1 Month Old Today!

Well we survived the first month. Yup it's already here, Grady's one month birthday. It went by so fast. He weighed 7 pounds at his two week check up and was 20 inches long, so I'm sure he over 7 pounds now. He got his first little cold and is finally getting to the end of it. He eats every three hours sleeps 1 1/2 to 2 hours of that block and awake time is getting more responsive.

He has already experienced his first Easter and lots of hugs and kisses from all. I'm enjoying this infant phase more than ever before, but am starting to get anxious for his first smile and first 6 hour block of sleep. We are so happy to be a family of five and looking forward to all the months ahead.

Easter Egg Hunt

We had a great Easter. Our Easter Bunny only hides eggs when we are at church so the boys were really good in church this week. This was our first year doing the egg hunt inside, but the boys didn't say anything or seem to mind. It's way to cold and snowy to do this outside. It's certainly not Spring here yet. I attmepted my first Easter Dinner with turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I am officially ready to take on a Thanksgiving dinner because everything came out really good. Even my very picky husband, who grew up with better than high quality food from his Mom and Grandmother, said it was really good. I was proud. We enjoyed our meal and the kids enjoyed some of their treats. We truly had a great day. Happy Easter everyone.

Bath Time

Just sharing some more moments, he loves being in the bath on his tummy like this. He is crying or just right uncomfortable the other way but every time I flip him over like this to rinse or wash his back he calms right down and tucks his body in. Perfect Anne Geddes shot except for the lack of behind. He has Hayden's butt, the non existent butt.

Easter Egg Decorating

It doesn't seem possible that Easter is here already, but I keep telling myself it's because it's so early this year. This is our first year in Maine for Easter. Even though we lived here for Easter last year we decided to take our trip to Utah during April last year, so we were able to enjoy the warm spring air and traditional Easter breakfast at Grandma Sue's with chocolate milk and all kinds of goodies.

It was also a tradition for Grandma Sue to decorate Easter eggs with the kids. So Mom had to take that task on this year and I have to say the mess was minimal and the kids did really well. They loved coloring the eggs.

Coy loved scooping his egg out with the spoon and dropping so it would splash and Hayden of course was ever so careful so his egg wouldn't crack. They each got to do five eggs, one of each color.

Hayden was especially excited to be doing this because he believes the Easter Bunny will be so happy with him for decorating eggs for him. You can see him in the middle of flapping his arms on the left. The classic sign of excitement for Hayden.

They boys were admiring their eggs once they were all colored, but they didn't know we still had shiny foil to put on them.

Hayden loved putting the extra foil colors on his eggs and had to use a different color on each egg. I got Coy to put the foil on his eggs but he wasn't interested because on his first egg that he attempted the foil, it cracked and he quickly discovered how much fun it is to peel and crumble eggs. I had to tell him the whole rest of the time not to crack the rest of his eggs, since he found it especially felt cool to put the egg in his fist and squeeze and watch the yellow and white ooze out of his hand.

Here they are the finished product. Beautiful huh? I'm sure the Easter Bunny will for sure love them and give them extra candy in their plastic eggs for all their hard work. In case any of you were wondering Grady was sleeping through the whole thing. So it was a great time for the boys without the baby.

My 3 Little Men

Here they are, my three little men. They are doing so well with Grady. Hayden wants to know where he is and wants to hold him once in a while, but other than that he just goes about his day as usual. Coy has surprised me greatly. I thought he would be jealous, but instead has been very loving and concerned for his baby brother. Anytime he sees him laying down he gently rubs his head and every night gives him hugs and kisses. He never tries to poke eyes or anything and any time he hears Grady cry he hands me his binky so I can make him better. A true big brother.

Grady is officially 3 weeks old as of yesterday. It goes by so fast. He is sleeping better and has formed a great eat time, awake time, sleep time schedule. He is consistently going three hours between feeding and puts himself to sleep with only about 5 minutes on average of fussing. What a good baby. I am so blessed to have 3 great healthy boys.

Little Yoda

So I think Grady is absolutely beautiful and adorable. What else would I think he is my own child, but sometimes he makes faces that make him look like a beautiful adorable Yoda or ET look alike. It makes me laugh he especially looks funny in this hat, which looks cute on the rack but not so great on baby. He was not happy with me in this picture because I kinda forced the binky so he would stop crying and open his eyes for the picture. Needless to say I had to be quick but had success.

I just love this one I think he looks so beautiful and healthy here. He is a good baby, this is during his happy awake time. Which, with the exception of one to one and a half awake times, he is always content and happy.

Sleeping Grady

Grady had a little bit of Jaundice so we put him in the sun for a couple of days just to be safe and it cleared right up. Thanks to Grandma Sue we have a bouncer again which has come in very handy. With two little boys running wild through the house we can't just lay him on the floor on a blanket like we could Hayden and even Coy occasionally. Even when we lay him in a perfectly safe place he is so small the boys forget and he has almost got sat on a few times. I had to take a picture of Grady in this red sleeper. It's a preemie size and he won't fit in it much longer, but it's so small it would fit a doll. We have pictures of Coy in this too. It's hard to believe our big boy Coy was this small once. Makes me sad our little family is growing up.

More Grady moments

Finally I am able to put more than just one quick picture of Grady on our blog. Our computer has been acting up and I ended up having what is called a spinal headache. I didn't have the classic symptoms so it took me till Friday to finally try what they called a blood patch to see if it worked. For those of you who don't know a spinal headache is when the hole from the needle they use doesn't seal up after and you leek spinal fluid in you spine, which causes quite painful headaches. Thank goodness the blood patch worked, they took 20 cc's of my blood and injected in my spine, not a very pleasant experience but worth every discomfort to get rid of those headaches.

Now that I'm feeling better, everything is going great. Grady is figuring out life in the smith family and the boys are doing great with him. He is only notices once in a while by them, but Hayden is very excited to teach Grady how to crawl and has already made one unsuccessful attempt.

Coy like him but took some convincing to hole him. He said he was too small, but he is very aware when he is crying and let's me know. They are also aware when he is not around and ask where he is, we couldn't ask for a better adjustment from them so far. It's like it hasn't even fazed them.

Travis is also doing very well with him. Holding him more than he did the other two and helping a lot around the house and with the boys.

Grady loves to be held and cuddle and doesn't like to sleep in his bed, but we are working on it. So far his favorite place to sleep is his car seat. He has the most adorable cry and is eating well.

I love this picture of Travis and him. Grady didn't really cry much when he came out in fact it was about an hour before he let out what I thought was a good yelp, but he was a little distressed and he calmed right down when Travis did this.

Another one of him after he just came out his hair is actually quite wavy when it's wet.

Welcome to the world Grady. For those who are interested there is another picture of him after the snow pictures with his measurements.

Snow Snow Snow!

The snow we have received this year is record breaking. The most snow Maine has ever received, EVER! We have a very wide driveway and our plow guy has told us he doesn't know where he is going to put it any more. Driving in town there are huge snow blowers, blowing the snow banks into dump trucks. Here are a few pictures of all our wonderful snow.

This is a path we have to keep clear because it's where our oil tank gets filled up, also the entry way to our screened in porch on the right side of our house.

This is just a snow banking on the side of our driveway it is well above my head.

You can barely see the top of our porch railing but it's still there. Our porch stretches across the front of our house and the snow bank is this high the whole way across. Again at least a foot or more taller than me.

The path to the mane entry way to the house on the left side. Unfortunately it's also the longest pathway to the house but it leads to the mud room which we definetly want to use with all this wet snow.

Another angle of the main entry way path. The snow banks probably come up to my shoulders. And we still have another good months of snow ahead of us. Say a prayer that we don't all flood out of our homes this spring, which is my biggest concern right now. The whitest winter ever.