The best part of maternity leave is obviously taking the time away to bond with my new little one.  The next best thing.... to get to spend some extra time with our little big 2 year old!

Potty trained before I go back to work??  We'll see about that one.  However he does show interest before and after his bath, which is where we started Aiden.

"GYMBO FRIDAYS"!!


Liam's own time with his little brother...



 What, you don't all eat your brownies from up on the counter???

My sister in law, that was due just 3 weeks after me had her baby on 03-09-12!!!  A GIRL!!  She was an itty bitty princess weighing only 6 pounds, 6 ounces.. That's sooo tiny for this family of big babies.  Oh wait... maybe those are just mine that come out huge.  HA!

Congratulations again Jamie and Erik.  We love you guys and are so excited that we get to raise the cousins together!!

Visiting at their house...


And this was the build up to our little one's arrivals...

From left to right...
My weeks: 26, 29, 32, 36, 38
Jamie's weeks: 23, 26, 29, 33, 35

These two were born 3 weeks and 2 days apart, and were 2 lbs difference in size!!  WOW!

Look who's a month old already!!

Of course, just like last time, we're wondering where the time has gone.  Our last baby is a month old already.  He's such the perfect addition to our family.  He's such a little joy.  The first two weeks we could barely get him to wake up.  At week 3 I was waiting for him to turn on us.  He did, for like 2 days.  I thought, oh no, not again!!  HA!  But I made a little change to my diet and we had a happy baby again!!  As of today, he still only has about 3 to 4 wake periods a day that last roughly an hour.  He eats every 2 hours, sometimes sooner.  At the beginning of the night he'll go 3 hours... but I think that my laziness with his night time burps gets the best of us both, and by the wee hours of the morning mommy becomes pretty tired of the hourly wake up calls.  He doesn't really cry.... he is another grunter like Liam was.  His grunting will wake me up.  I'll pick him up and get a nice burp.. but then he's hungry again!  Of course he is!!  duh!  I know that this is gonna happen and every night I swear I'll do better.  But we're both just so sleepy.  :)  His name means full of goodness, and so far he's fulfilling the part.  He doesn't get too worried about Liam's craziness, he goes pretty much unaffected by it.  It worries me more than him.

We're adjusting pretty well here at home!  Loving on this little guy every chance we all get!  Aiden loves encouraging him during belly time, and Liam wants to kiss his head every chance he gets!

If Declan is awake...they both want to give him a thousand kisses before their bedtime.  Nice stall tactic that mommy will allow... for now!


Now that daddy is back at work at night.... I have to get my snuggles in during the day so I can tend to the other kiddos at night!  I will forever miss these times when he's over sleeping on me.

We've made it out to a few soccer games....

This is how we roll when it's just mommy and the older boys.  We walk the track at Aiden's practice like this and he's pretty comfy in his wrap!

We've even stayed overnight in a hotel in Lancaster with Daddy.  The boys did GREAT, and it was rather peaceful.




As you can see... I'm soaking up these times...


We also went to Aiden's spring musical, and Cami came too!!...

All clean and fresh... thank you mommy!!

I worked with her to design it.. and even though I had to read it when I was laying it out for design, I didn't really pay much attention to what it was actually saying because I didn't have a DSLR to relate to it.  Our company even prints it for her, and I still never kept myself a copy!!  So while Drew thought it was funny to put it in there, I LOVED it!!

So the days after Christmas I spent reading it, and trying to understand my new camera.  I called Drew right away to tell her how well it was written.  And even though I did read it during the design process, without a camera in hand, I never fully understood how well written it was!  How clearly it reads, and how easily it is to truly understand!  It's seriously AWESOME! in every way!  If you have a DSLR camera and have no idea how to shoot in manual, or it's just flat out too intimidating, you need to go buy the UNManual!!

My first time playing with my camera I failed, and I became completely intimidated by it all over again.  The photos were completely out of focus.  Just when I thought I understood it, I found out that I really didn't.  I couldn't remember what settings that were giving me good photos, etc.  So I read it again....   and this is what I got on my third try!!  I'm so happy, this new challenge is so much fun!!







So read it, shoot, read it again, shoot again, read it again, there will be things that you didn't see the first time or passed over because you didn't now how to apply it.

BTW... this is such a great gift to receive and Mother's Day is right around the corner!!  ;)  hint hint to your hubbies now!!!

Are we having fun yet??  Yup!!  He sleeps, A LOT, a lot like Aiden did as a newborn.  However, I'm still waiting for that 3 week mark to see if we're gonna stay a chill baby like his oldest brother was.  Aiden was an easy peezy newborn... unlike Liam.  Liam was high maintenance since our days in the hospital.   I swear, I could do this newborn stage over a thousand times over again.  Maybe once the kids are older I'll be an infant nanny, and yes, call me crazy, but if was my job, I could also be one of those night nannies that some can afford.  There is just something peaceful about those night time feedings, just me and Declan.    I'm still waiting to find out when our witching period is... cause all babies have them right?  Is this what they do to the third child?  Make them so you want a 4th?  HA!

So far we haven't been up to much since I can't really do anything on my own yet.  Finally cleared to drive, but still a little scared to venture out of the house with all three by myself.  With the C-section, I'm still a little scared that Liam will make me work to hard.  So for now, we've been watching a lot of movies, eating a lot of popcorn, and pretty much just chillin at the home front.  We did manage to make it out to one of Aiden's soccer game last weekend.  That was NOT fun!  It was sunny/windy.  As we were walking up to the field Declan is crying cause he's hungry.  Alex gets our chairs all situated, I sit down and start nursing, Liam sits downs and as Alex is getting ready to warm the boys up, WAM!  Liam get's racked in the head by a soccer ball.  We get him to calm down and figure out that we have to walk all the way to the other side of the school to another field.  So we load everything back up and make our way over there with two crying kids.  But once we got all settled we were fine.  I'm pretty sure I hear that that is what the first outing is suppose to be like.  Thankfully Alex was still right there so I didn't have to deal with both screaming kids.  I wasn't in a state of emotional control to handle that situation alone!  :)

Back to the home front these last two weeks... this is what it's been looking like so far....

We had our two week appointment on Leap Day, and little man is in the 90th percentile for both weight and height!!!  No surprise to us though.  The other two were exactly the same... I am not one that produces small babies!!