I've got the bloggy blues. I hate it when I get behind on my blogging & then I don't feel like blogging because I feel like I have to play catch-up.
December got away from me. Hopefully in January I'll be able to keep up with it. We've got a pretty good routine going on and things are running pretty smoothly. There's lots to work on still, and we'll get through it together, but I think its safe to say we're in a groove as a family of 4. :)
So, this will be my re-cap post. Quick and dirty and probably missing some stuff, but oh well.
The biggest news I can think of is that Baby J didn't make it. He passed away after 3 weeks and 6 days on Christmas Eve. My heart broke. Its still broken. I cannot imagine going through all that my friend Andrea has. And yet, her Facebook posts are uplifting and in good spirits. She seems to be doing pretty well, all things considered. I wish I had her faith.
I just find myself asking WHY? Why have him survive 2 extra weeks in utero with no fluid, why have him survive a traumatic birth, why have him be SO healthy and pink and WELL (for a 25 week gestation baby) at first, why take him on Christmas Eve of all days, why have THOUSANDS of people around the GLOBE praying for him, only to take him? WHY WHY WHY? I do not understand. I will NEVER understand how bad things happening to babies and children is part of God's plan. I just don't get it. They are innocent. Can't these things happen to BAD people instead? It's not fair.
The next biggest news is that "the sick" seems to have left our home, thank goodness. Luke has a touch of runny nose, but not bad enough for me to keep him home and there is no fever associated with it. :) Vinnie is well.
Other big news, Vinnie learned to roll from front to back and then from back to front. I'm not 100% on this, but I'm going to say Dec. 22 is when he started rolling from front to back. It was pretty funny because Tim was in the bedroom with him and hollered out to the living room, "Hey, when did Vinnie start rolling over?" Ha ha! I hollered back as I went back there, "He doesn't roll yet!" Only to walk in and see him rolling on the bed with Tim! Dec. 29 is when he started rolling from back to front. He doesn't like to do it, but will with lots of prompting! So he was 4 months and 2 weeks when he rolled from to back and 4 months & 3 weeks for back to front rolling. Luke was delayed (thanks to his torticollis) on rolling and didn't do it until 7 months. But, then Luke crawled within 6 weeks. I can't imagine Vinnie being able to crawl so soon! :/ We'll see what he does.
On the topic of sleeping habits this is where we are:
I nurse Vinnie around 7/8 ish. Normally he falls asleep then.
Then I nurse Luke. He doesn't fall asleep. He wants Tim. So, when he is MOSTLY asleep and tummy full of milk, Tim comes in and snuggles him to sleep. The whole process takes maybe 20 minutes on a good night& at most 30 minutes on a bad night.
Vinnie normally wakes up around 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30. Sometimes he surprises me and skips the 1:30 nursing...which is nice. He prefers to sleep in the bed with us, but will sleep in his swing. We are trying to transition him to the crib.
Luke normally sleeps until about 1:45 or 2and then nurses in our bed. I carry him back to his bed where he will sleep until about 5:00. The last few days he has actually gotten up that early, but most days (including today) I nurse him and he goes back to sleep until around 7.
Luke takes a nap around 12:30 or 1 and normally sleeps at least 1 1/2 hours but can sleep up to 3 hours.
And some pictures to break up the text...
We had to get creative on Dec. 19, to keep a cranky Luke occupied while we baked cookies. Here he is driving a truck through flour & sugar "snow". :)
And, gift wrapping wore Vinnie out...here is he passed out on the floor at Mandy's house.
Vinnie normally gets up early, around 6 or 7, and stays awake long enough to get his diaper changed. Then he'll go back to sleep until 8:30 or 9. Around 11 he's ready for a morning nap which can range from 20 minutes to a couple hours. Then his other naps normally fall around 2 and 5 with bedtime around 6:45 or 7 for him. :)
Another little tid-bit. I LOVE Freecycle.
I try not to throw anything away that others might be able to use & I post at least once every couple months to give things away. Freecycle is awesome. I also love GETTING stuff on Freecycle. I go through phases where sometimes I keep up with my Yahoo mail and watch the inbox and other times I don't. I was SO glad that I was on top of it in December, because I managed to score a "box of train stuff" that had ALL THIS wooden train stuff in it!
Washed up and ready to play with (above)
And laid out on the kitchen table to see just how much was in there!!
I ended up throwing out a few of the trains and pieces of track because they were broken beyond repair, but all in all it was an awesome deal.
The best part is that there was a pair of Fisher Price in-line starter skates in the box and a transformers toy. There were a few other toys that were basically trash (in my opinion) because they were broken or missing pieces. But, there was plenty in there to make us happy! :)
Freecycle is awesome. If you're not doing it, you should be!
This is my current favorite picture of myself.
Vinnie at 3 months old. We NEVER call him Vince, but we only had one set of bath letters, so I couldn't spell Vincent or Vinnie! (We fixed that at Christmas!)
And just for comparison's sake...here's Luke's 3 month bath-tub picture. (Apparently I didn't get any PG versions...) I don't think they look anything alike. Although Vinnie actually weighs less than Luke did, Vinnie is much stockier.
These are some Christmas pictures I took of the boys. The first three are going on my walls as 5x7s. :)
I'm sure I am missing things. If I have time to go back through my pictures & calendars and find what's missing, I'll add it. But if not, know that it was just day-to-day life in our house & I'm sorry I missed blogging it!
It's 10:45 pm on New Year's Eve. Both boys have been asleep since 9ish. Tim and I are heading to bed. Yes, we realize we are boring. I'll blog about Christmas & Heather's surprise visit another day!
