Sleeping and Eating! (Developmental updates for later reference) 6-7months and MSO 2.5yrs

Well I absolutely do not want to jinx it.... But Christopher slept thru the night last night!!!!!!!  He had slept thru the night from 7pm-6am ish in Disney World a few times (no nursing, no waking, etc) so we knew he was capable of it; however he hadn't really done it at home. To give him credit he had been sleeping from 7pm - 4am/5am nursing and then going back to sleep til 8am for about 3 months..... So it wasn't awful and most people consider that sleeping thru the night. But we have been hopping to cut out the nursing at 4am. We hadn't done sleep training due to Mikaels busy season (OCT/NOV), sick (Dec) and teething (Dec/beginning of Jan) so we finally started 1/20 bc he was healthy and wasn't cutting any teeth.

It totally worked!!!! The 1st night he did wake up around 3am. Mikael went in at the timed intervals of 3 minutes, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10, 10..,,, for 30 seconds to reassure c he was ok and to offer a paci. After about 30 minutes he stopped crying/fussing and went back to bed. The sleep nurse reccomends doing this for 3 nights and having the dad do it due to the fact that te baby associates the mom with milk/nursing. The 2nd night Christopher slept from 7pm-6am.... No peeps! Imagine how excited we are!!!

On a side note, I have also tried "dream feeding" and maybe that has helped. I literally go into his room before I go to sleep and feed him and put him back into his crib.

Eating..... At 6.5ish months Christopher eats baby food 3x/day. He has baby yogurt for breakfast, 2 baby foods, puffs and yogurt bites for lunch (2nd foods 7oz total) and then eats dinner with us (2nd foods 7oz). We just switched to 3rd foods the last few days and he loves those too! So he is eating about 5 containers/jars of food a day! He likes eating when we are eating and he will let you know he isn't happy if he isn't being fed while a group eats in front of him.

We have offered non-puréed fruits, but he keeps spitting those out... So may keep trying later on.

Christopher has 4 teeth on the top and 2 on the bottom all through the actual gum! Poor guy is happy now but has been teething for about a month since they all came in around the same time!

And he is army crawling and rocking! He started back in December. But he officially can get anywhere on a flat surface pretty quickly!

He is still nursing every 3-4.5hrs and takes a bottle great too.

Finally, he is a great napper finally. I put him down fully awake for at least 2 naps a day. He will put himself to sleep. He loves his pacis and small lovie. He usually sleeps from 10-12 (2hr nap in the am) and then again for a 2hr nap in the afternoon. He has been napping like this for about a month consistently.

Mason is still an awesome sleeper! He goes to bed between 7-8pm and sleeps til 7-8:30am.  He takes 1 nap a day. Usually from 1-3/3:30. We are at the point where we can push it back a bit, but he will ask to go to sleep if he's tired ;) and I would say he is totally potty trained! We started at 27 months (September) and he was wearing big boy undies all day without accidents by November 29 months. He only wears a pull up at nap and bedtime. He is typically dry after nap time. He even asks for "privacy" now which is just hilarious!

More holiday pics

Holiday pictures and Greyson and Sophie's 1st birthday party!

The holidays

This Christmas both boys came down with a cold the week before so we were so happy they were finally on the mend once we headed to Disney! Christopher ended up with Rsv and a double ear infection, while Mason just had a really bad cold and fever!

But it was a wonderful holiday anyways! Gigi and Grandad came Intown the week of Christmas and got lots of playtime! Christie, Jevon and Greyson came in on Tuesday evening! It was so great spending time with everyone and watching the kids play!

We went to Christmas Eve 4pm mass (for reference we arrived 30 minutes early and it was already standing room only) and then had dinner with at our house with both sides of the family. 

On Christmas we opened presents with Gigi, grandad, aunt Christie, uncle Jevon and Greyson which was fun! Then we headed to Mimi and papas to open presents with them and toots and Elliot!

Later that day we had a meal with both families and spent time playing with new toys!

On the 26th we went to Greyson and Sophie's 1st birthday party! It was adorable and fun!! Later that evening we went to Mimi and Papas to celebrate Christmas with the Jeppons!

These days...

I cried when I gave Frito Lay 8 weeks notice. I was scared to give up a successful career to be a stay at home mom.  Sure some days over the last 16 months have been crazy and challenging; and I joke to Mikael that I will be updating my resume on those days.  But I know in my heart and am 110% sure that I am doing exactly what I am meant to be doing at this point in my life.  I love being able to go on vacation whenever we want. And I feel so lucky that when family comes in town to visit, I don't have to worry about taking off work. I will never forget days like the last few when I basically spent all day with my boys, my mom and the Jeppson kiddos. Not a care in the world except what to feed them for meals and what time to go down for naps.  I know the term "blessed" is very trendy, but I feel that way everyday. I am surrounded by amazing, supportive family on the Parsonage and Olson side! We have adorable nieces and nephews and I have a feeling watching them grow up together is only going to get better. One of my goals of 2014 was to be more present and really appreciate the small moments in life. I feel like I accomplished that and will continue to do that in 2015. Another goal is to constantly remind those I love how much they mean to me. Life is short and the pace continues to speed up. I am thoroughly enjoying the ride and am so thrilled to be experiencing it with the people in my life. 

I was trying to get Christopher to take a nap while I sat on the chair next to my parents bed.... This is how it started out.....

Finally gave up and fell asleep!

The point of my post is that if I had been working I would probably be stressing about getting him to sleep so that I could finish up work and work on power points while he napped. Instead today it was so fun just playing wth him and trying to get him to fall asleep!

And how can I leave Mason out....too precious!