Indiana Visit Part III

Chris and I picked my brother up from the airport the night before we were flying out. I was bummed we couldn't overlap visits longer, but at least we got to catch up a little and the kids got to spend some time with him.




Snuggles with Grandma



Doing a little drawing the day we were leaving

Indiana Visit Part II

opening presents:





Juliet opened her first gift which was packaged in a chocolate box. she thought it was truly a box of chocolates and i don't think she could have been happier. she shrieked, hugged the box and then proceeded to skip around the room screaming, "i got chocolate!!!!" she is her mother's daughter :)


4 generations


Papa playing with Aidric's present from Grandma Ruth

a glance at our time with grandma and papa sytsma

Grandma and Papa with all the grandkids


It's really not possible to show how many lights are on his house. It's just a crazy display!! They even have a real santa and we happened to be in town on the night he comes so we took the kids to see him.


Papa and Cormac


the cousins


children's message during church


Cousin Bath! (the insane amount of bubbles are what you get when grandma is in charge of bathtime)



We spent one morning climbing on tractors and trucks at Sipkema Farms.

sleepless nights and belly laughs

it's the belly laughs that make the sleepless nights more bearable...

A quick stop in Illinois

On our way to see Grandma and Papa (those pics coming next!) we stayed a few nights with our very good friends, the Nords. Can not even tell you what a GREAT visit we had. I didn't know it was possible to have 5 children in a house and call it peaceful, but it really was. Claudia (4 years old) answered the door and greeted Juliet with, "Hi Juliet, do you want to come play with my toys?" So cute!! And they did...for most of the visit! Once Ryder and Aidric got over their initial "shyness" with each other, they were best buds. There are 2 years between them, but each time we visit, the age gap matters a little bit less. Aidric slept on a travel mattress in Ryder's room and when Gretchen checked on them the second night, Aidric was IN Ryder's best, only inches between their faces as they were "telling secrets and jokes". Gretchen has been one of my very best friends since College. I couldn't feel any luckier that our husbands are now great friends and our kids get along so well too. We're already planning our next trip with them!

We went bowling, to the Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas display and hired a sitter one night to go out for dinner and drinks sans kids. We were thrilled when we woke up to snow on our last day there. It wasn't much, but I'm so glad we got the kids out to play in it, b/c it didn't snow again while we were in Indiana.

4 months old

Cormacsaurus is 4 months old!! So hard to believe but this time is FLYING by. I got the exersaucer out today..isn't that supposed to be for "older" babies?? How can he possible fit into that category already??

Good news/Bad news...we'll start with the bad. The past 6 weeks or so have seen a steady decline in his sleeping habits. He was generally going down around 7:30 and not waking until 2 or 3 and then again around 5 or 6 in the morning, sometimes later. We saw more than a handful of 8-10 hour nights as well. He was doing great!! Then, 2:00 became 1:00 and then it became 12:00. This past week, it became 10:00 and 9:30. 2 wakings a night became 3 and then 4...pretty soon, I found myself sitting upright most of the night holding him so that any of us could get some sleep. Exhausting!!

After just a HORRIBLE night last night, when he cried even if I was holding him, I took him to the pedi this morning. She hadn't spent more than 2 minutes in the room when she said it sounded like he had reflux. After a lot of brainstorming with friends this was the diagnosis I was headed towards as well (I'm sure doctors love us parents who go in with a diagnosis :). They had squeezed us in for an appointment so our pedi didn't have a ton of time, but in the short time that we were in there, she heard him do his little choking/gagging thing where it sounds like he's just trying to swallow back whatever is coming up. So sad...and probably pretty uncomfortable for the poor guy!

He had previously been on zantac, which we had weaned him off of at 2 months b/c he was doing so much better with the spit up (after I cut out dairy). Now I feel horrible for weaning him off- he obviously still needed it! But, the good news is we can get back on track and hopefully we'll all get our sleep back too!

Today wasn't his official 4 month visit - that's not scheduled until the 20th. But, they did weigh/measure him and he was 15 lbs. 7 oz and 25.5". I think that's around 75% height and 50% for weight.

Even bigger news..he rolled over this morning!! Aidric saw it before I did. We came down for breakfast and Aidric reminded me that we forgot to do tummy time last night. I brought Cormac into the front room to have some tummy time with his big bro while I made breakfast and then I heard Aidric yelling for me that he rolled over. Aidric rolled over at exactly 4 months too, but since Juliet was sooooo behind on all developmental milestones, I guess that was still in my head and I was shocked that Cormac was rolling already! I figure Aidric had "assisted" the roll, so I went in and flipped him back to his tummy. He surprised me by pushing up on his arms and flipping right back over!

I have a feeling these back pictures are going to get even harder to take going forward!

Happy 4 months Cormac!!!

4 month comparison

Everyone keeps speculating whether Cormac looks like Aidric or Juliet and I honestly don't think he looks like either. After I took some pics of him the other day, I realized I had some similar ones of Aidric and Jules at around the same age. So, what do you think??