sawyer: three years old

Our nugget is officially three years old! I think having his birthday party before his actual birthday may have confused him just a bit, but by the end of the day, he was convinced that it was indeed his birthday. Of course, the cupcake with candles might have had a little something to do with it.

We had a great day of visiting with family and opening presents. Three year olds are hard to buy for when they have an older brother with lots of fun toys. We stuck to the something want, wear, need, read; we compromised on the reading part just a bit as the boys have about a gazillion books already. We bought Cayden an upgraded Leap Frog reader; Sawyer wasn't quite ready for that jump yet, so we settled on a Leap Pad2. Seems to be a big hit so far! His need was a new bicycle helmet – Hulk smash! And another mashable (again, Hulk) to go with their growing collection. And y'all Target has won with their v-neck tshirts this year. They just added a few more colors, so I couldn't resist getting Sawyer a green one for his birthday. And, as an added bonus, he got the Lego Movie. Everything IS awesome!

boys and dirt.

My mom posted an image to Facebook this morning that said:

boy, n
1. noise with dirt on it

Can I get an amen from anyone with a boy? Cause, amen! And you know, I imagine if we ever have a girl, she's probably going to be the same way. But you know what? Dirt? It's free. And it entertains forever if you let it. The only side effect? Needing a bath. They probably need a bath anyway most of the time. So sure, kiddos, play in the dirt. It's all fun and games until someone gets dirt in their eyes. Am I right, Cayden?

sweet dreams, little one.

Since sleeping in his crib during the night has been going so well, we decided to let him try a daytime nap. And well, I think the photos show that he naps pretty well in his crib too. I put away the pack & play that's been set up in our room since we brought Graham home. Part of me was really sad to move him to his own room, but the other part of me was happy to have him in his own little space. I think Jeremy and I are both sleeping more peacefully, but are ready to jump up and get to his room quickly should the need arise.

Oh, and naked baby? Yeah, we still haven't quite gotten the reflux under control. I dress him for the day, and if he messes that outfit up, he's naked for the rest of the day. Plus? Those diapers are pretty cute; I don't mind seeing him in just those all the time.

this one.

Sawyer is all boy. All boy. Playing in the dirt seems to be a favorite of his lately. I mean, look at him. Dirt everywhere and he couldn't care less. It's just a part of him. He sees a bug or spider and if you mention killing it, you might get a "but he's my best friend" response from him. Peeing outside? Yep, he's a fan of that too.

::record scratch::

Peeing outside? Um, yep. During soccer season, it was sometimes easier to walk into the woods rather than risk an accident on the way to the bathrooms that are entirely too far from where the younger kids practice. And once Sawyer got to pee in the woods, that's where he wanted to go every time. But y'all, we were having a hard time training this one, so we just went with it.

I didn't think we'd ever get him potty trained, but once it clicked with him, it stuck. Getting him trained during naps and overnight? It was definitely never going to happen. Until we realized that if we kept putting him in pull-ups, he would probably just keep using them. So one night a few months back, we just kept him in his underwear. It might have been a slip on our part, but you know what? He woke up dry. We tried it out at nap time the next day. Woke up dry.

He's woken up dry more days than not. In fact, there may have been two/three overnight accidents total. And it's so cute when it does happen. He'll walk in our room and say, "Mommy/Daddy? I'm soaked!" But really, it's only happened a couple of times, so we'll take the cute phrase.

Sawyer's four days shy of his third birthday and completely potty trained. And we're so, so glad and proud of him.

daddy, mama & graham

Sometimes it's easy to forget to get in the photo when you're always taking the photos. So this past weekend, after I caught a special moment between Graham and Jeremy, I literally forced the camera into Jeremy's hand and told him to take my picture. Does my hair look great? Um, nope. Could I probably use a little more concealer to hide some circles under my eyes? Most definitely. But Graham will never be that exact age, and look just like that again. So maybe he looks adorable and I look a little rough. But do you know how many cares I give? None. I just care to be in the photos occasionally and that alone is perfection for me.

graham: two months old

And two months down. You would think with this being our third time doing this, nothing would throw us. Simply not true. You may look like your older brothers just a bit, but dude, you've definitely thrown us off with this reflux thing. As long as we remember to give you your medicine, we seem to be okay. You still spit up on your medicine, but if we forget, it's like gallons of liquids come from you. We're doing our best to remember, but sometimes it's hard – especially at night. We'll get there though!

You started smiling this month. And I can't even describe how that makes us feel. Your favorite time to smile is when we're changing a diaper. The dirtier the diaper, the more smiles you give. You think you're a funny one, sweet Graham. In the last couple of days you've started handing out the smiles more freely. And well, they're adorable. Usually open mouthed, but if there's a grin, it's usually accompanied by your tongue too. Good stuff.

We switched you to your crib the night before your two month day. You celebrated by sleeping for nine hours straight. So, the crib it is! We've only had to sprint in there once due to some scary spit up sounds over the monitor, but again, we forgot your medicine the night before. Mama and daddy are very blessed to have a third great sleeper. Thank you for that.

You are starting to "talk" a little bit now. Sometimes it starts off as a cry, but ends with you just making sounds. You especially like to talk to Cayden. Seems as though you two are going to have a special connection and we like seeing that develop.

Your loves: smiling, eating, pooping, sleeping and your big brothers
Your dislikes: not eating quick enough, having a dirty diaper and being cold

weeks five through eight

brothers and bath towels.

When Sawyer was born, we did a comparison photo of him and Cayden after their first baths at home. We kept meaning to do that with Graham, but I guess with two older boys at home, other things seemed more important. But last night, the older two were happily playing after dinner while we gave Graham a bath in the kitchen sink. And I had an "aha!" moment and asked Jeremy to grab the camera. Even though Graham is a few weeks older than the other two in this photo, he's actually not all that much larger than Sawyer was in his photo (being born at over 8.5 pounds will do that I guess!). So here we are: All of our boys in their hooded towels. Looking a whole lot like brothers.

reflux.

These photos have absolutely nothing to do with the title. But mostly to show how many faces this little one can make in a very short period of time. Watching him sleep is entertainment all on its own.

But back to the title. Reflux. It's not something we've dealt with before, so it's a learning experience for us for sure. At first, Graham was just having some spit up issues after every feeding. That seemed normal enough. And then spit up started coming out his nose. Which apparently is normal after consulting with the Google. Over the last few weeks though, we were experiencing exorcism-type spit up. I'm talking about a bunch of liquid going distances that just shouldn't happen.

Thankfully Graham has continued to put on weight. (Some might even say he's starting to get a bit chunky.) Our pediatrician was concerned enough though and sent us for an upper GI test last Thursday. I wasn't exactly sure what that process entailed, so again, I consulted Google and some close friends. I knew Graham would have to drink barium and that they would have to restrain his arms and legs.

Little dude was so hungry (he had to fast two hours prior, and since he's an every-two-hours eater, starving), he took the barium down like it was nothing. Getting to watch the barium go through his body on the x-ray machine was kind of surreal. The doctors got all the photos they needed, then fed him a little more barium to see if they could catch a reflux episode occur on screen. And sure enough, you could see it coming back up. Crazy.

We were prescribed Zantac and were told the taste would be awful. What no one told us was the taste would be so awful that it would cause Graham to spit up/throw up worse than ever. After two doses of Zantac and some major puking, we quit that drug as fast as we could. We consulted with our doctor again and were prescribed the generic version of Axid. While Graham still doesn't love the taste, it is going down much better. As of typing, he's had two doses and no puking from taking them, so we'll count that as a win. He's had a little spit up this morning, but nothing like what I dealt with yesterday morning (you guys don't even want to know), so again, we'll take that as a win.

We're hoping this is something that his little body will grow out of and we won't have to continue to give him drugs. Not being covered in liquid from your baby though? We'll take it as long as he needs it.

a star wars birthday party.

We did another joint birthday party for the older boys this year, and thankfully, they are still enjoying it! We'll see if that changes next year with Cayden going off to big boy school and making his own new set of friends. Hey, it worked for two years; we'll take what we can get!

Anyway, we kept it pretty simple this year. In years past, I would try to do too much and usually end up stressed out the day of the party. This year? Not so much. We kept it to a smaller group of people (Cayden did dictate the invites this year, so I suppose that's the start of that, huh?) and I decided to keep the menu smaller too. And not quite as many ornate/hard to make things.

Cayden requested a strawberry cake with white icing; Sawyer, chocolate cupcakes with white icing. Boxes of cake mix and icing bought, and ta-da! No fondant cakes for us this year! And you know what? I think the boys enjoyed it just a much. We made light sabers from pool noodles, and even that was a fairly easy task.

Also to note? We weren't still prepping when people arrived. In fact, we were done with about half an hour to spare. Believe me, that is quite the improvement over other parties we've thrown.

::pats self on back for being prepared this year. for once.::

We bought a fairly large sectional earlier this year. And totally put it to the test at the party. Including all the kiddos, it held thirteen people. Pretty impressive if you ask me!

And Cayden's favorite present. Which promptly ran out about 30 seconds later. But he loved every web-spraying minute of it!