The Baylor Family Blog

Last week, we had a couple opportunities to visit with Matt’s side of the family.

Our first visitors were Gran-B and Poppy. They came down last Tuesday to attend a Christmas In July event with Eli at church. Each kid was supposed to bring a parent with them to the event, but I was afraid it would be too difficult for me to attend with Abi and Micah. Eli loved having his grandparents with him and had an absolute blast celebrating Jesus’ birthday in July! After the event, we all met up at Jason’s Deli for a delicious lunch and time to catch up!

Last weekend, Matt’s Aunt Lynne and her dog, LeAnne, came to visit. Eli was delighted to have Aunt Lynne and LeAnne sit in the back of the van with him! Aunt Lynne got to listen to Eli talk non-stop in the car…I’m sure her ears needed some piece and quiet after leaving our house! We enjoyed a trip to the zoo and a drive up to the Will Rogers Shrine on Saturday.

On Sunday, we were able to meet up with Matt’s grandparents, Grams and Grandad Klish, at a local park in Monument. It was fun to show them how much each of the kids had grown since we had last seen them! Eli had to cope with not having anyone to sit next to him the back seat on the way home, as Aunt Lynne joined Grams and Grandad on the trip back to their home!

What a fun week of family visits!

I have

fallen

in love

with

my boy.

Jealous of their little brother, Eli and Abi wanted to experience being wrapped like burritos, too!

Abi was distraught until she figured out to get an arm out to hold her blankie.

Eli was so squirmy he escaped the burrito wrap in no time. Just like when he was a baby!

I told her it was true, but Abi just cannot believe she is already 18 months old!

Here are her stats:
Weight: 19.1 pounds (1st percentile)
Height: 31.7 inches (62nd percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 inches (31st percentile)

Simply put, she is tall and skinny!

Let me just say that I love my little girl. I’m so thankful that God gave me a daughter. She makes me smile so many times every day. She is very independent and never wants to be left out. I was worried that she would be forced to grow up too fast with a little brother so close in age. But Abi always makes sure there is room in my lap or my arms for her. She is very content just being near me, even if I need to tend to one of her siblings. She loves to sing. She communicates so well already that it blows my mind. She can stand up to her older brother, though we are working on her screaming at him! She loves her little brother and daily admires his toes! To my surprise, I haven’t seen an ounce of jealousy spill out of her. She only knows of life with her brothers!

If anything, she wants to do things to keep up with her older brother. She now picks out her own book before bed. And puts her clothes in the hamper before bath time. And eats off a plate at the table. And puts her shoes on the shoe rack after we get home. And walks to the mailbox by herself. And drinks milk out of a sippy cup. And helps mommy move clothes from the washer to the dryer. And colors at the table. And plays with play dough. And climbs into the van by herself. And so much more. Just like her big brother. Simply put, her little brother isn’t forcing her to grow up faster. Her big brother is motivating her to grow up faster!

Despite being surrounded by brothers and cars and trains and boy toys, she easily picks out the girly toys. She pushes her baby in the shopping cart while carrying her pink “Prada” purse. I love having a girly girl. Thank heavens for my little girl! I can’t believe she is 18 months already!

Micah is TWO months old! Its amazing how fast those two months have flown by! My favorite part at the moment are his big eyes studying my face and his mouth forming a smile! He did great with his first round of immunizations. He cried, but was easily comforted in my arms. He had a little trouble going down for his afternoon nap, but since the older two were sleeping, I took the opportunity to cuddle with him.

Here are his stats:
Weight: 8 pounds, 3 ounces (5th percentile)
Height: 21.3 inches (15th percentile)
Head Circumference: 14.5 inches (9th percentile)

So all in all, we have a little guy. But needless to say, we are quite used to having little ones and kinda like it! Besides, I don’t want him growing up to fast!

We had a relatively calm week around here. Abi was working on getting over her cold most of the week, but is doing great now. She had a follow up apointment with her ENT to check her ears and everything still looks great. She hasn’t had a single ear infection since her ear tubes were placed!

Unfortunately, the cold was passed onto Micah. Despite our best efforts to protect him, he still got sick. Since he is still so little, I brought him into the doctor on Friday just to make sure everything is okay. He sounds all rattly when he breaths, but its fortunately all in his sinuses, not his lungs, so we just wait it out! The cold hasn’t phased him one bit. He’s doing great. We did learn, though, that his weight is up to 8 pounds, 3 ounces!

I am thrilled to report that Abi is officially done with bottles! It only took us 18 months to get her to drink out of a sippy cup, but at least she is doing it now! We are learning that Abi has a hard time with change, but in a different way than Eli has a hard time with change. Eli has a hard time sleeping in new places, but Abi has a hard time switching what she drinks out of and changing the foods she eats. Eli has made a ton of progress over the past few years, and I believe we’ll help Abi adjust, too. We bought her a different sippy cup that was a different color and she totally flipped out. After plenty of tears and time, she is now drinking out of the new sippy cup. Poor girl.

Did I mention that she just cut her third molar last night? She’s had a big week, I guess!

Eli and Abi have enjoyed bonding with Micah during tummy time. I thought these pictures turned out so cute!

On Thursday, we met up with some friends for a park date. It was so good for me to catch up with some friends, and Eli had a marvelous time running around with his friends. Abi pretty much stayed right by me on the blanket and played with a bag of raisins and Micah slept the time away.

I feel like I need to redeem Micah from my last blog post. For whatever reason, he is far less fussy than he used to be. He is having lots of very cute and sweet moments. He has loved studying my face and has just started to smile. Perhaps we are figuring out our little guy more or he is learning to adjust to life outside the womb more. But I’m very happy that he seems to be doing better, even with a cold!

This week I’m bringing Abi and Micah to the pediatrician for their 18-month and 2-month well visits. Matt will be bringing Eli in for his first dentist visit, too. So I’ll have plenty of things to report!

I’m almost caught up on the blog (which will last for maybe one day!), but I wanted to post a collection of things we’ve been up to over the last month or so!

On Father’s Day, the super-daddy in this house was given some pictures of the kids with him that now sit on his desk at his new office at work! After church, we had a delicious dinner of grilled fish. After nap time, we brought the kids to the fountain at America the Beautiful park and let them run around. They had a blast! Our hands were quite full, so we didn’t take any pictures. We topped our day off with ice cream at our favorite shop, Rizuttos! Yum! I am so blessed to be married to both a wonderful and amazing husband and father to our children!

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A couple weekends ago, we packed the kids up and went to Palmer Park for a hike. Eli has done several walks, but has not walked on many hikes. I’m guessing we did a 4-5 mile hike. Though whiny, Eli did really well. He especially loved jumping off rocks!

On Sunday, Eli woke up coughing. We decided to stay home from church, as we weren’t sure how sick Eli was. We aren’t very good at sitting around, so Matt and I were trying to come up with some ideas to get out of the house that wouldn’t exert Eli too much.

We finally settled on driving up through the zoo to the Will Rogers Shrine, which we had never done before. The drive up the mountain was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the views from the top! It was interesting learning some history about the shrine and some influential people in our city. Of course, I couldn’t resist getting a family picture with our gorgeous city in the background!

The following week, Eli got to go to a creative day camp organized by our church. He had an absolute blast and wouldn’t stop talking about all the fun things he got to do! It definitely confirmed that preschool will be a good thing for him! He came home every day with crafts, including a birdhouse, bird feeder, picture frame, paintings, a bug house and so much more!

On a side note, Eli had a minor virus that exacerbated his reactive airway disease. We started him on nebulizers pretty quickly, but brought him to the doctor to get some more meds. We are in the process of starting him on a maintenance medication, in hopes to control his breathing better. He fortunately is doing much better. But unfortunately passed the virus onto Abi, who has a lot of snot right now! Thanks to her ear tubes, she doesn’t have an ear infection, though!

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Bad Hair Day!

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Our newest favorite water toy is…

…water hopscotch!

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This is Micah’s peek hole to life most days!
He is happiest in the Baby Bjorn, being held, and of course, sleeping!

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While Abi and Micah are napping in the morning, I have tried to continue to have some special Eli and Mommy time. Since the weather is nice, we’ve done some fun, but messy crafts outside. Eli is really into painting. We’ve painted a bug house he made at Home Depot and finger painted. Eli used to freak out about getting dirty, but thankfully, he seems to be getting past that! We’ve had a lot of fun together!

Top row: Tycen (2), Callie (4), Eli (3)
Bottom row: Andrew (1), Abi (1), Micah (1 month)

Did I mention we did a lot and had a lot of fun in Wisconsin?
Here are some more pictures.
We had fun…

Cuddling with Grandma!

Cuddling with Grandma some more!

Meeting some of Mommy’s old friends!

Giving and taking stroller rides!

Swinging and playing at not one, not two, but three different parks!

Swinging with the one and only cousin that shares the same birthday!

Getting pushes in the swing by Grandpa and Grandma!
(Not pictured: Abi spending lots of time swinging in the big swing under Grandpa and Grandma’s deck)

Cuddles with Grandpa!

Also not pictured: Seeing a few minutes of fireworks at the park before racing to the car with our hands full of kids and stuff before the floodgates opened! We watched the rest of the fireworks from the safety of Grandpa and Grandma’s deck. It was a lot quieter, which made Abi a lot happier!

We packed up our van with lots of stuff and kids and drove 15+ hours through the night to my parents’ home in Wisconsin over the 4th of July weekend. It was a long drive, considering Matt and I hadn’t had a good night of rest in over a month and completely skipped one night of sleep on the way out and the way back. But we made it. And we are super glad we made the trip! Its also worth noting that the kids did wonderful on the drive…I was super impressed!

Both of my brothers and their families were there, too. There were six grandchildren ages four years and under. There was always something to do and someone to talk to and a kid to play with. I’m very thankful for the many extra set of hands that helped Matt and I with our kids, too! Our kids actually adjusted much quicker to being in a new place, too, which was a pleasant surprise!

From here on out, I’ll let the pictures explain all the fun things we enjoyed doing on our trip…

We had fun…

Playing in the raised sandbox full of green and blue sand that Grandpa built!

Taking many trips down to the garden with Grandpa to pick strawberries and lots of other tasty vegetables!

Dressing the girl cousins in matching outfits and attempting to get them together for a picture!

Visiting a really cool train museum in a nearby town!

Spending lots of quality time with aunts, uncles and cousins!

Hanging out with cousins playing water hopscotch (which also was a drinking fountain)!

Driving the Dora ATV down the big hill at Grandpa and Grandma’s house and getting and convincing a really nice Aunt or Uncle to push you back up the hill!

Swimming in both a small pool and the much bigger city pool!

TO BE CONTINUED