Max's first 5 weeks

I didn't start teaching preschool back up until Max was 5 weeks old. During that time we just survived and adjusted. Max eats and needs attention so much in the night that Chris would get up and get the big kids off to school by himself. One day he came home for lunch and found me rocking two sleeping boys. Freddy really misses the big kids and wants to be in the same room as me all the time. He is surprisingly very good at being quiet and entertaining himself on my bed with pillows.  When he gets tired of that, he'll snuggle up on the arm of the rocking chair while I feed Max on the other side.  Probably a better mom would have enjoyed every second of this... but I think the words out of my mouth when Chris saw me was, "I'm trapped." I can feel pretty tethered when I'm nursing a newborn. 

Max's umbilical cord didn't take long to fall off so pretty soon we could do a real bath. I was able to get the water pretty warm and he LOVED it.

I keep reminding myself that Maxwell is probably our last baby. My last baby to snuggle and rock and hold and kiss. I can't help myself from kissing him CONSTANTLY. He just has such squishy cheeks. Sometimes I wonder if I were Max, would I want to be kissed that much?

It no longer surprises me that Charlie is one of the best helpers with a new baby. He's not afraid of crying or changing diapers, or slobber or anything really. He's going to make a GREAT dad someday. 

Maxwell seems super aware and loves to stare at our faces while we talk to him. Its like he's trying so hard to understand us. Finally his skin has started to look less yellow..and its losing its tanned look. I was kinda worried about it before his 2 week visit, but the doctor said everything looks great and to not freak out too much about germs and getting the flu or whatnot because newborns usually have super immunity and don't yet put their hands or other things in their mouths. 

In the mornings on Saturdays, we'll get all the kids in our bed, excited to see Max. Often, Max is in our bed already from a 5:00 feeding or something.  Knowing there's little time for sleep left, I will nurse him laying down so I can try and go back to sleep myself.

I'm not positive I'm totally ready to start preschool back up, but Freddy is. Chris worked from home for the first couple of preschool mornings and took care of Max who slept for most of it.  Freddy and I both enjoyed showing all the preschool kids and parents our cute little baby and it was the perfect reason to study Babies/Nursery Rhymes, Favorite Stories and Fairy-tales as the first theme. 

snow!

Only 1 week after we were back in school from winter break, and one day after getting out of school for Martin Luther King Jr. day, we had 2 and a half days off for a winter weather.  We all LOOOOOVE snow and were so excited to see the white flakes falling outside.

But without more than an inch or so there wasn't a whole lot we could do to play in it besides slide down the slides on sleds.  It was quite cold and very dry snow. The 2nd day, we saw some deer in our yard really close to the playground when Alec was outside. He quietly and quickly climbed up into the fort and was able to be super close to them for a while. Pretty fun.

Quick trip to Texas

Chris was out sick for the first few days of 2018. I tried to take care of every like he had done for me, but I wasn't quite able to handle it all without complaint. :( I am so sleep deprived and nursing was still pretty painful even though it had been 2 weeks.  But it is so hard to think about missing out on Jackson's baptism. Chris really didn't want to miss it, so he pushed through his last day of sickness to drive us all out to Texas. Max had a good crying spell a few times but other wise did pretty good. It was good to be able to support Jackson on his big day of getting baptized, also we loved getting to show new baby Max to Chris' parents who had come out to Texas for Jackson's baptism too.

Chris' fever came back in full force our last day there and was BARELY able to make it through participating in the confirmation of Jackson without passing out and leaning on his dad completely for the last few sentences was the only thing preventing him from feinting. He pretty much slept for the next 15 hours. We had to leave right after sacrament meeting the next day so we could be home in time for school and work on Monday.

Apparently, I only got one picture on this trip... the one on the car ride out! Charlie was mad about something and hiding from the camera. I'll have to steal one from Brittany.