ike: 7, 8 + 9 months and rockyp: 30, 31 + 32 months

post by casey.



it's been 3 MONTHS since I've updated you on the kiddos! And in Baby-Land...Ike-World...that's entirely too long! He's a completely different person! I'm a completely different person! J/K. Same ol' me but since having to fill out those 8 pages of doctor questionnaires on what my 9mo is up to...I've changed...and not in a good way;). I know I've said it before BUT I'LL SAY IT A-FUCKING-GAIN. Those things are out-of-control.

- nope, not pulling himself up onto the couch and trash-talking with me through the Bachelorette.

- nope, hasn't quite figured out how to pick-up a cheerio with only his thumb AND pinky finger and then shoving those into the small top of a baby-safe bottle and then handing that bottle to me and asking for it back in Spanish and then pulling himself up on the couch WITH the bottle and trash-talking with me through the Bachelorette.

*it's Bachelorette Season and I'm into it. Sorry, not sorry;).

long-story-short. We've got him in classes now because he sucks.;)

now, here are some photos of my baby boys:). From these photos, you wouldn't know that there's anything wrong with them;). But based on that paper-work, we're gonna have to 'keep an eye on them';). I kid. They're perfect! Well...Ike is perfect...#thankgawdforikee;). Rocky on the other hand...he's caught somewhere between me still finding him COMPLETELY ADORABLEEEEEEEEEE. Gah. And literally being the worst...like duct tape his shoes on, duct tape his ass in a cart, duct tape his ears open (listening problem - hello?! anyone in there? not gonna stop? nothing?! k, thanks). 

you guys, I'm not gonna lie....Summer Vacation is...harddddd-ishhhhh?! Even I'm confused as to how I feel about it. Really. Ask me today, I think I'd agree that it's the BEST! Loving this weather. Loving having the kids home. Loving our time and adventures together. Ask me 12 hours from now...I might be mentioning that Summer Vacation can GO STRAIGHT TO HELL!!!!;)

lots of caps. I apologize. I'm feeling things this morning;).

okay. PHOTOS OF THE KIDS!!!

so Ikeeeeeee, is basically perfection;). Love him. Love his soft body. Love his gummy smiles!!! No teeth yet. Still co-sleeping...which may be the longest we've had a baby in our bed but he's still doing great, so what the heck ever:). Sleeping is...?! Sometimes he has a great night...sometimes we don't sleep for days. With Summer Vacation, I've noticed that we're really not on ANY schedule. This fall, once the older 2 are in school, I hope to get him on a better napping schedule:). 

we're still nursing! Ike did have his first bites of food at about 9 months but we haven't really gone much further. Every now and again, IF we're having something easy with our meals (cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, yogurt, apple sauce), I'll give him a few bites. Or if we have those little pouches of baby food available, I'll help him with that a bit. But overall...I just love nursing him and we're in no hurry to have him fending for himself:).

ike is sitting by himself. He drags/crawls/moves all over the house! We're on constant watch for tiny bits of ANYTHING that he might find and put in his mouth. Since Theo had a 'choking incident' when she was about his age...I have some MAJOR stress about choking and so I'm always on the lookout for anything he might find.

he's just the best. Really:).

willb + ike

sitting up on his own but still a tad wobbly at times! Mom's always a hand away;).

rowdy + ike

and then there's RockyP!!! Like I said above...he's in this tiny little window of time where he does ALL the things wrong. Not listening. Getting into everything. Basically, follows behind me undoing my life. BUT his smile still melts me and even while wrecking anything he touches, somehow, I just can't be freaking mad at him! You seasoned moms out there know...this passes in the blink of an eye...so I'm trying to enjoy;).

it seems that overnight we can understand him! Even just a few weeks ago there was a lot of "huh?", "wtf???", "sure...I think?!" in response to his gibberish;). BUT now he's full of full sentences and stories and a LOT of it is making sense;).

he's a great cuddler! We've been blessed with THE.BEST.CUDDLERS! Good gracious!

rocky is still on his mattress on the floor, upstairs, with a baby-gate across his door. I did just find some metal frames to attach to the headboards I already have and so I'm excited to move some things around and set the kids up in rooms together again!
(currently they each have their own room but I think I'd like to put Theo and Homer back together and then Rocky and Ike will have their own rooms for a bit)

he pooped on the floor today. That's where we're at with potty training:).

i love this mischievous little shit so so much:).

rockyp + coy

why is your face like that.

for the love of GOD, just SMILE.

guys...they all look the fucking same.

second trimester. time, slow down!

something about pregnancy makes the time go quicker for me. while I don't know what the future holds, and I really shouldn't say things out loud ...mostly for fear of everyone in our small town repeating them back to me a million times... "you like even numbers, right?!"   

I feel pretty content preparing myself with the idea of this being The Final Smith (not enough to use it as a blog post title though;). it better be a good one ;) all joking aside, we've been blessed. healthy pregnancies. smooth pregnancies. smooth deliveries. and healthy babies. I really couldn't ask for more! maybe more Starbucks while in the hospital... *wink*wink* sistasssss ;)

so here we are... half way through my second trimester and wishing time would slow down. although, it doesn't take a pregnancy for me to wish for that.

I don't get in front of the camera often so have to make it a point to have one of the kids or one of the sisters snap just a few quick photos of me. it also has to coincide with when I've showered... so Sundays for sure ;)

I'm a fairly boring pregnant woman. No complaints really... only to Dave ;) apparently pregnancy is good to me :) not really craving anything extraordinary. I like food. I like cookies. and ice cream. and Starbucks. I frequent the chiropractor often. Varicose veins have snuck up on me. My sisters like to point out my age so that's catching up with me as well. There was mention of AMA at one of my initial OB appointments. but there is no talk of that or my weight since ;) 

we don't share the gender, nor do we find out. and we don't share any names, although we've nearly run out of names... feel free to send any this way! the kids are pretty excited, kissing my belly often. Will asks if it's coming out... today... right now... ;)

mostly feeling tired and large and grateful I get to do this again. praying for a healthy baby!

many thanks to my photographer, Lia. who claimed to be James 2.0 and reminded me a lot of this popular video ;)

photos taken at 25wks. currently 26wks... give or take ;)

remember me? didn't think so;).

post by casey.



well, if there ever was a way to fail at blogging...Courts and I would be winning at that!!;)

did you know that Courts is pregnant?!;) - see announcement HERE. Did you know that I am not?;( 

family photos over Mother's Day - Papa took a permanent marker to my kids face prior...;)

I may share more of these at some point!:)

wine night with the ladies:)

rocky still can't talk worth shit. He IS peeing in the yard...so we're making some potty-training progress!;) He does a pretty realistic dinosaur impression and he really can't do much wrong, in my book...even though he's, basically, doing wrong things constantly!!!;)

claire and rocky in that pool that took me no less than 27 trips to the bath tub with 2 ice cream pails...and they played in there for approximately 13minutes:/

homer is wrapping up his 1st full year of school! Kindergarten is over next week and man...I'm having feelings about that! He's SIX you guys and I've always had a terrible memory but having to dig deep to remember that every time someone asks...it hurts;'(.
Kindergarten has been amazing for him! Mrs. Guyer, his teacher, is just...EVERYTHING. Homer loves her. I love her. I'm almost a tinyyyyyyy bit sad that he's done so well - thanks so much to her - but I wouldn't be mad if he had to be in her classroom one more year;).

jacob has been putting in a lot of hours at work, which has been great for our savings but we already miss him. It will be a long summer without him but we're used to that by now:).
Did I mention that we paid off all our debt?! We're DEBT-FREE!?!?!? We drive a 2001 Dodge Caravan...it has dual (manual;) sliding doors....would you rate your envy at a 10 out of 10 yet?;)
And by Debt-Free, I mean that we haven't had credit cards for years...we haven't accumulated debt for years...we've just been trying to clean up a mess for...YEARS. And now we just have a mortgage and no air conditioning and it's been 110thousand degrees BUT we're so so sweaty happy!!!:)

i've still been watching kids (my sisters - and no, I will not watch your kids;) here and there. Just about enough to pay for the occasional facial but not enough to really want to rip out my ovaries. #balance
I've also clocked another year of...sobriety!? That feels heavy but I believe that is what I have been/am. It's been just over 2 years now. Phew!

theo is still holding down the fort. She's keeping things weird...which we love:). She starts PreK this fall!!! Why do I fear that she'll actually have a harder time being pulled off my leg than Homer???;/ - see how Homer did HERE.

i've been doing the Spring/Summer things! Freshening up the landscaping. Buying all.the.things at the Greenhouses. Filling the pool manually because the hose situation is broke and that's just been awful! Push mowing the lawn every 17hrs;).

ike is growing by the second. He's adorable and fun and great and quite the talker! Smiles nonstop! He's soft. Oh, man...he's so.gosh.darn.SOFT!!!!!!! We love cuddles. He rolls and is pushing himself around on the floor but no where near sitting yet. 
He's still exclusively nursing. He's going through a bit of a sleep regression - is that what the people who keep track of such things call it??!?. Currently, he's up until about 1AM...except for last night/this morning...we prepared mentally for 1AM and so you know...he was up till after 3AM. Good one. Great. Awesome. How though. Whyyyyyy.;).

we're hanging in there;). 

we're just so happy for the warm weather! I'd take 80's over the cold ANY day! Give me sweat over goosebumps!

we're trying not to do too much planning for the next few months. We're just hoping to save, save, save...I mean...people have savings and we want to be those people!!!!;). We'd love to do some traveling and get away a bit but we're just going to be annoying noncommittal and the goal this summer is Spur of the Moment/Last Minute/Why Not/Maybe/We'll See/Sure/No/Let's Do It/Yes/ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE;).

so we're good and we're trying to stare at the kids more and take it all in and really appreciate this time. Gosh, we've really lucked out and we're just so so aware of that.

have a great day, friends.

ike: 6 months and rockyp: 29 months

post by casey.

you guys, we had just about the best weekend! And it's a Monday morning and I'm still reeling from those Good Sunday Vibes:). It helps a bit that getting Homer up and ready for school was painless and 2 out of 3 kiddos are still sleeping - Theo JUST got up at 850AM! But it was such a wonderful weekend and there were so many moments that brought those happy tears to my eyes. It seems that a growing trend in my most favorite memories, involve me sitting somewhere with a baby on the boob and Jacob in the distance...plus 3 more kiddos this time:).

okay, lets get to it. 

SO many milestones these last few weeks and in the upcoming weeks. Ike is 6.MONTHS.OLD and Homer will be turning 6.YEARS.OLD in a week. From day to day, I hardly have enough time to dwell on any of this but you bet I make time to REALLY let the reality of TIME and AGE and my BABIES and LIFE wash over me in the darkest of nights...lotssssss of quiet sobbing happening between the hours of 1147PM and 123AM;).

ike is 6 months old. He is in that little bubble of PERFECTION. Rocky on the other hand *side eye* - we'll get to him;).

ike is almost 19lbs and I think he'd actually be closer to 20lbs had we not lost some ground when he was in the hospital - if you missed that, there's a post HERE. He's still exclusively breastfed and doing well with that. I haven't added solids and I'm probably gonna keep being super lazy taking that approach until he's closer to 9 months:).

he's not sleeping through the night and I really have no clue how much he sleeps because I just don't keep track. He sleeps when he sleeps and it is what it is. He does take 2 pretty solid naps during the day though!:)

ike still has a cough. Still...or again!? It's all pretty much the same at this point. I think we're just gonna be working through respiratory issues until he's a bit older, unfortunately. But he's taking it all in stride and luckily, nothing more serious has come of it.

we still have a thumb sucker andddddd it's prettyyyyyyy adorable. I'll worry about whether he'll be sucking his fingers in his 1st Grade Photos when the time comes;).

he's scooting all over the place. Rolls nonstop. If I had to guess...I THINKKKKK we may have a walker at or BEFORE a year. Anything before 14 months would be a record for our babies;):).

ike is just the best. Smiles nonstop. Talking up a storm. Loves being outside. Loves being cuddled. He's wonderful and we love him so so SO much!

and thennnnnn there's Rocky.Freaking.P. I'm seriously laughing to myself just thinking about this goof ball! Oh man. Just when you think they'll have no personality at all;).

rockyP is a riot. He's also a terrible listener. Which is pretty typical of his age but we're working on it:). As you can see here, he was taking a new smile out for a spin for these photos - the squinty eye variety;). 

he prefers to actually do some walking on our walks, as opposed to riding in the stroller. Sometimes he has a choice, most of the time he doesn't...due to the above mentioned listening issue and oncoming traffic;/. 

he is a good sleeper. Still in his big boy bed on the floor but I think we're ready to get him up off the floor and into an actual bed!

Sometimes in the morning, he gets up and just looks out the window for a while. Watches the buses going to and from school and just keeps to himself for a while:).

rocky is talking up a storm and we're gaining some ground there too...we can understand about 72% of what he says now;). 

rocky keeps us on our toes and I wouldn't change a darn thing about him!:) He's so feisty and hardly ever eats. Until he does...and then he eats anything that ain't tied down;). He sings, he dances...he's a one-man-variety-show!!! 

don't be fooled, though...as much as he makes me laugh...he's got me losing my shit;).

BUT guess what...the windows are open now with this weather and so that means I've got to try and keep my 'temper' under control for all those ears out walking by;).

love my boys and as much crazy as they bring...they bring so much more fun than I could have ever imagined!:)

all of a sudden, I'm fulfilled.

post by casey.

so a lot of days I feel like I should be doing more. I'd like to do more...as far as being more productive with my time, being more present with the kids, wanting less, spending more time outside, really taking advantage of our days while I get to sort of do as I please with our time, etc. BUT I've also struggled a lot with feeling like I should WANT to go back to work. I should WANT a career. I should want something more for my days than staying home with the kids. 

i had a 'break-through' of sorts after talking to my best girl, Gerdie:) and listening to Dax Shepard's Podcast - The Armchair Expert, Seth Green Episode. Love his Podcast!!!

from those two conversations it kinda hit me that I am fulfilled.

Being a wife to Jacob has given me the most self confidence I've ever known. Being a mom and staying home has made me feel more fulfilled than anything I've ever done or hoped to do. 

maybe not wanting 'more' than what you have right now feels like a weird place to be and that's not to say that my feelings on that won't evolve and I won't find myself back to work in a more traditional sense, someday. BUT it seems like a weight lifted to finally not feel like I'm not doing enough. Like I need to keep looking. 

is this what being content means, really!?

con·tent

[kənˈtent]

ADJECTIVE

1. in a state of peaceful happiness.

how I look hardly ever.

how i look mostly always.

now, this is where I'm at. This is most likely not where you're at. And that's good! That's okay! What I hope for you, whether you're a stay-at-home-mom or a work-from-home-mom or a full-time-working-mom or an i-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-doing-mom;) or if you don't have kids at all...this is more of a LIFE feeling...my hope is that you're fulfilled. That what you're doing, whatever that is, brings you joy and contentment. Is there anything worse than wishing you were doing something other than what you are at the moment? 

can I also admit that I woke up after a long night of NOT sleeping with a coughing baby. I was vomited on and cried on and my 4yr old joined me at 1AM. And I, luckily, insisted that Jacob sleep on the couch so that he could get sleep (I know they say not to keep score but you bet your ASS I'll be getting pay back for the last few nights;)...not surprisingly, I woke up in a foul mood. My husband sensed this...or maybe me saying: "hey, thanks for leaving the house a complete fucking disaster for me babe. Have a GREAT day!!!!" made it obvious that I wasn't feeling JOY this morning;). 

every day isn't going to be the picture of joy and rainbows and house-trained puppies;). Even at 35yrs old and finally knowing and accepting that I'm RIGHT where I should be....some days...I can't do the dishes one.more.god.damn.time. I don't WANT to get the kids milk. I don't WANT to change another diaper. Some days I think it might kill me if I have to. I would like to think that with any job, ideal or not...you're going to have some not so great days.

but this morning, I quietly cleaned and made my way to the dishes and washed my face and poured a cup of coffee and the sun shined for a bit and did the things that I need to do...it's not always easy. And there is no big plan today. No exciting adventure. But as I sit here, I'm overwhelmed with happiness - I'm also hearing the kids tear apart the DVDs and slide them across the floor...WHYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!;). 

i hope you're happy today:).