The pictures

that have been missing from all my posts. There's plenty to make up for the lack in the last two posts.

These were in February. Yes, shorts in February. At 9am. Love it.

The boys love eating "toast with treat" (nutella) but let's just say it's not the neatest treat around.

We threw a "Milkaholic" shower for Robin while I was up for spring break. We also had another combined one for her and my cousin Megan, but I forgot my camera for that one.

My mom is amazing.

We took a little trip up to Copperton Park in Bingham City. It was so fun to take the boys there since I have so many memories of playing there when I was growing up.

Miles enjoyed his snug little sauna while we played in the cold. Fleece carseat covers are great inventions for the winter, it was sweltering in there.

                                                             (in case you can't tell I'm swinging)

Grandma had to make sure it worked before the boys used it. ;)

Caden is one of the most expressive people you'll ever meet. I laugh daily at normal things he says because he says them with the craziest facial expressions and intonations. I tried to catch some of his expressions while he was telling me a story, but I should probably just post a video to give the full effect.

Hopefully I'll get a little better at posting more often so it doesn't have to be picture overload when I do, but I'll be honest, I don't have a whole lot of free time these days. As my mom says, "It's a good busy," and I love it.

Two Months

I post-dated the last post. Apparently I started writing it on his one month birthday and never actually finished or posted it. It's pretty wordy, but I decided to put it up anyway. Miles is now 2 months old and over 9 lbs and gaining about an oz and a half a day! The little tyke has a few rolls on each thigh and plenty of chin to go around. Oh how I love chubby babes! At one month he was growing out of preemie clothes, now he is beginning to grow out of newborn outfits! It makes me a little sad, but happy to see his personality. He is super chill. I had over 20 ultrasounds with him and Jonathan and I were really worried something was wrong because in most of them he wasn't moving much at all and the tech would have to use an alarm they put up to your belly to try to wake him up. I also didn't feel him moving much and did kick counts pretty much all day because I never felt much. Now we realize the kid is just mellow, rarely getting upset and easily consoled when he does. He'll just grunt for a while to let us know he's not happy about something and if that doesn't work he'll resort to crying, but we can usually make him happy before that happens. After colicky Caden, I'm feeling pretty blessed to have an easy one for my third! With my first I was so excited to see him hit each milestone and then one day I realized he would never be little again and it was so depressing, so with my second I was always a little sad that he was growing and just wanted him to stay little. I think I'm at a good place now, I enjoyed the heck out of his first few weeks home, literally doing nothing but loving my boys, and I feel satisfied that I got all the newborn snuggles in that I could. I'm still want a brand-new newborn to snuggle, but I love the little baby he's becoming. I still am amazed at how new babies fill your heart to the brim with love and make you forget other cares, like the fact that your house is trashed or you haven't lost any baby weight since leaving the hospital :)  I'm doing a little better at keeping my house clean these days and I'm trying to squeeze in a little exercise besides walks to the park. Jonathan and I played in a softball game at the law school and when I saw myself in the pictures after I decided it's time to quit laying on the couch all day and eating whatever I want! Speaking of that, I haven't exactly been able to eat what I want... poor Miles is allergic to dairy, which means no milk for me, and in this case, no milk products either. At all. He kept breaking out in hives after we brought him home so our pediatrician recommended cutting out dairy to see if it helps since he's too young for an allergy test. I did, and within a couple days the hives stopped. A few weeks later I decided to try milk again and see if it affected him. I spent 24 hours enjoying ice cream, cheese, and all the yummy desserts at a friend's baby shower, and exactly 24 hours after my first bite of dairy the babe got hives, diarrhea, and spent the next few days crying all day and screaming when he pooped. I felt like the world's worst mother. Since some kids are more sensitive than others, I decided to eat just a little butter and see if that affected him and, again exactly 24 hours later, he got hives and diarrhea. I didn't have any dairy for a few weeks and I wanted to see if he was getting any less sensitive so this week I decided again to have just a little butter on a breadstick and I'm sure you can guess what happened. So I'm done. I feel so awful when he's crying and pooping and it's not that fun to have a crabby baby either, so I'll be dairy-free till he's done nursing. At least his reactions were so quick and obvious that we could figure it out before he got to the bloody diarrhea stage or anything like that. I was pretty bummed about my new diet at first, but I have some friends whose kids have the same issues so I've gotten good advice from them for substitutes and replacements, and the Best Life butter that's made with olive oil totally tastes like regular butter and works especially great for baking, so I think I'll survive :) 
Anyway, besides emptying our fridge of dairy, Miles has filled our home with joy already. I don't know if it's just because I'm more aware this time or not, but the Spirit he brought with him into our home was amazing. Our entire family has felt so happy since his coming and our home really has felt like heaven on earth. Even the big boys seemed to get along better and be much happier than before. They sure love their little brother and I'm sure he's going to get tired of the constant kisses and hugs soon. And man can that boy smile. He started smiling at 3 weeks, my earliest smiler for sure, and at first it was just every few days, then once a day, then suddenly ALL DAY LONG. Whenever he's awake he's smiling, even if he's spitting up, has hiccups, is peeing on me while I change his diaper, or is being carried through the halls at church, his mouth is in a wide-open toothless gape at everyone he sees. The only drawback is when I put him down to go to sleep, swaddled like a burrito and with a binky in his mouth, he'll sit and smile at me and I just want to pick him up and play with him some more. And sometimes I do. But after we had Easton who had to be fed to sleep every time, we decided to let the next two go to sleep on their own and it's been so wonderful. They don't ever have to cry in their cribs or be put to sleep by someone cuz they're used to doing it themselves from day one. Unless they get overtired of course, then they need a little help sometimes. We did it with Caden and he's never cried when he's gone to sleep so we're hoping it works the same with Miles (Thank you Baby Whisperer!).
On to other things, Jonathan has 6 weeks of school left! Woo hoo! We still don't have something lined up for the summer so we're looking in both Utah and Vegas. The problem is we want something that will potentially lead to a job after school. He's applied a few places we haven't heard back from yet, but the ones in Utah said they have tons of applicants so we're not too confident we'll be back up for this summer. We'll see though! We'll be up for Ashlee's wedding next month and my brother David and his wife Robin just had little Henry (the first Harward cousin for my boys!!) and we're so excited to come up and meet him. We got to go home for Jonathan's spring break this month and go to two showers for Robin, Ashlee's first endowment session at the temple, and we also blessed Miles while we were up there. We were hoping Robin would have the baby while we were there, but he waited till 5 days after we left to make his appearance.  He had to wait for the opening day of City Creek. (Robin is a fashion design major so she needs a little shopping buddy :) ). 
Vegas has been awesome lately. Tons of sun and blue skies and 70+ degree weather. We even went to the pool yesterday! We've been taking lots of walks to the park, although I still try not to go too far since I don't want to have to call someone to come pick me up. Three months of lying on the couch really takes a toll on your body! I seriously have no muscle tone at all and my back aches every day by the evening. I feel so stinkin' old! I'm so used to feeling strong and capable and independent, but now I've gone from running a half marathon before I got pregnant to being worried about whether I'll be able to make it one mile to the park and back. Oh well, this will just be a long, slow recovery. But boy oh boy is this boy worth it! :)

One Month

Unfortunately I have no pictures for this post, but I just wanted to write about Miles at this age because I know in a week or two he will have changed again.

He's already over 6 1/2 lbs! His little legs that were sticks when we brought him home now have a little meat on them. His face is filling out, his wrinkly skin is smoothing, he actually seems to fit in his car seat, and he only fits in a couple of his preemie outfits.

We've been inside. A lot. Normally, I can't stay home. When I was on bedrest I'd be constantly telling Jonathan to take the kids to the park cuz they needed to get out of the house and we finally decided that I'm the one who has the issue with staying home, I always have to be on a walk or at the park or the grocery store or something. Well, all that has changed. I have been such a homebody since Miles came home. There may be several days in a row where I don't even get out of my pajamas. And I love it. The house is usually a mess, the boys are in their pjs all day too, dinner is super simple, but I am having the time of my life snuggling little balls of sweetness and playing with the big ones when the baby's asleep. It's amazing how a new little one fills your heart so full you think it will explode but it also makes you love everyone else in your family so much more. I seriously doubt that I've ever been as happy as I am right now.

Speaking of being home, that will probably become a more normal thing for a while. I took all three to Smith's one day this week and then to storytime at the mall and the playground another day. Let's just say.... I need a little adjusting to this handling 3 little kids business. My idea of how things would go and how they actually went were totally different. Did you know if you put the carseat on top of the car cart you can't see over it? So you have to constantly be looking around it. And the car carts are already ginormous anyway so it's hard to steer even when you can see where you're going. And your other two kids might not even want to stay in the car cart and instead "help" you put stuff in the cart. And while they're doing that you may be checking your list and not be able to see them putting stuff in the cart anyway. And this may all be after a doctor's appointment you had to wait for a while at with all three kids so you may or may not be wiped out already. That day, you might become a mom who lets their kids get the giant sugar cookies at the bakery that are the size of their heads and piled with 4 inches of frosting and then also let them get Cookie Crisp in the cereal aisle because they ask for it so cute and you're too tired from getting 3 hours of sleep to bother saying anything. Not that they would have objected if you would have told them they couldn't have it, really they were being well-behaved, you were just too tired to care about how it would spoil their dinner. Remember how I said I've never been happier than I am right now? Well I was telling the truth, but I may just not plan grocery shopping trips after doctor's appointments with all three littles anymore. It may have worked before, but things are much more tiring when you're already tired.

Speaking of sleeping, Miles is actually a great little sleeper (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!).  After Caden..... I was pretty nervous. But Miles not only looks more like his brother Easton, he also sleeps more like him. That's why I'm blogging at 10:30pm instead of zonked out in bed. During the day he eats every 3 hours, sometimes even a little closer together. But he seems to get that night time is for sleeping and he'll usually do a good 5 hours stretch the first stretch of the night. We used to wake him up to feed him, but the kid is gaining weight like a champ so I figure if he's fine getting an extra couple of hours of sleep, so are we! He doesn't have a problem with sleeping at night, but during the day can be more challenging. He still gets overtired VERY easily and will have a hard time going to sleep and/or staying asleep sometimes. I'm still trying to figure out how to prevent this, but so far no luck. He has an alert time for a few hours every morning and every evening and by the end of the day he's usually done. I feel like I'm still figuring that part out with him, but at least he's got days and nights down!