BillyandAshlee.com

I think it’s about safe to officially call it…at 7 weeks, just like his sister, Mason is sleeping through the night!! =) In the last week, he seems to have outgrown the evening fussiness that he had every other night and he’s totally chill now, just like during the day. He eats for the last time around 9-9:30pm and then just drifts to sleep in my arms. Love it. Then when I go up to bed, I take him to bed (still in the pack-n-play beside my bed) and swaddle him and he is sleeping until 6-6:30am. He eats, and then goes back to sleep for 2-4 hours until 8-10am. I’m so lucky!!!

And in total “cuteness”, Lauren took her baby doll pack-n-play upstairs and has placed it beside her bed for Winnie to sleep in, just like mommy/Mason. She has been all about Winnie in the last few weeks again…she lays out her next day clothes the night before, just as I do for Lauren and Mason and then lays out Winnie’s pj’s each morning before she leaves for school. And Winnie goes everywhere with us. Lauren has a responsibility chart and each week she gets a new book if she has all her magnets…last week, she decided to forgo the new book for herself, to get new pj’s for Winnie. She has a diaper bag full of clothes for Winnie, ones we’ve bought, she’s received as gifts, and those that Nanny made for Winnie for Lauren’s birthday. I’m so glad I convinced Billy to buy Winnie when we were in Chicago (she’s an American Girl bitty baby…I believe we spent about $125 on Winnie and her accessories)…Billy has now deemed the price tag well worth it for how much she’s played with her since she was “adopted” in June!

Lauren’s school Halloween party is tomorrow…she is Tinkerbell and Mason is Peter Pan (thanks to grammy who made Mason’s costume!!). Lauren and I made pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, frosted them orange, and Lauren sprinkled them all with Halloween sprinkles. Billy and Lauren are carving the pumpkins tomorrow after the party in time for the neighborhood pumpkin lighting…at dusk, we’re all supposed to light our pumpkins and display them at the end of the driveway for all the neighbors to see. I’m sure Billy has something creative up his sleeve! We were “boo’d” on Monday…neighbor leaves treats, rings the doorbell, and runs…then you put the paper ghost in your window/front door to let the neighbors now you’ve been “boo’d” and then you “boo” two neighbors. So I put the packages together on Tuesday (thank goodness for maternity leave giving me the time to do such projects!) and Billy took Lauren out “boo’ing” after dark. She was not a fan. She cried before they left saying she was scared and again as they ran away from the first neighbors house…Billy said he thinks she thought she was doing something wrong by running away…she wanted to ring the bell and give them their present (she loves giving presents). Then we were boo’d again yesterday! lol We decided to spare Lauren a repeat experience. Oh well. Maybe it’ll go better next year!

We’re having a party on Saturday…everyone over for dinner and then to go trick-or-treating and then after the kids can play and the adults can hang out. It should be fun! Lauren’s really, really looking forward to trick-or-treating and all her friends coming over!

I know, I know…no pics of Mason yet and he is 7 weeks old. I’ll try to do that soon now that Billy finished the floor in in his secret room/office/workshop and has put everything back in there so I can get to the right computer. It’s going to take awhile to get caught up!

My 33rd birthday was last week and I had a great birthday! The day before, Billy picked Lauren up from school early and they did some secret stuff, but Billy told Lauren not to tell me, so when they got home Lauren came in and said “we came straight home!”. It was really cute, not that we should be teaching her to lie! On my birthday, Lauren came into our bedroom before school and woke me up to tell me happy birthday. When I came downstairs, I had presents and a card waiting for me. Mason and I met Billy for lunch and he left work for the day, then we ran a few errands, then we picked up Lauren from school and all of us went to Nebraska Furniture Mart looking for a foyer table (no luck), then they all took me out to dinner at my favorite place, J. Alexanders. After, we went home where they had bought me a Princess cake complete with candles and singing Happy Birthday and then I got to open my card (Dora!) and my gifts (some candle reed things I wanted for our house…we kept it small as we just bought a new dining room table and 6 chairs for our breakfast room and tons of stuff for house like vases, candles, placemats, etc). It was one of the best birthday’s…and so fun to be my first birthday with all of my kids:).

It’s hard to believe that Mason is already 6 weeks old. Only 5 more weeks left of maternity leave. It’s probably good though as I’m running out of projects to keep me busy! But of course I could just sit and hold Mason all day! He’s so happy in the morning and just loves giving me huge smiles and talking to me, so much fun. In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten Lauren’s room unpacked and we’re hanging everything on the walls tomorrow; I decorated the great room - I went with a chocolate brown and olive green theme in the great room, breakfast room, and kitchen; I got everything for the main floor bath - chocolate brown and a deep red; still thinking about the dining room - we will eventually buy a new table and buffet for in there and I’m undecided what color I want to do in there; we put out all the Halloween/fall decorations a few weeks ago; and I decorated the kids bathroom in a beach theme - Lauren absolutely loves the beach and has been asking to go about everyday for the last few weeks, so I found the cutest stuff on Target’s website and got the shower curtain, rings, wastebasket, 2 toothbrush holders, and 2 tumblers and then got pink, yellow, green, and blue towels that match perfectly and also go with the colors in the kids rooms (pink/yellow/green in Lauren’s and blue/brown in Mason’s). I’m working on the playroom and Mason’s room right now. Then eventually I’ll get to the master bedroom and bath, but that might wait awhile. I also need to get things hung on the walls, but haven’t quite decided what I want where. I think I’ll take my time deciding on that.

Considering I’m now 6 weeks post partum, I was so excited to get back into the gym this week! I’m really sore, but it feels so good to have sore muscles again! I took a class called “50/50″ yesterday…30 mins cardio and 30 mins of weights/strength training…it was a really good combo to do on my first day back in. Then today Billy and I took “Group Power” together…60 mins of nonstop weights/strength training…you never get a break it’s literally seconds between transitions, not even enough time to change the weights on our bars and they’re already starting the next set of reps. Pretty hard considering we’ve both been out of the gym awhile, but felt great. Tomorrow we’re just doing cardio on our own as they don’t have our 9:30 Sunday class anymore, but then Monday I’m doing a step class. eek. I figured it was easier to get back in the habit of daily workouts now, than trying to figure out how to fit it in once I was back at work…if I crave the exercise (like I do after a few weeks), I’ll find a way to work it in. Mason is sleeping until about 5 or 6am now, so if he can just be stretched to 6:45 by the time I go back to work, I can do my 5:30am classes again, which will be great. I imagine he will be, he keeps lengthening his sleep day by day. And I guess if nothing else, I can keep him up a little later at night to get him to sleep later in the morning so I can get my workout in. There are 5:30am classes Monday - Friday, so it’ll work out well if Mason will adhere to my plan:).

Today after the gym, we met up with our friends the Bray’s and went to lunch at Planet Sub and then to the pumpkin patch. The kids had such a good time riding trains, tractor rides, hay rides, a huge air pillow (never seen anything like it, it looked like fun!), spooky barn, slides, tricycles, petting zoo, etc. Mason just hung out sleeping in the sling for the entire 3 hours except for a few eating sessions, what a good boy! After that, we went and checked out the Bray’s new house they just bought and it’s awesome!

Finally, we’re all home and exhausted and time for bed. whew.

And now it’s Lauren’s turn, here’s her update at 4 years old:

personality
Lauren is a very social kid. She is all about her friends, family, parties, events, activities, etc. She is also great at sharing and is very thoughtful and wants to make sure everyone is included. She can be very silly the later it gets at night. She is very girly and loves to play with dolls, dress-up, anything glittery, etc…but can also hang with the boys and play cars, “bad guys”, etc. She is definitely a little Type-A personality and wants to do everything herself, perfectly. I definitely see the overachiever tendencies along with the need to please while still fiercely independent. I don’t think we’ll have to put any pressure on her in school, we’ll likely be trying to find ways to get her to ease up on the pressure she puts on herself. Oh and the drama…she is definitely high drama! There are still tears and a show when things don’t go her way.

love interests
She is very in love with Drew in her class and tells us several times a week she’s going to marry him. Apparently she lost interest in Jack, her first school love! And of course she is still in love with Brayden, our friends son that is a few months older than her. She was also telling us she was going to marry daddy, until we explained to her that daddy is already married to mommy! She told me the other day that there is a new kid in her class, Brandon, and he’s a young kid and is potty training and wanted to know if he does a good job and stays dry, if he can come over to her house to play…so of course we asked if she likes him and she giggled and said yes. So, older, younger, same age…doesn’t matter to her…she just likes boys! We are a bit concerned with how boy crazy she is at 4 years old. eek!

friends
Her best friends at school are Izzy, Shobika, and Kayla (who is also our neighbor). Every once in awhile we hear about others, but those are the constant. Then of course there are our friends kids that she’s friends with…Ethan, Braydon, Kate, etc. And who can forget Damon…he is her favorite to play with and they play together really well.

activities
She has been taking gymnastics for a few years now and it’s her favorite activity. She also plays several sports at school (they bring in a coach once a week to teach them…of course that costs more!)…so far she’s done soccer, t-ball, golf, yoga, bootcamp, and more that I’m forgetting. Soccer and tball seem to be her favorite. She took dance last fall, but quit last February…I figure I’ll wait to see if she asks to do that again before I enroll her…maybe a few years. She really loves the sports and being a part of a team and the social aspect of it, go figure!

favorites
color - yellow is still at the top, but she’s added a few more…red, something else, and white. yes, white. I don’t think I’ve ever heard white as a favorite color before, it cracks me up.
song - At the current moment, Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” is her favorite song. I love it!
movie - I’m not sure what her favorite is…the girl LOVES movies. We’ve probably seen a dozen movies in the theater with her, she watches them in the car, and then at home when we let her. Anything Disney is always a hit, but she also likes pretty much anything we show her. This week we’ve been watching “Hocus Pocus” which is a Halloween movie with Better Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker from the ’90’s. Her and I watched it one day and then later that night she asked to watch it with daddy and we watched a bit and she explained everything to him as it happened…I couldn’t believe she’d comprehended and remembered so much about it!
tv - She watches mostly Curious George, Clifford, Dora, Diego, and Olivia.
food - Anything with cheese…grilled cheese, quesadilla, cheese sandwich, mac n cheese. She still isn’t much for meat, but will occasionally eat chicken fingers and a hamburger once in a blue moon. She can’t get enough fruit…mainly watermelon, cantelope, strawberries, and grapes. For veggies, Lauren loves salad with blue cheese or ranch dressing, baby carrots, broccoli, and corn on the cob. For sweets, she loves cake or cupcakes (vanilla preferably), ice cream, brownies, cookies, etc…she’s not too picky!
games - She likes to play “school” where she’s the teacher and either her stuffed animals, dolls or Billy/I are her students…she plays naptime, reads books, and tells us what art projects to do. She loves to color, cut paper, paint, and make cards for people (we had to take 3 cards she made to dinner with us tonight to which she gave to the hostess, waitress, and food runner). She likes to ride her tricycle (still not a huge fan of her big girl bike) and her yellow car grammy/papa gave her for her 4th bday. She pretty much likes to play anything, as long as she’s making the rules!
books - She likes Curious George and Dr. Suess books. She has “Pinkalicious” memorized and “reads” it to us word for word…I’m sure there are more like that, but Billy does the bed time routine, so I’m not the best to talk about her books. He has told me she’s sounding out words and trying really hard to read. Her friend Shobika that turned 4 in April is reading and Lauren talks about that a lot and how she wants to read too, so I think she’s trying really hard to learn. She won’t start kindergarten for another 2 years (in 2011), so she should be in pre-K at school next year, but for whatever reason, they put her in pre-k this year. She can definitely handle the work and I’m sure thrives on the challenge.

sleep
Lauren goes to bed around 9pm and we wake her up for school around 7:30am. On the weekends, she generally gets up around 7:30 - 8:30. She still takes a nap, but the length varies. It can be as short as an hour, but is generally 2-3 hours. Twice this week, we have woke her up long after the 3 hour mark because we were worried she wouldn’t be tired for bed that night. I don’t think it’s typical for 4 year olds to still take such long naps, but she definitely still needs it and wants to take a nap. There are occasions that we skip nap on the weekends, but she’s better when she’s had it. Pretty much all of the time, she changes into her jammies for nap too. I guess she likes to be more comfortable when she sleeps!

baths - She takes a bath every other night. When we moved into the new house, she actually started taking showers as she LOVES the doorless walk-in shower in our master bath…it has a rain head and a normal shower head, a bench and is pretty big. She has her cups, ducks, etc in there and she showers in there by herself, playing, dancing, singing (Billy turns on the whole house audio as we have speakers in the bathroom and they listen to the radio). Billy helps her with her hair as she can walk to the outside part of the shower (hard to explain, around the corner, still on tile, but no water sprays there). She loves her showers. Now we have 5 places to bathe/shower in our house with 4 people and only 1 of them gets used! Go figure!

vocabulary
There isn’t much to say here…she has been vocal since she was about 8 months old! She is very easy to understand and speaks like a little adult! There are a few words she says that crack me up…my favorite is instead of “keeps” she says “peeps”…it’s so cute…”mommy, can I peep it?”. I don’t correct her bc I love it! She was calling the “waitress” tonight the “naturist” until we corrected her:) She has definitely been saying some more difficult words and phrases. The other night daddy told her to eat her dinner or no snacks and she responds with “oh yes, tougher guy?”. Too stinkin funny…he about spit his dinner all over her! She also says things or asks us things that amaze us sometimes at her ability to conceptualize. For instance, tonight, we told her we were going to go eat at “the peanut place” (aka Texas Roadhouse, one of her fav’s) but first mommy/Lauren were going to go buy her new book at the bookstore while daddy/Mason ran to Home Depot (her most dreaded place in the world, she groans when we tell her we’re going there…we actually use it and say things like “if you don’t hurry up and get your shoes on, we’re going to Home Depot”…hehe). So in the care on the way there, all 4 of us were in the car, she says “how are me and mommy going to the bookstore and daddy and mason going to home depot, are we going to have 2 cars?” Crazy that she sat in the back sweat, 15 mins after we told her where we were going, and she thought to ask that. So we explained daddy was dropping mommy/Lauren off while he/Mason went to Home Depot. So smart. And she’s ALWAYS listening. She’ll be watching a movie in the backseat while Billy and I are talking up front and she’ll pipe in with her thoughts on our conversation when we thought she wasn’t listening. We’ve resorted to spelling, but even that is failing as she’s learned what “w-a-l-k” is, haha.

writing, numbers
I’m not sure how long Lauren has been writing her name, but it’s likely been over a year. She can also write a few other things, like daddy’s name. She’s now working on her lowercase letters as well. She can read all the other 19 names of the kids in her class. If she see’s a letter she’ll say “M, hey, Mason’s name starts with an M!”. Tonight at dinner, Billy had the word search in front of him from her menu and had circled the letters of her name (in no particular order) and Lauren took one look at it and said “hey, you circled the letters in my name!”. Again, she’s been counting forever, but will count up to 100…sometimes she needs help with what 10-set is next (e.g., sixty, seventy, etc). And for whatever reason, she ALWAYS skips 15…I can not get her to say 15. She’s always done that!

discipline
Lauren has always been a very easy kid to discipline. She really doesn’t like to disappoint you and if you just look at her mean, it’ll likely result in her melting in tears. God forbid you raise your voice to her, she’ll be huddled in a corner crying her eyes out…so this rarely happens. We’ve chosen to use the Love & Logic parenting style with her since she was a baby and it’s worked well. For every choice she makes (good or bad), there is a consequence and we let her learn from the consequences. We just don’t say things like “we don’t hit our friends”…we say that and then take something or a privilege away. For example, when I caught her putting stickers all over the mudroom bench in our brand new house we’d lived in a week…I told her “how sad, now your friend Ethan has to leave” and Megan packed up the kids and left…Lauren was distraught and bawling, and I’d never told her she “couldn’t” put stickers on the bench, but she should have known better and I had to make the consequence be enough to encourage her not to make that sad choice again. It worked. After she hid in the closet crying, she came out and apologized to me, gave me a hug, and helped me take the stickers off (thank goodness they came off with the bench unscathed!). And for quite awhile after that incident, when she played with stickers, she’d tell me “and I won’t put them on the bench or the walls mommy”. Lesson learned. I think this method works so much better than anything else I’ve read/seen as it gives the kids more of the control and power and teaches them that every action/decision has a consequence, be it good or bad. I think this will serve her well as she gets older. It makes the parenting easier for us in a lot of ways as we aren’t nagging or yelling…we just deliver the consequences. And she gets plenty of rewards as well. We started her on a “responsibility chart” last week…it has things on it like “get dressed”, “pick up your toys”, “brush your teeth”, “feed the dog”…things that we want her to start taking more ownership of. Each day she completes each task, she gets a magnet on the board for that task…if she gets to the end of the week and has all of her magnets for each day, she gets a new book of her choice. Tonight was her first book…she chose “The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear”. She’s been talking about this book for weeks and was so excited to go get it tonight. Each day she’s so excited to do each task and runs to put her magnet on the board. Hopefully the excitement continues! My favorite is when she goes running to Brody’s bowl…if it’s empty she yells “YES!” and does a little dance bc it means she gets to feed him and get her magnet.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years already and how grown-up she already is. She’s so fun to hang out with and as I mentioned in Mason’s update, it’s awesome to see her interact with and take care of Mason. It’s freaking me out that next year I”ll be writing her FIVE year old update, I know the year is going to fly.

I’m so blessed with such a good baby!! Mason is now 5.5 weeks old, so I wanted to do a recap of Mason at 1 month:

sleep
Mason has a routine…one day he sleeps practically all day and goes to bed at a reasonable hour (around 8-9ish pm). Then the following day, he is awake most of the day, can be a bit cranky, and is definitely fussy in the late evening and fights sleep until 10pm (or later, last night was 11:30!). It’s actually nice, bc I get one good day to interact with him a lot, and then the next day I get to cuddle a sleeping baby (he’s sleeping in the ring sling on my lap as I type!). The first month of his life, he went to bed around 9pm, got up for a feeding at 2-3am, then again around 5-6am, and then would be up for the day around 9am. Right around 4 weeks, he dropped one of those feedings and is now sleeping from 9pm - 4-5am, up for a feeding, and then up for the day around 8-9am. It seems like he’s following exactly what Lauren did and she was sleeping through the night at about 7 weeks. I do hope that in another 2 weeks, he’s sleeping through the night, but I will really miss our middle of the night feedings. The house is so dark and quiet and it’s just mommy/Mason time that I love. I’m definitely being sappy because he’s our last baby! He falls asleep on me in the evenings (by my choice, see that sappy part!) and then Billy swaddles him and puts him in the pack-n-play by our bed. Then after his 4-5am feeding, I take him back to bed with me. Billy is so not thrilled with this routine, but again, see the sappy part. I imagine he’ll be sleeping through the night soon, so I’ll take the cuddle time while I can get it. And Mason LOVES to cuddle with mommy.

feedings
I’m still feeding him roughly every 2 hours during the day, sometimes 3 hours, just to ensure good night stretches. But it’s likely we can go to 3 hours and be ok. Until the evenings, he still loves to cluster feed about every hour from 6pm until bedtime. At 2 weeks, we introduced the bottle, and most evenings, Billy and Lauren take turns giving Mason his bottle of breast milk.

hair
Mason was born with a ton of dark, long hair. It seems like it’s thinning though, so he might be losing it.

eyes
Never in a million years would Billy and I think we’d have a blue eyed child, but we’re beginning to think it *might* be possible that Mason’s eyes will stay blue. They’ve continued to get lighter and lighter blue since he was born…which is nothing like what Lauren’s eyes did, they changed in the first week or so to dark, dark brown. We’ve had so many people (friends, eye dr, relatives, etc) tell us that they think they’re going to stay blue, that they look just like their blue eyed kids, so I guess we’ll see! The pediatrician said they can change up until they’re a year old, so we have a bit of a wait! But it would be so striking if he kept his dark hair and blue eyes! And I love that he would carry on the blue eyes from his grammy and his grandma Dawn!

size
Mason weighs approximately 11.5lbs, but I have no idea how long he is (next pediatrician appt is at 2 months), but he’s a growing boy! He’s already started to outgrow some of his 0-3 month clothes and the 3-6 month size fits him pretty well. He’s just starting to get a little baby fat on him, but things are outgrowing because of his length! The 3-6 month pants he has on today are pretty good on length, but way too big in the waist.

milestones
- Mason started smiling last week and we get smiles everyday, we love them! Lauren is really good at getting him to smile, and she loves that of course!
- He’s doing so well with head control, which probably is because the child LOVES tummy time! I actually put him on his tummy to make him happy…that is so weird to me because Lauren HATED tummy time and would scream the entire time, so she rarely got any! He’s probably had more tummy time in his first 5.5 weeks of life, than she did in the 9 months before she learned to crawl!
- Mason absolutely loves to be outside. If he is fussy at all (which isn’t often, but more prone to it in the evenings), all you have to do is walk outside and he’s immediately happy.
- He loves his swing. He will almost always nap in it. Again, very different than his sister! It’s kind of making me nervous how opposite they seem to be!
- He is a good shopper. Does he have a choice with me, Lauren, and grammy?
- Not a big fan of the bouncy seat. If I put it on top of the running dryer while I’m doing laundry, that seems to make him happier a bit longer, but not much.
- He loves the sound of running water. Sometimes I can just turn on the faucet to make him happy. And he loves the ocean waves sound on all of his things that make sound (swing, sound machine on pack-n-play, etc).
- He really seems to like watching tv when it’s on. yikes, already?
- He’s starting cooing and talking back to us. So cute!

siblings
- Lauren and Mason are so in love with each other. She absolutely loves holding him and is so excited she that this week he had enough head control that she can recline him on her chest, sitting upright. She runs upstairs to help with every single diaper change and hands us wipes, helps wipe, throws away the old diaper, gets the new diaper, and pretty much puts it on herself. She picks out his jammie’s each night and generally will also set out the outfit she wants him to wear the next day. And it’s amazing how much he loves staring at her and he gets so calm and just seems fascinated by her when she’s around. I’ve had her stay home with us a few days this week for fun and it’s actually a huge help to me, she holds him while I do some household chores and one day, I told her she was in charge and she “babysat” him while I was in the shower…she LOVED it! And before anyone freaks out, he was sleeping in the swing, but she loved the responsibility, she thrives on that. She’s just so proud of him and loves to show him off and tell everyone about him and as soon as she gets home from school, she runs to the hand sanitizer so she can clean her hands and touch and hold him. I can’t wait to watch them grow up together.

Knowing it’s our last baby, I’m just soaking up every minute and not wishing him to grow any faster than he is. I’m looking forward to the milestones, but I’d be totally fine with this age forever! =)

Mason has been giving me “half-smiles” in the morning all week. I’ve seen him smile huge smiles in his sleep since he’s been born, but I couldn’t wait to see the real, on purpose, smile. Today was the day (at 4.5 weeks)!! We got up and he ate and after I was giving him big “muah” kisses and he started smiling! I called down to Billy and he came up and saw it too! Then during his diaper change, I was tickling his lips and got even more! So we went downstairs and while Lauren was holding him, she was tickling his lips and chin and got really big smiles!! YEA!!! I love when they start interacting!

Mason LOVES laying on his tummy. So much so, that today he rolled from his back to his tummy all by himself!! And he just turned 4 weeks old today! Given, he was attempting to recover the paci that had fallen out of his mouth, but still, he rolled all by himself!! It’s so weird to me, because Lauren HATED tummy time. I think he prefers being on his tummy! He slept in bed with me this morning for a few hours, started out on his side, when I woke up, he was on his tummy. I’m afraid this could mean he may be mobile faster than Lauren too, yikes!