The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Friday!

TGIF! Although, it’s going to be a crazy weekend so I think I’ll actually be even happier when it’s Sunday!

Unfortunately, this week we had to make a trip to the doctor…

doctor

For the record, Maxwell was 36.4 lbs and Spencer was 34! Maxwell had a cold last week with some congestion but was largely over it. However, he was complaining that his ear hurt so I took him in and he has a double ear infection! Spencer now has the same cold and is a snotty, wheezing mess.

doctor

All we can really do for Spencer is a steroid and the oh so fun breathing treatments. Poor guy. One funny thing – I was rocking Spencer in the middle of the night when he was coughing so so so bad. He actually finally coughed up some of the junk all over me (gross) and then, in his half asleep state, said “Goodness!” just like I always say whenever one of the boys is coughing a lot. He then said, “Giant mess.” and I had to agree – and laugh. Sweet boy.

Another cute Spencer story I don’t want to forget…  Last week I was drying my hair while Samantha was asleep in her room and Spencer was playing with his trains downstairs. When I turned off my blow dryer, I heard Samantha crying so I went into her room only to see that Spencer had left his trains downstairs and had come up to her room to put the paci in her mouth when he heard her crying. He was kneeling beside her, sticking the paci in her mouth. I just about melted. Sweet boy indeed.

And a funny thing from Maxwell…on St. Patrick’s Day, we were playing outside and all of a sudden he said, “Look Momma! A clover and it has THREE sides! I think a Leprechaun must have come and planted it here last night!”  Ha!

clover

Also, Maxwell came home from school on Wednesday saying “Momma, I decided that I’m now going to marry Blair and let Max marry Lila. I was smiling at Blair all day today. Can she come over and play?” What????? Young love…

I guess I’ll give a little update on Samantha too. She had her first bottle this week when Susan kept her for a bit and drank it all down like a champ! Basically, she’s perfect.

samantha

She’s also definitely doing better in the sleeping department. She’s really only waking to eat one around 3am and is doing much better sleeping in her chair. Not perfect yet but we’re getting there. I guess I should start letting her sleep in her own room. All in good time…

samantha

Sorry, that post kind of went all over the place but those are some updates from around here! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Good day sunshine

Happy Monday!

weekend

We had a beautiful weekend around here with plenty of warmer temps and sunshine!  Hooray!

On Friday, I dropped Maxwell off at school and then enjoyed a morning with my two babies – Spencey and Samantha! I managed to even keep Spencer off the iPad for the morning!

spencer playing

We also made some Valentine cookies and got a special treat at Target for the boys which I’ll tell you about later (kowabunga!)…

cookies

I was smiling the biggest all weekend because the sun was shining and this little girl slept all night in her chair instead of in the bed with me! Yes! I put her in the velcro swaddle for the first time and she did great, even sleeping for a 4.5 hour stretch!

velcro swaddle

It allowed her to get better sleep too because she didn’t get waked up (awoken?) when Maxwell came into our room at 6:30am like he does every day. She was able to keep snoozing in her chair for another hour while I got up and dressed. Again, YES! If she keeps this up, like she did all weekend, she’s going to turn out to be as easy as Spencer in the sleep department. That would be GREAT.

samantha

On Saturday, we all enjoyed some time outside soaking up the sunshine!

outside

outside

outside

outside

To top the day off, we actually went out to dinner for the first time since Samantha was born. We went to our new favorite, Babalu, and loved getting ask for a table for FIVE!  🙂

table for five

Sunday was just as pretty and we went for a – very long! – walk that ended up being great. Pics to come!

samantha

See you tomorrow!

Paci-free!

We did it. We pulled the paci plug. And it has been just as easy as it was with Maxwell.  Hooray!

Spencer is slowly (very slowly) but surely improving on his talking, but he still has a long way to go.  Even though he would only get his puppy paci during nap and night time, he would inevitably end up with it in his mouth at other times during the day. Either he would go pull it out of his bed or we would reflexively give it to him when he was mad, sad, hurt, etc. Every time there was a paci in his mouth, that was just one less time he was going to talk.  So, we decided it was time to snip that paci of that puppy’s head!

Maxwell’s beloved NeNe was (is) a Pacimal and I really like how easy it was to take the pacifiers off of those.  Spencer’s puppy however is a Wubanub and the paci is sewn in.  The only way to get it off is to cut it and you’re still left with a little sliver of rubber on the stuffed animal. Not perfect but it doesn’t seem to be bother Spencey.

We cut it off last week on Friday and gave it to him before bed. He was confused and just kept looking at it saying “Uh oh!”.

paci free

He then decided to just stick the puppy’s whole nose into his mouth! ha!

puppy

He did cry a bit that night and during nap the next 2 days, but, overall he’s adjusted like a champ. Puppy was the only paci anywhere in the house that he ever got so it was one and done. When I woke him up from his nap on Monday at 5:15 (!) I loved seeing him snuggling with Puppy up against his face…paci or not!

paci free

Of course his monkey blanket was right next to him too.

The best part is to now hear him on the monitor practicing sounds and words while he’s laying in bed at night and in the morning. We used to only hear the sucking on the pacifier! Paci gone, let’s get this boy talking!!

ps – after adding the links it looks like Pacimals are no longer being made? what?! I might need to stock up for baby #3 before they’re all gone!

and just like that…

he sleeps through the night!  One night he didn’t, the next night he did…and has ever since!  Spencer has been sleeping from about 8pm to 7am for the past week.  yay!  I feel like I can finally say it out loud without jinxing it!   I think the turning point was when he finally mastered the ability to flop onto his belly.  He’s so much more comfortable sleeping on his stomach and just sleeps…well…like a baby!  🙂  He’s also mastered crib napping.  He’ll sleep for a good 2 hours in his crib every morning which is fantastic.  We’re still putting him in the swing in the living room for his afternoon nap mainly to keep him separated from Maxwell.  Their bedrooms are right next to each other and we don’t want them waking each other up.  Overall, he’s doing so great at sleeping.  Go Spencey!

I do think Spencer is going to end up with Robert’s seasonal allergies though.  Since it’s been pretty weather this past week and we’ve been hanging out outside more, Spencer has been waking up with a snot covered nose and lots of congestion.  Poor guy!  How young is too young to give a Claritin?!

I promised some pictures of Spencer today so here you go…my little blue eyed baby boy!

His hair looks really dark in these but, in person, it’s really light and still looking light he might have some shades of red!  🙂

He’s still just as smiley and as happy a baby as can be.  I love this squishy little boy!

Have a GREAT weekend!  We’ve got highs in the 70s for Saturday!  woo-hoo!

Stripes

We had another pretty good day of sleeping yesterday!  Spencer slept all night – he tried to wake up at 4am and cried for a few minutes but then went back to sleep!  yay!  Unfortunately, he still woke up at 6:00am.  I need to teach him not to be quite such a morning person!  I also swaddled him with his arms out all night – making that transition to the sleep sack one step at a time.

We let him nap in his crib for his morning nap yesterday and he only cried for about 5 minutes.  He woke up after about 45 minutes and cried for a bit but then went back to sleep!  yay!  Total nap was around 1.5 hours…not the best but we’ll take it!  He was also in his sleep sack, not swaddled, so that’s great.

Today, just some pics of my baby boy in a cute striped outfit.  As evidenced by the large number of striped shirts in my closet, I’m a fan of this look!  🙂

My stripey little happy guy!

Happy and kicking!

Have a great day!