'Tis the Season ... Will's 4 months

'Tis the season to be insanely busy. I'm taking a moment to breathe. Usually when I take moments to breathe, I sleep. So, this is a rarity. 

We leave for Colorado this week for sometime. Our time there is already booked with family and friend visits. We are also looking forward to some down time, and maybe a date or two! 

We got some photos taken for our Christmas pictures. So, I must post those first. 

Jackson is 21 months. William is 2 1/2 months.

Our Thanksgiving was amazing. We had my Dad's side of the family from San Diego Come up. Mike, Mandy, their two littles, Abby and Cody. Along with Aunt Linda, Uncle John, and our dear friends Susan, Craig, Eric & Emily. It was filled with so much laughter and good food.

Jackson and Abby get along famously. It was the first name he learned outside of Mommy & Daddy. He asks about her all the time, and misses her when she's not around. 

They are two peas in a pod I tell ya. 

I know it's blurry, but it's oh-so-cute!

William is also 4 months old, already! He's so amazing. He is obsessed with his feet, smiles and giggles, doesn't talk too much, and overall has a very calm & sweet demeanor. Above is a pic of Will & Jack at 4 months (Will on the left, Jack on the right). So fun to compare! He's such a darling little baby that loves people and loves to be a part of the day. He is obsessed with being held and likes to sit in his gumbo and play with toys on the tray. 

Sweet Will during tummy time. 

He went through a phase of waking up every 45 minutes at night. It was truly awful and I was getting extremely frustrated with how little sleep I was getting. So, we tried cry-it-out ( a bit earlier than we did with Jack). It did not go well at all. He would wake up every 45 minutes through the whole night, and cry for up to an hour. It was so terrible. By about 4 am he was hoarse (we started him around 7pm). I felt like the worst parent ever, brought him into our room and co-slept, which I never have done. So, he's back to sleeping next to us. 

So, we're in a phase of learning how to sleep past the dreadful "40 minutes." The biggest difference between him and Jack was that he doesn't have an issue falling asleep, he just always wakes up, and screams! (Whether it's nap or at night.) I have found that the better, deeper/longer naps he takes during the day, the better he is at night. Ideally, it would be (3) 1 1/2 hour naps a day, but since I have a toddler & a life, that doesn't always work that way. (Plus, sometimes he wakes up!) so, if that is the case I just put him down around 6pm. So, this seems to be working all right.  I am praying for patience to figure out what he needs to keep everyone happy and to help him learn to sleep independently. I always feel so neglectful during this stage. I hate it! 

Okay, moving on. 

Random: Aaron gave Jack a hair cut. Haha. 

Because I have NO pictures of this one sleeping anymore, I snuck in when he was wearing footy pajamas to bed. He's so darling. 

Grampy and his buddy on his birthday. 

We went to Jack (& Will's ) first movie! Will slept the whole time, so I don't really count that. But Jack LOVED it. We went and saw "Frozen." It was absolutely adorable and so so much fun!

My mom cut off Will's head taking the picture. What a doof.

Playing in the rain in our jammies. 

My precious, littlest love. 

I am hoping to update while we are in Colorado for Will's 5 month & our Christmas fun. So much to enjoy. These truly are the most previous days of life.  

Three Months & growing & going fast

These babies, I tell ya, they grow way too fast. I know that's so cliche to say. 

I'm so grateful that I keep this blog, although I don't write in it often, I just love looking back and comparing/contrasting the babies, and just seeing how quickly life changes. 

William is smiling, laughing, concentrating on things, trying to grab things, and sitting in his bumbo! I can't believe it. He's got such a sweet demeanor about him. He's loving interaction, and coos so much. Overall he's very simple to understand what his needs are, and loves a good snuggle!

His sleeping patterns are still very inconsistent during the day, but at night he's pretty on the mark with 9pm bedtime, 3am wake up call, 6:30am wake up call, and then back to sleep until around 7:30, or when Jack comes stomping in the room. 

It really was our first Halloween together, since last year Jackson had the croup and we didn't do much of anything. We went trick-or-treating with some good friends, the Robertsons up on the Port streets. We had such an absolute blast! Jack was a little hesitant at first, but really loved it at the end. He still grabs his bucket and takes candy in & out (thankfully, he doesn't want to eat it!) 

We are so excited for Thanksgiving & Christmas this year. We have our plans set in stone to be in Colorado for the majority of December. What an absolute gift we have for Aaron to be able to work out of the home office there and enjoying family and friends. 

Okay, onto the sweetness of Halloween. My little Mickey & Sulley. 

At Nanny Kate's house for the neighborhood Halloween parade. 

It's the only hat we can get him to wear. He always wears it proudly. It will definitely make an appearance in Colorado!

A goofy trip to Disneyland

My sweet "crabby" man!

Peacefully swaddled and sleeping (yes, we started taping our swaddles again! It helps!)

The fan @ "trunk or treat"

The fan on Halloween. It was such a beautiful evening in SoCal!

Lil' Pumpkin

It's fall. That means pumpkin patches, Disneyland Halloween, costumes, and cooler weather! Love it!

Aaron is unimpressed while Jack looks for a pumpkin

photo-op. I love the goat poop on the bottom of his shoe. 

Climbing around.

Petting zoo. He loved it. 

Back to the pumpkin patch for play dates with friends. 

Lil' man. 

Carson & Jack last year, Carson & Jack this year. I love Carson's face to Jack! So funny. My how fast these little people grow!

Will slept through most of these experiences.  I mainly wanted to keep him away from the dust & general nastiness that is the petting zoo area. 

Halloween & William's 3 month birthday are on Thursday! I'm sure I'll be updating then with cute pictures of the lil's in their costumes & more on William's new things that he is doing. 

Jack is saying more words by the day. A favorite now is "mo pree" (more please). I'm hoping I can get this on video soon to post & remember this sweetness. He also calls William "baby." He knows Daisy ("deedee"), and "poodo" (Pluto). Can you sense a pattern? He's such a joy right now. He loves to cruise the couch, grab your face when he wants your attention, and gives kisses us (most) of the time we ask!

Love this time of year! And more excited for the next few months to come!

2 months way past due.

I'll blame it on having two children on being late with William's 2 month update.

But I could also blame it on the fact that every day we are doing something. I mean, every day.

Jackson is not a homebody. I'm not sure if I engrained this in him or this is just how he is, but we are just never home for more than two or three hours while he's awake. Whether it's a simple walk to the park or a trip to Disneyland, it's always something.

I'll start with sweet Jackson and his updates, while I'm on the subject. He's learned more and more words these days, particularly: balloon, Donald (from Mickey Mouse, of course) more, brother, grammy, and others that I'm sure I've forgotten. He went through a whiny phase to ask for something that he wanted. Aaron thought of a great concept to ask him to "use his words" to get what he wanted. We tried to teach him "up" & "more" to get what he was asking for, which he has successfully picked up on. Now he must "use his words" instead of whining to get what he wants. It's been awesomely helpful, and has made me realize, once again, how impressionable these little human beings are!

Jackson is such a sweet love. He's got crazy amounts of energy most of the time, but also loves to concentrate on certain tasks like building blocks, doing puzzles, or shape sorting. I'm trying to now work on colors & shapes for him to learn the words.

Taking him to Disneyland is more and more fun. We go with friends or by ourselves. He LOVES the Disney Junior Live show. It is so fun to watch him start to interact during the show with the performers. I adore it just as much as he does.

William is doing amazing. He is smiling and laughing all the time. He seems to be a calmer baby that Jackson was, although I can't tell if that's just because I'm more relaxed  on handling him. He sleeps consistently at night from 10-5, feeds, then back to sleep till about 6:30-7. He's really into swaddling, and he also loves the carrier that I have for him when we are out. He hates the car seat, and just screams the entire ride, which is so awful. But when he's awake he's very calm and smily until he needs to go back down for a nap. He's very much on the "eat-play-sleep" schedule daily, so it's never a question to know what he needs. This has helped so much in being able to handle both babes easily, and enjoy them both so much.

Life is in a really good stride, I truly am enjoying each stage the boys are in so much.

MOPS has started up again, and I am so excited for what this fall will bring. I am a table leader this year, which is more of a commitment but so wonderful at the same time. We have a great table and I'm leading with a dear friend, Jill. Hopefully we will take lots of pictures on our play dates!

"The days are long, but the years are so short." I heard at MOPS. So true.

Okay, enough words, more pictures.

Sweetness

Trip to Disney with buddies and strollers. 

He looks like such a old dude when he gets a haircut. 

All smiles!

Bath time!

Sweetness: photo credit to Poppy!

Running around outside on our upstairs deck. Photo credit again, to Poppy!

I have to take more pictures. So hard when you have your hands full with two lil buggers around town. But I'll give it a shot. 

One Month...and already old!

My sweet William has already celebrated his one month birthday. Holy cow; could time be going any faster? I think the days fly by because there is seriously....NEVER...a dull moment when you have two children. I take deep breaths of relief when things around our home our peaceful & quiet, as those are quite few and far between.

I wouldn't have it any other way, as the other moments are typically filled with laughter and fun times. (Okay, I'd be lying if there wasn't many times of crying in between, but today I'm choosing to recall all of the happy and sweet moments. My children are by no means angels!)

At this age of William, I can really only compare him to Jackson. Let's be honest, he really only poops, sleeps & eats. But we see and love so much more than that. He is showing his first signs of smiling, which we adore so much! He's very alert & a VERY good eater, something Jackson never really was. He loves to eat. Not that I ever have a chance to time it, but he eats every two hours like clockwork. This is a bummer at night considering at this stage I had to wake Jackson up to feed him in the night. This makes for a very sleepy, and grouchy, mamma in the mornings considering Jack is awake by 7:30 at the latest each day.

Jackson ignores William for the most part at this stage. He will kiss his forehead if we ask, or he will give him his paci when he's crying, which is so adorable. Jackson has become very attached to Aaron, which I find sweet, and difficult at the same time. I have to be so physically attached to William that Aaron has naturally taken the reigns with Jack. But, we are slowly adjusting and with anything, it's just a phase.

I will shush up and get to the cuteness.

William excited to watch his first Broncos game!

William on his first hike. Me trying to get back to my pre-mommy figure! Such a task. :/

Jackson LOVES taking selfies. 

I love it too. 

So close to heaven at this age. 

On his actual one month birthday.  It's HOT in SoCal again. I have two nakie babies. This helps with the laundry..at least a little. 

We continue to count our blessings daily with two healthy boys, and are always adjusting to the new things that both of them are doing. I can't say enough how good God has been to our family.

William Mason McLaughlin

I can't believe I'm writing about our second child's delivery story on this blog...already. I feel like I just wrote Jackson's.

The time that went by so slow before William's arrival. Needless to say that's not the case anymore.

William Mason is two weeks today.

Let me start at the beginning.

We were induced...again.

We went to Portillo's the night before as we did with Jackson. Can we call that "tradition?" So needless to say the story isn't crazy exciting.

We went in at midnight, our choice. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Jackson while he was awake. There also is something about leaving at midnight for the hospital. It feels like the world is so quiet and standing still, as if time didn't matter. The drive there with Aaron was so peaceful.

I was induced at 40 weeks & 2 days, by begging my doctor. I was so done being pregnant and was already 2cm dilated. When I got to the hospital I started out at 4cm from our appointment earlier, and them helping things "progress." Aaron and I slept as much as we could with the pitocin starting it's job. They gave me an epidural at around 4am, then broke my water around 5am after no progression from 5 cm.  We then slept some more (thank GOD for epidurals & no back labor!)

My mom called me at around 7am, I told her that Jessica & her could take her time coming to the hospital, as I wasn't really progressing from 6cm any time fast. They showed up around 8 with some coffee & snacks for Aaron. We were just talking away. I felt the need to switch sides and when I did, I had the most severe pain on my left side. It felt like someone had put a knife through me. The nurse started to freak out a little as she noticed there was a kink in my "plumbing system" and nothing was able to "flow out," my bladder was exaggerated to the point where you could see it through my stomach. Simultaneously, I was at 10cm ready to push. He was out within 15 minutes. So, outside of that moment of crazy pain, he came out at 9:44 am gloriously and quickly! What a blessing!

First family picture at the hospital. **LOVE**

First picture of William at the hospital, just minutes old. 

Auntie Jessica holding William for the first time. 

Sweetness. 

Meanwhile, at the house with Jackson...

Hanging with Grampy. 

Grammies showing Jack pictures of William. 

He's crazy. I love him. 

Just minutes after coming home. 

First time William watched Mickey Mouse. That's a big deal. 

What William does best...right now...

Awake! 

We have a beautiful family. The last two weeks have been insanely crazy trying to adjust to this new life of two littles around the house. But I am constantly reminded how lucky I have it with beautiful healthy baby boys, a wonderful husband who has been the best support anyone could ask for during the healing process, and family that has been so unbelievably supportive in many, many ways. 

Many more pictures and adventures to come!