I've been wanting to try my own hand at some sibling portraits since Andrew was born, but days and weeks have gone by with nothing to show for my wishes.  Kids that have been sick on and off, a chronically tired Mama, and regular life have all conspired against me up until this point.  But the stars aligned yesterday and we did it!

The big kids both wanted to sit in the Bumpo that I set up for Andrew (who doesn't like it much yet, probably because hes not really stable enough for it anyway), so I let them each take a turn in it while I took some "practice" pictures.  Imagine my surprise and delight when I realized that I got some great expressions from both of them!






Then it was on to my main purpose - trying to get a picture of all three kids together.  This didn't go smoothly at all!  Andrew was fussy and spitting up, Nathan wanted nothing to do with Andrew because of the spit up, and Sarah was hungry and lost interest quickly.  I was able to salvage this one shot, though its kind of funny with Andrew "smiling" with closed eyes. 


We took a break for lunch, after which Andrew fell asleep on my shoulder even though he had just gotten up from his nap!  For some reason he was SO SLEEPY yesterday during the day, probably from his late evening of fussing the night before and preparing for another evening of fussing to come (bedtimes with Andrew are NOT going well these days).  Since he was asleep I thought I might be able to get a few cute shots of him by himself, but Nathan popped through the door and begged to be in another picture with Andrew (have I mentioned how much Nathan adores his brother?!).  So I got this sweet shot of my two boys!


Andrew at 6 weeks old. 


I was thrilled with the results from my photo shoot, so I think I'll try to do it again in a few weeks!  I do want to say that I read some great tutorials that really helped me get such nice pictures, so I want to pass them along to anyone whose interested.  They're from a blog called "Its Always Autumn" and I recommend this post series on newborn photograph and this on a DIY backdrop and this one on using window light.  

Well, this past week and a half has been pretty interesting weather-wise.  It started a week ago Monday with a rain/sleet/snow combination that got Brian out early from what was supposed to be a long day at work (hooray!).  The next day Daddy had the day off post-call and school was canceled for the kids, so we headed out in the morning to play in the snow.  Things didn't go quite as planned - Nathan and Daddy went down the big hill in our backyard (too big Brian decided upon reflection), but inexplicably Nathan got upset while walking up the hill (not upset about the sledding though) and came inside crying.  Sarah made it outside but within two minutes was complaining about being cold, so she came in upset too.  Brian and I were pretty frustrated with them, so I announced that we would be going back out that afternoon whether they wanted to or not. 

Our afternoon outing was much more successful!  We got Sarah bundled up more thoroughly which made her a happier camper, and Nathan was just in a better mood.  Our first order of business was finding icicles to suck on (funny, I sense a theme going on about eating cold things!). 


Then we headed to the side yard to sled.  Daddy and Nathan started us off...


... then they realized that both kids could fit on the sled with Daddy, so everyone enjoyed a few more runs all together. 


As much as I wanted to sled down the hill at least once, we decided it wasn't the best idea while holding Andrew in the sling. 


The rest of the week the cold temperatures dragged on and on, causing the ice to stick around and school to be canceled day after day.  By Wednesday night the kids and I were already going stir crazy, so when I found out school was canceled for the rest of the week, I texted some girls from church and invited people over for a play date on Thursday morning.  We had tons of fun and decided to meet the next morning for free play at a nearby gym.  That was also a huge success and made last week bearable.

Things were looking up over the weekend, but school was canceled AGAIN on Monday (not that it affected us, but still!), and then Monday night brought more snow.  I didn't measure how much, but we got a couple inches to play in.  Sarah wasn't interested in braving the cold on Tuesday morning and I didn't feel like trying to convince her, so Nathan and I headed out to play after Andrew went down for his monring nap.

By the time I got out, Nathan had already discovered that the snow was way too powdery to be packable, but we had fun stomping around and kicking the snow, and to his delight I even let him play at the edge of the street since there was so little traffic.  After a while we got into a snow fight, making do with handfuls of snow rather then snowballs. 




And I didn't even get this post finished before MORE snow came last night (Wednesday night).  This time we got PERFECT snowman-building snow, but I'll save those pictures for another post. 

One of our new friends from church is a photographer, so when she brought over a meal when Andrew was about 2 weeks old, she snapped some pictures of the family for us.  So sweet of her!!  And now that I have these pictures, I had no excuse not to finally update the blog header!

THIS!!


This is exciting.  More smiles today then yesterday and it was only about three days ago that I was only getting sleep smiles!  Newborns are adorable in their tininess and all, but really love as they grow and get a little more interactive.  Now, if he can just figure out that thing about going back to sleep at night after feedings...

The main news of the week is no surprise: Andrew just keeps getting heavier and chunkier!  (Compare to 3 weeks!) 


Knowing I was going to try to take pictures of Andrew today, this morning I dressed him in "real" clothes instead of one piece footie outfits he usually wears.  I brought him to the living room and Nathan and Sarah were amazed at his outfit.  "Is that his church clothes?!?"  Yeah, Mama's lazy and just rotates through the same 5 outfits since he outgrew his newborn clothes.  He even leaked through his diaper a little onto the white onesie under his long sleeve shirt and I decided it wasn't worth the effort of changing his clothes (3 pieces!!).  And lest you start thinking "poor Andrew", he's mysteriously leaked through the side of his diaper twice (pee) on me while I've been nursing him, and both days the spot was dry before I could change my shirt so I kept it on.  Its really no worse then the spit-up stains that I'm also always sporting, and if I were to change every time Andrew spit up on me I'd be doing a full load of laundry every day to keep myself clothed!

 Here are some outtakes from today's photo session:

Daddy decided to join us and mimic Andrew's expressions...



... and then a kiss for good measure.


Just in the past day or two we've started seeing a few smiles from Andrew, and here's a little smirk I caught.  


It might be just me, but this expression makes me chuckle.  You can also kind of see his baby acne that's come on in full force this past week - its really much worse then it looks in the picture.  

Andrew's taking after his two older siblings with his exponential growth during the first weeks of his life.  We go back to the doctor at 6 weeks for his next checkup.

Birth stats:
Weight: 8 lb 7 oz
Length: 20 in
Head: 13.75 in

Hospital Discharge Stats (2 days):
Weight: 7lb 14 oz

Andrew's stats at 3 days:
Weight: 8 in 1.5 oz  (60%)
Length: 19 3/4 in    (50%)
Head:    13.8 in       (60%)

Here's his stats at three and a half weeks:
Weight: 11 lb 0.5 oz   (90-95%)
Length:  21 1/8 in       (50%)
Head:    15 in              (75-90%)

At the three week checkup I was amused after the nurse had taken his measurements, she came back to double check his head circumference.  I guess she couldn't quite believe that his head had grown over an inch in three weeks and wanted to confirm her measurement!

Andrew also was hanging onto his umbilical cord stump for longer then usual.  Dr. Roberts (our pediatrician) said that if it wasn't off by 4ish weeks we could come back and they would put some silver nitrate to cauterize the cord stump and help it along its way.  But that turned out not to be necessary as it finally came off right before he turned 4 weeks old.  The funniest part is that Nathan kept calling the umbilical cord the "electrical cord", so he said "Mommy, Andrew's electrical cord finally came off!"

Last week I put Andrew down on the floor and Nathan rushed over to lie down next to him.  "Mommy do you want to take a picture of us?!"


Then Sarah decided she didn't want to be left out of the action.


Last Monday was the first time I went out running errands with all three kiddos.  We hit up Hobby Lobby to pick up Valentine supplies for the big kids and then made a stop at Walmart before heading home.  Andrew obliged by sleeping the whole time in the stores in my sling and the kids were super excited about their supplies to make V-day cards for their friends at school.


Evenings with Andrew are still completely unpredictable.  This particular evening Andrew did NOT want to go to sleep in his bed, but was completely content to just hang out in Daddy's lap.  We like to call him our "Baby Burrito" when he has his arms swaddled up like this.   He really likes to look at the pictures above the couch (which he usually examines when I'm nursing him there), so that evening he just stared at them until he fell asleep.  Daddy ended up falling asleep too, so they both got a good pre-bed nap. 


Well, Andrew's screaming to be fed, so I guess that's where this post ends!

As Boston continues to get pummeled with record-breaking snow and cold temps, we are so thankful not to be there this year! Brian asked me the other day "Don't you kind of wish we were there for all this snow?" and I said "Well, it would be cool (pun intended) for about 5 minutes, but really I'm so thankful NOT to have to deal with it!" That said, I wouldn't mind if the kids had some snow to play in this year, so when we had a dusting at the end of January that delayed school/preschool for two hours (I think the delay was really due to the cold temps), I got the kids all excited about playing in the snow.

Nathan was the first one bundled up and out the door and of course this was the first thing he did! 


I thought it was hysterical because neither of us had said anything about how he likes to eat snow, it was just his first instinct to taste it!


Sarah and I... not so much!  She did ask about going sledding, but I had to break it to her that we probably didn't have enough snow for that (though really I wasn't about to tackle the huge hill in our backyard without Brian!).


And Andrew?  He was quite content to be bundled up in my sling and sleep through the experience!


Nathan's current favorite outdoor activity is shoveling so that was the next project on his list.  I told him I thought the big shovel was slightly overkill for the amount of snow that we had on the ground, but he was determined. 


Sarah decided she needed to shovel too, but selected a much more appropriately sized tool.  However she was NOT interested in me taking pictures of her.  "NOOOOOO!" she was yelling at me!


But I stealthily took a few more when she was focused on her work.  But just like in Boston, Sarah got cold and fussy first and headed back inside.  She was content to sit on the couch and watch us out the window as Nathan and I continued to play. 


Nathan's next task was no easy one - he wanted to make a snowball!  It was painstaking work to collect enough snow off various surfaces to make one and boy was he proud of his growing creation. 



Then he challenged me to a snowball-making contest.  I had better luck collecting snow off the monkey grass then he was having collecting off of the rocks and other spots so when he called "time" I thought our snowballs were practically equal in size.  But he pronounced himself the winner. 


Packing that snowball tight!


We then combined our efforts and built the tiniest snowman ever!


He was super proud to show his snowman to Daddy when he came home from work, and surprisingly it was still around the next morning!  Since then we've had a few days with some snow, though nothing else has stuck to the ground... which at least makes it easier to get groceries!

Well, the big news is we think that Andrew might have blue eyes!!  So far in our family (immediate plus grandparents and Uncle James and Uncle David), all the boys have brown eyes and all the girls have blue eyes.  But Andrew's eyes look like they're lightening up to blue instead of darkening to brown, so he might buck the trend.  Gran did remind me that Granddaddy has blue eyes and Brian's Pepaw (Nana's dad) also had blue eyes.  So Andrew's taking after some pretty special great-grandfathers if we are correct!

Working on tummy time!

• We "measured" Andrew at home before his three week checkup and he was as tall as Nathan's jeans pockets and as tall as Sarah's belly button!
• Andrew's sleep habits still are completely unpredictable.  Early on Brian and I decided that he might sleep better during the daytime because he likes it light when he sleeps, so a few nights we tried leaving on my bedside light to "help" him go back to sleep during the night.  (I forgot how the middle of the night with a wide-awake newborn makes you eager to try ANYTHING to get that kid back to sleep.)  The next morning I told Brian that I wasn't sure that Andrew would notice whether the light was on or off when he was truly asleep - but then had to eat my words when I was carrying around a soundly sleeping Andrew and unintentionally gave him a face-full of sunshine streaming in a window and he bucked like I had physically slapped him!
• Andrew also likes to make LOTS of noise in his sleep - grunting, groaning, chuckling, fussing, crying, and the most distinctive and funny noise he makes reminds me of a machine gun!  He is a LOUD sleeper!
• This is just random, but I now remember it from the other kids too.  When I'm burping Andrew after a feeding, I'm almost certain to burp myself!

The other night when I posted part 1 of the family meeting Andrew, the memory card reader on my computer wouldn't work so I wasn't able to pull these pictures off my camera and include them.  But thanks to Brian (my hero who can fix basically everything!), the problem was resolved the next day.

Because of sickness (in our house and in theirs), Andrew didn't get to meet his Uncle David and Aunt Bridget until he was two weeks old.  But we fixed that last weekend when they came over for a visit and we got to catch up on each others' lives!

"Mommy, take a picture of us!" 


(Obviously hair brushes are optional on days spent at home.)