Mason @ 2 Months

 I can and also can't believe that mason is already 2 months old. I can believe it because not only does it feel like he's always been a part of the family but honestly the first month of his life was pretty hard with his whole dairy allergy thing. If only we would've been able to figure that out sooner! 

He is such a sweet little guy who's smiles seriously melt my heart!

2 month olds really don't do all that much but here are some things that little Mason is doing:

2 Month Stats:

9lbs 8oz - 5th %tile

23.5 inches long- 75th %tile.

He is tall and skinny!

• He is getting close to sleeping through the night. He goes to bed at 10pm and wakes up somewhere around 4 or 5. Just recently I've just been putting him in bed with me at that time and he just goes right back to sleep until 7am without eating. Yes, yes I know... sleeping in bed with me.... I consider it more of a cuddle time than anything. When you have 3 kids I think you just go into survival mode :)
• He eats every 3 hours on the dot. He is like clockwork. I like the 7, 10 schedule for now. 
• Have I mentioned how much I adore those big smiles of his?? He will smile at me even if I'm not looking at him! Oh and those coos and squeals of excitement. I just can't get enough. 
• He is blowing out of his diapers much less frequently
• He still loves to keep his hands clenched right by his face.  We call him our little boxer. Maybe that's from all the Turbo Kick I did when I was pregnant with him
• He has the skinniest little frog legs, ever. I have no idea where he gets those from :)
• He is still a little guy. Everyone is shocked when they find out that he is over 2 months old. They  think he is just a little newborn!
• He is starting to follow me with his eyes when I am walking closely by
• He still spits up but it isn't NEAR the amount it was when I was eating dairy.
• He rolls from tummy to back.
• He is SO strong. The doctor always laughs at him with how strong he is. She said that she wouldn't be surprised if he was crawling and walking early. Great.... :) 

These pictures were taken when he was about 7 weeks or so at my parent's house in Minnesota...

Look at those tiny legs!!

These pictures were all taken a few days ago... He looks so different from the pictures above!

 He is starting to finally fill out! Yay!

Maybe it's just me but I think Mason and baby Ethan look SO much alike! Ethan was just a little more chunky....

 Our little boxer...

                       As of right now he has huge blue eyes. Don't believe me??? See below...

Haha!

We just love having this little guy in our family!!

Cutest Video Ever!

Tell me if this isn't the most adorable video ever!?

Oh we just love this little guy. His smiles and coos just melt my heart! 

PS. Thank you for all of your amazing no-dairy recommendations. I am happy to report that Mason is SO much happier of a baby now that he gets zero dairy and we get to see smiles like this all day long :)

Ditching the Dairy

Sweet little Mason has had trouble gaining weight and has always been a spitter upper, like a really bad one. Sometimes the poor kid spits up so hard it comes out his nose. We suspected that dairy in my diet was probably causing his irritability so I kind a sorta went off dairy. Meaning, I gave up ice cream and milk but still continued to have some in casseroles and such. He was still  spitting up a ton and coupled with the inability to get out all his bubbles and burps, we also thought he might have acid reflux. So I gave him some Zantac and at first it seemed to work but he was still having some stomach issues and was still getting some mean diaper rash. 

He was born 7lbs 7oz and at 5 weeks old he was only 8lbs so the doctor wanted to start supplementing him with my breastmilk mixed in with 1/2 tsp of formula twice a day. I wasn't extremely good at doing this but I did it every so often. The good news? A week later and he has gained 7 ounces! Hurray! The bad news?? What I thought was just a really bad case of baby ance is really a nasty rash all over his face and neck and he has eczema. The pediatrician is pretty certain that major spitting up + diaper rash +rash/eczema (that showed up when he was given milk-based formula) + irritableness = a milk allergy. Awesome. I would have to agree with her since I slipped a bite or two of ice cream last night and am paying for it today :)

So basically I have to cut out all dairy. Yep. All of it. You want the list of ingredients I have to avoid?? Well, the list is too long to post here. Check out this link: here

So what to eat?!?! I already feel like I am starving all day long and can't get enough food in me! Apparently even the smallest traces of milk in foods that I eat can make baby miserable. So I guess this means a vegan diet until I decide I'm done sacrificing and give him pure formula. I really want to nurse him though.. I'm too selfish to give up those free extra 500 calories  and I know that my milk is the best for our little buddy :) Plus if we put him on formula we would have to buy special, aka expensive, formula. 

Anyways, if you have any advice on how to not starve to death, please send it my way! :)

Well, he sure is super duper cute!!

 and he gives big huge gummy smiles. He has also started cooing and "talking" if you will. Oh it melts my heart! 

He was totally worth the wait :)

First Broken Bone(s)!

Well we had a first in the Smith family that happened Wednesday night. I was gone visiting teaching when I get a call from Justin saying that Ethan fell down the stairs and broke his arm. Bless his heart, he had all 3 kids and I could hear all 3 screaming in the background. So I quickly left and came home. Ethan was laying on the couch with Justin crying and holding his arm. I got a glimpse of his arm and saw that it was pretty bowed. I started to feel queazy and  tried to not look at it for the rest of the night. I'm just grateful that there wasn't any bones sticking out.  

I took him to the Urgent Care nearby and they got him some pain medication and took some X-rays. Sure enough his arm was broken. You can kinda see how bowed his arm was in this picture....

 Poor kid. He was in a lot of pain! 

This is the X-ray that shows the damage...Not one, but both bones!

 The doc at the Urgent Care was pretty convinced that they would have to reform the bone so she sent us to the ER. 

Little did I know that "reform" the bone actually meant brake the other side of the bone so the bones will be on top of each other and can heal properly... ouch!

By the time we got called back from the waiting room it was almost midnight and Ethan was a riot on his pain meds. He said things like, "Mommy, my arm doesn't hurt at all!! I feel great!!" and got all his letters and words mixed up. He totally reminded me of a wasted drunk person!

The ER doc was amazing and explained everything to us. We had a few options but in the end we decided to give him some morphine and get those bones back in place.  Ethan was such a trooper through everything but it broke my heart to hear him cry when the doc was re-breaking the arm. It took a few tries but eventually there was a snap and then the doctor wrapped up the arm in a splint. 

Even though it was tough hearing Ethan cry through the reformation I'm sure glad we did it. They took an X-ray of the arm post reformation and the bones are right on top of each other all ready to heal back very nicely! 

Then at 3am they discharged us and sent a very tired mommy and son back home. 

Isn't he just about the cutest thing ever? So happy even after all that!

He slept for most of the next day. I would have too if I could have!

We go on Monday to get his cast put on. He's already decided that he wants a super cool yellow (his favorite color) cast. 

Something tells me that this won't be the last broken bone experience we will have but I'm so glad everything turned out ok!

Baby Mason & Mamma

My super duper talented friend and old BYU roomie, Marcelle,  took some pictures of Mason and I when he was only a week old. I think they turned out incredible!!! Check out her other work here: http://marcellecalder.blogspot.com/

 This was my first photo shoot with her and she is so good. Super relaxed and easy going but so good at helping me pose. I asked her to...I'm no model and I definitely needed that!

 I just love his cute little face in this one!

 Oh I just love how angel  like he looks! I guess they are straight from heaven, right?

 He did so good during the whole shoot but at the very end he got sad....

Oh I just love this little boy! I've never had newborn photos done with my other 2 kids and I'm so glad I got them done this time around. 3rd times a charm, right? Little newborns are so precious and sweet!!! Thanks again Marcelle!!

Organization- It Makes Me SO Happy!

Our toy room has never not been organized. Messy? Of course, it's a toy room but everything has always had its place. The toy organizers that I previously had were great but they were open and just gave the appearance of a messy room. So I found these organizing shelves at Ikea and knew that I just had to re-do our toy room. I also saw it on a blog here and totally copied her :)

I love how they turned out!! Here is a picture of the whole room. 

 Oh and our toy room is actually our loft. Love having a loft for that purpose!

For the bigger toys that won't fit in the cubbies, I have these big bins that are labeled. I think they were $7 each at Wal-Mart.

 My super duper talented friend in the ward cut all these labels out for me on her silhouette. Thanks again Kristen!

 I still need to label the bottom drawer...

 As cheesy as it may be, I just love our map wall. To the side of the map, I put up lots of pictures from the different places we have traveled. 

 This area will be the girly area. In our new house I want to put up a mirror right above the shelf for dress up purposes. Plus, it's really good for kids to have a mirror for creative play, Someday, I'm sure we'll also put a doll house on top. 

Ahhh... it's so refreshing to re-organize! 

Pre Mason

I have wanted to blog about some fun activities we did before Mason joined our little family but I have had the hardest time getting the motivation to do it. It seems as if an afternoon nap trumps doing just about anything and everything now a days. But since Justin is out of town for the next 10 days, I can use my evenings to hopefully get caught up on everything. Is it me or does it seem like I only blog when Justin is gone?? I guess I just really like my evenings with him!

Ethan completed his first year of Let's Play Music and it was so fun to see them perform what they had been learning at the end of the year recital. This really is an amazing program! We have been so impressed with it! 

There are 3 teachers in our area and they combined all the kids for the recital. It was so cool to see some third year students play some of their own music that they composed on the keyboard. These students were probably only 7 or 8 years old! So impressive! Ethan played his tone bells to Are You Sleeping.

Ethan's teacher, Mrs. Jill, with her class of first years. Jill just happens to be his preschool teacher too. I served with her in our church's Young Women program. She is amazing and we will sure miss her next school year when we move!

Ethan with his certificate....

I wanted to do as many fun activities with the kiddos before the baby came and also before it got too hot outside to really do anything besides swimming, so we went to the Phoenix Zoo. They loved the zoo and still at night time when we ask Ellie what her favorite thing about the day was she says, "I went to the zoo and saw some animals!" And everytime we act just as excited as she is when she tells us all the animals she saw that day. She sure is a cutie!

Here they are with the giraffes,

and the baboons. Ethan was very concerned about what was wrong with these monkeys behinds. The best answer I could come up with is that was just the way Heavenly Father made them and I don't know why their bums are blue and red. Actually, I just looked it up and it's for mating purposes. I do believe that my answer was good enough for a 4 year old though. No need to explain that to him :)

The flamingos. We had a good discussion on why their water is so green and why some of the flamingos looked white instead of pink. I just love this inquisitive stage Ethan is in! Always full of LOTS of questions.

He is also really into me taking pictures of him and always informs me of when I should take his picture. I don't mind since I need a reminder to pull out my camera every once in a while! He is quite the poser....

Ellie thought it was the coolest thing to be able to pet all the goats in the petting zoo. Have I mentioned how much of an animal lover she is?!

The zoo has a great splash pad area for the kids. Ethan was a wild man running through the fountains and sliding down the slides but Ellie was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. She barely got wet and stayed close to me the whole time but she sure made that swimsuit look cute!

We signed Ethan up for a soccer league and it was always fun to go on Saturday mornings for his games.

He is actually pretty good! We are pretty sure that he will be athletic... we hope so anyways!

Getting a pep talk from Daddy during water break...

At the end of the game, the parents would make a tunnel for the kids to run under. Ellie always had to join the team in running through as well.

Unfortunately we missed his last game due to Mason's birth but once it gets cooler outside, we'll have to sign him up again!

Oh and here is our new house as of about a month ago...

Now the framing, plumbing, and electrical are completely done! We are bad house builders and only make it out to see the progress about once a month. Apparently the closing date keeps getting moved back so we are now hoping for the beginning of August. I just hope they can get us in there before Ethan starts kindergarten. I really don't want to drive 20 min twice a day to bring/pick him up from school !

I was so glad that I was able to do some fun activities with the kids before Mason came. Now I just feel like a lame mom who is boring my children to death with my lack of social adventure. Turns out a newborn takes up a lot of your time and usually both of my hands. The kids have been so patient with me though and have adjusted so well. I just need to get more creative with different ways to entertain them when we are home. Luckily though, we have a pretty jam packed summer with vacations and escaping the valley heat! Woohoo!