Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we were in Waynesboro at my sisters house. There were quite a few of u but it ended up being a nice (mostly peaceful) day!

The triplets (Arlo, Hudson & Caroline) all manages to be asleep while we are. It was a Thanksgiving miracle!

 My favorite part was when we went around the table and said what we are thankful for. My six year old nephew said he was "thankful for all the people who are sitting at this table". He was clearly trying to get extra pie.

One brother in law was expressing his gratitude for his wife and states his wife "drives him". That same six year old piped up- "drives me crazy!" 

Hilarious that one.

The night ended on a less fun note with arlo having a large reaction to a wool carpet. Not to be outdone, I had my own large reaction to his reaction. Such a silly mom thing, but when your kids skin exploded in hot red welts and he's screaming, there is not much else to do but join him in the hysteria.

But! Now we know. And knowing is half the battle.

The next day we traveled to Hampton to see Jeff's family. Food, football and lots of nephew/cousin time.

His year we are most thankful for that big headed beauty. Such a sweet boy! 😍

Jeff's Birthday

This year Jeff's birthday could finally be celebrated properly. Two years ago we lost our first baby not even a week before, and last year I was pregnant and lazy. 😁

So in order to do his birthday up right we got a baby sitter. Jeff is not much for birthdays. In fact it is like pulling teeth to get him to celebrate at all! But sometimes you just need to be celebrated, dang it.

So one night I babysat so Jeff and his father could go out to eat (and drink) and the next day Nonni babysat so Jeff and I could go see a movie. I sat with my cell phone on my lap on vibrate in case we were needed. Of course we weren't. 

In order to best capture his first birthday as a dad I had Arlo sign a birthday card just from him. I think that was Jeff's favorite part. 

Six months

Arlo is-

- loving all things feet! He will fold himself in half to see them.

-laughing and talking. Looooves to talk when other people are talking.

-skin is still and issue. We began formula to see if there are additional irritants in my breastmilk causing a reaction.

-began playing independently without having to hold his hands. This is HUGE!

-tried green bean, broccoli and sweet potatoes 

-Loves to have books read out loud to him. Especislly daddy's rendition of Dr. Seuss' ABC's.

-Completed his first drawing. Ok- so it was more him holding a crayon and trying to scratch his face, then my swatting said crayon clad hand down towards the paper. We clearly didn't win the contest eve though it was for Uncle Evans office.

-Started sleeping in co-sleeper (aka crib without one side) but still swaddled 

- Had a few options for Halloween costumes- ichy ichabod from Dr Seuss' ABC's, a mummy, and a roll of paper towels to daddy's Brawny man. But none was a go after some skin issues. But got to hang out with Nonni, Papa and Aunt Wubby! 

-Went to the two older Collier cousins birthday party! 

Six months was so fun! He really started to come into his own little personality and being able to play outside of the swaddle for minutes on end was a huge turn for our family! ❤️

Bath time

Because of Arlo's eczema (how almost every blog post will be starting from here on out) we give him short baths every night in luke warm water. It's [mostly] a fun time for the three of us to hang out. 

He goes through spells of loving the water and having no opinion whatsoever. Fine by me as long as he does not start hating it!

But he always loves his post bath towel chew and the post bath oh and ah his parents cover him in. Those chubby thighs!  The best.

Five months

Arlo and 5 months (a month late):

Arlo is five months! This month's photos show a lot about his personality right now. That is to say, they were hard to get and he would not suffer the foolishness that was his parental duo trying to get him to laugh. Sigh...

I wanted to snag a shot of him with his newest smile, but no luck. But since this is. My blog and I make the rules here is a photo of the smile- just not in the no real 4 photo format.

Arlo is: 

-Screeching! Which is much more fun than it sounds.

-Loves to chew on anything. All the things.

-Keeping a varied sleep schedule at night. Sometimes it's up only once, other nights it's up countless times. We're rolling with it.

-Still trying to kick the eczema. Found out he is allergic to several new things so we are eliminating those items from my diet and hoping he is eczema free (or at least glove free) by six months!

-Lets us read several books to him each night and seems more and more interested.

-❤️ Fantasia

-Can spend limited time outside of the gloved onsies. He won't scratch as quickly when the gloves are off (go figure!) but isn't out of them 100% of the time. [Comeooooon!]

-Spent one day hanging with Nonni and Papa and one day with Grandma while Jeff and I shot weddings. Thanks again!!

-No clue how much he weighs but he looks loooong. We will see at his 6 month appointment if that's just my imagination (running away with me... Anyone else singing with me? No? Cool).

-Such a happy man! We love this dude.

Soft Screeches

This morning Arlo woke up around 5 to eat, which is not abnormal. I fed him and put him back in his bassinet (which we will have to transition out of soon!), but he would just not fall back asleep. He’d get 90% there and then wake up. I, on the other hand, kept falling asleep (head smacking the side of the bassinet) while trying to keep up the rhythmic tummy patting or head rubbing. 

I eventually woke Jeff up and asked him to try his hand at subduing the beast since I was failing and too sleepy to continue. This was not the first (or second) time I had been up with the hungry fella, so I didn't feel bad asking for the assist. Jeff got him back to sleep soundly, but that only lasted for 3 minutes. Finally I pulled him into bed with us. Once he had settled in he looked up at me and just started talking. And talking and talking. Soft coos followed by soft screeches (soft screeches? Who knew). This went on for a good 3-5 minutes.

Today I am sleepy as hell, but that was WAY worth it. Little cutie. Let's do it again tomorrow morning.

Dear Jeff- reading

Dear Jeff,

We are not much for the mushy, but I've dreamed about you reading to our children since before we were even married.

It was even better than I could have imagined. 

The Beach!

During August we took our first trip to the beach with a baby in tow! Such little beasts require so much stuff!

On the way down we stopped to visit Arlo's coastal grandparents and

aunt/uncle/cousins. Of course he felt that was a fiiiiine time to fill his diaper to capacity. Good thing we had back up clothes packed. We were tempted to leave the diaper in the parking lot, but fearing the ecological damage that could have been done by that load, we gathered the courage to pick it up and walk it to a trash can. And by walk it I mean Arlo's grandpa held it out his car window by two fingers. 😄

When we arrived Nonni and Papa were waiting up for us with crab sun glasses. We knew it was going to be a great trip.

There were red flags the whole time we were there so we only went to the water once. Arlo dipped his toes in the ocean and howled. He sank his toes in the sand and just looked puzzled. Pretty standard for a baby's first beach attempt!

He was such a trooper the majority of the trip. We took him all over (in long sleeves poor baby!) and for the most part he did well!

Doesn't cousin Caroline look cuuute??

Some of the most fun times at the beach were had on these silly bikes. It has been years and years since I rode a bike. After this oicture was taken I damn near owed my pants laughing at just how terrible I was at picking it back up again. 

All in all the beach was wonderful. We are so thankful to have been able to spend time with Nonni and Papa and my sister Katie, her husband Dan and their baby girl Caroline.

Thank you thank you Nonni and Papa for the invite and the hospitality!!

Milk

Since Arlo has an allergy to eggs and possibly wheat, my entire back stock of milk is no good for him any more. 

Before I went to work I had 232 ounces of frozen milk. Knowing my supply would drop being away from baby barracuda, I would wake up in the middle of the night and pump during naps etc etc to assure I had enough to sustain us for as long as we could regardless how much my production dropped.

My first goal was to exclusively breast feed for four month. Now it is six months.  Once I hit that it will be eight months and so on with my ultimate dream goal being a years. I know that may not happen but I choose to work towards it however I can.

So to have all two hundred some odd ounces be useless was a bit of a blow. A sit in your car at work and cry sort of blow. But then I knew I could help someone with my back supply and I dried my eyes and out on my let's-find-someone-to-help pants on. 

[Delivery day]

The milk banks require at least 200 oz, blood tests and interviews. I'm not opposed to going that route but I ended up hearing of women locally (outside of the hospitals) who were in need so I chose to go that route. Plus- I don't know how milk banks feel about caffeine and wine being in the milk. 😳 I know how Arlo feels abou to it. 

[Loves it...]

So I am restating my supply. Megan (sister #1) is cutting out Arlo's allergies too and donating her milk to me. I mean seriously. It really does take a village. 

Her only request is that Arlo be allergic to refined sugar so she is motivated to cut those too. I agree- this baby weight doesn't stand a chance to his allergies!

Moving

It's a long story but we moved back to Cville from the little apartment we were renting on the farm.

We were sad to be leaving since we loved the simple life of the farm! 

The farm was where we healed our hearts from losing two babies, where we grew (well, I grew) and prepped for Arlo's arrival and ultimately where we brought him home.

To make ourselves feel better we put together a list of things we won't miss:

-Sharing a washer/dryer

-Our neighbor slamming doors

-Bugs

-Cleaning what is uncleanable 

-Bugs

-40 minute commute (it’s not that bad, but it made the list)

-the pot hole road

-bugs

-fearing for your life from bear attacks

-small restaurant choices

-bugs

-being far from church

-SUPER loud dishwasher

-Musty smelling bathroom

-bugs

-running two giant air purifiers to clean goodness knows what out of the air

-the woodstove

-not having central air or heat

-bugs

Not on the list:

-This view (taken after a 5 am feeding through a screen- don't mind the quality)

-This field:

-The walks we could take around the farm

-The lake/weeping willow 

Or this. Sigh...

We loved the farm! But it's off to slightly less green but certainly cleaner pastures!

For now I'll just stare at these photos instead of looking at my living room which currently looks like this. Yeeeesh. 

Here we go...

Arlo rolled over today. GULP. 

Four months old

Arlo is four months old! I know I will say this just about every age update, but MAN! How can four months feel like the shortest and longest amount of time?

Arlo is:

-Laughing!

-Yawn/yelling

-Is still daddy's best bud (Arlo's arm is around him 😄)

-Doing a little better with sleep but only when we co-sleep. [This is a topic that deeply divides people, so let's keep our opinions to ourselves and remember- it's all about what works best for us as a family. Ok. Kisses.]

-Naps are shorter- sometimes only 30 minutes. Sorry Jeff!

-Is enjoying his Bumbo! 

-Saw the doctor and is 15.3 lbs (45th%), 25.5 inches (70th%) and has a head circumference of 43cm. Which is normalizing at 75th%. Yah! No helmet for us!

-Got a mini haircut to remove the mullet.

All in all Arlo is still a super chill and smiley baby. While he is not a fussy baby he is still able to go from zero to ten (wailing crying) in mere seconds. But that's just a little bit of me in him so I think he'll be juuuuust fine. We are having a blast being his parents. 

...even if he doesn't love the selfie.

Arlo's first hair cut

Ok ok- so it's a bit of a first time mom cliche to document your baby's first haircut - but hear me out.

Arlo was born with a baby mullet. You know- business in the front but party in the back? 

No don't get me wrong- it's pretty amazing, but it was getting log and just a bit more awkward than awesome. So the buzzers came out this weekend.

Our family has a storied and hilarious past with at home baby cuts, so I'm behind the camera with a bit of a grimace and a whole lot of so help me God if you mess this up and all that.

Poor guy. He didn't make a peep. 

No- I didn't save this for his baby book. Just a picture for his baby blog. :) All in all it turned out just fine. Since it was a three inch section. Any more than that and we may need to hand it to a professional. 

I love how you can see his stork bite so much more now! 

Baby Meets Beard

You found it! Daddy's majestic beard.

It's the stuff of legends and it's yours to pull, turn and grab for next three years. Enjoy bud!