4 Months Old- Declin

January 24th Declin turned 4 months old.  4 months old is still little but doesn't really sound like a newborn either.  Our little man is growing up!

He weighed 13 lbs 9 oz at his 4 month appointment which is little for that age.  He is in the 13th percentile, but still developing great.

He was so sad about his shots and he made sure to let me know!  Neither of my other kids ever fussed too much with their shots, but Declin cried forever with the saddest little face.

This month started out with Declin's first Christmas.  He was a gem for his first Christmas/holiday break.  For the first week of the break I don't think he ever cried.  He loved all of the attention and would just hang out and watch all the action.  I was so worried that he would get used to being held so much and then would not do well once we were at home, but he adjusted back to being the 3rd child with limited mommy attention great!

  

This month Declin spent hours being very focused on learning new skills.  For the first few weeks you could tell he was practicing grabbing toys.  He would bat at them forever until he would finally grab on.  Next he would practice moving them to his mouth.  He also continued to practice rolling stomach to back and also got SO close to rolling back to stomach (he now knows how to do both as of Feb 4th),  He also learned to hold his head up and take his binky in and out of his mouth.  These all seem like little things, but it was so fun watching him learn each new thing.  He would be content for an hour at a time just swinging in his swing, on the floor, or on his activity mat playing with toys.  Thanks Grandma for the new activity mat!  

He stayed the same on eating... mostly nursing with a 1-2 bottles a week.  

This month he moved into 3-6 month clothes.  Mostly because mommy was tired of the 0-3 month clothes.  I will have to remember with any future baby boys that I need to buy a few more outfits for 0-3 month. Outfits seem to be fairly sparse in that size. 

Declin also had his first hair cut.  I really didn't want to do it but he had lost most of it in the back, yet the top was really long.  So we pulled the clippers out and he wasn't so sure about it...

After a week or so of letting things even out it looked better.  This baby has a good head of hair and it is even staying dark which is just adorable.  

Sleeping,  No he isn't "sleeping through the night" but he was on a really good schedule this month.  Especially after the Christmas break we got into a great routine.  He would take a short morning nap, a LONG afternoon nap, and sometimes a very short evening nap.  Then he would go down for the night about 8:30 and usually wake up around 2-3 am to eat and go right back to sleep, then he would get up for the day around 7:30.  Some days he would also eat around 11 pm but I was usually still awake at that point so I would just feed him really fast and then go to sleep myself.  When he is tired he falls asleep really fast with me rocking him and then laying him in his crib.  I kind of love that he lets me rock him to sleep because I love cuddling with him a few times a day. 

Declin drooled and drooled this month.  Oh and then he would spit up.  It got REALLY bad at my parents house and I was worried we might need to do something about it, but once we got home and he wasn't being carried around everywhere he stopped spitting up SO much.  It seems to be worse when he is carried around a lot and he is sitting up.  SO I just used it as an excuse to buy him these adorable bandana bibs and we called it good.  So cute!  

Yep, he just got cuter!  

Oh and sometimes I like to coordinate my boys outfits, and sometimes it just happens without me planning it.  This was one of those days...

Do they look like brothers yet?  Some days I see it and other days they look so different to me.

Well that is about all I can think of.  One of the hardest things about having three kids is just trying to keep track of all their milestones, goals, clothing sizes, doctors appointments, etc.  I guess that is why I write this blog, to help remember it all.  So I hope I didn't forget anything important.  

We love and adore this little man.  I seriously sometimes call McKay just to tell him what a cute baby we have (in case he forgot while he was at work) :)  Adalyn and Jensen are getting more attached too and have fun talking to him and helping him learn his new skills.  

Happy 4 Months baby boy!  

  

      

      

Jesus Wants me For a Sunbeam

At the beginning of the year Adalyn started going to primary!  

Her and Jensen are no longer in Nursery together.  Jensen is doing fine with the separation, but Adalyn still wishes that she could be playing with toys.  I think that is a normal adjustment and she will get used to it.

She goes to sunbeams with two of her favorite friends, Hannah and Maycie and her favorite part is singing time.  

We love watching our cute girl grow up!  

 

It's a New Year!

I am finally all caught up blogging about Decembers adventures!  January is in full swing and we are all back into our normal routine.  January is never a very fun month, but honestly the last thing we needed around our house was a "fun" month.  We really just needed time to get over our coughs, clean up Christmas, and get back into our sleeping routines.  Jensen screamed every night for the first week of January as he got used to being in his own room and in his own bed after sleeping at Grandmas house for 2 weeks.  Today I am happy to say that he is doing much better and only wakes up a couple times a week.  haha!

I love having a new beginning and thinking about the new year ahead of us.  It was funny because you can tell what a lot of people are thinking about at the beginning of the year when your Zumba class is WAY more crowded then normal and all the avocados are sold out at the grocery store.  haha I definitely include myself in wanting to eat better and stay consistent with my exercising along with the rest of the country.  I have done fairly well so far this year and feel like I have found a really good balance of not being too extreme in my healthy eating/lifestyle (I have been there and it is just TOO stressful) yet still trying to lead a healthy life.  Just like with Jensen's pregnancy I hope to be back to my "healthiest" weight by Declin's 6 month mark in March.  I think I should be able to reach it :)

Over our break I pondered a lot about what things I did and did not like about 2014 and what things I wanted to change in 2015.  Although after my epic fail of my new years resolutions of 2014 (made 10 goals and only fulfilled a few of them) I knew I had to keep things simple this year.  Although in my defense I found out I was pregnant with Declin about a week after I made my resolutions last year.  Being sick and sticking to some intense goals was not for me, so I gave up on them all shortly into February of last year.  Hopefully that wont happen this year! (both the pregnancy/being sick and giving up parts...)

So this year I made 2 goals...
1. Only let the kids watch 1 short movie a day and really try and have it be more educational (if there really is such a thing as educational when it comes to kids and TV).

We got REALLY bad with the TV at the end of 2014.  Guys my TV was on a lot!  So this one had to change.  I really am a believer in very limited TV time for kids and I honestly don't want them to watch it even once a day.  But we tried no TV period and my mornings were horrible.  My kids wake up grouchy and so do I.  We need our time to wake up slowly.  McKay leaves for work early early so I am flying solo during the morning rush.  feeding the baby, myself, the kids, getting us all dressed, and cleaning the house was just too much for me without a little TV time for them to wake up.  So we switched to the once a day thing and it is going well.  We are sticking to it and finding other activities to fill the rest of our time.

2. Read the whole Book of Mormon.

I can totally tell a difference when I am consistently reading the Book of Mormon.  Yes the rest of the scriptures are good too but I need the Book of Mormon in my life all of the time.  To finish the whole book it is only 1.5 ish pages a day so it is manageable.  Along with reading the Book of Mormon I also study the lessons for Sunday school and Relief Society so that I am still reading parts of the other books.  This year we are studying the New Testament in Sunday School and the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson in Relief Society.  My kindle is super helpful in making my study time smooth and simple.  love it!

Hopefully I can make reading the Book of Mormon a yearly habit.  I think that would be so fun since at this point in my life I have only read the whole Book of Mormon cover to cover a handful of times.

I have a couple other ideas of things that I would like to accomplish this year, but not ready to count them as goals quite yet so we will see...

Oh and just because, here are a few pictures from the past few weeks.

p.s. Addie wears that purple night gown any chance she gets!  

             

Fun at the End of 2014

2014 ended with some pretty fun adventures for our family.  After we celebrated Christmas with family we stuck around Salt Lake and played for days.  10 days to be exact!  Crazy!  While there we got to see Corinne and Stu, My parents, McKay's mom, Melanie and John, and Larissa and Rusty.  We had a nice balance of a little bit of work and lots of play while we were there.

My parents are working on fixing a few things up in their house so we helped hang some shutters, sell some household items on KSL and take down wall paper in their basement.

In between doing those projects we played hard.

We went to the new Aquarium in Draper one of our days down there.  Super fun!  My kids loved it!

Declin along for the ride

Adalyn said that she wanted to go across this bridge... until she was actually on it!  Luckily aunt Mykelti was willing to carry her the rest of the way.  

Adalyn loved the penguins and sharks.  McKay did not come with us, but after hearing about the fun he was sad he missed out.  We may have to go again some day!

Another night we went to one of my Dad's basketball games.  It was at Timpview high school in Orem.  We always love going to watch his games.  Going to high school basketball games will always be a highlight that I remember from my childhood.  It was just such a huge part of my growing up years.  

Adalyn made a great cheerleader

On New Years Eve we went out to breakfast with Melanie and John.  Just the cousins went (no kids, Grandma babysat) We went to the Egg and I which was really good.  P.S. Mel is 20 weeks pregnant with a baby girl!  We are SO excited for them!

New Years Eve night we went to Brent and Heathers house for their traditional New Years eve party.  Heather made homemade pizza which was so good that it has ruined me from wanting any other pizza from now on.  Seriously.

One of the traditions at the party is to do "time" bags.  Each hour until midnight the kids open a new bag that has a special activity to do for that hour.  One of the bags this year was a Just Dance competition... Hilarious :)

One bag was write letters to the cousins that are on their missions

And ofcourse the last bag was noise makers and party hats to ring in the new year!  

Adalyn and Jensen made it until midnight!  

They totally blend in with the tree... 

We are excited to see what 2015 brings for our little family

The first day of 2015 we went to Provo to spend the holiday with McKay's mom.  She built us a fire and fed us a nice lunch.  McKay and I may even have fallen asleep when the little boys were napping.  We were so tired after the party!  Grandma was nice and helped entertain Adalyn.  Adalyn was in heaven with all of the one on one attention that she was getting :)

What a great mini vacation that we had.  Some of the other highlights not pictured were going to the temple with my siblings, going to see Night at the Museum 3 and shopping at Ikea with my mom and Mykelti.  Oh and having Larissa and Rusty finally meet Declin.  Not sure when we will ever get to spend a whole week with them again so we definitely tried to make the time well spent.  Also thank you mom and dad for hosting all of us and our kids!  We loved it!