A month of Maddie

Maddie's first month in this world was kind of a blur. Long nights, crying evenings. Trying to keep her awake to eat. But she's so sweet! How could I possibly mind?

She always falls asleep when I'm burping her. 

I'm not much of a baby wearer, but when the baby won't stop crying even in her swing and your husband is at church meetings and your kids want dinner (even thought you swear you JUST fed them lunch), you do what you have to. 

The girls stayed busy and kept themselves entertained, mostly inside because we had a very cold and wet spring.

We did have a warm day or two.

Remnants of a big hailstorm! About nickel sized hail. Luckily didn't do too much damage to the garden.

We had a wonderful Mother's Day. Lance spoiled me and got me a gift card to H&M and an entire Oreo cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. Does that dude know me or what? Meagan and Grace came for dinner. I can't remember much else... everything fades together.

So so grateful for these girls that made me a mom! Getting a picture of all 3 of them together with me proved to be to great a task.

Sister snuggles!

Pictures from her one month birthday. Yes they are awful but she spent basically the entire day sleeping, if I recall correctly. 

At one month, Maddie weighed 9 lbs 9 oz, could hold up her head well and bear her weight on her legs, slept 5-6 hour stretches at night, took lots of naps, nursed 8-9 times a day, wore newborn clothes and size 1 diapers.

We got out one Friday to go to the chalk art festival in Bountiful. Our first family outing besides church, I believe, and it went well. It was just me and the girls for the first while before Lance met us, and I did it! When I had to feed Maddie, the girls stayed right by and watched and artist working. Reagan was enthralled. 

The next day was our niece Grace's dance recital in Park City, but since Reagan had a gymnastics practice at the same time as the show we had tickets to, we decided to split up. I took the little girls to the afternoon one and Lane took Reagan to the evening one. It was stressful trying to keep Maddie quiet and I ended up basically nursing her the entire time. But Grace did such a great job!

Her first smile on camera! She started smiling around 5 weeks, and it's freaking adorable. 

All dolled up for church.

This may have been the first time she noticed the mobile in her swing; hence, the confusion. 

Seriously, she kills me!! That tiny little butt!

Reagan's new favorite sister because Maddie doesn't steal her toys.

Love that swaddle. I highly recommend the Miracle blanket.

Post-bath ducky towel and standing up!

Smiles!!

And I don't think I could come up with anything cuter than that to end with :).

Maddie's Blessing

Wow the past couple weeks have been a whirlwind! People weren't kidding when they said the 3rd kid was hardest. But she's so cute, it makes up for (almost) everything.

Madelyn at her 2 week dr appointment. 8 lbs exactly- gained almost a pound from her birth weight. Maybe I will get a chubby baby!

Sisters!! There's a lot of love here. 

Grandpa and Grandma came to visit for a couple days!

Our daughters are so lucky to have such loving grandparents! Tiny burrito loved being snuggled. 

Madelyn's cord finally fell off at 17 days, so she was able to get her first real bath so she could be nice and clean for her blessing the next day. She loved it! I mean it's hard to tell with a baby, but she was crying before we put her in and didn't cry at all during.

Madelyn's baby blessing! May 1st- less than 3 weeks old! The girls insisted on being matchies so they were all dressed in solid white. Little angels :). 

We love this precious girl a lot!

She often falls asleep while being burped. 

And every other time. 

She's so cute and snuggly, I could just die!!

Also, the 1st was also our anniversary. 6 years, 3 kids later!!

I like this guy a lot. And I think it's pretty clear where our kids get their extra-cute genes from!

Speaking of extra-cute...

The girls love it when I bring Maddie in to wake them up in the morning. 

And Maddies loves to sleep, all day long.

Even outside getting some fresh air!

Well we've made it through the first 3 weeks, hopefully things just get better from here on out!

Life with Maddie

Look at that face! She's so cute!! I can't get over it. How lucky am I?

Life has been somewhat of an adventure since #3 joined us. In the hospital, Madelyn was super mellow, but after we had her home for a couple days, we realized she's actually our neediest baby. She eats practically around the clock. She always wants to nurse! And she mostly only wants to sleep when she's be held. By me. Which makes things a little tricky. 

Her sisters like to hold her, too, but I don't think she finds that very soothing. 

We finally got her to take to the swing a little. It's hit or miss. 

A couple times she has napped well in her crib.

 I snapped these photos with my phone. Closest thing to newborn photos as we're going to get at this point. 

 Ugh what a doll face!

Marissa and Chase came to visit!

And of course Meagan and Grace. 

 We just muddled through the first 6 days in a haze of nursing, etc. Until Monday night. 

She stopped eating Monday afternoon. And she wouldn't wake up to eat. After she had gone about 6 hours without eating and refusing to wake up, we called her pediatrician, who told us to take her to Primary Children's ER. Oh boy. So we packed up and off we went. It was a very worrisome drive.

When we got there, she was pretty out of it. They had poke her quite a few times, to put in 2 IV's and run a bunch of labs, and she barely reacted. Didn't cry at all. It was awful. She finally nursed for a couple minutes and then they got IV fluids in her and she started perking up. By early Tuesday morning she was still very sleepy but I could wake her up enough to eat every few hours. Unfortunately we had to stay at the hospital for 36 hours to wait for the final results on all the labs. They were worried about some sort of infection.

By Tuesday afternoon, she was back to normal, crying when she wanted to eat and having periods when she was awake and alert. So we were able to come home Wednesday early afternoon. They never figured out what happened. They ruled out a bunch of things and then basically just said "sometimes babies do this". 

Anyway, it was terrifying and exhausting but we were so grateful there was nothing seriously wrong. It's been quite a week, between the hospital stay, getting our AC and furnace replaced, and having Lance's car in the shop all week. Things come in 3's, right? Thankfully we have had Joy here to help us- we couldn't have done it without her!

Things seem to be settling down somewhat. We took Maddie on her first little stroller walk and I think she liked it. Here's to better days than the past few!