Evan At 6 Months

My sweet Evan is now 6 months old. Sometimes I look at him and I'm just so overwhelmed with emotion because he's still here in my arms. I am so thankful the Lord blessed me with another baby to love, cherish, and raise. So thankful.

Evan is an extremely sweet baby. He is sitting up now and loves every second of it. He plays well on his own (my very first baby to do this) during his wake times, but he also likes to sit with me which I enjoy immensely. I should probably buy him a jumper since our door one doesn't really work at this house in our main living area. He's been trying to jump all week in his musical walker that doesn't move :). He is also my first baby to love baths. He has never cried in a bath. I am still in shock.

Evan is sleeping quite well right now. He's a bit of an earlier riser than my other two at 6 months but no complaining here! He's really a good sleeper now. That is if you don't mess with his morning nap within a few minutes of his normal nap time. If I try to keep him up later than 8:45 AM it's over. I mean it's just OVER! We are doing are best though at keeping up with that. If he doesn't take a morning nap, he will take a longer afternoon nap most days so I'm thankful.

Solid foods seem to be going well. I just feed him when we eat meals. It works well that way since he was getting very upset he wasn't eating with us. He does NOT like any green veggies though. Especially green beans. Giving him green beans is like the worst thing ever to him actually. It's quite humorous.

Earlier this week I tried giving Evan a bit of peanut butter cake. His chin broke out in a rash soon after that. I took pictures for my doctor and he was a bit concerned. He was also concerned that the same thing happened after I fed him some berries. He told me to avoid those foods for now and later he will need allergy testing. This is my first baby to have an allergy concern. I am not worried about this at all really. If he has food allergies, we will deal with it when we need to.

Today's stats:
Height--26.5 inches
Weight--16 lbs 3.2 oz (30%)

Jefferson was 1/4 inch shorter, and weighed 19.1 lbs. Jewell was over 1 inch shorter and weighed 14 lbs 11 oz. It's neat to compare!

Evan can be picky at times, but I am so overwhelmed with God's grace to give me another healthy baby to love. He laughs with us all the time, he adores his older siblings, and he just brings us so much joy.

Evan at 6 months (ignore the red rash...he's a drooler!)

 

Jewell, Jefferson, and Evan at 6 months

Easter 2014

Easter 2014 was a ton of fun for our family. I think I love kids even more each year :). Jewell LOVED the games they played at church with the kids in her class. They played telephone with phrases about Easter (Jesus died on the cross, He is risen). She made sure we played it during Easter dinner. It's so neat to see her truly learn this. 

Jefferson was very concerned yesterday when he saw his button down shirt and tie. He was convinced his neck was NOT going to fit in it. While helping him get dressed this morning he was quite nervous about it. But he sported it like a champ! Enjoy the pictures! 

Easter baskets

Jewell and Evan

Brothers

Take 1...or 2... or 22

I love Jewell adoring him.

Success!!!

Pure adorableness

Mr. Serious and his first Easter

Gotta stick the tongue out

Our flowers are blooming

Mother/Daughter Picture 2014

"They bloomed!!!"

My girl adoring the flowers she helped plant and water.

Easter eggs!

Look at his dimple :)

Pure joy!

He'd Be 1

It's 3/3/14. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how I'm really a mother of 4. You see it was just 1 year ago when I was due with our son that I lost. It was the best due date ever in my opinion, 3/3/13. I miss my son. I often wonder if he'd be walking by now. If he'd be chubby like Jeffers was, or if he'd be between Jewell and Jeffers like Evan is. He is my son that God chose to be born into Heaven. I miss him. I will always miss him. And I'm so glad God chose for me to carry him even if it was for only 25 weeks.

I miss my son. I wish I could have held him longer. I still hurt. But God had a reason, a plan I'll never understand, but I'm so glad God is in control of my suffering. I love this song. One of my closest friends came to visit me last month and introduced it to me. I've been listening to it for several weeks as I've thought about how Ezekiel would be 1 had he lived. God had a reason. And that's all I ever need to know.   

Evan is 4 Months

Wow, it's been a long time since I've taken the time to write. I've recently been reading in the evenings instead of fighting with Picassa. If anyone has a better free option for editing pictures please let me know! :) I'm going to try and write a few posts this week so my family back east will be able to see how everyone is doing. I should probably start with the baby!

Evan is now 4 months old! I can't believe how fast time has flown with him. He had his four month check this week too. :) The doctor was impressed with his head control which made me quite happy. His head is still a bit crooked since he favored turning it to the right for the first few months. I told the doctor that he REFUSED to sleep on his back so he was glad I put him on his belly. Not just because he's now sleeping, but because his head really was crooked. It's getting much better now that he's not sleeping on it the same way each night. Or I should say attempting to sleep on it.

Before heading to the appointment I had 2 concerns. The first was that my milk seemed to be almost like skim milk until late in the evenings. All of his diapers seemed to confirm this as well. The doctor noticed his weight didn't go up as significantly as the last time so he actually asked me about this. He's not too worried yet. He told me that as of right now everything seems to be okay so he didn't pressure me to start formula unless he just didn't seem to be getting enough from me. He's not a very irritable baby so right now we are okay. We will check his weight again at 6 months. My second concern was his eyes. One eye seems to be crossing in. I was told this would go away. Well, it definitely has not gone away. I decided not to mention anything to the doctor to see if he noticed. It was the first thing he noticed when he walked in the exam room. He referred me to Jewell's eye doctor and he thinks he has the same eye condition as Jewell. I called the eye doctor to make sure Jewell's appointment this month could be at the same time as Evan's. They were able to do so. Thankfully! Matt plans to go with me so I don't have to help 2 kids get their eye dilated while I'm by myself.

Here are the stats:

• Height: 25.5 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight: 14 lbs 8 oz (30th percentile)
• Head: 16 and 3/4 (90th percentile) 

Milestones:

• Sleep: I typically feed him at 7 or so and then feed him while he is sleeping around 10:30 or so. He then will continue sleeping until 6:30 or 7. Sometimes he wakes in the night, but only because he rolled and can't roll back over. 
• Naps: He's taking 2 very good naps right now. I try to give him a 3rd nap each day too. However, that's really not going so well. He's just SO tired he can't sleep. This makes for a difficult time until bed. I've tried feeding him again, it doesn't help. He is just super fussy from 5:30 to 7. He also refuses to nap on the go. He much prefers his bed for all types of sleep.
• Moving: Evan rolls from tummy to back all the time. He has tried for weeks to roll the other way. I think he gave up. He's now on to bigger and better things like trying to sit up. I've never had a baby this young try pulling himself into a sitting position like he has. 
• Playing: Evan is my first baby to be in love with the play mat. He loves every party of it. He also likes sitting in the Bumbo while I cook and looking at his toy. He grabs toys now too! I think Evan will be my most independent child so far. 
• Soothing: He is not a huge fan of the swing when fussy. He does LOVE his thumb though. He finally figured out how to suck on individual fingers around 12 weeks. Boy were we excited! He was so mad when he couldn't figure it out! 
• Baths: Evan is my first baby to adore playing and being bathed in the bath. He gets so excited when we put him in his little bubble bath. I'm sure he will love taking baths with Jefferson in a few months.  
• Food: I have given Evan a few different baby foods just for fun. Mainly because he was getting quite frustrated that he couldn't eat dinner with us. It was rather funny actually. I don't really pressure him to eat anything. I just offer it when he seems like he wants it. So far he likes pears and bananas. 

Jewell and Jefferson adore their little brother. In fact, they love him so much he's pretty much caught every cold they've brought into our house. He will definitely have a strong immune system one day.  It's so much fun to watch all 3 kids together. I feel so blessed when I am with them.

Many people think Evan looks like Jefferson. We beg to differ on this. Evan seems to look just like Jewell!

Bumbo Time during our lunch!

Snow Fun and Evan Update

We finally have enough snow to play in this year! The kids were so excited to find it so thick when they woke up this morning. I promised them we'd play in it together when Jewell got home from school today. Boy did they have fun :). Jefferson has a bad cold, so he wasn't necessarily in the greatest mood at times in some of the following pictures!

Evan turned 4 weeks today! He's doing just fine. He's eating like a champ, and according to my scale he's a bit over 9 lbs! 

Evan at 4 weeks!

Not so happy...

Mommy! I need a nap!!!

Jewell had a ton of fun making snow angels outside. Once we came inside I put Jefferson straight to bed. Jewell and I enjoyed reading her new Scholastic books and drinking hot chocolate. She was so excited that she got to drink out of my snowman mug :).