Ryan - 3 Months

Dear Ryan,

Today you are 3 months old. I have to say, 3-4 months is my favorite baby age, so cute and so much fun. Not to say I don't love all the other ages and times, just this one is particularly awesome. So I'm really looking forward to the next month.

So much has happened in the last month. You've definitely grown in all sorts of ways. Yes, you are a bit bigger. You've started to stand when we hold you up! And you are 90% past the wobbly-head stage, just still need help when you are just waking up or when really tired. It makes it so much easier to hold you and carry you around when you can support your own head. Very soon I'll be able to carry you on my hip, and that will be easier for both of us.

You charm the pants off everyone who meets you the way you smile using your entire body. I'm so lucky to have gotten such a smiley baby. You have also started to laugh, which is so adorable!

This month you really found your fist and your fingers and you really seem to love them. You've also started enjoying sucking on other people's fingers, particularly Daddy's thumb. I wonder if you will suck your fingers or thumb (or both, like Mama did). I was actually surprised that your brother was never interested in sucking anything except the thing that gave him milk, but you may be different!

Toys are also now starting to interest you. You've done a bit of work learning to hold on to toys, but need more practice before you become a pro. People interest you very much -- you have been tracking people with your eyes. I especially love it when you watch what Jake is doing.

People often ask me if you are sleeping through the night. I think this is such a weird question because at your age, you are not supposed to sleep through the night. Yet you do sleep really well most nights and I feel very well rested, lucky me. Some nights you need a lot of milk and/or a lot of diaper changes. Other nights it is 5am before we wake up for the first milk/diaper change.

My sweet son, I am loving you more each day. I am so glad you are here with all of us.

Some Christmas pictures

Paper Chain Finale

Day 21: give a plant some water. Jake watered the thirsty Christmas tree!

Day 22: make Ryan smile. Easy-peasy, he is SUCH a smiley baby.

Day 23: say a long blessing. We say a short one before we eat, but said a longer one that mostly involved saying thanks for various things.

Day 24: have some hot chocolate. Mama had one with a bit of Bailey's in it, yum!

Jake is 4.5

All photos by Amy Crawford Photography.

Dear Jake,

Today you are 4 and a half years old. You got a real kick out of hearing me tell you that it was your half-birthday. You love to tell people that you are 4, and now it will be so much fun to hear you tell people that you are 4 and a half!

You have grown so much this year, but the biggest change is that you have become a big brother! You have been wonderful to Ryan, and get so excited when you make him smile. You love hugging him and kissing him. I love it when Ryan is sitting in his bouncy seat and you go play with him, and sometimes push him in his seat all around the upstairs, or to wherever you are playing so that Ryan can watch you. I am loving watching the 2 of you growing together now.

There are other changes, too. You have become MORE interested in reading (if that is possible!) and are now sounding out words and trying to read them. Today you were looking at the Sunday comics and tried to read something that said "I told you" which you read as "How old are you." Close! Another development is that you are becoming more interested in longer books, especially chapter books, even when they don't have many pictures. I am so excited to start reading more with you! Besides words, you have also become more interested in numbers. You love to count, and ask us what 2 numbers put together makes. We've been doing much more addition and subtraction lately.

I'm sure you've grown taller lately -- we just had to buy you new shoes! You are now in size 10, I think you are going to have feet on the small size, just like your daddy. And we just measured your height today -- you have grown 1 and a quarter inches since your birthday in June! It's true what they say that when you have a baby your child suddenly looks enormous. When did you get that big?? When I have the chance to hug and cuddle with you, I love it, as I don't get much of it these days!

I used to cuddle you to bed every night, but now Daddy does that since Ryan needs me. I don't know if that is part of why you fight bedtime so much right now, or if you are just having so much fun that you don't want to stop, no matter how tired you are, but I hope it gets easier for all of us soon. You still sleep in a bed right next to Mommy and Daddy, and you have no interest in your own room yet, and that is just fine with us. I can't imagine not being able to look over and seeing that you are sleeping peacefully with us.

One thing that is so awesome is your explosive interest in Legos. Both Daddy and I loved Legos as kids so this is really fun. While Mommy is better at making houses, you and Daddy make vehicles. You have also really gotten interested in superheros, thanks to your friend Cole. Spiderman, Green Lantern, Iron Man, and Batman are all part of your vocabulary. At this point, you are planning to be Green Lantern for Halloween next year.

Speaking of friends, you now have regular playdates, both at your house and at friends' houses. It's amazing to me that you're old enough to be off elsewhere, without Mommy or Daddy or Gramma or Papa and having fun.

We are having so much watching you grow, teaching you things you want and need to learn, and learning from you as we go.

Love, Mommy

Paper chain kindness act day 20: give someone a kiss. We all kissed each other silly for a minute :)

16-19

Holiday madness! I have not been able to keep blogging every day, and we have not even been able to do the paper chain acts every day! We intend to catch up, though.

Day 16: write a letter to someone (again). This got translated to Jake helping with holiday cards.

Day 17: give a hand massage. We need to sit down and relax and give hand massages when we are not so busy, but Jake wanted to know what this was so I gave him a very brief one and he thought it was wonderful! Definitely need to do more of this.

Day 18: bake cookies. This got translated to decorating a gingerbread house at a family friend's. Very fun.

Day 19: have a dance party. Still pending!

15

Paper chain: put nice words on your refrigerator.

14

Day 14: find a crystal and make a wish.

This mama is learning how hard it can be to get a good picture of 2 children at the same time:

Good of Ryan, not so good of Jake.

Good of Jake, not so good of Ryan.

13

Kindness act: give someone a hug.

12

Kindness act, day 12: write the word 'love' on a glass of water.

Dr. Emoto did work on the effects of words or thought on water, and his research is amazing. Mike and I have previously tested this -- putting the words "love" and "hate" on glasses of water, leaving overnight, and then doing a blind taste test. The water with "hate" tasted awful, while the other tasted really good.

After leaving this water overnight, we'll all drink some. Yum!

11

Paper chain: write a letter to someone.

We named a specific someone for Jake, and helped him write a letter and he wrote his name. He's become quite good at writing his name, and that's really neat to see! The letter went in the mail the same day.

10

Paper chain kindness act, day 10: light a candle.

We got out a candle and had it lit during breakfast and dinner. It was really nice and reminded me that I should do that more often during the darker months.

9

Paper chain #9: Play a game together.

Chutes and Ladders was the game of choice. Naturally, Jake won :)

8

Day 8: Smudge me/give me a fire wash.
We lit a bit of sage and used it for an energy cleaning. It was a good day to do it as both boys did not have a good day and there was a lot of crying involved :( (They were much happier on the 9th.)

7

7, a day late (but nice to be able to back-date posts!)

Kindness act from the paper chain: take a walk around the block.

Well when we opened this one and read it, on the 7th, it was already 5:30 and pitch dark, and pouring rain. So we decided to postpone.

On the 8th, Jake, Ryan, and I went for that walk around the block. It was daylight, not too cold, and dry. Perfect. Unfortunately, Mike didn't come as he was working and unlikely to be home before dark. But the 3 of us had a nice little walk!

6

Paper chain kindness act: take silly pictures of each other.

Okay, so this one simply didn't happen. Jake thought this was totally un-fun when we read what it said. In the past he has loved taking pictures (especially with mama's good camera) and I thought this would be fun. Can't win them all, I guess!

I can, however, leave you with a silly picture that I took a few days ago!

Bath frogs.

5

Paper chain kindness act: create/draw a picture together.

The paper chains were put together in random order, so the days/acts were not planned. For this one, we substituted "draw a picture" for "decorate a Christmas tree" since we were creating something together either way!

Luckily, it was a beautiful, sunny day, and we found a local u-cut farm.

In a sea of trees, looking for our tree.
Found it!
Putting it on the car.
Hanging the ornaments.
Now the star...
Here's our beautiful tree!