Ryan @ six months

On Saturday the 19th, Ryan turned six months old. Six months already. Half a year. He's no longer my tiny little baby. He laughs and "talks" and rolls and grabs. Sigh. He's amazing.

He's starting to sit up. With a bit of a lean.


The tongue is still out all the time.


And he's still happy, all the time. Seriously, this is the happiest, most content baby.


He has the best laugh. And there's something about Emma he finds funny. Sometimes he just looks at her and lets out a belly laugh. She had him giggling like crazy the other night. He was the cutest thing. Of course, once my camera was out to video it, he couldn't decide if he should watch Emma or look at me and the laughter wasn't quite as forthcoming. But it's still cute.

Emma making Ryan laugh from Erin Sweeney on Vimeo.

He's doing wonderfully when it comes to tummy time. He is constantly rolling onto his stomach. He loves looking around, watching the girls.


Of course, he's not a fan of tummy time when he's in his crib. Oh no. This usually occurs between 3 and 6 am. I find myself in there up to a half dozen times rolling him onto his back because he's gotten stuck. Sometimes with a leg sticking out the crib. Two nights ago he was stuck on his belly with his head pointed diagonally in the corner. Poor guy, he had no where to go. I will say this though, it does get annoying when on your third trip in there, you roll him over, give him his binky, tell him to stay put - only to have him immediately roll back on to his stomach! Twice now he's given up and just slept on his belly, but for the most part he's not a fan of that yet. It amazes me though how a baby who can't yet crawl can get in to every square inch of that crib. In the dark. I wish I could film him one night just to see what he does when he's sleeping/supposed to be sleeping.

He likes the jumperoo.


And the star on the exersaucer.


He's all about putting things in his mouth. His hands, binkies (which he can do on his own when he wants to), toys, the bottle (more miss than hit with this one), the newspaper, anything that's within grabbing reach. Like his toes.


He's teething. His hands are constantly in his mouth and it's like a faucet turned on with the amount of drool he has.


He's tried all the stage one foods now. He loves to eat. He gets very excited when he sees the container, the spoon and the bottle. He tried a sippy cup just to see what would happen, but no success. He just got frustrated. We'll try again in a couple weeks. He's still drinking 32oz of formula a day.


He had his six month well visit. He's 15lbs 3oz, 10-25% (up almost 3 lbs) and 25 3/4 inches, 25-50% (up 2 1/2 inches and up from the 3-10%). Our pediatrician said he's made noticeable improvements with the head tilt. Ryan doesn't have to have physical therapy, but we do have to continue stretching his neck. There's also some improvement with the flat spot/forehead/small eye issue, but that will continue to get better as he does more tummy time and starts to sit up. It'll take a while for that to correct itself.

This picture makes me laugh. This is the exersaucer at the gym. He's so tiny in it, but he loves watching all the other kids at Kid Park.

He's in size 2 diapers and fits well in to his 3-6 month clothes, but with room to grow. According to the tags on the Carters clothes, he should be in 9 month outfits. I don't see that happening quite yet. He has some summer outfits from Gymboree that are 6-12 months and even though according to the tag he fits in them for height (starts at 25 inches) and is only 1 1/2 lbs away from them in weight, he's really no where close. the shorts come down to his ankles. And I think two of him could fit in the shirts. He's gonna need one heck of a growth spurt between now and June!

Ten on Tuesday

1. I've really got to get back on track with the whole blogging thing.

2. And the scrapbooking thing.

3. Especially since I'm hosting the Write.Click.Scrapbook. blog again in a couple weeks.

4. Mackenzie at Emma's soccer game Saturday.


5. Emma at her game. She really loves soccer.


6. Michael leaves soon for his spring break baseball trip. Should be an interesting week with just me and the kids at home.

7. She makes me smile when she does this.


8. And this.

9. They're quite the fashionistas. I've been trying to take pictures of all their outfits lately. I see a mini-album in my crafting future.

10. He makes me happy.

Scrapbook Sunday

I haven't posted any scrapbook pages lately, so I thought I'd try and get back in to the Scrapbook Sunday routine.

This mini album is from the February Write.Click.Scrapbook. gallery, Mad for Minis. Ryan will be six months in less than a week, so I'll have another page to add soon.






And this mini is from WCS for the Holidays. I still need to add pages with ornaments from the last few years.

And now I need to work on some pages for Mackenzie's book. She asked me today where more of her were. Apparently she noticed that Emma's got about 3x the layouts in her books!

Friday five

1. We started baby food a couple weeks ago. Actually, we started it a couple days before I wrote Ryan's 5-month update. He still isn't a fan of the cereal, but he loves the food. Well, most of the food. Bananas are his favorite by far. The first new food after bananas? Carrots. Oh my, his face was hysterical. It was if he was expecting bananas, was ready for them and instead I put this awful tasting stuff in his mouth. He gave me the biggest frown/disgusted look, then spit them out. By the end, we had carrots everywhere. He's also not a fan of green beans, and seemed to think squash and peaches were just okay.


2. I registered Emma for Kindergarten yesterday. All I can say is her first day of school is going to be rough. For me. She'll have a blast, I'm sure.

3. Last Saturday we went out with some of my workout girls and their husbands. Dinner then bowling. I love bowling. It brings out my competitive side. I'm not very good, but I just want to keep playing so I can get better and get a higher score. I bowled a 96, 128, 112.


4. We went to dinner and then Kohls tonight. I finally got a 30% coupon and I never get the 30% ones (I'm pretty sure they're stingy with them) so I was a little excited. I'm at the counter to pay and realized I had last month's expired coupon, not the current one. I'm pretty sure the look of shock and confusion on my face, plus me asking her to hold it so I could go home and get my coupon, convinced the cashier I really did have one and wasn't trying to scam her, so she gave me the 30% off anyway. I got out to the car, checked my purse and there it was. It'd been in the car the whole time. Of course I felt the need to go back in and show it to her. So I did. I'm sure that made her think I'm crazy. But hey, I felt better afterward.

5. Shelby is now 18. I was 16 and a junior in high school when she was born. Now she's about to graduate high school and head to college and I have three kids. Crazy.


Happy Weekend!

Random, again.

Today I saw this and it made me smile.


He likes to eat his feet.


Michael had a basketball game at Shelly's high school last night. I texted her, "I'm at your school. No reason to tell you that. Just felt like it," while we were in the commons having a snack during halftime. I'm taking pictures of the girls and the next thing I know, there she is! She had conferences. Totally did not expect to see her, it caught me off guard, oh but what a fun surprise! Also, I'm glad I sent her such a random text.


The girls have been putting together quite the outfits when dressing themselves. These were Mondays' looks. I meant to take a picture of today's as they were equally colorful.

Swim lessons ended Monday. Emma can move up to what is essentially the same class, just for older kids. But really, we just need to work with her on her strokes, holding her breath and her confidence. She can swim, she just thinks she can only go so far and then stops. She could go so much further in the pool if she'd just keep going.

This one was promoted from beginner to advanced. On one hand, not surprised since the beginner class is just to get them acquainted with the water and that's no issue for her. She loves it and is not at all afraid. On the other, it makes me laugh because whenever Taylor had her on her back and Mac was supposed to be kicking, she'd instead just let Taylor pull her through the water. I'm thinking she's going to have to work a bit harder in the next class.

This is how we entertain ourselves. Michael comes up with random stuff for the girls to do. In this case, it was practicing both their long jumps as well as high jumps. Emma was so into it. She's competitive. Very.

Ryan in the exersaucer at the gym's Kid Park. I think he likes it. (Of course it could be that he was happy to see me. Just sayin'.) Bonus, extra time working on his trunk/head strength. No worries, though, he gets plenty of time being held by the wonderful women who work there. He's quite the ladies man already.

Ryan @ 5 months

I'm a little late with this, but Ryan turned five months old on February 19th.



No clue what he weighs right now. I'm guessing about 13 1/2 pounds. He's fitting nicely into his 3 - 6 month clothes but still has plenty of room to grow in them. I don't see him outgrowing them anytime soon. He is actually still wearing a couple 0 - 3 sleepers, most of the 3-6 ones are still pretty long on him and his feet get lost.

I love how he sleeps. He either rolls over on his left side (which I need to get a picture of) or clasps his hands and puts them over his eyes, like this:



He's doing such a great job holding up his head. Although again, I need to take a picture. This one is from a couple weeks ago on the boppy. He can hold it up while flat on the floor, and hold it up pretty high. He still isn't pushing up with his arms but he'll get there. He's made such improvements, I'm so pleased. I'm still stretching out his neck as the head tilt hasn't improved yet.


He's a rolling-over machine. Front to back; back to front; just no front to back to front. He often will cry out for someone to come rescue him when he gets stuck on his belly with his arm pinned under him. This has happened a few times when I've put him down to nap.

He's all about his hands and feet and toes. I just love watching him grab his feet, he likes to put his toes in his mouth. He waves his hands around and watches them and eats those, too. And the tongue. His tongue is constantly out of his mouth. It's the funniest thing.


I love when I go in to get him after a nap or in the morning, he always has the biggest grin on his face when he sees me. He gets so excited he starts flapping his arms and kicking his legs.

He's napping three times a day: around 10 am, 1 -2 pm and in the evening around 6. He's in bed by 8:30 usually and sleeps until 8 or so. He's woken up at 4am a few times recently, thinking it's morning but goes back to sleep pretty easily. No crying, he's just talking and moving around. He's still eating 4 times a day: when he wakes up, around noon, 4ish then before bed. Still 32oz/day, but acts like he could eat more and since we're at the limit for formula, we've started the rice cereal.

Speaking of the rice cereal. He's not a fan. He wants to eat. He wants what is on that spoon. Until what's on that spoon is in his mouth. Then he changes his mind. It's just not good. I don't blame him. Also, it doesn't help that he likes to stick his tongue out. He can swallow the rice cereal, it's just more fun to push it out on his tongue. I'd forgotten how messy feeding rice cereal is.


He loves his Daddy.


He's laughing all the time. Especially at Emma. She does the best job making him laugh, sometimes it's by jumping and stomping in front of him, other times it's the random words and sounds she says to him. He loves it.

My sweet sleeping baby boy. He's always turned towards the rain forest toy. He always lays on his left side so he can watch it, touch it, turn it on when it goes off. He's started turning around in his crib, so sometimes I'll find him turned every which way after naps and in the morning.


He still likes the exersaucer. He can move around in it now. Michael got down the jumperoo, and he wasn't quite sure of it at first, but likes it now.

And I think that's it. He's just an amazing baby. Super easy. And happy. And loveable, huggable, kissable, snuggleable, just wonderful.

Emma's five-year checkup, or

How my camera came in handy for entertaining us during the 1.5 hours we were there for said appointment.

There's only so much you can do in a tiny room with three kids without going crazy. Granted, the time was broken up with a vision test, hearing test, check-up, peeing in a cup (always fun!) and shots. But still. It was a loooong time to be in there!

I let Emma and Mackenzie take pictures. It kept them entertained. For whatever reasons, the ceiling and floor are very interesting to three-year-olds. I snapped a few, too.

For the record, at five-years-old Emma is 44.25 inches, 41.5 pounds. Healthy percentile, healthy BMI, good blood pressure, and she passed vision and hearing tests.

The shots, by the way, were awful. Emma freaked when she found out she had to have them. I had to hold her on my lap while she kicked and flailed and whipped her head around while shouting, "no shots! no shots!" as loud as she could. It was awesome.