Wednesday, February 18, 2015

.: Valentine's Day:.

Valentine's was fun this year. Reece and Remi each picked out what valentines they wanted to make, and they were pretty fitting: Legos for Reece and Play-Doh for Remi.


They had fun putting them together!



Not only did they have school parties, but they also had dance parties. Harper and Remi had fun helping me make treats for the dance parties one afternoon.


I was able to help in Reece's classroom for Valentine's Day this year. Because of Jabes, and our Christmas traveling, I've missed the other class parties, so it was fun to be involved. Reece loved having me there, and it has been really fun to watch her meet new kids this year and see her interact with them.




On actual Valentine's Day, the girls woke up to more Shopkins and chocolate; pretty perfect, right? They certainly thought so! 


We spent the day together as a family, and ended our day with homemade sugar cookies and decorating! It was just lovely, and fun to have that time together as a family!




Love these cute Valentines of mine!


Sunday, February 8, 2015

.:Jabren - Four Months:.

Four months already? Stop it!



I seriously can't believe another month has passed with this delicious boy baby. We are still just so enamored with him.


Jabes LOVES to suck on his hands. He does not have much to do with his binky unless he is super tired and I force it on him. But he will suck on his hands all the day long. I do think he has been feeling some teething stuff for a little bit now, too, because he has turned into the biggest drooly mess! He also often gnaws on individual fingers, where his normal hand sucking is just what it looks like in this picture. Either way, it's a great self soother!


This baby also really loves his baths, being naked, and getting changed. Still! He is often at his happiest when any of those things are happening. I am also often happy when any of those things are happening because I can't get enough of his arm rolls and cute little body!


We have started working on sitting with this new seat we have this time around. He doesn't super love it, but as long as people are around him and giving him some attention, he will stay in it for short periods of time. 


Jabren's sisters are all obsessed with him. They are constantly loving on him, wanting to make him laugh and smile, wanting to hold him, anything. I absolutely love it. It is so sweet how much they care about him. He loves all of them, and will almost always give them some of his best smiles and laughs, but he seems to especially love Rem. It's pretty dang cute. (And I have no idea how I have zero recent pictures of Rem and Jabes together. Must get on that!)



Jabes is growing like a weed. He is a healthy boy! I switched out his 0-3 month clothes for 3-6 month clothes awhile back, and I feel like half of those already don't fit! He seems to have a really long torso, so lots of onesies and jammies just don't quite work. Most sleeves are also too short!


Jabren has become a lot more talkative lately. He coos, squeals, and gurgles way more than he used to. I love having conversations with him! He laughs much more easily now as well for all of us. He is by far our most ticklish baby, so it's pretty easy to get laughs out of him that way. His laugh is definitely not a belly laugh, but more of a grunting laugh. 


I've still got Jabren sleeping in our room. I don't know if it's because he is our last baby, or if I'm just lazy, or if it's a mix of both, but I am just not ready to do it. He really only gets up once during the nite between when I feed him before I go to bed, and around 6ish, when I top him off for the morning. He is always sleeping in his own bed (until 6, I feed him in bed and let him sleep there until about 8), but I just like having him right there next to me. I know part of it is that I don't want to have to walk down to his room to feed him during the nite (too tired!) and we don't actually have anywhere to sit in his room, so it's not ideal. But the other part is that I do just like having him close. I don't feel the need to sleep train him yet, he may just end up doing it on his own. But it's working out alright for now, so we're just going to stick with it! I've even gotten some solid 4-4.5 hour stretches out of him lately, so I think we're moving in the right direction.


Napping is still not great. Sometimes if I go rock him and put his binky back in when he wakes up at the half hour mark, I can get him back to sleep for a real nap. But often a half hour at a time is all we get. I just keep trying to be consistent with the routine so that when he is ready to take real naps, everything will be in place already. 


We truly adore our Jabey man, and can't wait to see what the next month brings!


At four months, Jabren likes:

- mom, sisters, and most women (ladies man!)
- eating
- nuzzling
- baths
- being changed
- being naked
- play mat
- bouncer chair
- sucking on his hands and fingers
- being tickled
- standing (if you are sitting down, then he basically only wants to be standing in your lap)
- talking/cooing
- laughing
- being held
- baby movies



At four months, Jabren does not like:

- being in his car seat for too long
- taking naps longer than 30 minutes
- getting swaddled
- people in his face too much (sister problem!)
- being left alone

Saturday, February 7, 2015

.:Baby Laughs:.

Love this video of Jabren laughing. 


Thursday, February 5, 2015

.:Winter Dance Recital:.

Reece and Remi are both taking a ballet/jazz class this year with some of their friends. It has been a fun addition into our lives and schedules, and they are loving it. They were so excited to get their costumes for their first recital in January. 


Remi was first in the show. Her class did a little jazz dance. They are 3-4 year olds. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how Remi was going to do. The recital was held in a high school auditorium that is HUGE. They are up on stage, and have stage lights on them, and I just didn't know if it would be overwhelming for her or not. She totally rocked it! She did her dance, and had a great time doing it. I was so proud of her!

Remi with her friend Jordan. That pose is all Rem.


Reece's class was up later, doing a ballet dance. She also did an excellent job! We definitely have the performing gene running through these girls of ours. I was really proud of her, too! 

Reece with her friend Dylan.


Reece's entire class with their teacher, Miss Michelle.


Reece with her buddies, Dylan, Emerson and Dixie.


I can't get Blogger to pull up Remi's dance video from YouTube, but here is the link to watch it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbwWZbeSAsM


Here is the video from Reece's dance. I mom failed it, and didn't realize my phone had switched back to photo mode out of video mode, so I had to get this from my friend's husband. Reece starts out on the back row, but then moves to the front. When she is in front (and the back) she is third in from the right. You can see her big ponytail bouncing around. 


Love my dancing girls!