January Phone Dump

Woke up one morning and this beautiful sunrise was there.

Adelyn loooooooooves to hold this little boy.

Making gak.

GAK!  Yay!!

Baby boy's first bath with toys and an actual water level.  By himself.

   

Everyone always asks if he ever cries.  Here it is folks.  Crying.

The kids were dying to go outside.  It was super windy and the wind chill was below zero.  So I bundled them up and out they went.

I don't like food.  This bib is nice though.

Brined a turkey for the first time.  Best turkey ever. 

 I like to barf.  Barfing is my favorite.

#onlyme #onlyinmichigan  The garage door and I haven't been friends lately.

Adelyn was super upset after Christmas because she wanted a yo-yo and didn't get one.  I can't make this up.  The quarterly Awana award for averaging two verses a week was yo-yos.  She was SO thrilled.

Allergist visit yielded no allergies.  Good news and bad news.

Had these for lunch one day.  Adelyn saw it in her magazine.  There is an apple underneath those marshmallows.

And peanut butter.  Lots of peanut butter.

 I just don't like bland food.  I'll eat everything else.

Food Friday!  Brecken and Joelle have letter flashcards and Adelyn has sight words.  They have mini dried marshmallows on them and get to eat them if they find the correct letter.  Adelyn has two on hers and has to spell it as well.

Adelyn begged (and begged) to go ice skating over Christmas break.  It was too warm.  So we dropped L off at Mrs Joy's one Saturday and took the three big kids.

They loved it.

 

Cut the kids' hair and I may have missed some on J....

 I was sooooo soooo proud of her for writing this.  She has really struggled with sounding out words because she doesn't want to be wrong.  I keep telling her she just has to TRY.  It won't be perfect but just try.  She came home from school one day with this paper.  I was more proud of what she wrote..  "I want people to (have) Jesus in (their) hearts."

Clearly we need to work on letter placement but I am just so glad she is trying.  She really struggles when it's not perfect the first time.  She gets mad at herself  and so super frustrated. 

(Eric wrote this sentence.  You can figure out what it means)

Some people may choose to accent with throw pillows.  In the Fitzgerald's, we take a different approach..

Rosa Parks

Adelyn has been asking (and asking!) to go ice skating at Rosa Parks.  We wanted to while Eric was home over Christmas break but there was no snow and it was warmish so that wasn't very festive.  Then it was super cold.  We finally got a decent day, on a Saturday, to go.  We texted some friends in the morning to watch Lincoln and took the big kids.

Here they are with their skates!  They were so excited.

Then we had to do crazy faces (of course) and Adelyn is walking away because she didn't want to be part of it ;)

It was so super busy.  I had to skate around with the kids for the first half.  Eric was not confident in his abilities to ice skate AND hold someone up.  My back and feet were killing me when I finally politely stole this little contraption from a family who were all drinking coffee.  I did ask, but I definitely had to ask.  Much easier to help them around with this.  Adelyn really got into it and so did Brecken.  Big surprise, Joelle hated it.  But she still wants to go back.  They had to get the Zamboni out because it was too warm and the ice was slushy.  It was taking forever so we had to get going.  The kids were so sad. 

They all really enjoyed going and want to go back again:)

The Allergist

We went to the allergist the other day for Lincoln.  They tested him for 13 different things.  Egg, milk, corn, oat, wheat, cocoa, avocado, soybean, peanut, almond, coconut, navy bean, pea and orange.  Based on his history, she was pretty certain something would pop up.  We were the only ones there so it went really fast.  She approved of all the stuff we were using on his skin and said nothing should be bothering him there.  They put the 13 different things on him, the positive control and the negative control and off I wheeled, on the chair, with him in my lap.  He had to lay like this for 20 minutes.  Darned if NOTHING popped up.  I was so super frustrated.  There were a couple tears shed when I was on the phone with Eric.  The allergist said we weren't totally cleared yet.  It's possible that he hasn't had enough of the allergen in his system for it to pop up on an actual test.  She wants me to start re-introducing foods into my diet.  She said to wait at least 5 days in-between each food.  I'm supposed to keep track of any reaction that he has.  She said to say away from feeding him the avocado and fatty foods because of his reaction.  She thinks that his gallbladder might not be tolerating all the fats and that's why his body rejected it so much.  She also told me to start him just with veggies and to stay away from all the grains until he's older.  Might be some kind of grain intolerance too.  She said that just because nothing popped up on his test doesn't mean he isn't intolerant to it.  If he keeps getting reactions to different things she wants him to come back and we will try the prick test again or even doing something with the actual food on his skin.

His little back after our time was up.  The red and swollen one is the positive control, to make sure he will actually have reactions to things.

So disappointing that we don't have any immediate answers to the barfing and the rashes but, hopefully, it means he won't ever be severely allergic to anything.  Maybe his stomach is just a total wimp when it comes to everything...  I have been scarfing the almonds/almond milk since we went and there has been nothing more than some mild rashes.  We shall see.
Thankful that we don't have to delve into the world of Epi pens and cleaning out our house!!!

Lincoln::6 months

Half a year?!  How does it pass so quickly.

- 19lbs 4oz, 80th percentile

-28in, 95th percentile

-head 99th percentile.  We grow them large at the Fitzgerald's.  It's because they are going to be so smart.

-size 2 diaper during the day, 3 at night
-6-12mo and 12 mo clothes

-your sleep is still annoying.  We will have a streak where you will only wake up once at 3/4 and then, most of the time, you will wake up around 1 and 4.  Ugh.

-you are on a 4 hour schedule now.  I'm thinking and hoping it's going to help.

-1 hour'ish nap in the morning, a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and 15-30 minutes at night.

-you LOVE to laugh.  You are such a happy boy.

-still have a bit of a man phobia.  You cried when my dad held you the other day.
-you LOVE to stand
-start blinking really fast whenever someone is trying to put a shirt over your head
-grab.every.single.thing.  so, so grabby.
-getting up on all fours.  Maybe you will crawl in a month...or three.
-you turn your wrists allllll the time.  Adelyn did the exact same thing.

-you seem to suck your thumb when you are in pain...verdict is still out on that.

-you are mostly sitting on our own.  I usually put a boppy around you so you don't whack your head on the ground.

-you love your jumperoo.

-you are the happiest baby alive.  Most people can not believe how smiley you are.

-you are loving the toys. 

-still lots of poop issues.  So annoying.

-think your siblings are the funniest people ever.  And the most annoying.  ;)
-you are not a fan of solid foods.  We started you out on avocados and you got a rash all over your face, had diarrhea and a nagging cough the next day.  So we won't be doing that again.  We tried oatmeal and you tolerated it.  We tried for a couple days and you never really loved it.  You would eat a max of 5 bites.  Then you would get whiny/cry and want nothing to do with it.  We have stopped for now.  I'm going to cook up some sweet potatoes and see what you do.  Never had a kid who didn't like food before...

 -sleep on your belly

-are starting to roll.  You will occasionally roll from your belly to your back while you are playing.

I can see Joelle in him this month!  So funny, when we go out everyone things they all look identical.

 

Christmas Break Fun

We had lots of fun while Daddy was home on break.  He was off for a total of TWO weeks.  He had to go in one day for inventory but that was it.  We had lots of fun and it always makes the massive amount of Christmas parties less eventful.

Sleeping babies in the tub.  Who is who?!

B and J had to have their well-child visit while Daddy was home.  They had to have 4 shots each.  Neither of them cried.  They both told me they wanted too.  I'm not sure which is sadder...  Speaking of 4 shots for each kid.  They both limped around for 3 days after.  They had these monstrous bruises and were SERIOUSLY limping.  :(

He is a stud muffin.

We always cuddle on the couch with costume jewelry and winter hats on.

Red Robin for lunch one day.  Adorable pictures and funny pictures with my boys.  No, for once, Lincoln is not eating.  He was sleeping.

Crabby patty got put in the Ergo on my back for the first time.  Thank you You-Tube.  "The first time, be sure to place your baby in the Ergo over the couch, so they have a soft landing if they fall."  Duly noted.

We loooove puzzles.  The best part?  B and J really got into it this year.

We made it a mission to put together all of our puzzles.  We had some random pieces I had found in a drawer that needed a home.  We did all but 2.  Not sure how many that was but probably about 10.

Adelyn wanted to dress alike and wear a scarf.  So we did.  Love her.

We went to see The Penguins of Madagascar.  It was really dumb.  Not BAD for the kids to watch.  Just dumb.

Eric's parents always give us money for Christmas.  Some of my presents I bought myself.  I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a new wallet.  Definitely before we were married.  This one better last me as long.

Adelyn promptly built her Cinderella castle.  She is obsessed.  I can not tell you how many times she has taken apart her Lego sets and put them back together.

So thankful that Eric gets time off from work.  We LOVE having him home.  Sadly no pictures of him.  Huh.  I should fix that..