Max's Na-NighT game

Here is his latest game when he gets loopy tired!

Smiles all around

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to catch a child's smile on camera at just the right moment. This day I got lucky w/ both the little ones.

Miles' smile cracked me up because he did it w/ his mouth shut and his head was kind of down so it made his face luck really really chubby...but it showed off his cheek bones. The ones he got from his mama! He started really giggling 2 nights ago. It was so fun to hear and see. He's been kind of doing this little chuckle where he makes an, "Ahh ahhhhhhh" sound and lifts his head up for the past few weeks, but the other night when he was doing that it made me laugh and when I started laughing, he started giggling right along with me. It was really sweet. He's just such a happy little guy. Since I've been trying to get him on a sleep schedule, sometimes I have to wake him in the morning or during a nap to make sure we stay on track and even waking him up...when he opens his eyes he gives me such a big smile.

Max smiles about as much as he trys to get into mischief...which is A LOT! :) But, catching it on camera is nearly impossible because as soon as he sees I have the camera or video camera, he wants to see. "Whan seee!!! Whan seee!"...LOL!

Our fence was finished yesterday and it looks great! We also ordered Max a climbing playyard to go in the backyard. It is on it's way and I can't wait...he is going to love it. He is really into climbing on everything and anything lately.

Tomorrow we have a playdate set up with cousins Connor and Sarah and can't wait...it's been awhile since we've been able to play with them!

More Videos

Here is Max and his bunny friend. Notice the small screech he gives out toward the beginning. Multiply that by 10 and stretch it out over another 5-10 seconds and that is the "greeting" he gives the cat lately!



And here is a 3 month montage video of Miles. It includes a little song from the movie, "Team America". :) Enjoy!

The Bunny hop...

We seem to have gained a furry little friend who is living under our deck. I've seen it hopping around in the early evenings for the past few nights. Max started hollaring as he was looking out the window last night and sure enough our little bunny friend was eating grass outside our window. Max thought this was pretty neat.

Actually...when I say "hollaring"...I mean that quite literally. He has come to the realization that if he screams at the highest pitch possible...it scares the begeezus out of our poor cat and he takes off. This amuses Max, however...it's a catch 22 because then he is mad that the cat isn't around to "play" with. Needless to say...the cat seems to only be coming upstairs during nap time and after Max is in bed lately. LOL!

As for little Miles...wow, he's such a treat! He is such a mild mannored baby and so happy. We really don't even have to do anything to elicite a smile from this little one. And he's starting to giggle a little lately...which is the sweetest thing. It honestly makes me teary when he does it. It's a bit embarassing in public. Yesterday we all ran to Barnes and Knoble to look for some books and one of the employees stopped to coo at Miles and he smiled. I have to play down the tears of joy...if only I could hand them a sheet of paper that would explain the price we paid to get these two little joys. :)

Speaking of "paying"...our hospital/medical bills are pouring in lately. It's quite stressful...but I just have to remind myself that they were worth every penny! Because they are!!

I've been really busy this week working on getting Miles on more of a nap routine and trying to push back Max's 11am nap to 1pm. 11am is a little early as he gets overtired in the evenings and I've read that later afternoon naps are more restorative for them. It's been a little bit challenging because he has been only napping for about 1 1/2 -2 hours lately and he really needs closer to a 3 hour nap. For Miles I am trying to get him into the 9am and then 1pm nap (napping 2 hours each). He's been doing really well with it. It's actually been harder on me because in order to keep him on his schedule...I need to wake up around 7 or 7:30am with him. And when your sleep is fragmented during the night due to night feedings...it's really hard to force yourself up that early. Once we get the routine set...it will be nice as both the boys will nap at 1pm giving me a little free time to take a nap myself or get some things done around the house. Fortunately Miles is such an easy going baby...that I've had to actually wake him from some of his naps to keep him on schedule. Hopefully he'll be ready to cut out at least 1 of his 2 nightly feedings soon. He started waking in between feedings for the binkie, but I've been letting him cry through those the past few nights. Thankfully he doesn't cry long and returns to sleep until it's time for his feeding. He typically goes a 6 1/2 - 7 hour stretch and then another 4 - 4 1/2 hours. It's hard to tell with a breastfed baby if they can go longer or they really need the feeding. I know that at Max's 4 month appointment he was still waking at least 2-3 times a night and our Ped told us it was out of habit. That's when we "Ferberized" him. Hopefully Miles won't need to go through that process...but we'll see. It only took Max 3-4 nights before he took to it and didn't wake for the nightly feedings.

Erin & Justin's Wedding

The Bellows/Stiernagle Wedding was this weekend and it was so great to be able to see out of town relatives.

Erin was absolutely beautiful and Justin looked so happy...I told Justin that I'd welcome him to the family, but he's been part of our family for many years already! :)

The boys looked adorable in their matching sweater vests and khaki's. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of them together.

The wedding was at 2pm and the reception was at 5pm, so we had some time to kill in between and our out of town relatives all wanted to see Inta Juice...so we took them over there and treated them to smoothies. On the way from IJ to the reception, both of the boys were getting tired (it was pretty close to their normal bed times) and I was in the backseat w/ them and Max kept saying, "Na Night!" and he'd reach out and grab Miles' hand each time. It was so sweet. Thankfully I had the camera near by and was able to capture some of it on film (see above). Can't beat the sight of two sweet little hands and all those precious fingers entwined together!

Both the boys didn't last very long at the reception and Max was completely clingy...so Brad took them home to put to bed and I stayed a little longer to spend time w/ my family and my parents brought me home. I'll need to dress them in their wedding outfits soon and take pictures...there were so cute!

Sun???!

Miles got to experience his first nice sunny day outside yesterday!! It was absolutely beautiful and not too windy...what Spring time is supposed to be like!

He loved it and was so happy and just coo'ing and laughing away at me. He's such a sweet baby!

In the morning when he wakes up...I go in his nursery and he is just talking away at his mobile or the fan and gives me such big smiles when I lean over the crib and tell him Good Morning. I wish I could bottle up this stage...he is so alert and happy and seems to be learning so much. And watching him...you can almost see him soaking everything up!

Ahhh the joys of a boy named Maxwell!

Well, I think the pictures say it all. I officially have a trouble making toddler on my hands!

However, you have to appreciate his creativeness...he found a wooden spoon and "stirred" up some trouble AND litter...along with making a nice yummy cat food treat in poor Chewer's water dish. Mmmmm...that smelled good!

Needless to say...this was fun to clean up. Litter, cat food, and even some cat poo fragments...EVERYWHERE!

The picture of Max holding his head on the bottom is of him saying, "Oh My! Da da da doo?!" which meant, "What did I do?". He repeated this about 20 times. What a nut! Oh, and YES, we went out and purchased toddler door knobby things so he can't open certain doors anymore! In fact, I made Brad run out and buy them that night! LOL!

WWF, Here I come!

Well, the title and picture speak for themselves!

This is Max's favorite pastime this week...poor Chewers. And now that Max has figured out how to open the baby gate to the basement...and open all of the doors in the house...the poor cat can't run and hide. If he runs down the basement (which used to be his refuge)...Max follows him right down there! Max has a few scratches on his face as payback...but it doesn't seem to stop him!

Anyway...it's always hard to capture your child's personality on camera, but this time it really shows what a monkey he really is! If I haven't said this lately...he REALLY was worth the wait and hell we went through to have him!

Helpy Helperton Max

Max helping Papa put together his new bookshelf. Notice which hammer he has?!

Hmmm...Max "helping" decorate the wall while Papa was occupied painting his bathroom.

And Maxwell w/ the culprit decorating tool...a Sharpie Marker. Nice.

OMG...my little monkey is equally frustrating as he is hilarious.

He definitely keeps us on our toes...he goes goes goes all day long and boy if you aren't watching him...he's into something. Usually something he shouldn't be into. Hense the decorating "help".

But, you can't stay mad at him because he's such a freaking ham! Here are just some of the funny things he's been up to lately...to keep us laughing:

He grabs an item. Not necessarily resembling a phone...but he puts it up to his ear and says, "Hello?" (sounds more like, "Ha-O") and then he gibber gabbers on and then he'll stop and puff his tummy out and arch his back way back and belly laugh, "Ahhh ha ha ha" and then continue to talk. He'll say some words that are recognizable here and there...usually pointing out items around him and then he's back to his toddler babble (I like to call it his, "Korean talk"). And never fails to say, "ok, bye" before he pretend hangs up. My favorite part of this bit is when he walks around doing it and he's got so much drama to it...waving his free arm around and his funny facial expressions. And then when he does the belly laugh...it sets me off every time! EDIT: Tonight at dinner he did his phone bit with a french fry! :)

His favorite phrase seems to be, "Ah, o.k." lately. Which sounds like it would be boring to report...but he says it in so many ways depending on the circumstance. He's got the excited, "ah, ok!" when we ask if he wants to go outside or have some goldfish crackers...and then he's got the famous woes me "Ooohhhh kaaaaay" when he's in a funk or pouting. It's really hard to put into words...I try to capture as much as I can on video...he's such a nut!

What a social boy he is...everywhere we go, "HIIII!" and man, if you don't greet him...he'll go crazy with the "HIIIII!"s until you acknowlege him! He's so enthusiastic about it. We were at a restaurant and he was hollaring (and I mean HOLLARING!), "HIIIII!" to these 2 guys in a table about 2 away from us and thankfully they noticed him screaming at them and laughed and said hi back to him...my gosh. It can be very embarassing, but funny at the same time.

We've really got to watch what we say lately because he is getting really good at repeating what he hears. And many times he mimicks the way we say it or the way he hears it on tv. Like today we were eating lunch and a commercial came on and it had some "Ooooooh Oooooh Ooooh" kind of singing in it and he turns to me and repeated it...w/ the singy song tone in his voice like the commercial!

I could go on forever...he's such a ham. Ooooh, and STUBBORN! He may look like his Papa, but he is a small version of me! :)

Miles' big move...

Gosh...it went so much better than I thought it would.

In fact, he's actually sleeping better in his nursery. The 1st night his first waking was at 1:30am and then again at 5:15am and last night his first waking was at 2:00am and then again at 6:15am (then he fell asleep again until 9:30)! I didn't anticipate moving him until he was 3 months, but we were painting our room and the fumes were so strong we thought it best to have him sleep in his room since it was all set up.

His crib arrived on Friday and ironically we had just gotten back from Babies R Us to pick up a crib mattress when we saw the delivery had come. I really love how his room turned out. We have a few more things to do in there before it's complete and I have plans to get some prints done in each of the little boys rooms.

As far as our other house projects go...we should hopefully have them all wrapped up by the end of the weekend. I think Brad is putting together Max's bookcase and putting up his new shelves and putting Miles' shelves up as well tomorrow. Slowly we are getting there and then we can get the house back in order...the chaos is driving me nutty!

I'll post pictures once everything is done!

I've got some cute pictures of the kids and a video of Miles cooing at me...hopefully I'll get a moment tomorrow to upload those.

Miles' 1st night in his Nursery!

Well, I actually posted a big long blog about our home projects and all 3 kids, but for some reason the blog got lost in cyberland somewhere and I don't have the energy to retype it all. ARRRRGGGH!

Hopefully it will magically re-appear...

Baby Notes: 21mo & 2mo

Before I get to the babynotes...just a quick update on Operation Binkie Blues...

Max cried for 6 minutes at naptime and about 7 minutes for bedtime! I'm sure we'll continue to have some protest crying for a little while...but wow...he's done so well! I'm so proud!

Maxwell (21 months):

* HAS to have a sippy cup of milk or juice at all times
* Announces what he's going to do before he does it. For instance, before he takes a drink of milk, he'll say, "Mak" (milk). It's hilarious.
* He now tells me when he's poopy. "Poop"...although sometimes he is warning me. LOL
* His vocabulary is endless and grows by the minute. We rather like his "versions" of the words most of the time. Brad said, "oh crap" the other day and Max said, "oh pop". :)
* He's usually very sweet to his little brother. Today he tried to share his chip with him...and this is a big deal. As you know...he has been known to hoard a chip for a long length of time. Today's chip was only about 10 minutes.
* What a character. He literally has us all laughing on a daily basis.

Miles (2 months):

* He's so alert now and stares so intensely into your eyes when you are talking to him.
* He's really a very sweet and calm baby. He really only cries when he's hungry, overtired, and sometimes when he's gassy.
* But, when he REALLY cries...holy hannah...he has lungs!
* He's starting to coo more and more everyday
* I think he is going to be more of a jumper. Max used to lock his legs and would stand as long as he could. Miles likes to kick his legs.
* I'm thinking may be another blankey boy...he likes a blanket cuddled up to his face when he's sleepy.
* His hair stands up (wonderful Asian hair!) when its dry, but when its wet...it's actually a little curly.
* Loves to have his arms in the air and a lot of the time 1 or both arms are up when he sleeps.
* Is putting his fists in his mouth as much as he can...it's almost like he's looking for the thumb. Uh oh!

I know there is much more...but I can't think. Things will probably come to me as I'm trying to fall asleep...isn't that how it works?!

Tomorrow my mom and sister are coming to spend some quality time with us. Mom has Spring Break this week and she and Amy have been looking forward to coming over for weeks now. We need to run out and try to find an outfit for Amy for our cousin's wedding (which is in a few weeks) tomorrow morning and then we'll come home for the boys naps. Maybe I'll get to sneak one in too!