Seventeen weeks

Rockford had it's annual Relay for Life on Friday night, so of course we had to try to cram it in before going to Brody's T-ball Game.

Here is Addisen modeling the sunglasses she won in one of the booths and the dinner that we were quickly trying to eat!  She is such the little superstar!

 

Life continues to get easier in our house.  Ryder is officially HAPPY!  I didn't know that this day would truly come and that the moments where I felt I wouldn't make it would become a distant memory.  For a moment during the day I could kind of imagine another little baby in our lives...and then reality returns and I think NO WAY!  My friend told me that Ryder was meant to be, I always wondered if I was "done" having kids after Addisen, Ryder came along to leave no doubt in my mind...we are done :)

Uncle Neal spoiled Addisen with a Princess Dress (complete with a wand, crown and white gloves - not pictured here!).  She put it on Saturday morning and decided that it was the outfit for the day!  Luckily we were able to convince her to change before we left for Meijer - it is a little revealing at the top!

Addisen is truly our little sunshine!  She does have her tantrums, but the majority of time she is just full of smiles!  She loves to be silly and copy EVERYTHING that her big brother does, especially the things he shouldn't be doing!  She is full of love for her brothers - every night she needs hugs, kisses, pounds and hi fives.  I don't know what I would do without my baby girl!

This weekend was our first trip to the cottage as a family of five!  Ryder did pretty well there, a little difficulty going to bed at night, but otherwise was a happy little guy.

It was a weekend of getting things ready at the cottage.  We haven't gotten our boats out yet, although Jim and Brody did get the speed boat cleaned up (let's just hope it floats!)

 

Next weekend we will be celebrating Memorial Day with my parents, brother and Jenny at the cottage.  It should be a fun weekend with only 2 bedrooms and 9 people!  Hopefully we will have the boat in the water and good weather!

Sixteen weeks - Happy Mother's Day!

We celebrated Mother's Day at Grandma and Bobo's house.  They wanted to get some new pictures of the kids - and Addisen was more than willing to pose!

We even lucked out with a good one of Brody!

It was a great opportunity to get some updated pictures of us too - Can't think of the last time we had a picture taken of just Jim and I.

And finally - a picture of our whole family!  My mom said she saw this and it surprised her to see how big our family of five looked!  It is a pretty good picture of all of us - although Ryder is looking a little stunned!

We couldn't leave out Uncle Neal and Jenny!  Their insta family!

This year I made my mom this photo for Mother's Day - it was a combination of two things I saw on Pinterest.  It was an interesting night - drawing on the kids feet made them laugh and then to try to get them to all lay in the grass with their feet up...not so easy (hence Jim's head and hands in the picture!).

I'm trying to get some more pictures of Grandma and Bobo with the kids - this is typically what it looks like these days.  Ryder enjoying Grandma and Brody enjoying Grandma's Ipad!

Ryder has successfully passed the stages of Colic.  I never thought I would see this day come!  It all changed on May 3rd, he started smiling and talking more than he was crying!  We are now only up one time a night (anytime between 1-3am) and bedtime is about 7:30-7:45.  The routine is now down to just enough time to eat and them maybe 15 minutes of putting the pacifier back in if needed.  Wow - what a change!  I actually have about an hour each night to sit by myself and relax!

Jim ran in the 5/3 Riverbank 25k this weekend.  He did great, finishing in under 2 hours!  I had planned to do the 5k Walk with my parents and the kids...unfortunately we got there and the tire was flat on the stroller.  No one volunteered to carry Addisen 3 miles...so we just spent some time visiting my work and then waiting for Jim at the finish line.  We will try again next year!

Fifteen Weeks

 

One of my favorite photos of Jim and the kids.  This has become our bedtime routine for the last few days. The kids love reading in Ryder's room!  Our favorite book right now is from Aunt Chrissy, Boss Baby - very fitting for Mr. Ryder!

Brody had a t-ball game on Friday and it was COLD and rainy!  My mom and I stayed home with the kids and Bobo and Jim braved the weather.  I really enjoyed the pictuers that Bobo captured - I guess Brody likes to run with his tongue out!

I would have loved to see Brody play catcher!  I can't imagine him having to pay attention to all the balls that were coming his way.  I have watched him play in the dirt and pick weeds while balls flew past his head!

Cutest catcher I have ever seen!

Life is starting to slow down a little bit - but it is still difficult to get pictures taken of everyone during the week - I think I just need to start accepting this is life with 3 kids!

Fourteen Weeks

Brody had his first Tball game this week - we lucked out that the weather was great!  Unfortunately for Ryder it was his first experience with HOT and he didn't have a great time at the game.  Addisen LOVED playing on the playground and in the sandbox, and I got a workout trying to keep tabs on everyone!  I didn't get to see much of the game, but Brody said he hit the ball both times up to bat and got to run the bases.  I did get to see him playing shortstop and he caught one of the hits!

It happened to be picture day - so Addisen was still in her dress and ready to pose!

Brody wasn't quite as excited to pose with his little sister!

When Ryder really started to lose it at the game I convinced Addisen to take a walk with us.  I was trying to calm Ryder by pushing him in the stroller...but mainly trying to get it so we weren't within earshot of the crowd!  As we walked we came across a huge sandbox - Addisen was in heaven and I got some of my favorite pictures of the week!

This is my one and only of Ryder this week - at least he looks peaceful! 

Ryder continues to have a good time at daycare.  He is still sleeping about 4 hours while he is there, but sometimes breaks it up into two or three naps.  He continues to drink about 4oz every 3-4 hours and the sleeping at night hasn't changed too much.  His bedtime has been around 7pm but then takes about an hour for him to calm down and go to sleep.  This boy is definitely keeping us on our toes - I guess he just wants to prove how every one of them can be different!

Thirteen Weeks

I tried my hardest to get Ryder's three month pictures taken this weekend - Addisen and Brody were the only ones that wanted to cooperate at first!

Addisen's silly face!

I got a few pictures of Ryder on his actual 3 month day - but not too many before he started to lose it!

I had just given up when Addisen asked to hold him.  Sure enough she gets him in her lap and it is all smiles!  He really does love his big sister!



I tried again this weekend for some pictures - it has finally stopped raining here so we got to enjoy some time outside!

Not too many smiles when I have the lens in his face - but these are some of my favorites.

Big brother Brody with his cheesy smile!

Daddy came to the rescue and got a few smiles from the little guy!

This has to be one of my favorites - he reminds me a lot of Addisen in this picture - the smiles are pretty similar!

I had a few pictures left over from the baptism that I didn't post last week - we decided to get a cake that matched Brody's baptism cake.  It's funny I didn't remember until I looked back at the blog that Brody's cake was actually suppose to say "on his christening day"...now they both are missing it because I copied what Brody's had said!  Guess it was meant to be!

Aunt Jenny had the magic touch with Ryder...and of course Addisen couldn't miss out on sitting with her and playing on her phone!

Finally a picture of Bobo and Ryder (I don't get too many of these!)

 

And here's our first day to work / daycare photo!  We don't look quite as sad as we did in the one Jim took when I headed back in after I had Addisen! 

My posts don't tend to come as frequently as I was hoping!  Working with three kids is leaving me exhausted by the time everyone makes it to bed!  Hopefully as Ryder gets older our nighttime routine will get a little quicker!

12 Weeks - Baptism, Mom's Birthday and Back to Work!

 

 On Sunday Ryder was baptized!  It was a great day (and it just happened to be my birthday too!).  Jim's brother Marty was Ryder's Godfather and we were so excited to have both him and Jordyn here to celebrate the day!  Following the service we had a brunch at my mom and dad's.  We were so blessed that about 30-40 people were there to witness his baptism and/or stop by for brunch to celebrate our little guy!

Ryder's baptism seemed to hit me a lot harder than Addisen's or Brody's.  I found my eyes filling with tears as I watch Brody watching so intently as Ryder was baptized - it was a pretty awesome site to see as I listened to the Pastor.  Maybe it is because I am getting older, maybe it is because this is my last baby, or maybe it is because I realize that this is the end to a chapter in my life.  It has hit me a lot harder, realizing I'm getting older...that the baby days are over - that I'm not going to experience this ever again.  At times I am sad and other times I am so happy to know that the 2 hour feedings during the middle of the night are over.  Ryder has definitely tested me...and I really think "test" is a good word - his continuous crying made me look at myself, have to trust in myself as a mother (even when I felt that for some reason I just wasn't good enough for him) and in the end it has made me come out stronger.  I now know that I can do it (although having the crutch of my parents in the basement when Jim traveled was nice!).  Ryder is truly a blessing - his attitude and response to my care did not come as expected, but I do know that he is this precious gift from God and I don't know what I would do without him.

Ryder did pretty well during the service, he really didn't cry until Pastor Jim took him down the aisle.  At the same time Addisen started saying "Don't take my Ryder!"

Brody fell in LOVE with his cousin Jordyn while he was here.  Although Jordyn is more than twice the age of Brody - he was so kind to him and played so much with him.  Brody just admired Jordyn and everything he did while he was here.  I didn't get to witness a lot of it because the boys were often out doing their own thing, but I got to see the aftermath when Jordyn left on Sunday night.  Brody was heartbroken - my first look into what it will be like when someone breaks his heart in the days ahead of him.  He still talks about how much he misses his Jordio with tears in his eyes - and 5 days is a pretty long time for a 5 year old to hold on to something!

 

On Thursday the dreaded day came....I started back to work.  On Wednesday I wasn't doing very well thinking about the idea of leaving Ryder at daycare.  But on Thursday morning it became a whirlwind trying to get everything ready for the day, make sure everyone was fed and that we arrived to daycare safely (it was storming and had rained about 4 inches the night before on top of all the rain we have gotten in the past few weeks).  Of course the scheduling of things did not work out as I had planned - Ryder was up at 1am and then again at 4:30, meaning he would want to be eating while we were on our way to daycare....but it all worked out.  Jim unknowingly added some humor to the morning.  As he was packing up the car for me he put an umbrella on the front seat for me.  I got to daycare, opened my door, pushed the button to open the umbrella and there it flew across the parking lot! The top was not connected to the bottom!  So instead of having time to reflect on the walk into daycare, I was running Addisen to the door and then back to get Ryder! 

 

Daycare was so sweet, they sent us pictures of Ryder's first day.

He was a happy guy while he was there.  Miss Terri said he seldom cried and that he went to sleep pretty well (although he only slept for a total of about an hour).  Of course by the time I got there to pick him up he was crying, but fell right to sleep as soon as the car started moving.  The only benefit with him sleeping so little while he was there was that he slept from 8pm to 3am last night!  And I was even smart enough to go to bed early, so I got 5 consecutive hours of sleep...I don't think that has happened for probably about 20 weeks!

Addisen loves to be there with her Ryder.  This is a picture of her peering over the changing table to check on him.  I am sure she keeps her teacher busy asking about him all the time - the good and the bad of having the Toddler classroom right next to the infants.

 

This morning went a little easier - I wasn't quite as frantic dropping them off.  I also got Ryder's new swaddle in the mail yesterday.  Daycare cannot let them sleep in anything that isn't zipped - so they couldn't use the swaddles I had been using at home.  The director told me about something called a Wombie that she saw in a magazine, it's basically a tight sleepsack without arm holes - so they could use it since it had a zipper.  I got online and found it on Monday night and it was to our house yesterday.  He wore it to bed last night and seemed to like it, so I was hopeful for them today.  I sent and email to check on Ryder, and sure enough it worked - he slept from 9:30-12:30 for them!  This daycare thing is going to work out okay for him (and me)!