Almost 8 Weeks!

So, holy moly, Cade will be 8 weeks old tomorrow and he has so much life under his belt already! I have a little catching up to do here so bear with me...

September 10th Cade was born. September 30th Ava, Raina, and I made a road trip to GA (the same day Richard left to be in the field for a couple weeks). Cade was a champ the whole way, sleeping mostly and nursing on stops. Ava and Raina did great too; it just takes a little more work on my end to keep them comfortable and occupied for a long trip like that. Every now and then I would hear "My booty hurts!" coming from little Rae after sitting in her seat for so long. (Can you blame her? Have you seen how thin the layer of fabric and "cushioning" is between their little booties and the hard plastic seat? My booty hurts too, Rae, and I'm sitting in the nice seat.) They read lots of books, drew lots of pictures, listened to lots of music, and watched a couple movies on Richard's ancient portable DVD player. :)  I think that road trips with kids are totally great and fun for the kids. They are, however, a lot of work for the parent(s) so I would recommend lots of stops if you have help, not many stops if you don't have help, lots of prayer, and lots of Spark.

While we were in GA Cade met A LOT of family and friends for the first time. In addition to family visits he also attended his first AdvoCare event (sorry you were the only dude at Ladies Alive, little man) and went to his first wedding (and most of the festivities preceding the wedding itself that weekend)! That's the best/worst thing about exclusively breast feeding- Best: I can take Cade anywhere with me and he's good to go. Worst: I have to take Cade with me everywhere I go. In my normal everyday life it is never a problem to keep him with me or at least be able to get back to him every few hours, so I don't even have a breast pump, but it may be worth investing in one should I have events or wedding weekends in the future.

Hanging out at the breakfast table with A & Rae

At GA Ladies Alive

We came back to KS October 16th and resumed "normal" life as quickly as possible. Ava and Raina go to bed around 9-9:30pm and Cade goes to bed with Richard and me around 11pm. Cade sleeps until about 5-5:30am before waking to nurse, so I have been getting some pretty decent uninterrupted stretches of sleep! Let's see what has happened since we've been back:

Checking out Dad when we got home from GA

10/18 - Got his first piece of mail (social security card)

Has been enjoying some time in the bumbo

He loves hitting the hang down toys 

Tummy time (that turns to back time pretty quickly as he can roll over now)

Napping with the baby dolls

Being held by big sisters

Refereeing some Go Fish games (wow, that's a lot of dog hair on my pants)

I have yet to capture his elusive smile/smirk but Cade has started smiling (on purpose in response to stimuli) a lot more lately. Before he would "smile" in his sleep or while passing gas or something, but I never counted those kinds of "smiles." So stay tuned for a smiling picture. It is quite adorable I must say. :)

Cade is such an easy baby... I am even more laid back and go-with-the-flow this time around than I was with the girls... Richard is not deployed... I am older and "wiser"... I think it's a combination of these things, really, but the adjustment of going from 2 kids to 3 has been pretty seamless and for that I am so thankful. I know for sure that time management is and will continue to be an area for me to improve in as being on time getting out the door with all 3 always takes longer in reality than it does in my mind. And as they all get older, finding making time for each of them individually will be a challenge. But if those are the biggest things I have to worry about be intentional about, I think we are in good shape.