heart. I still tandem nurse them every once in a while and they like to hold hands and giggle when I do that. I could just die thinking about when that will stop. They are just so precious.

Here are a bunch of photos of Walker over the past few months. I'm realizing that I really enjoy going back and reading my old posts from Nicolette at this age so I really want to do a better job of documenting this time with Walker as well. And I want to continue to document Nicolette's time too. There are so many little things that I had forgotten that bring me so much joy when I read about them and remember and relive them all over again. I am so, so, so, so blessed to be entrusted with these two amazing and precious children. My cup runneth over.

5 months - playing

5 months - rolling under furniture

5 months - sliding backwards under furniture

5 months - so happy with his loveys

obsessed with the loveys!

all the loveys!

5 months - first time sitting up in the shopping cart!

5 months - first time sitting up in the bathtub

5 months - playing with Nicolette's glasses

4 months - finding my feet!

4 month smiles

4 months sitting up

4 months playing the piano

heeeeyyyy!

5 months - up on all fours!

5 months with buddy Jack!

5 month playdate with the boyz!

Silhouette - but all his hair fell out right after this

4 months - sweet smiles

4 months with Santa

4 months with mommy

Sweet baby sucking on his fingers
this phase only lasted 2 days

4 month check up at the doctor!

4 months - Whoa! I'm sitting up!

4 months

4 month baby playdate

4 months with Grant & Trey

Walker's First Foods

Walker is 6 months old today which means that we started food today. We started with avocado mashed with a little breast milk just like we did with Nicolette but boy did this little guy take to it. He could not WAIT to get that spoon in his mouth! Look forward to giving him some avocado slices soon and watching him go to town on those!

Ready to get my grub on!

Mmmmmm - the first bite!

He likes it!

…actually…he LOVES it!

Sweet little avocado fingers!

I mean seriously. How handsome is this guy…those eyes!!!!

Nicolette could not wait to help feed her brother. She did a
great job and is such an awesome helper!

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Walker David - 3 Months

Time is flying by and while I'm not able to sit and document as many moments for Walker as I did with Nicolette I did want to pause for a moment and write a few things down. I'm strangely aware that this precious time is going to be gone before I know it. And although in the moment I feel certain that I'll remember these things for ever I know all to well that as time passes by I will slowly forget some of these precious moments and feelings.

Walker, you are 3 months old now. I feel like over the past week or so you have suddenly woken up and are aware of this great big, magical world that we've brought you into. Your smiles are contagious. I can't help but giggle when I hear your sweet (and LOW) chuckles (you have the funniest little low voice that sounds so silly coming from such a sweet little baby). You look at me in a way that no one ever has before. I have never seen such love coming from someone's eyes. I call them your "googely eyes" and I love them. I know someday they'll go away but I hope I never forget the way that sweet look makes me feel. I've tried to capture the "googely eyes" on camera but it's something you don't want to share with anyone else apparently so I'll try to take a mental picture and save it in my mind forever. You've started using your hands much more over the past week. You're grabbing toys and batting your arms at things like crazy. You even managed to pull your own hair the other day…you were not a fan of that. You love to kick your legs…I call you Sir Kicks A Lot because you'll just lay on your back on a blanket and kick your legs nonstop for minutes at a time. You smile the whole time and seem to be quite proud of yourself! You're great at tummy time, I can lay you down on your tummy and sometimes you'll push your head and chest way up and look around and wiggle your legs. You can roll over from tummy to back (when you really want to). But sometimes you just lay your head to the side and relax and are still and quiet. You're an amazing sleeper and have been from the day we brought you home from the hospital. I woke you up every 3-4 (sometimes 5) hours for the first 4 weeks but after that I started letting you sleep longer stretches and by 5 weeks you were regularly sleeping 7 hours at a time. Within another couple of weeks you were regularly up to 8-10 hours a night. It's so strange to me to have a baby who not only sleeps but will put himself to sleep. Although sometimes I really wish you would let me cuddle and snuggle you more before going to sleep I am grateful for the extra rest that you've given me by preferring to put yourself to sleep. After I feed you, I burp you, lay you on your swaddle blanket and talk and smile with you before wrapping you up tight, laying you in your bassinet and saying night night. You look at me with those sweet, googely eyes, blink a few times and are usually asleep pretty quickly. Although just today you've started "talking" quite a bit. You've spent several minutes just talking before falling asleep for your naps and bedtime today. It's sweet to hear you discover your voice. I'm excited to watch you grow up sweet boy but don't want to wish this time away and just wish I could bottle it all up. You're growing SO quickly and I don't want to forget a single thing! xoxo, my sweet boy. Mommy loves you.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Walker is 1 month old!

It's so hard for me to believe that our little guy is already a month old. The past month has flown by faster than any month of my life. I was in shock when September 13th crept up on us!

Walker is a totally different baby than his sister Nicolette. He nursed like a champ practically from the minute he was born and has been packing on the pounds ever since. I have to work a little harder at getting him to go to and stay asleep (at this point in time, Nicolette could and would sleep through ANYTHING which was an absolute nightmare since she wasn't gaining weight and I had to try to keep her awake to nurse a million times a day). With that said though he is a great nighttime sleeper so far (KNOCKING ON WOOD AS I TYPE THIS). He started sleeping 7-8 hour stretches at night right around when he turned 4 weeks old. Of course I spent the first couple of nights of this waking up myself every 15-20 minutes to check on him to make sure that he was breathing and not slowly and silently starving. He's a full 2.5 lbs over his birthweight already so I'm guessing he's alright! I feel super fortunate because we never went through that phase that so many babies do where they have their days and nights mixed up. I'd like to say a special thank you to both of my children for sparing me from that! (Although Nicolette paid me back for it BIG TIME later on)!

Speaking of Walker's big sister, Nicolette is OBSESSED with him…unfortunately I can't say that the feeling is mutual at this point. Nicolette is usually pretty good about being gentle with him but she wants to hold him ALL THE TIME and has absolutely no respect for his personal space. She loves to get right up in his face to talk to him and always wants to give him hugs and kisses. So sometimes when she comes running into the room he gets this incredibly worried expression on his face. It's kind of funny…he's just going to have to get used to giggly, squealy little girls being around all the time.

Walker seems to be super strong. He's really great at controlling his neck and if he isn't too tired he can hold his head up pretty well. He doesn't seem to mind tummy time too much and Nicolette LOVES helping with tummy time. She'll ask me to lay a blanket on the floor beside his so that she can lay on her tummy right next to him. He smiled for mommy for the first time on his 1 month birthday and has started cooing a bit here and there too.

Here are a few photos from Walker's 1st month with our family. I can't believe that we're already a few days into month #2. It absolutely isn't fair that time is going so quickly!