My babies are growing up!!!

I guess that’s obvious since I just made birthday posts for each one, but I’m not just talking about in number of years.

Izzy hasn’t nursed in almost a week! After devoting over a year of my life to nursing, it’s amazing how quickly we were able to stop! I was afraid that it would be hard on me emotionally, and it is a little bit, but I got to a point where I realized that it would really be best for us to not be nursing this winter; he LOVES cow milk, and there are going to be some situations in which it will be MUCH easier on both of us if we’re able to be apart for a while. My mom is having a hysterectomy in November, and we’re involved in some out-of-town weddings, so I think it will be best to be able to leave him with a sitter overnight as opposed to bringing him with me everywhere, or trying to find a sitter that’s close to where I’ll be. He doesn’t seem to mind drinking out of a cup at all, and the last couple times I nursed him, he would only nurse for a minute or two and then literally climb out of my lap! (As a side note to this, is it OK that I’m apparently still making milk? I’m not engorged or anything, but my breasts are definitely still heavy, and now they’re getting tender. There’s no rash or lumps, so I don’t think it’s mastitis. Is this normal? With Ava, I “dried up” in a day or two after I stopped pumping, but she was only about 7 weeks old when I stopped, and I never nursed her full time so I wasn’t making that much milk to begin with.)

Izzy also spent his first night in his sister’s room last night! We left the crib in there after moving her to her big girl bed with the intention of them sharing the room (we’re in a 2 bedroom apartment), but because of nursing and the babies having different sleeping habits, we’ve found it easier just to have Izzy sleep in the play pen in our room. Right now he’s sleeping through the night well, and it occurred to me this week that if he’s not nursing in the mornings anymore, there was really no reason to keep him in our room! It was getting to where he was sleeping a lot more lightly than he did when he was tiny, so when we would come to bed we would have to get ready in the dark and be very, very quiet so that we would not wake him up. So we tried him in Ava’s room last night, and they both did great! We didn’t hear a peep out of either of them! And Izzy actually slept longer this morning than usual; I’m guessing the crib mattress is a lot more comfortable than the thin play pen mattress! And, although it was a little sad to not have him near us after a year of having him there, it was very nice to be able to turn on the World Series on the bedroom TV and lie in bed with the lights on! Not to mention getting to be all by myself when I went to the bathroom this morning! (I realize that Izzy will probably go through several more phases where he wakes up a lot in the middle of the night, and when he does, we’ll probably put him back in our room for a while so that Ava can sleep.)

Ava is growing up rapidly as well…the main thing I can think of that she’s accomplished is I taught her to write the letter “A” yesterday! It was a lot easier than I thought, and she even learned how to write both uppercase and lowercase! (That is, after all, 2/3 of her name!) I found a free Christian preschool curriculum online geared towards Kindergarten readyness that has both a 3 year old series and a 4 year old series. (Jesus Loves Me ABC – check it out if you need something!) I think I may plan to officially start using that with her at the 1st of the year, that way we can give her some materials for it for Christmas.

Well, I have cranky babies, so that is all for now. Next up: our Halloween activities, my Christmas money-making scheme, a picture post about Izzy’s acrobatics, and more!

Picture Post – Ava’s Birthday!

OK, so Ava’s birthday was on the 11th. I didn’t want to throw a big, blow-out party, so we sort of had a progressive birthday. (In the end, it would have probably been easier just to do the party, but it was still fun!) So these pics will sum it up:

The day before her birthday, we met Layton and his family at a pumpkin patch that a church does in town. In addition to pumpkins, they have pony rides and other activities:

Both our kids had their first pony ride! Unfortunately, it was in the 90s that day, so by the time we got to the pumpkins, the kids were really too hot to take the cute pictures I was hoping for:

That was the best we could get!

After Ava went to bed, Josh and I got creative with cakes. In keeping with the pumpkin theme, we ended up with these:

Her actual birthday came, so after church and lunch there were friends and cake and presents!

Very much a princess theme in the gifts! As well as some Play-Doh brought by our friends Lauren and Jim:

Then, this past weekend we went to visit our families and celebrate her birthday with them. On Friday night, we had a princess dinner with Ava’s Gigi and aunts. I did everyone’s hair and makeup, and we all put on our fancy smancy dresses, and Josh was “Arm Prince”/Waiter:

THEN, on Sunday, we celebrated Ava’s birthday AGAIN with my parents! (My mom’s birthday is Wednesday, so we were also celebrating hers.)

That’s Ava wearing the Eric Carlle helmet my parents gave to her – still attached to the package holding the knee pads!

So, all that goes to say, my baby girl is 3!!!!

Picture Post – Izzy’s Birthday!!!

OK, before I get into the birthday pics, check these out –

These are called (get ready!) Dragon Egg Pluots. I saw them at Publix (while shopping hungry – always a bad idea!) and couldn’t resist getting a couple to try because of the awesome name. When we got home I, of course, looked up Pluots to see what they are, and apparently they are the result of breeding plums and apricots together. There are actually several variations of this fruit, but I find the name Dragon Egg to be the coolest by far. Makes you feel like you’re in Harry Potter or something. (In case you were wondering how they tasted, they were OK, very plum-like!)

Alright, Israel turned one on September 15th. It’s hard to believe that my baby is quickly exiting baby-dom! On his actual birthday, we didn’t really do anything special, except for giving him his presents from us: a journal that we will write in through the years and give to him when he gets married (or some other monumental day, if he chooses not to get married), and his first pair of shoes! Yup, the child has spent his entire first year of life without shoes. Considering the fact that he is showing signs of walking in the next couple months, we thought he might need some –

The following Saturday, we had a house full of guests staying the night to participate in his dedication/party the next day. My mom was included, and she decorated this fabulous cake –

So on Sunday, the 20th, we dedicated Israel –

How many babies get to be dedicated in a movie theater??? (If anyone’s not familiar with the practice, it’s not infant baptism; it is really the parents making the commitment to raise the child in a godly home so that he will be equipped to live a Christian life as an adult.)

THEN, we went to lunch with our families and my friend Jenna, pictured with Israel here –

I love the toungue action! Jenna was awesome and came down for the celebration, but she had a family emergency and had to leave right before the party, so I made her photo op in the restaurant.

Then it was off to the park for the party! We were supposed to have a party in a pavilion behind a particular playground, but when we got there all of the pavilions were taken. (No, I did not reserve one, I was aiming to not spend any money on this thing!) This resulted in us moving all of our gear around several times, kind of like a progressive party. And of course, the play ground was a big attraction –

(This picture really shows the awesome-ness of my mother-in-law!) Finally, right at 2:30, which was when the party officially started, one of the pavilions miraculously cleared. So we moved our gear one more time, and had a very nice place for the party afterall!

As you can see here, Israel, who is making sweet eyes at his Aunt Kristy in this picture, was not particularly interested in his cake. None of it made it to his mouth. I guess it shows that he really just doesn’t do table food yet! He did like the ice cream and let Kristy feed him some. But no fun icing-all-over-everything pictures for him!

He did finally liven up a little bit when we got to the presents and found some toys. Up until this point, he had been very quiet and reserved. When we found a toy with buttons he could push, he came out of his shell a little bit! Happy baby at last!

Here is Izzy with his younger aunts and sister. I have to take one of these at every occassion because they are all growing up so fast!!! (Yes, somehow Ava scored a Barbie on her brother’s birthday!)

It was a very good day, although I might not have scheduled it for outside if I knew that it would be in the 90s at the end of September! It was HOT, and I am thankful we didn’t lose anyone to the heat!

So, yeah, my baby boy is definitely growing up…

No, he’s not walking yet, but he’s standing unassisted more and more, and I don’t think it will be long! Surprisingly enough, I’m actually a little excited about the prospect of him walking, because then it will be more fun to take the kids to the park in this nice fall weather. And since he’s pulling up and cruising, he’s already getting into everything, anyway!

I am extremely pleased to have reached my goal to breastfeed for an entire year! Now we are having to make some decisions about weaning. For right now I’ve cut out the mid-morning and mid-afternoon and dinnertime feedings and replaced them with cows milk, which he seems to like fine. This means during the day I’m nursing first thing in the morning, right after lunch, right after nap, and right before bed. (Right now there’s one middle of the night feeding most of the time.) That looks like a lot, but it’s only about half of what I was doing before! I’m pretty torn on the issue, because I kind of like the idea of him self-initiating weaning (and of course I love that special time with him!), but it would also be nice to know when he will be weaned because we have some events coming up that would be easier if we could be apart. (Namely, a girls’ bachellorette weekend at the beginning of November.) I’m thinking right now we should continue to take it slow. He still doesn’t really like tablefood, and I’m hesitant to wean him entirely before he has a regular schedule of meat in his diet. I kind of have a mental deadline for nursing at 18 months, since I know with Ava that was the point that she really started to transition from infancy to childhood. And really, now that he does drink milk and juice, the only way nursing limits me is I can’t be away from him overnight. I’m able to go out without worrying about being back in 2 hours, and I’m doing things that I never dreamed that I would be doing while lactating, like running 5Ks!