Miio at 5 months

I am writing this as Miio is four days shy of 5 months. Things seems so much more manageable. 

He has gotten over the habit of waking up 45 minutes after he goes to sleep. This is such a blessing. This way all the kids can be in bed before he wakes up and usually I can just feed him and he goes back to sleep. He is still up twice a night, but I am pretty sure he only woke up once at 3:45 last night. If this is true, it is the longest he has slept.

I kind of hate that I always start with the update on sleep, but I have to be honest to say what a huge impact that has on everything.

He wears size two diapers during the day and size three at night. We still have poop coming out on most mornings. So I have a pile of pajamas that I wash once a week since they need some extra TLC to get to stains out. 

He rolls over all the time now, which means he has started sleeping on his tummy. I think this has helped him sleep better. He has a cold and still slept okay last night so I am hoping that once the cold is done, he will sleep better and better. 

He will roll over when he is laying on the ground  and "playing" . He doesnt love being on his tummy for extended period of time, though.  And he will also move around in circles as he moves his little body around. 

Miio eats every four hours or so. Sometimes I get a bit more flexible about it depending on the activities of the day. He is still nursing exclusively except for the one bottle of formula I tried last month.

He definitely likes me the best. He also likes it when Eerika rolls her "R"s.  He is very good at dealing with Aleksi's bugging. 

He takes three naps a day. He falls asleep so easily in his car seat with white noise. Makes our life so much easier. He also falls asleep on his for his naps. If he is super overtired and fussing a lot, I might nurse him to sleep to help him go down but this happens only once in a while. 

He takes tutti and loves to grind his gums on it. He can now also put it into his mouth, especially with the little elephant attached to it. Sometimes we can see him trying to get the tutti in his mouth by wiggling himself around the crib. 

He drools a lot, but for once, I am good at putting bibs on him. 

He is ticklish. He gives huge smiles when I kiss his neck or pretend to eat him. 

He likes to reach for his toes and hold them, and pull on his socks. 

People have commented that Miio has Troy's eyes. He barely has hair and his eyes are still blue. 

Growing Pains

Tonight Eerika and I had a good conversation about the difficulty of friendships and being who you are. She was sad because her friends had told her that they were bigger because their parents didn't come to their bedroom to sing a song and say a prayer with them. And a boy had called her "boyish girl" because she likes pokemon. Already at six, it is very hard to not want to try to fit in. She mentioned how she wanted to just say prayers by herself because she wanted to be big girl. And the other day, she wanted to be fashionable and cool with sunglasses so I talked to her about the importance of doing what YOU want to do and that is cool. 

I wish I could be better example of doing what I want to do and being who I want to be and not worry about what is cool. That is why I'm so grateful for friends like Starla, Heather, Missie and Natalie who always make me feel good about the person who I am. 

So I will be praying and trying to find answers to how to instill this confidence in Eerika that she will be proud to like Pokemon, do her own hair, want to dig at the playground and mud, sing Hamilton songs, loving writing notes and lists, not really liking barbies, dreaming of having a pet, climbing trees, wanting to play with friends all the time, truly striving to be kind at all times but having conflict of wanting to be right and in charge at the same time. 

It was a very sweet moment when Saku asked Eerika tonight "can I give you a hug" and then he said "you are awesome just the way you are". 

Our Sunday Bests

On  Saturday I took the kids to garage sales in Cordera. I was hoping to find a dresser for Miio. We showed up before 8 am when the sales started. We ended up at house of a family who used to be in our ward. Each kid found a fun toy there and I found bunch of clothes for 15 dollars. Three dresses, one skirt (picture below) and three shirts.  

I also got Eerika a new dress, tights and a denim jacket for five dollars. 

Morning snuggles with Saku and Miio. 

Eerika is back to wearing her glasses every day. She is determined to be herself. And it really is a wonderful thing. 

  "Your lips are so red" Eerika said:)

I was so tired on Sunday that we turned on a movie. Saku said "We shouldnt do that on the Sabbath" and I responded that Heavenly Father would understand the need for me to get a little break. 

We had the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. The kids spoke their parts clearly and Saku's solo was beautiful. Maelle's family came to watch it and Maelle stayed for Primary. 

Miio at 4 months

Honestly I was a bit worried about Miio reaching four months as each of my babies have hit a rough patch with sleep and Troy was going to be gone. 

Sure enough, Miio had the worst sleep for the first two weeks Troy was gone. I did transition him into the crib and maybe that changed things but there were nights when I was up almost every hour and cried at 2 am as I was worried how I would get through the next day.

Ironically, he also learned to fall asleep on his own. One day I just laid him down when he was making noise but not crying and fell asleep on his own. So now he falls asleep on his own regularly which has made my life so much easier. I can't figure out why he has a hard time staying asleep and sleeping well at night when he naps so well. 

I did finally start unswaddling him. I am not sure if it has made difference for good or for bad. 

He has started taking three naps and I try to space his feedings four hours apart. Scheduling is tricky with our evenings being very busy but he really does go along really well. 

He found his toes and started getting interested in toys. Missie gave us bunch of toys as I had somehow gotten rid of our old ones. 

Aleksi loves him. So much. He loves to lay on him and smother him and poke his nose. 

Last 2.5 weeks have been exhausting but Miio is truly a sweet ray of sunshine. Troy makes comments how content he is as we face time. It is crazy how much Miio has changed in the last few weeks. 

He poops every morning and has a blow out pretty much every morning. I even put him on size three diaper but somehow we are always leaking poop. He does well at Villa Kids which is nice. 

He loves to gnaw on things. He takes the tutti and it helps out a lot when he gets more tired. 

Miio seems to get this look on his face when I put the camera in front of him. Now he also tries to eat it.

Camping baby

Sometimes I leave his arms unswaddled but I am not committed to anything yet since our sleep has been so up and down at night. I actually woke him up from his nap so I could go to a gym class, but he had been sleeping for 2 + hours so I felt like it was okay.

It is so fun to see him grab things. He cant really hold on to things well yet but toys do entertain him for a while which is nice. 

Aleksi loves loves loves Miio. It is fun to have these two brothers at home together while Saku and Eerika are at school. Few people have made a comment on how Miio looks more like Troy than the other kids. 

As I look at these pictures of Miio, I feel so humbled and blessed to have him in our home. Yes I am way beyond exhausted right now and at 7 pm, I am so ready to be done being a parent but those eyes looking at me and the sweet smiles remind me what a blessing it is to be aiti. 

Soccer Season

Our Saturdays are spent on the soccer fields now. Since this is our first season of having two kids playing, it is busy. Luckily Aleksi is a good sport and so far, Miio has been able to nap during practices and games. 

Saku had a little bit of a rough start. He had a really hard time concentrating and he seemed intimidated on the field. It was frustrating to watch him not play up to his potential. However, last weekend at his third game, I finally started playing the way he played last season. Of course we want our kids to do things well, but we really do try to focus on them working hard and trying their best. 

Eerika has done really well. She works very hard on the field. She doesn't have that many skills yet but she runs after the ball and gives nice big kicks.  She even took down another girl as she was using her body as a shield to protect the ball.  She did feel upset when she played against her friend's team as she felt that it wasn't nice to try to beat them. She has complained few times, outside of practice and usually at night, how hard it is to keep running during the game. 

Saku had his second X country race. It was the first official race. And he did so well. I was worried that he would use all his energy before the race being super goofy with his friends. It is hard to not nag sometimes and try to control the kids. I told him that he needed to run and not walk during the race. When he came to the final stretch, I could tell that he was tired but he kept going! I was so proud of him. 

Life Goes on Full Speed

Somehow we are in the end of September and I have hardly written down anything about our life again. 

Eerika is more willing to let me do her hair. I bribe her with a TV show while I do her hair. She still cries and moans and she definetily has a sensitive head, or she thinks so at least but we have gotten some cute hair dos, thanks to you tube. 

These are 6 month pjs that Miio fills up. I dont think there is any way he can fit into them by December so I put them on him in September.

Miio thinks hands are delicious. He sucks on his fingers. He gnaws on his fist and loves to gnaw on my knuckles as well. He is so droolly already. 

Aleksi doesn't nap anymore. He will be in quiet time and stay there, but he doesn't nap anymore. I know I was completely spoiled with Eerika's napping until she was five! Aleksi is pretty happy overall even without the nap and I try to put him to bed around 7 pm, before the big kids, so he seems to be getting enough sleep. 

Saku has done excellent job with the Spanish Immersion. He made a new friend, Norah, who lives a street away from us. He is doing choir, X-country, piano and soccer. It is way too much but luckily piano and choir are the only activities that will last all year along. X country is done in three weeks and soccer by the end of October. 

Being surrounded by Spanish all day long made it difficult for Saku to concentrate at first and he would start reading instead of doing the class activities. You can't really fault him for that and if his "crime" is reading extra, it isn't too bad but we still had a talk about how he needs to try to understand and tell the teacher when he doens't understand.  When he reads in Spanish, he sounds phenomenal. 

He started with a new piano teacher Sister Trent. 

X-country practice meet was a good practice to try to learn that you don't walk when you are racing. We will see how the rest of the meets go. 

Eerika loves Spanish Immersino. She has her three best friends in the class with her; Ivy, Sophie and Maelle. Also Luke, the boy Eerika fell in love with two years ago, is there too plus a handful of kids that she knows from last year.  She loves biking to school. She had school lunch for the first time last week and she thought it was the best thing ever. 

Aleksi is liking being the big kid at home. He still loves Miio so much and asks to hold him. He likes to smother him when Miio is in the swing or in the bouncer. He also loves to give loves to Kenzie who is his friend Jaxon's little sister. He likes to go to Villa kids and proudly says how he is a big boy now and doens't cry there. "I'm happy here" he tells me. He loves to talk about butts and poop.  He loves to bike on his scuut bike everywhere.  He loves to inform you what he will do the next day "I will wake up and come to your bed. Then I will have breakfast-mini wheats". He probably gets his way more often that not, but I don't think he is too spoiled. 

Before Troy left for Japan, I drove up to Denver with the two younger boys and went to the temple and lunch at Cheesecake Factory. We hadn't eaten there for two years so I had forgotten how big those portions are. In the end Aleksi had had enough of the place and Miio woke up early so I left in a hurry but it was a good day up there. We also shopped at Ikea for some fun things for our kitchen. I am trying to make it look more "Farm Style" and the fake plants that I bought make me happy every day.

Miio does such a great job napping on the go. He falls asleep easily and sleeps well most of the time. It is such a blessing that I don't have to stress about it much.

Eerika started her first official soccer season and she is doing wonderfully. She is hard working and aggressive and scored a goal! Her coach is pretty intense but it works for her. I love to see her do something well as Saku's talents are sometimes more easily observed. 

I have started experimenting on braids in my own hair. For years, I have given the excuse that I don't know how to do hair and I am ready to learn and not have that excuse anymore. 

One Saturday morning I decided that we needed donuts. So Troy got a dozen and I think I ate at least three!

Aleksi mostly likes to lick off the frosting and leave the rest of the donut for someone else or the trash. 

Sometimes you just have to try on costumes to see how cute you are in them.