Collins at 5

Collins turned five on November 21st.  For insurance reasons, we couldn't get her in for a well visit until February.  So, here's a long overdue post.

She's 42in tall (25%) and weighs 36.6lbs (10%). I feel like she's finally catching up to other kids her age in the height department. She's wearing 5t clothes and a size 10 shoe.  It's fun and sad that I can shop for her in the girls section at Target, not just the toddler area. 

 She's not the best eater but I wouldn't say she's picky either.  Generally she'll eat what we are eating for dinner, or at least eat the required bites to get dessert.  Hamburger is still a negative for her so we modify her dinner a tad if we are having beef.  She eats most vegetables, preferably raw ones (carrots, bell peppers, broccoli), has a strong love for candy and chips and isn't a big morning breakfast eater but loves breakfast food for dinner. 

She sleeps from about 8pm-7:30am

Preschool has been so good for her this year.  Not that it wasn't last year, but she's always asking if she has school the next day.  I'm not sure if it's because she's really bonded with 2 girls this year (Laney and Stella), or because her teachers are fantastic.  Whatever the reason, it makes me happy that she loves it so much.  She hasn't grasped reading yet but always wants to practice writing words. Poop is one of the words she can write on her own.  We're so proud. Haha!  She knows the majority of her letters by looking at them and can tell you the letter when you make it's sound.  Her and I were driving to dance one day and she asked "can we practice math at the stoplight?" Like I can say no to that! She can do basic addition (2+2, 5+4, etc)

 A baby doll isn't always in her arms like they used to be. Maybe that's because she has a real life baby doll now.  You can often times find her playing babies in her room though.  Usually she can rope Brooks into playing house with her too.  She's gotten a tad bit bossy (only to Brooks) and is learning to test our boundaries. I guess I'm glad she's coming out of her shell so she doesn't get walked all over by other kids. I'm seeing little glimpse's into our drama filled future.  She's still a rule follower and breaks into tears if she gets in trouble.

Likes- LOL dolls, hatchimals, coloring, Youtube, workbooks, slime, cheese dip, babies, dancing on stage and music. 

Dislikes- when her brother doesn't listen to her, heights

 

I got an email for kindergarten round up and I couldn't get through it without crying.  Sometimes I think I'm ready for her to be in school more but it breaks my heart to think that she'll be in school more then she'll be at home.  And we'll do things during the day without her.  Waaaahhhhhhh. 

 Collins Cates, you are beautiful on the inside and out, smart, funny, caring, helpful and the best sister and daughter EVER! We love you so so much.  

Kai at 7 and 8 months

7 months

 

8 months

 

I don't think he's had a well visit since 6 months.  We did go in at 7 months for a weight check and he was 15lbs 8oz.  I honestly have no idea how he's still so little.  He's a bottomless pit!

About 7 months, we pretty much stopped with the baby food and went the baby lead weaning route.  That basically means we just give him pretty big chunks of food and let him feed himself.  I did it with the other two kiddos as well and it's much easier to just feed him what we are eating then spoon feed him.  He's ate a wide variety of foods.  Pretty regular foods for him are: peanut butter toast, banana, blueberries, avocado, eggs, yogurt, green beans, cooked carrots, lunch meat, shredded cheese and so much more.  He drinks water from a straw sippy cup at meals. At 7 months, it was almost clock work that he'd nurse at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, eat 1-2 meals and take 3 naps.

Now his schedule is more like:

6:15am- wake up and hang with daddy :)

7am-nurse

8am- breakfast

8:30-9:30-nap

11pm-nurse

11:45pm-lunch

12:30-2-nap

3pm-nurse

5pm-dinner

7pm- nurse or bottle and goes to bed

His sleeping is so unpredictable.  He'll finally nap 1-2 hours at each nap but he also wakes up 1-2 times at night.  Sometimes at 1am, sometimes not till 4am, sometimes twice. I just never know what the nights going to hold.  It's frustrating because he was such a good night time sleeper early on but because he's low on his growth chart, I feel like he needs the middle of the night feeding.  One feeding anyway, 2 is just ridiculous.  I'm just too tired to sleep train (again). One of my favorite things is when we get him out of his crib, he'll wrap his arms around us and rest his chin on our shoulder like he's giving us a big hug. Well played kid, well played.

We're finally starting to get out of the 3-6 month clothes.  I think he wears a size 1 shoe but socks and shoes don't stand a chance.  He always pulls them off and chews on his socks.  His socks are usually soaking wet by the time we get anywhere from him chewing on them in the car.  He's in a size 3 diaper. 

He's been learning SO many new things.  He army crawls (2/20), gets up on all 4's and is making the first steps to crawl, can pull to a stand (2/24) waves (2/14), can go from laying down to sitting up (3/4) and his first word? Dada (3/1). Once he gets the crawling down, I'm certain he'll be walking soon after.  He's constantly pulling up on things and always wants to be standing up.  I think he hates the car seat so much because he hates sitting still.  He has no chill.  Always wants to be held but doesn't actually want to sit and hang.  He's gotten way better in the car, rarely crying now.

His personality is really developing.  He's very chatty in the mornings before his siblings wake up, does a fake laugh when he hears people laugh and has a hilarious new face where he squints his eyes and clinches his fists.  He does it more and more the more you laugh.  He's generally a happy baby, although he thinks he needs me to hold him anytime he sees me.  He gets shy and hides his face when people talk to him but doesn't mind other people holding him, as long as I don't make eye contact with him.  Can you tell he's a mommy's boy

 

 

Bath time is his favorite.  Be basically jumps out of my arms trying to get in there.    He also likes going on walks, swinging, cellphones, the remote and watching his brother and sister. 

 

Kai, I'm in denial that your going to be one before long. I'm positive that you know how much your loved because someone is ALWAYS touching or holding you.  You will probably never know what personal space is.  We just can't help that your so dang cute and love you oh so much. 

Day 3 (park day 2) at Disney World

On our third day we woke up and immediately started celebrating our birthday girl.  Collins turned 5 on our trip and I hope it'll be a birthday she never forgets.  We celebrated her birthday before our trip but I packed a couple presents to surprise her with in the morning.  One of her presents was a new princess dress for her to wear that day for lunch with the princesses and  later in the week for her makeover (if your doing a makeover, bring your own dress.  They are crazy expensive at the park). She put her birthday dress, mickey ears and pin on, nobody was going to miss that it was her birthday!

 

 

 

We spent out 2nd park day at Epcot.  It ended up being our least favorite park but it had it's perks for the birthday girl.  We ate brunch with almost all the princesses at Akershus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Met Ana and Elsa!!

 

 

 

 

And met plenty of other characters too

 

 

 

  

 

It was a rainy morning so we found  a spot inside a Innoventions which was like a Crayola place.  We found an empty corner and kind of camped out while the kids had a blast doing art stuff.  We checked out the aquarium for a little bit and the boys did their fast pass for Test Track.  Our fast passes were really spread out this day so it was hard to justify leaving the park just to turn around and come back.

 

 I think they purposely put the Frozen ride and princesses at Epcot to draw the younger crowd.  I highly recommend getting park hopper passes just so you don't have to spend an entire day here.  It's more for the older crowd. The Frozen ride was one of my favorites though so don't skip this park entirely.  I noticed the seats were wet when we sat down so I scrambled to find something to cover sleeping Kai. And known of us were prepared for a drop in the ride.  Brooks face is priceless

 

 

I think the prior days caught up to us this day and we left the park right before dinner.  Some of the group stayed and toured the different countries but our family headed back with Harper and my sister who had started to get a nasty stomach bug.  Collins was happy to have Harper with us and we ate dinner at the hotel and then they all picked a dessert.  We sang Happy birthday for about the 10th time before calling it a night pretty early.  Our birthday girl said she had a great birthday even if she didn't get to ride many rides this day.  So many characters and staff sang happy birthday to her or wished her a happy birthday.  I don't think it will be a birthday she ever forgets!

 

 

 

Fast Passes: Frozen for some and Test Track for some, Spaceship Earth (in the ball) and Soarin

Dining Service- Akershus

Days 1 and 2 at Disney World

These posts may take some time.  I have about 1,000 pics to sort through and I'm already forgetting rides and restaurants we did.  I'll also include a post on tips and tricks we learned because I know a couple people that are planning a trip and may want to know. 

No better way to start vacation then with a 3:30am wake up call.  There wasn't a ton of options for direct flights so we booked a 6am flight and was there by 10am (time change).  It was Home Alone style with us almost missing our flight.  We didn't expect the airport to be as busy as it was.  But we made it! Thanks to Derek's A list status, he saved the back of the airplane for us to all sit together! The kids were perfect on the flight and if I remember correctly, the youngest 3 took a cat nap.

Only our room was ready so everybody unloaded their carry ons (hotel picked up our luggage at airport and delivered them to our rooms a little later) and we headed to Disney Springs for lunch and shopping.  Brooks had the flu 3 days before we left and still wasn't 100%.  He would seem fine until he ate and then he'd act like he was going to throw up and would get super tired. He fell asleep in the stroller while we walked around a little.   We were all pretty tired to do much shopping but Disney Springs is for sure worth checking out if you get the chance. 

The kids were pumped to swim so we let them do that for a little bit (pools are heated but still not very warm) and then grabbed a quick dinner at our hotel.  Everyone was in bed pretty early, ready to tackle the first day at the parks!

 

First park day: Magic Kingdom

Our hotel was within walking distance to MK so we walked there and got there shortly after it opened.  It was the entire groups first time at Disney World so we were all ecstatic and in awe of everything. 

 

 

 

 

 Our fast passes were for Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger (not worth a fast pass), Space Mountain for Derek and most of group, Meet Mickey at Town Square (the only one) for some of group and Peter Pan (not worth a fast pass). 

Sit down meal- A character buffet at Crystal Palace (Winnie the Pooh characters)

 

using up snack credits

 

Thanks to a Disney high and sugar, we stayed the entire day and even lasted for the fireworks at 10pm. 

 

 

 

 

Kai at 6 months

The quality of these photos are ridiculously bad.  It was a cloudy day so I got what I could.

 

 

Here we are, half way to a year.  I hate how fast they grow up!!! At 6 months, Kai weighs 14lbs 8oz (5%) and is 24.5 inches (>2%).  His pediatrician wasn't thrilled with these stats so we'll be back in a month for a weight check and 2nd flu shot.  We went through this exact thing with Brooks at 6 months too.  My kids just plateau around this age.  He has been liking almost all his baby food so I'm hopeful he'll gain a decent amount of weight before his follow up.  He's liked all fruit and green veggies are hit or miss.  I just hide them in some fruit and he gobbles them down.  I've been offering solids 2-3 times a day and he nurses 6 times throughout the day, waking once in the middle of the night to eat.  He drinks 5-6oz in a bottle before bed. He's got the pincer grasp down and picked up a cheez it and took it to his mouth (no, I didn't let him eat it) but he couldn't quite get a puff in his mouth.  He proceeded to gag when I put the puff in his mouth so we'll stick to purees for now. 

 

I never thought he'd sleep better at 1 month then he does at 6 months.  His middle of the night waking was getting earlier and earlier so we've been doing some sleep training.  I'm hoping we are on the up.  In his defense, he had a double ear infection and cut his first tooth this month.  I took him in for a never ending cough and cold and those weren't concerning but his ears were.  #momfail.  He never ran a fever and hardly touched his ears.  I figured he was rubbing his ears because of teething.  His bottom tooth is barely poking through his gums and the other one is close. I don't mind feeding him in the night, just preferably not before 3am.  Naps are usually 30 min, sometimes he'll cut me some slack and sleep 2 hours but it's very rare.  Almost every night at 6:45pm on the dot, he gets fussy and is ready for bed.  

He's sitting unassisted for quite awhile.  I still don't trust him enough to leave him alone, mostly because he reaches for toys and face plants. He rolls all around the family room and pushes off with his feet to go upwards.  He went in a swing for the first time this month and is sitting up in the bath tub now.  He's a maniac in his doorway jumper.  We never had one with the other 2 kids and I wish we had. He loves it and it's a lifesaver when we are in the kitchen.

 

If he spots me, he whines for me to hold him. He'll be  happy as can be playing and then we make eye contact and it's over. If someone is holding him and I take him cause he's whining for me, he'll turn to them and smile like "ha ha, I got my mommy."  I've learned to be very sneaky around him.  He get's so excited when he sees Collins, Brooks or daddy.  He's still fought over daily.  Now that he's sitting in a high chair, it's a daily debate on who get's to sit by him.  Collins is in heaven getting to feed him baby food and Brooks usually wants to feed him a couple bites as well. 

 

He'd chose a rag or sock over a toy any day. He gets so mad when bath time is over and I take the wet wash cloth from his mouth.  I'm sure it feels good on his gums. I've put pear and apple slices in his little feeder and he loves to chew on that while I cook or we're eating a meal.  The car seat is still not his favorite, I need to start looking for a bigger car seat and pray he likes that more.

He seemed to enjoy his first Christmas.  He tried to unwrap his presents and was eager to play with his new toys.  He didn't like sleeping in a pack n play so he got to snuggle with me for a couple nights.  I didn't mind it a bit. 

Kai, you are such a smiley and happy baby.  I think your smiling 90% of the day.  Happy half birthday! Love you so much!