Happy 1st Birthday, Max!

I honestly can't believe that it's been a year. There is no way that my tiny baby is already a year old. I was an emotional mess all day long, but yet we celebrated, cuddled and smashed some cake to say Happy Birthday to the best little boy that I've ever met...

Here is a year in review (turn up your volume)...

Max, you are so loved. Your sisters think that you hung the moon. It hasn't always been an easy road over this past year, but you toughed it out, I toughed it out and we are both stronger because of it. You are one brave little boy and you are the most amazing guy I've ever met. Just remember one thing, no matter how big you get, you always be my baby!

Happy Birthday! Love, Mommy

9 months!

This post is obviously a little late since Max will be 10 months in just 10 days, but I feel so bad that I haven't documented his months/milestones like I did with the girls. Life is busy with three, but that is no excuse for not documenting the special things about my favorite little man!

At his 9 month appointment, Max weighed in at 23.4 lbs and 31 inches tall, which puts him almost smack in the middle of where his sisters were at that age (bigger than Macy but smaller than Sadie). At 9 months he is crawling everywhere, pulling up on everything, and falling just as much! He is cruising on furniture and doing everything he can to keep up with his big sisters and steal all of their toys. He has 5 teeth (two bottom and three on top) with one more almost through. He is "talking" like crazy and his current favorite words are dada (his favorite person), uh-uh (uh-oh) as he drops things on the floor) and baba. He has quite the temper and gets very mad when he is told no or if someone tries to hold him still, but yet he is absolutely the most charming and flirty guy that I've ever met. 

It's starting to hit me that my adorable baby is going to be one year old in a little over two months. I truly want to freeze time and keep him this size forever. He makes me laugh every minute and is just the love of my life. His sisters adore him and insist on being the first one's into his room when he wakes up from naps. Since he's equally in love with them, he is always thrilled to have them rush in! He's truly such a joy in all of our lives and I'm so lucky to be his mom!

Here are mommy and Max on his 9 month birthday. Seriously, could he get any cuter??

Helping Mommy unload the dishes!

Daddy and his guy!

My handsome dude, at a Sunday concert.

I promise that I'll try to blog again before this kid is one!

Spring!

So happy that spring weather is finally here and can't wait for the pools to open and afternoons at the splash pad! In the mean time, we are enjoying dinners outside and walks to the playground. Here are my 3 favorite kiddos, happily greeting daddy after his round of golf and ready for dinner on the patio!!

Tooth!

Maxy has had a tooth for a few weeks now and I keep meaning to snap a photo! The second is almost through and I just love his cute little toothy smile! He's growing up so fast!

6 months!

I can't believe my baby is 6 months old (well 6 months and 3 days) already! He had his 6 month well-check today and weighed in a 20 lbs 9 oz and 28.5 inches tall. He is seriously the happiest baby I've ever met and doesn't stop smiling or talking. He's sitting like a champ and rolls everywhere, but has no interest in crawling just yet. He is a total Mommy's boy and loves to cuddle and give big hugs. This week he's perfecting the fake cough and finds it hilarious. He melts my heart every single day!

He still struggles with eating (although you would never know by his size) and despite working with both GI and ENT, we have yet to figure out why he is so uncomfortable when eating. We continue to try and find the route of the problem, but for now just hope that he'll outgrow the issue and it will just continue to take some extra time and effort on my part to keep weight on him! He's happy and healthy, so I suppose he can't be totally perfect! :)

And, we're back!

  

 It's time to get this blog going again and continue to keep everyone updated on our family of 5! Max joined us on October 15th after a very quick labor and easy delivery. We were only at the hospital for 3 hours before he arrived and we were shocked at the enormous size of our 9 lb 3 oz baby boy! He was and still is one of the sweetest and happiest babies that I have encountered. He LOVES his big sisters more than anything in the world and is very quick to dole out smiles to anyone nearby and loves to talk to everyone who will listen. 

Despite his wonderful nature, Max has posed to be a more "challenging" baby than his sisters were, especially in the areas of sleeping and eating. Max has some food sensitivities that have made him not fond of eating. It requires a bit more time and effort on our part to get enough food in him to sustain his large size, but he's worth it! Since he doesn't love eating, he also isn't a fabulous sleeper either. I guess that I was spoiled by my great sleeping girls, who slept 12 hours straight by 12 weeks old. Max's sleep isn't terrible, but he is still up once a night to eat, so I can't say that we are very well rested around here quite yet! But, we are so in love with Max that I don't mind seeing him and getting cuddles at 4 am all that much!

 Here are the girls meeting their brother in the hospital...

Max's first bath...

 Grampy and Max on Halloween

 Max turns one month! I religiously took these monthly pictures of the girls until they were one year old. I hate to admit it, but Max is a classic neglected 3rd kid and has only had one monthly picture taken in his 4 months. Oops, sorry Maxy!

 Max meets Santa!

Our annual reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." So happy to have Max participate this year!

We had an amazing Christmas and everyone was spoiled as usual. The girls LOVED their camping tent and sleeping bags, their doll house, their Jake and Neverland Pirates gear (especially the Pixie Dust that Santa (aka. Daddy) so carefully made for them). 

 Sweet baby boy

 Buckeye Babies!

 Max loves to go for walks and enjoy the outdoors! We can't wait until the weather warms up!

 "Aunt Jess" came for a visit!

 This is what Max looks like 90% of the time...happy baby!

 I'm going to do my best to start posting updates to this blog again, so that you can catch a glimpse into our crazy family. We've been plagued with a winter full of preschool germs around here, so my time has been limited due to wiping noses and soothing sick kiddos, but we are hopeful that spring will be here soon and we can't wait to get back to the pool and get outdoors this summer with Max in tow! Keep checking back to see what we are up to!

3 year stats!

We had the girls' 3 year pediatrician appointment today, a few months late! Just because I like to keep track, here are their current stats...

Sadie - 3 years, 1 month, and 21 days old:
Weight - 37 lbs
Height - 40''

Macy - 3 years, 1 month and 21 days old
Weight - 34 lbs
Height - 39''

They got a finger prick, peed in a cup for the first time, had their blood pressure taken, talked with the doctor about their names, ages, favorite colors and school. It was definitely our first "big kid visit" and they did great!

And as usual, big girls! :)

Kicks

For the first time, I felt baby kicks from both the inside and outside. I'm 16 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I think that it took until at least 19 weeks to feel the girls move, so I'm excited to get to feel him already. I love baby movement.  I've been feeling very slight flutters from our baby boy for a little while now, but tonight was the first definite baby kicks and rolls. Just wanted to document it somewhere, so I'm writing it down here!

Baby Bubble Guppy

We asked the girls the other day what we should name their baby brother. Macy answered "Macy" without hesitation! Glad that she is happy with her name and willing to share it with her baby brother! Sadie said "Bubble Guppy" which is from a TV show on Nick Jr. The name kind of stuck and so for now, this baby is being referred to as Baby Bubble Guppy!

 Meet the little guy! These pictures were from about 5 weeks ago, so he's much bigger now, but these are some of my favorites so far!

Here is a picture of my belly which is starting to grow! I'm not wearing maternity clothes just yet, but will be very soon! It's been wonderful to continue exercising and going to the gym this time around and hope to continue to do so throughout the pregnancy!

16 weeks with one!

For comparison, here is what I looked like at 16 weeks with the girls' pregnancy. Quite a bit larger! I had been wearing maternity clothes for about 4 weeks already in this picture!

16 weeks with twins

We are so excited for October to roll around so that we can meet this little guy, but for now, we are getting ready for one final summer as a family of 4 and lots of pool time with the girls!

Sadie and Macy's Surprise!

Coming in October...

Click for video!

Breakfast with the Bunny

We went to Breakfast with the Easter bunny at the club today and had a fabulous time. The girls, of course, looked adorable!

They met the Easter Bunny and while they were a bit skeptical, they did pretty well and said hello and even sat on his lap!
The crew...
They decorated sugar cookies and ate them too!And then they were champions at the Easter Egg hunt and I'm pretty sure that they scored more eggs than anyone!

Happy Easter!

Christmas!

Better late than never...here is our Christmas post! This year I was put in charge of planning the Breakfast with Santa event for my Mother's of Twins Club. It was a great event for over 200 people and I was so excited to bring the girls, after all of my hard work in organizing breakfast. Unfortunately, the night before the event, Macy was up sick most of the night and so the girls were unable to attend. Luckily, Santa was a personal friend and he was kind enough to pay a visit to my sick kiddos at home, after the event was over. Sadie was THRILLED, but Macy wasn't so sure....



Christmas Eve we spent decorating cookies for Santa, reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and attending the children's service at church. The girls were so excited to leave out the cookies for Santa and also insisted on leaving carrots for the reindeer (completely unprompted by us). However, I think that Brian and I were even more excited to "help Santa" deliver his gifts and eat his goodies, once the kids were in bed.



On Christmas morning, the girls were so excited to see what Santa had brought for them; however, they were a bit disappointed that he wasn't still there when they woke up!
Exploring their new kitchen...
The note that Santa left!
It was a wonderful Christmas and we're so sad that it's over!