Maggie is 5 & 6 Months

Well Maggie Moo you really are the sweetest baby! We love how you are coming into your own personality. You have made this family come to life with your sweet baby giggles and we can't imagine you not being a part of us!

You

• Weighed 17.5 lbs and are 27.5 inches long! Biggest Hewitt baby in this house.
• Like to give kisses
• say "dadadadada" and "bubububububub" Sissy and I are trying not to take it personally
• started eating solid foods! We can't shovel the food in your mouth fast enough
• love to pet daddy's beard as you fall asleep

• don't want to be held all the time anymore and really LOVE your exersaucer

• Love dressing up with your sissy

• have started trying to crawl. You don't get anywhere yet but are very good at moving yourself in a circle.

• are so so happy when you wake up and try to get out of your co-sleeper. Sometimes when you sleep next to move you turn to your tummy and crawl over to me and slap me in the face to wake up!

• had your first Valentine's day

• can sit up all on your own

• are teething and cutting those top two teeth first!!! It's been pretty miserable. This is the unhappiest I have seen you. But frozen waffles work miracles on your mood.

• love all things that light up and have bright colors

Maggie is 4 months

I can't believe you are 4 months already! Where has time gone?! I really feel like this is going by way too quickly. More quickly than I remember with your sister. Maybe it's because I know you are our last and I am cherishing every minute of every phase, but I just want to savor you this little for a bit longer.

You

• Weighed 14.7 lbs and are 25.8 inches long! So so long. Going to be tall like your mama :)
• Like to play with your mobile
• Have found your feet
• Like to laugh when we make silly sounds
• Love kicking. A little too much. 
• You talk to mom and dad quite a lot!
• Smile when we talk to you
• Have started eating cereal bottles
• Had your first ever Jammie Cocoa Christmas with Bubby and Sissy. In true Maggie fashion you had a blowout in the car.

• Had your first Christmas and met your Uncle Brandon and Cousin Sadie

Christmas Morning 2016

Maggie: Months 2 & 3

Oh my sweet angel baby, Mommy is having a tough time keeping up with your blog! Moving from 2 kids to 3 has Mommy's world rocked a little bit. But, when I call you my angel baby I mean it. You are the quietest, most easy going baby EVER. A perfect angel. Here is your recap:

You

• Went on your first road trip to Asheville, NC
• Started smiling

• Started sticking your tongue out

• Had your first Halloween

• Had your first Thanksgiving

• Met Santa Claus

• Can roll from your tummy to your back on occasion
• Sleep through the night
• Started daycare part-time
• EAT ALWAYS - you take 25-30oz of food a day.   

Maggie Jo's First Month

September 4, 2016

Hard to believe Maggie is already 1 month old.  It's more bittersweet this time around and I am savoring every minute of it knowing she is our last baby! I know I will blink and she will be going to Kindergarten. Here are the milestones for you Maggie:

You

• Weighed 9 lbs 9oz at your one month doctors appointment (8/31/16). You were 22.5 inches long, having grown 1 inch since birth.   
• don't like getting your diaper changed because it makes you cold and you are so sensitive to cold!! Also, you like to go potty at the exact moment mommy has removed the dirty diaper and hasn't yet put down the clean diaper.
• love sleeping on your tummy
• can hold your head up for long periods of time, much longer than you should be able to at your age. You think you are SOOO big :)

• are incredibly bright eyed

• love when your sissy talks to you

• have a good set of lungs on you! You choose to be really cranky between 4pm-9pm at night. Sometimes for the entire 5 hours. But your cry sounds like Donald Duck to mommy :)
• are starting to find your hands. You suck so hard on them that you give yourself a hickey.
• love to snuggle

• love to look at the windows and the lamp. Something about the light really entertains you.

• love to listen to Straight No Chaser sing. You will be crying and the minute they sing will stop crying, and then the song ends you start crying again.
• have a really large mouth which Papa insists foretells that you will be a singer one day (may be the reason you love SNC so much)

• went to your first football game (Bubby's)

• took your first boat ride

• had your first bath

• went to the pool for the first time

We are having another baby!

It's all been a whirlwind but now that we are 5 weeks out from welcoming our new baby girl to our family it's beginning to sink in that THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!

Let's start from the beginning. Here it was April 2015 and Will and I decided maybe we should try for another baby.  After all, he wasn't getting any younger ;) We didn't want to put pressure on ourselves but said "we will give it until beginning of November and if it happens it happens. If not we are perfectly content with our little family of 4."  Almost immediately we find out we are pregnant. 

A whole sea of emotions flood over me when I see that stick with a positive sign.  Most of them fearful and questioning, like "WHAT HAVE WE JUST DONE?!" "THIS IS INSANE" "OH MY GOODNESS NEVER COME NEAR ME AGAIN!"  Well, just as those thoughts began to leave my mind we find out we are pregnant with twins. TWINS! Twins. TWINSSSSSSSSS!!! That's two babies. And I am practically in a panic attack in the doctor's office. I can't explain how hard it is to wrap your head around the thought of two babies. And just as it was starting to sink in for us we find out we were miscarrying. 

That's a hard pill to swallow no matter the amount of fear I had. We gave ourselves some time to heal. No trying. No thinking about a third. Nothing. Just time. 

Then we enter the chaotic season of holidays. And I begin thinking to myself "you know I love our little family and I am perfectly happy keeping us a family of 4." For many reasons, mainly, that Hadley was finally self-sufficient enough where life was getting easy. Easier to travel, easier to go out on date nights and find a sitter, easier to have fun family outings. Just easy. And that was a pretty sell for me. And I swear to you just as I thought that God said "hahaha you think you control this? you don't. SURPRISE! You're pregnant with baby 3!"

And I entered the sea of flooding emotions of fear again.  Having suffered through the loss of two babies earlier in the spring, we waited to tell any family until we were sure we had a viable pregnancy. IT WAS SO HARD! 12 weeks of keeping my mouth shut while suffering through agonizing nausea. You can't make excuses for that for 12 weeks.  Of course, my mother figured it out pretty quickly, as mom's typically do. But, we held on strong and finally made our big announcement once we hit 4 months. Proud big sister wanted to steal the spotlight for the announcement.

It was fun how the kids reacted to finding out.  Wilkes, being the oldest and having been through this once before, was a little less excited about the idea of a new baby.  Mainly because he swears he raised Hadley on his own and he didn't want to have to raise another baby. I love how kids view "throwing away diapers" and "watch your sister for 15 min while mom showers for the first time in a week" equates to "raising a baby" but child logic is almost never rational. :)

Hadley, well Hadley is over the moon. She views this as a real life baby doll.  Almost every day she tells me in detail one thing we have to do for the baby. For instance, "Mommy when the baby cries we have to hold her like this and say 'shhhhh it's ok baby'." It makes my heart melt. She is going to be the absolute best big sister. She is so maternal!

And then after the announcement, as life does, it goes on without too much excitement until you find out the gender!  We all piled in the car the day we were going to find out girl or boy. Both kids fighting over which it was going to be.  Of course, we get into the ultrasound room and the baby would not cooperate and we almost left not knowing. But, at the last minute we were able to get he/she to viewing position to hear the announcement "IT'S A GIRL!" and Hadley starts dancing and singing in the ultrasound room rubbing it in Bub's face "it's a girl, it's a girl." Which was funny and yet SO NOT NICE. Wilkes' handled it like a champ and said "that's ok now I get to be the only boy and that makes me special."

We made our gender reveal a bit of a production this go around (the things you make sure to do the second time when you don't do them the first).  With Will playing Vintage Baseball this year we incorporated it as the first pitch for one of his games. 

It's exciting to think we have another sweet girl coming to join us. I just pray she is less of a jibber-jabberer than my two now! This mommy needs less jabber more cuddles.

Here is a nice view of how baby girl is growing:

4 months

20.5 weeks

22 weeks

26 weeks 2 days

28 weeks 5 days

31 weeks

32 weeks

33 weeks (baby by the lake!)

34 weeks

We also just had our "Sprinkle" for baby girl. Mommy has some amazing friends who can't wait to love on you!

Small Group + Marissa :)

See you soon little one! Can't wait to finally hold you!

Loving the Little Years

As a parent you hear all these horror stories about raising kids.  They begin before your child is even here --- "you're considering natural birth? you're crazy that baby hurts like heck!", "be ready for never having a social life again", "you'll quickly find out just how little sleep you can survive on", "you're never going to have money again", "just wait until she is 15 and dating" or my personal favorite "one day she is going to hate you and you'll wish for the terrible two's back!"

I admit, I have caught myself a time or two being one of those mom's who states the negatives about raising children and I catch myself and often wonder why we constantly find it necessary to scare new parents away from the joy a child brings to your life. Sometimes all we need is a fresh perspective on our circumstances and God's grace to get us through to the next morning.

Parenting a toddler is hard, it is exhausting, it is frustrating, it is tiring.  But, parenting a toddler is also exciting, funny, rewarding and uplifting.  The last 4 months have been some of the hardest I have faced with Hadley.  She has tested my limits to the outer most edges and when I thought I could not take another minute God gave me just a little more patience.  I fully understand the reason why households should have two parents --- TAG TEAM.  I find that God grants one of us with a little more grace, a little more love and a little more patience than the other every day.  And, thankfully, Will and I know very early on which of us is the one having that day.  So, when the tantrums begin, the tears fly, and the toys are thrown we look at each other and instantly know who is going to be able to calm Hadley down in the most productive way possible.

I want to start this New Year off with every intention of relishing in the small victories and the big smiles --- Loving the Little Years.

23 Months and Feeling Sassy

I was happy to see that it was only a month and a half since my last posting. I've been feeling like a slacker on keeping up with your milestones but keeping up with you is such a big job that who has time to blog too?!  My email just sent me a reminder that you are 22 months and entering week 4 this week, which means I am going to blink and you'll be 2.

To give you an update this is what's been going on with you:

• When mommy asks if you are a big girl or her baby you still tell me that you're my baby :)
• Have discovered the iPad has really fun games and you never want to put it down.  You're favorite game is Wheels on the Bus, you love to hear that song over and over and over.
• You can sing the ABC's up to "H" on your own
• You can sing Twinkle Twinkle but your version goes a little like this "twinkle twinkle star....<insert babble>....are.....<insert babble>...high.....star"
• You can recognize most of the animals and objects on your flash cards.  You even know the sounds a lot of the animals make
• You're favorite TV show is Daniel Tiger. You cannot get ENOUGH of him.
• Are such a model for the camera
• Love to work on cars with Daddy and play with the tools. You also like to hand him every tool you can find even if he doesn't need it
• Went to your first Tractor Pull in Lynnville
• Come home saying new words every day.  You are quite the talker.
• Love to play fetch with Daisy and you belly laugh so hard when she runs after the ball. You think its so funny that she chases it
• Are potty training yourself practically.  Even though we don't have it down you only go when you want to and not when anyone else tells you to sit on the potty. I think you only do it for the jellybeans.