Month 2 in Pictures

Time continues to blow right on by. Jonah is a precious gift to our family and he is growing like a weed! 

At his 2 month appointment last week, our guess that Jonah was plumping up well was confirmed. Just like his brothers, he gained nearly five pounds in his first two months. He weighed in at 12 pounds, 6 ounces and measured about 22 inches long. Another short, chunky babe. It is how we make them, and I love it. Jonah's arm rolls and thighs are becoming more and more edible every day.

Jonah has been our best sleeper yet. He was sleeping 6 hours stretches at night consistently and was even up to 8 hours once or twice..........UNTIL......he got his shots. Boo! 

Those shots were awful and gave my sweet baby a decent fever that made him sleep most of the day. Ever since then, his nighttime sleep schedule has been off. I am lucky if he sleeps 4 hours in a row now. Sigh. Here's hoping he gets back in the sleeping groove soon! Please!!

This month brought a lot of firsts, starting with his first smiles. And they are just the cutest! 

He loves his tongue and if it is out, you know he is happy. He is cooing a lot and enjoys interacting. {As long as it isn't the witching hours....} Jonah is a super smiley and happy baby. Don't leave him alone for long though, he likes to know people are around.

Other firsts this month include: 1st trip to the beach, 1st baseball game, 1st time meeting Pap Pap, Grandma Lil, Aunt Ann, Lauren, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Digger, cousins Brock and Brayden, and his 1st Easter.

Jonah loves to be cuddled and nursing is his favorite. He eats 6-8 (sometimes more...) times a day/night. He is still in his 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. 

The startle reflex is still here in full force. It makes me smile. 

He is doing well and so far, no major issues. He does have a clogged tear duct that crusts up a bit here and there, a small umbilical hernia that is already shrinking, and an awful case of heat rash. I'm a little worried that if his heat rash is already this bad in April, we could be in for a long summer. He is a hot natured baby. The kid sweats. For real. 

Jonah has 2 awesome big brothers....and one that can't stand to be left out of pictures. Good thing Jude is a cuite pie too. He has definitely warmed up to having a baby around, but for the most part, still ignores Jonah's presence. I just know (hope?) that one day very soon, these two will be the bestest buddies.

We love you, Jonah Kelly! 

Stop growing up so fast though. It makes me cry. Really. 

Potty Time!

About a week and a half ago, Jude woke up and announced that he wanted to wear underwear! I jumped on that and decided that if he was ready, I was ready....though I wasn't sure he was really ready. He surprised me! His first day in undies, we were already out and about, and he did wonderfully. I guess he was ready.

We have done it without much of a reward system either. We run run run to the potty and say how excited we are....and then we give a few "woo hoo's", lots of applause, and some high fives when he's all finished. Flushing is his favorite part. "Bye bye, pee pees!"

Number 2 proved a bit more difficult. I did resort to chocolate as a bribe (one Hershey kiss), but after a few days, he got it. "I doin it!" 

 Thank goodness. Poopy pants are no fun to clean up. Icky. 

So here, in week 2 of underwear, he is averaging 1 (sometimes zero!!) accidents a day. At 2 years 5 months, I'm calling that a success. I think it has been harder on Mommy as nature always seems "to call" when I'm nursing Jonah. Potty training is tough when you have a newborn too, but it has been worth it, for sure!

He loves his big boy underwear and adores peeing outside. He will often request to go pee pee in the grass or on the ants instead of going in the potty....when we are inside.  He had some initial stage fright, but that is definitely a thing of the past. The boy will go anywhere. And while wearing a party hat...doesn't everyone wear a party hat to go potty? Another funny is that when he pees in dirt, he says he is making coffee....cause it looks like coffee. Ha! Love him and his cutie booty in (and out of) undies. 

Go, Jude, go! Proud of you, buddy!!

Announcement

I finally got my act together and mailed out Jonah's birth announcement.

It only took 2 months....not too bad with the way things have been going around here. Ha! 

I used a new company this time around as I had a coupon. Minted is a fabulous site with all kinds of amazing paper products. I was super impressed with their high end paper and unique designs. I hope to find a coupon so that they will be in the budget again because I really love how it turned out 

Finding Easter Joy

This was an unusually difficult Lent for me. Most of it was spent with a newborn...thus I spent almost all of Lent in the newborn fog. Sleep deprived, managing post-op pain, hormonal....I could go on and on. But I won't. And with cold and flu season being so horrible, I barely left the house with Jonah. Church was out of the question. On top of missing mass for much of Lent, I also didn't do any Lenten fasting as I just couldn't muster up the self-discipline in my state. I have definitely been in a funk. A spiritual rut. Still, it is no excuse in my mind. A sweet friend did try to console me with the notion that having a newborn is enough of a sacrifice. As nice as that sounds, I didn't feel absolved of my slacker-ness. I will be needing an intense reconciliation session in the near future. 

Easter was quickly approaching, and I realized how much I had let go undone. I usually spend time with the boys, especially Eli, in preparation for Holy Week, but once again...I dropped the ball. I have let go of feeling guilty about it, but I wanted to be sure that despite my lack of energy and daily distractions, I would do my best to make finding some Easter Joy a priority for us all. 

On Saturday, we did our usual Easter Egg Hunt with a local church. Both boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Jude's age group was up first, and he was itchin' to get started. He knew what to do this year and was pleased once he had collected 10 or 15. I love the lack of competitive nature at this innocent age. 

Just go out and get what you want. And be happy as a clam about it all.

Eli was ready to go after that, and yes, this group was beyond ready. It was amazing how quickly the field was swept of all of the eggs.

And despite Eli's incredibly competitive nature, he was genuinely happy about how many he got. It was a pleasure to see his joyful spirit this day.

As always, there was a lot of other fun to be had besides just the egg hunts. The boys enjoyed it all.

Back at the house, we had some more fun with our annual egg dying. Eli and I experimented with some techniques while Jude napped, but once he was up, he was thrilled to join in the egg-stravaganza (sorry....that was bad.) Both boys really got into it and dyed and redyed the eggs. Once the eggs were all colored, they went back and dunked them some more. Lots and lots of creative fun.

I will say that the "egg in the whisk" idea was the best durn idea for egg dying....we barely broke any.

Despite our continued efforts to downsize holiday madness, the boys still ended up with some baskets with awesome goodies. Still too many, probably. On Easter morning, the big brothers were beyond excited to find the house littered with eggs. The Easter Bunny hid some pretty tough ones this year. He must have known that Eli was ready for the challenge.

We had plans to attend the evening service at church, so we celebrated that morning with a late family brunch at my sister's house. We doubled up and celebrated Aunt Kristi's birthday too. And even though I had high hopes for some Easter Joy making its way into our hearts, our day went more like this:

Blame it on sugar, the excitement, the lack of Godly focus....whatever. All I will say is that this was not an Easter for the memory books. We had some catastrophic meltdowns that I'd just rather forget. I did what I could to get the boys outside that afternoon and distract them enough to turn their moods around. I didn't have much luck.

To their credit, after our incredibly long and difficult day, the boys did cooperate for me as I quickly snapped some after church pictures.

Note: These pictures were taken at around 8 pm and pre-dinner after they had just sat through an Easter service. Not too shabby, boys. Not too shabby.

Some goofy pictures always help me get a good one in the mix...not to mention, they make the best pictures too. Yay for outtakes!

Jonah's first Easter!

I think that this little bunny is going to have blue eyes....what do you think? 

And no matter how badly the day went, it is still easy to love these incredibly dapper and adorable stinkers.

All three boys have my heart.

We are blessed. That is all the Easter Joy I need.

Hosanna! Alleluia!! Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed!

Snaggle Tooth

So.........this happened on the final weekend of Spring Break 2013. 

Back in December, around his 6th birthday, Eli and I discovered a loose tooth. It was barely loose, but it wiggled a little bit. Eli was thrilled to have his first loose tooth! And then the kid left it alone for a month or two...wiggling it a little here or there, but he definitely didn't commit to loosening it up. Finally, 3 months later, it was really loose. At this point, E became a serious tooth-wiggler and began pushing it as far back as it would go and then forward; working on it at the gums. It was enough to make Mommy's tummy do somersaults. And on the final Saturday of Spring Break, he was looking in the mirror with Aunt Debbie....working on it, laughing about it, and then one little tooth twist later, "It's out!" 

Love watching him play with the new gap; flicking his tongue in there, and I love love LOVE his new smile. 

Can't believe he's old enough for this. Crazy.

And cool. 

Our little Snaggle Tooth. 

All Over the Place Spring Break

Our Spring Break was a little bit of everything this year. We did not have much planned....with Matt's new job (Have I mentioned that Matt has a new job??? Don't think I have. He is the new General Council for the Department of Education. He started 3 days before Jonah was born, so it only makes sense that I forgot to mention it. He is loving the new job, and we are beyond thrilled at this new opportunity for him.) and Jonah still being a little bitty thing, we decided to make Spring Break a "staycation" for the most part...with a day trip and weekend getaway thrown in at the end.

We kicked off the week with a St. Paddy's Day dinner. Jude is obsessed with beer. Silly boy....he steals the bottles whenever he can. 

I have a feeling that there are going to be many shots of the boys like this. Perfectly imperfect! That's how we roll these days. 

Early in the week, the icky, rainy weather put a kink into the plans to get out and about with little adventures around town. That and this sweet baby who needed lots of attention, love, and cuddles.

So there was a lot of indoor playing and creating. There were a lot of messes to clean up each day, but the boys were happy, and we got out for some puddle jumping and bike riding when we could. Spent the days close to home or inside, but no one seemed to mind.

Midweek, I got brave and loaded all three boys up for a quick day trip to the beach while Daddy had to work. The boys could not have been happier to get there and get down in the sand. The water was cold and the wind made it a little chilly, but everyone was happy. 

Jonah slept through most of his first trip to the beach, but he woke up a bit. Just long enough to document his first day at the beach and for some food. Then he slept some more.

Who is this smiley boy? Finally lots of sweet smiles from Jonah. He loves to show off his toothless grin. I can't get enough!

Smiling and sticking out his tongue...two of his new tricks.

And finally, at the end of the week we headed south to visit with family and see some Blue Jays Spring Training games. We were all excited to hit the road.

The weather was beautiful and perfect for enjoying a couple of baseball games. We walked to the ball park each day with Aunt Debbie and Uncle "Digger." The boys' cousins, Brock, Brayden, and AJ were working in the club house and as bat boys, so it was fun to watch them in action.

Jude wasn't really sure what to think of this baseball player scribbling on his ball....but one day he'll realize how cool it was to get his ball signed by the Jays' catcher, JP Arencebia. And while that was going on outside, Eli was in the club house with his cousins meeting and getting autographs from his favorite player, Jose Bautista and the Cy Young Award winning pitcher, R.A. Dickey. Pretty awesome.

Jonah was super impressed with his first Blue Jays game. Hee hee!

The rest of the weekend was filled with more baseball and cousin fun. Eli and Jude adore their cousins and we are lucky that the big boys love playing with our little boys. So many precious memories made! 

Jonah loved meeting everyone and definitely got lots of good snuggle time. PapPap got some sweet cuddle time as Jonah settled right in on his lap to watch some hockey and for a little snooze. Priceless.

Always hard to say goodbye to the Canadians, as we know it will be a while before we see them again. But our time came to an end, and we headed back home to gear up for another busy week. Hard to believe that there is only one more quarter to Eli's Kindergarten year!