The McPherson Chronicles

Andrew is 2 months old now. He is now sleeping 6 hours straight at night, eating/pooping, then sleeping another 3-4 hours before wanting to eat again. He finally loves his swing and play mat and smiles at nearly everything.  He coos and "talks" to his toys and us and it's the sweetest sound. Plus, now he laughs! It's a cute little chuckle. He wears 3 mos. clothes and weighs about 12lbs (!) He goes in for his 2 month check up in a couple of weeks so then I'll know his actual weight and measurements. I'm loving the nice schedule he's got going during the day and hope my transition back to work next month goes smoothly. Happy 2 months little man!

Andrew's already 6 weeks old, which is ridiculous to me. Why does time fly by so fast with kids? In the past few days he has started smiling at us which is the BEST thing. It's my favorite baby milestone followed closely by laughing and walking. I love seeing his big smile and you just never know when he's going to do it and when he's going to hold out on you and really make you work for it. It's hard to get good pictures of it since the smiles pass so quickly so here's the best I've gotten so far.

  (Photo actually taken at 6 weeks. We'll be more on top of it from here on out.)

Our first trip since Andrew was over Thanksgiving when we went to Arizona to spend the holiday with both my family and some of Kevin's family. Now that Sarah & Tim live in the same city where my Grandma has a house, it worked out perfectly. We left Wednesday afternoon and besides a bit more traffic than usual, it was a quick and easy trip. Andrew slept the whole way with one brief wake up for a diaper change and bottle and the girls took naps and played the rest of the trip. Thanksgiving was hosted by my Grandma and Aunt at Grandma's house and Julie, Sarah & Tim joined my family along with some aunts, uncles and cousins. It was fun to see everyone and let them meet Andrew. The food was delicious and we definitely filled up. We even got in a few family pictures and I got a few of Andrew meeting his cousins Faith & Gretchyn.   Once Thanksgiving was over it was shopping time. Kevin and his sister Sarah went out Friday night and got some good deals...

Here are some of my favorite newborn photos by the fabulous, Catherine . She did such a good job catching so many of his tiny features and faces that I know will soon be a distant memory. I'm so happy to have these photos of his first few weeks.

I know this is going to sound obvious but I'm going to say it anyway. 1 newborn is soooo much easier than 2! The reason this is so surprising to me is that even though we only have 1 newborn, we still have 2 preschoolers to keep up with so it's not like we only have 1 kid.  Overall though, adding Andrew into our family has been relatively easy. There are definitely differences between Andrew and the girls though. - Andrew is a belly sleeper much to our dismay. I blame the NICU, since they let him sleep that way and now we have to try to switch him to back sleeping. - We get so much more sleep! It used to take me up to 90 minutes at a time to feed both girls which only left a short amount of time to sleep before starting the next round of feeding. - Andrew is a great sleeper. He has already gone 4, 5 and 6 hours in between night feedings while the girls were quite fussy and never missed their 2.5 or 3 hour feeding window at this age. - Paci- Andrew will use one if offere...

We brought Andrew home on Friday, November 1st to the delight of his big sisters. They couldn't wait to meet him and were so excited to hold him. They love to call him "buddy" and reassure him by saying, "hi buddy, I'm your big sister. You're ok". They are such big helpers and love to help me burp him after each feeding, with diaper changes and are constantly checking on him and reporting on him to me. They ask 3-4 times a day to hold him and are really good about remembering to include him in story time and prayers each night. They really are at the perfect age to be wonderful little helpers for us and their baby brother.   We had lots of other visitors throughout the weekend including Grandma & Grandpa, Nana, Aunt Sarah & Uncle Tim, Uncle Dan, Aunt Tanya, Madeline & Jack, Uncle Brian & Aunt Marjorie, and Tina & Tawnya Meins. We are so lucky to have such a large, supportive family and so many wonderful friends ne...