Everett's 4 month picture retake

I redid Everett's 4 month photos today. What a difference! The boys also met Tim's Aunt Peg and Uncle Russ who were in town from Florida for the Packer game and Thanksgiving.

What's in a name?

I have been thinking about the boys' names this weekend as I work on the letters for their room and fill out paperwork for their upcoming baptism and I realized that I never really explained the origin of the boys' names. They are not exactly the most common names and we have a lot of people who absolutely love them and then we always get some funny looks from other people. It's funny because with Sofia I had boys names picked out until I found out we were expecting a girl and with the twins I had two girls' names picked out until we found out they were both boys.

Let's start with Everett. During most of the pregnancy he was referred to as "Baby A". For a long time we thought he was going to be named Henry. During the last trimester of the pregnancy I started to waver on Henry for several reasons. Tim and I went back to the drawing board and I told Tim about a name I have always loved, Everett. Everett is an English variation of a German name which is perfect for us. My family is German and Irish and Tim's family is German, Irish and very English. The name means brave as a wild boar and boy oh boy does that suit Everett well. Tim was a little cautious because it is such a unique name but we decided on it a few weeks before the boys were born. Everett's middle name, James, is the first name of Tim's Dad. Once Everett was born I thought his name suited him perfectly. And now that I know him and his personality I can't even imagine ever calling him Henry.

Sullivan's name was a name Tim and I always knew we would use if we ever had a boy. This is kind of similar to Sofia's name. This may sound strange but when Tim and I were traveling around Europe together after my semester abroad in Spain we had a lot of time to talk with all of the plane and train rides. We wrote down a list of boys and girls names that we liked. The name Sofia was at the top of our list back in 2005 and we still love it today. Sofia's middle name, Lorraine, is Tim's mother's name and grandmother's name. We wanted to continue the tradition. We were a little cautious to use it with her because it has become somewhat popular but we finally decided to do what we love and not worry about other people. Now, back to Sullivan. Sullivan is Tim's mother's maiden name and a great Irish surname. Jeffrey is my father's name. Both boys have their grandfathers' names as middle names. We mainly call Sullivan Sully and his name also fits him perfectly. He is just a jolly little guy. I call him my jolly Irish man. He has such a happy, laid back personality and he always has a little twinkle in his eyes.

Here are both boys with their namesakes reversed, Sully is with Granddad Jim and Everett is with Grandpa Jeff.

4 months old!

The boys are officially 4 months old! They visited the pediatrician yesterday and she was very pleased with their health and how they are growing. Tim had to take the morning off to come to the appointment. There are a lot of crazy things I do by myself with all 3 kids. Attempting to go to the doctor by myself for a well child visit and vaccines is a realm of craziness I haven't entered, yet.  I took 4 month pictures today, I'll post those later. Let's just say we may need to do a retake tomorrow.

Here are the official stats.

Everett James- 25.5 inches tall and 15lbs 4 oz (72nd percentile for height and 58th for weight)
Sullivan Jeffrey-25.25 inches tall and 14lbs 11 oz (63rd percentile for height and 46th for weight)

At 4 months old the boys are so much fun. They both love to "talk", smile and laugh at Tim and I and sometimes Sofia. They watch our dog Frodo a lot. They even interact with each other. Last night Tim gave Sofia a bath and positioned the boys across from each other and they were cooing back and forth to one another. Everett rolled over from front to back about 10 times last week. He hasn't been doing it as much this week. Sullivan is still working on it. Sullivan is probably the most laid back baby I've ever met. Everett is a people person, he LOVES to interact with people, he seems to be a bit of Mama's guy. Both boys love to be sung to and and really love playing patty cake. Sullivan sleeps through the night, every night. Everett has been waking up 1-2 times per night and he eats 6-8oz when he wakes up. We talked to the pediatrician about this and she just explained that he needs to eat more because of his growth and the fact that he was born 5 weeks early. Sullivan isn't far behind his brother in growth, he just does most of his eating during the day. We are going to wait another month to start rice cereal. Here are the pictures from today's photo shoot, enjoy!

I started with Sullivan today who was in a fantastic mood!

It's becoming quite difficult to get them both smiling in the same picture.

I LOVE MY BOYS!

I love Sully's pout face. He is a master at working his lower lip.

Everett is starting to fade.

Time to end the photo shoot!

Everett, still refusing to smile.

Things to remember

My sweet Sofia is already 20 months old! She does and says so many funny things every day. Today I just had to write a few in the blog, mainly so I can remember these things later on.

• Sofia usually wakes up singing but she woke up laughing today. Awesome.
• She LOVES her brothers and her dog, Frodo. After her morning snuggles with Tim and I she generally runs around the house saying "Fro Fro, Fro Fro" searching for her beloved dog. Then she runs into her brothers' bedroom and tries to climb into their cribs. She also loves to open all the windows in the morning. I have to race to beat her to the wood blinds in our living room so she doesn't destroy them.
• I left our main living area for a few minutes to change on of the boys and I returned to the room to find my darling daughter bathing all of her "babies" (baby stuffed animals) in Frodo's water bowl.
• Whenever one of her brothers is under the play gym she puts one of her baby dolls next to him. She also puts babies in the swing whenever it's free.
• Since August she has loved to "push" her brothers while they are in the swing. We were worried she would break the swing but there is just no stopping her. She loves to be pushed and I honestly think she pushes her brothers because she thinks they would also love to be pushed. They stare at her and smile and she smiles back and says "Weeeeeee".
• Sofia loves to help me out. She helps give the boys baths, helps hold bottles and will sometimes adjust pump settings while I'm pumping, sometimes it hurts but she just smiles because she thinks she's helping.
• For some unknown reason she kissed the garbage can today, and also tried to kiss the floor of the pediatrician's office this morning (Tim and I caught her in time). She is a very affectionate girl, she loves to kiss her brothers and Frodo, but my favorite moment is when she's busy playing and just stops, runs up to me and wraps her arms around my neck and plants a big kiss on my lips. She usually runs back to her activity but I just wonder what was going through her sweet little head that she felt the need to give me a kiss.
• Sofia is serious about dental hygiene, she brushes her teeth 3-4 times a day and is obsessed with Tim's electric toothbrush. Today I caught her brushing Frodo's head with Tim's toothbrush.
• I hid a raspberry in her greek yogurt the other day, when she took that bite she stopped looked at me and pulled the raspberry out of her mouth and said "Yuk!". I think it's a texture thing because she then proceeded to eat a half a pound of strawberries, seriously. 

There are so many funny things that she does on a daily basis but those are just a few that I can think of right now. I love her and my sweet little family so much it hurts, life is good!

Adjusting the swing.

Weeeeee!

My boys! Just looking at this picture makes me want to run in their room and shower them with kisses and snuggles.

Diapering

With three children under the age of 2, diapers are a hot topic in our household. We started using cloth diapers with Sofia when she was about 8 weeks old. We mainly use pocket diapers with her and some hybrids (snap in insert). We have been extremely happy with how well cloth diapers have worked for us. We chose to use them for many reasons; we like the cost savings, they are environmentally friendly, and they have been much easier on Sofia's bottom than disposable diapers. Plus, they look really cute! While we were in limbo for two weeks this summer (between Baraboo, Waukesha and Port Washington) we used disposables and Sofia developed the worst diaper rash she has ever had. I couldn't wait to get her back into cloth. Once we did her rash cleared up within days. I don't think disposable diapers are evil or anything like that, what people choose to diaper their baby with is completely their choice. We have definitely used disposables when we're traveling and with our boys when they were first born.

Diapers that only contain urine are easy, I just throw them into a step on style bin with a liner inside. When Sofia was younger and exclusively breastfed her diapers that had poop were easy, they could also just be thrown in because EBF baby poop is water soluble. Once she started eating solids we use a diaper sprayer that is attached to our toilet and we rinse the diaper in the toilet before putting it in the bin. Pocket diapers do require a bit of preparation. I was the diapers every three days or so. My system is to take my wet bag and dump all contents into the wash machine and run a cold rinse cycle. After that I run a hot wash cycle using Rockin' Green detergent. If it was a really potent load I may run an additional rinse. After that I hang the cover part of the diaper and dry the inserts in the dryer, diapers hold up better if the actual diaper part isn't run through the dryer. When the weather is nice I hang everything outside to dry. The sun bleaches the diapers and I don't have to use energy to run the dryer. We use a wide variety of brands because when I built my stash I wanted to try a few different kinds to see what worked best and I only bought diapers that were on sale. We have Bum Genius, Tweedlebugs, Swaddlebees and Fuzzibuns.

When Tim and I found out about our boys we knew we wanted to use cloth diapers but we didn't want to invest a lot of money into more pocket diapers, they range in cost from $10-30 depending on brand and style. We have enough diapers for two babies to use for about 2-3 days without doing laundry. We talked to a good friend of ours who also happens to work at a natural parenting store and she recommended prefolds. Prefolds are a fraction of the cost of any other diaper. For some reason prefolds always sounded scary to me, I was worried about leaking issues and being able to "pin" the diaper correctly. There are actually no pins used with prefolds, rather a neat little device called a "snappi" that holds everything in place without any risk of poking yourself or your baby.

However, we chose to use a type of prefold that doesn't even require a snappi. We are currently using Imagine prefolds with Thirsty covers. We also use Best Bottom diapers which are a snap in style. For the first two months Tim and I only used prefolds and cloth diapers a few times with the boys, we were really just trying to keep up with the boys feeding schedule and spending time with each child. Now that the boys are eating less frequently and we have a better system we are using cloth diapers more with the boys. Some days when we are really on the go I tend to use disposables.

I don't know why I was ever afraid of prefolds, they are so easy to use and actually require less preparation than a pocket diaper. Imagine prefolds are great because you just fold the diaper into the cover and you're all set. My only complaint with prefolds is that I think the boys need to be changed more frequently because they feel the wetness of their diaper. Pocket diapers have a fleece lining between the skin and the insert of the diaper. If you are at all curious about cloth diapering I encourage you to give it a shot. Most diaper places will offer a trial period so you can see if it works for you.

Blessed

Life has started moving faster and faster with three kids. My days go by pretty quickly with all that needs to be done for three kids under the age of 2. Today I didn't take the kids out to the library or the YMCA since Sullivan and Everett are still a bit under the weather. I had a bit of time alone with each of my children while others were napping and it was amazing to just hold each one of them, kiss their soft skin and hair, take in their sweet smell and appreciate them as individuals. Even though it is a lot of work, I also appreciate being able to stay home with them which makes me take the time to appreciate my sweet husband. I don't know a guy who works harder than him. He is working so hard at his new job to promote the practice and help them be more efficient with their time and resources. Tim always helps as much as he can with the morning routine and when he comes home he jumps in and helps with the kids. He has also spent a ton of time working on our house to make it a more comfortable place to live. I know this season of my life will be over before I know it so I feel so blessed to have taken the time to really appreciate each member of my family today.

She had to have a few more hours of fun in her costume.

Sullivan

Everett enjoying bath time.

Someone is getting a little too big for the baby tub.

My little artist.

Our first visit to the ER

Sofia and Everett both had minor colds starting on Friday but were doing a lot better Sunday morning. On Sunday morning Sully woke up with cold symptoms. By bedtime he was really struggling. He woke up two hours after we put him to bed screaming and having a really hard time breathing. Tim and I kept him upright to ease his breathing and called our pediatrician. I don't want to be the mom that overreacts to things but Sullivan's breathing was getting worse and worse. After observing Sullivan for another 30 minutes and talking to the triage nurse Tim and I agreed that we wanted to bring Sullivan in to the hospital. He's still so young and had breathing issues when he was born and the rate at which he went from ok to bad really scared us. So around 11:30pm I packed up the diaper bag and Sullivan and took him to the ER in Grafton. Tim stayed home with Ev & Sofia who were fast asleep. I'm so thankful that we are in Wisconsin and not in Memphis where I probably would've waited hours to be seen at an ER. Our pediatrician had called ahead and as soon as we walked in they knew who we were and brought us back. We did a few tests to see what Sullivan's oxygen levels were as well as pulse and heart rate. The doctor then decided he wanted to do a chest x-ray to see how Sully's lungs looked. The x-rays were the saddest thing I've ever taken part in with Sullivan. The radiologist was so sweet and caring but we had to put Sully in awkward positions to get good pictures. It was so sad seeing this tiny little body on the huge table. Despite all of the testing and struggling to breath Sullivan smiled at every doctor and nurse. I enjoyed holding him on my chest in between each test. Holding him straight up against my chest really helped him breath as well. The doctor concluded that he has a viral infection, likely bronchitis. It was amazing how sweet every person was the we encountered, nurses, doctors and receptionists. We left the ER around 2am and tried to sleep but both Sullivan and Everett woke up at 4am. I took Sully back to his pediatrician in the morning for a follow up visit and they gave him some steroids to help with the breathing. I'm happy to report that he is 100% better today. It's amazing what a sweet disposition he kept throughout the whole ordeal, Tim always says you could hang Sullivan upside down by his toenails and he'd still be smiling. I don't know where the phrase comes from but it's the truth, he is one happy, easy-going little kid. Hopefully this is our last ER visit for a while but who knows with two boys and our daredevil little girl. Moments like these make me so appreciative of being able to stay home with my kids.

Extra snuggles with Dad when he's not feeling well.