Sleep Derailed

Rebecca's double ear infection completely derailed the progress we had made in the sleep department. :( For the past week she's been waking every 30 minutes. I'm so exhausted!! She seems to feel a lot better, I think she's just gotten in the habit of waking a lot. I remember this same thing with Daniel's first ear infection. Hopefully she remembers how to sleep soon!

Random fall fun

At 6 1/2 months, Rebecca started sitting up well. I LOVE this "chess piece" stage when you just put her somewhere and she happily stays there. She spent a long time over the weekend happily playing with a ziploc baggie of staples I was working with....such a fifth child :)  We know that all too soon she'll be mobile, so we're enjoying this stage while we can!

  How does she look with a wig?  It's actually Lainey's hair :)
Now that she can sit well, the kids love having her in the bath with them!!! 
Rebecca and Janney are good friends. 


Of course all of the kids still adore snuggling Rebecca, and she adores them!


We have SO many trees at our new house (much like we did in Richmond), so Dave has been spending about 4 hours each Saturday raking.  Lexi and Daniel spent one of their half days off last week trying to sweep the driveway clear.





Emily and Lainey spent the half day doing math in the driveway :)


Lexi is SO silly :)

September Camping in PA

Every year we go camping with our Canadian counterparts (also have 5 kids) for Labor Day. This year, since we closed on our house the Friday before Labor Day, we had to cancel our trip.  We were so sad!  But soon after that, we realized that we could still go camping later in the month! It was such a special treat to get to continue the tradition when we thought we were going to miss this year.  The kids have SO much fun with their friends and Dave and I love having so much time with our friends too!  Camping with another family is such a great way to vacation. No entertainment or toys needed, the kids just play and the parents visit!







10 kids ages 9 and under!  We took over that campground! :)





The 5 "big girls"

The big sisters

The 3 lone boys :)







Me and Renee with our baby girls :)



We found a kitten under our cabin...lots of fun :)



We passed this on the way there and the way back. Had to stop of course :)

No, we can't keep him!!




They had trick or treating at the campground







s'mores!

Sleep, at last!

Just a quick update to say that we are sleeping!! Rebecca was having a rough time as she got bigger and could work herself out of a swaddle...waking every 30 minutes to be re-swaddled! I thought maybe it was time to stop swaddling so I tried weaning her off swaddling and that was an even bigger disaster (NO sleep). So, I took a friend's advice and started double swaddling her so she couldn't get out. She is now happy as a clam and sleeping 8-10 hours straight at night!! I feel like a new woman!

Rebecca 6 months

Don't you just LOVE a baby's laugh?!  So cute.  Rebecca is 6 months old, where has the time gone? She's still happy and smiley and now giggly too :)  She tolerates oatmeal and some baby foods (mostly veggies like carrots or sweet potatoes) but only every few days. If I offer it 2 days in a row she refuses on the 2nd day! At her 6 month checkup she was 15 pounds and 25.25 inches (about 25th percentile for both).  That big noggin is in the 55th percentile though :) She still drinks 6 bottles a day (about 8am, 11am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, and 3am). Maybe one day she'll sleep through the night, but at this point I'm not quite ready to make her cry it out. Ask me at 3:30 am and you'll get a different story though!