Elliott is one month old!

Today is July 11th. That means that Elliott is already one month old! Time has really been flying by! The past month has had its ups and downs, but honestly they have been mostly ups, because Elliott is a really good baby!

Size:
Elliott weighed in at 7lbs 12 oz when he was born, but then lost weight, as all babies do. Thing is, by Friday he was still at 7lbs 2 oz, so we had to start supplementing 3-4 oz of formula a day. Then he picked up some weight, and started wanting to eat more. After being a slave to his eating demands for a week, we decided to start supplementing more, so now he gets a mix of breastfeeding and formula. He seems pretty happy about it and according to our home scale he has been packing on the pounds and is about 2 lbs heavier than his birth weight! We cant weight to see how he measures in at his 1 month appointment Friday.
     Elliott started out in newborn clothing, but grew out of the sleep and plays in a week and a half due to his length. He was longer than the others to start and any sleep and play without feet looked like capris from the day we took him home, so it wasn't surprising that before long he couldn't straighten his legs in the footy ones. He has grown out of most of the newborns onesies (and gerber 0-3), but some of the 0-3 clothes are a bit big.

Fussiness:
There is no fussiness. Elliott is awesome.
He really doesn't cry, except when he is hungry and we are not fast enough, or when he is cold from a diaper change or bath (or sometimes diaper changes in general). He is very chill and likes to cuddle, although there are times that he just wants mommy. He sleeps well in his crib although we haven't quite fallen into a sleep schedule yet and that is messing with mommy's sleep.

 Appearance/personality:
Elliott has much darker hair than his brothers did and is starting to rock a mullet - he has significantly more hair on the sides and back of his head than top. Like his brothers, the furrows are plentiful when he wrinkles his brow and he has good neck control. His hands are always up and when held, he holds one hand up to his face like he is getting a glamour shot. One major difference between him and his brothers is that he definitely is far more aware of his hands. He is super grabby and was sucking on his thumb when he was less than 24 hours old. His control isn't always good, and sometimes his hands get in the way, but sometimes he puts his pacifier back in his mouth.

Likes: Eating, Mommy, the swing, the car, being in daddy's carrier, and moving in general.
Dislikes: Being hungry, being cold, diaper changes, baths, being swaddled

Riley is in love with his baby brother. He loves to kiss and cuddle him, hold him, have Elliott grab his finger, and help out by getting mommy and daddy supplies or being on "pacifier duty" in the car.

Logan told us for months before Elliott was born that he only likes puppies and not babies. I'm happy to say that he has since adjusted very well. At first he liked to look at him and to have Elliott grab his finger, and to tell people to wash their hands and whose turn it was to hold him. Then he became very protective of him and started admitting he was cute (although not as cute as a puppy). Last night he asked to hold him and today he put pictures of Elliott in his room! He also loves to be on pacifier duty, when Elliott looks at him or holds his finger, and helping out mom and dad.

Penguin is not phased at all by the additional to our family, although she does prefer to sleep with Logan or Riley rather than with Mommy, Daddy, and Elliott.

Mommy and Daddy are in love with their three boys!!!

And then there were five!

The littlest Sweeney, Elliott Parker, was born at 8:08 pm on Sunday, June 11th. That means that he is one week old today!

Our family has been trying for another kid for quite some time, and we are over the moon that after 2+  years and 4 miscarriages, our rainbow baby is finally here! Riley is completely and totally in love and Logan, well, he is coming around. He stands firm in his stance that puppies are cuter than babies (although I don't think anyone contests that) but has been spending more and more time watching Elliott and wanting to be near him (as long as no one points it out).

Being mom of a newborn again is definitely stressful, and I forgot how awful it is to get so little sleep, but he is the best baby I could ever ask for, so I really can't complain. I'm sure I'm jinxing myself for the future, but so far, he doesn't fuss and rarely ever cries. He is totally chill and wonderful to snuggle with. Sooooo much easier than having two newborns, not that I'd trade them for the world.

Wow, I'm pretty terrible at posting!

Well, Christmas has come and gone, as has the entire month of January. The boys are ever changing! They are still pretty tiny and were just over 22lbs each at their last weigh in, which was about a week ago. According to our likely inaccurate wall measurements, Logan is about an inch and a half taller than Riley. If I remember correctly, Riley was 30" and Logan 31.5". They have been eating like teenagers lately, so we are expecting a spurt! They are currently in 12-18 month shirts and pants, although the pants are a bit long. Riley has some pants with suspenders now because 12 month pants are too short, but 18 month pants waistbands are too wide! What a peanut.

Logan is the verbal learner of the two. Since before Christmas he could count to ten without assistance, name multiple shapes (circle, square, triangle, octagon, star, oval), and knew his colors (red, orange, yellow, blue, green, black, white,  purple, grey, and brown). At this point, he can identify the number 1-9, and knows most letters. When he sees a letter, like "I", he says "I, igloo". He loves to name animals and the noises they make, push cars around the room, read books, and color. He is majorly into coloring, which is why we went to the Crayola Factory yesterday!

Riley is the more hands on kid. He has been opening doors since around Christmas and is a master at megablocks and puzzles. He knows his shapes as well and is learning his colors and letters. He also enjoys naming animals and their sounds. He loves to tickle and be tickled - probably because he loves to laugh! He is the comedian of the crew and is fun to be around. He can be very sweet and is generally good at sharing, even giving up his toys to make his brother happy. He is an oxymoron - he is more patient than his brother but more daring and wild! Riley loved his sesame street cars and trains and also enjoys coloring, but not as much as his brother!

Here are a few pics from the past few months!

Riley meeting his future wife, Greta.

We do not love snow. Its cold.

Peepsfest on NYE

Logan got his face painted!

Riley got Elmo's eyes painted on his cheek!

Christmas at the Sweeney house - reading with Aunt Ninna!

Another white Christmas! 2 for 2!

Calling Dr. Riley! (Christmas with the Sassos)

Dr. Logan needs to go back to med school...

So many things to post about, so little time.

So much has happened since we posted last!

Since I can't see having the time to fully catching up, here are the highlights:

The boys went trick-or-treating for Halloween and LOVED it! It wasn't even the candy (although we did give them each a Kit Kat, which they thoroughly enjoyed). They liked knocking on doors and looking in windows and mostly how big a deal everyone made out of them in their costumes. We had intended on visiting only a few houses, like we did last year, but they loved it so much, we did almost the whole "little loop" by our house. Afterwards, they did not want us to put away their pumpkins or costumes and continued to put them on and show our guests for weeks.

This is awesome!

Candy!!

We made good use out of those costumes this year: trick-or-treating, Dorney Park, Boo at the Zoo, and the parade at daycare.

Pepa (or Poppop), Mema, and Uncle Anthony joined us at the zoo.

Zebra! Zebra! Logan was extremely excited to visit the zebras and needed to go back and visit them before we left. The zebras and rhinos were clearly his favorite zoo animal.

After the zebra excitement, Riley decided to nap for the rest of the trip, so he missed visiting his goat friends.

Logan was all about petting every goat in the KidZooU

Steve and I feel as though we are forever saying "this is my favorite age" but we truly mean it every time! The explosion of words around 18 months is nothing short of incredible. Both boys still love to read and now they love to learn! They want to know what everything is in every picture and repeat what we tell them. They are so proud of themselves when they can point things out and generalize them to other books and pictures. I feel so proud when they point out their eyes, ears, nose, head, hair, belly, butt, feet, hands, fingers, shirt, pants, socks, shoes, etc to our friends and family. I am amazed at how many animals they know and how they are starting to learn their colors. Steve said the biggest shocker for him was how they can generalize pictures of windows, doors, dogs, etc from book to book as well as in real life. We are loving that they are starting to call more people by name. I love how they call Alex "Alla" and Chris "Chri", but more than anything, I'm amused by how they have both given my father a special name. Logan calls him Pepa (pronounced pee-pah) to go with Mema, and Riley calls him Poppop. Too cute!

So much else has happened to.... Logan started singing along to music (Rockin' Robin) on 11/18 and Riley learned to jump (both feet off the ground) on 11/29. They can both eat their meals with utensils (although they don't always). They have gotten better about sharing (most of the time) and have even taken turns! Riley consistently tells us when he poops, sometimes before he does it. I plan on getting him a potty this week, just to start getting him used to the idea. We hadn't planned to start trying before 2 1/2, but it seems like he will be ready long before that.
Logan is far more vocal than Riley and loves learning new words. Riley has better fine motor skills and is better at stacking blocks and  puzzles/shape sorters. They both love to help mommy and daddy and are such well behaved little boys.

In addition to all the other firsts, they got our first haircuts and made our first trip to the dentist

Riley enjoyed the attention and looking at the little lady sitting across from him

Logan did not enjoy any part of it.

As you can imagine, neither kid enjoyed the dentist. The other big thing that happened at the Sweeney house was that Riley got hernia surgery! He was nothing short of perfect. He didn't cry when they took him from us, or when he woke up. He didn't even cry when they took his IV out! He was pretty upset to be away from brother, though...

Thanksgiving with the Sasso/Hood/Dhuy/Salonia families:

Playing with Pepa

Thanksgiving with the Sweeney Family

Army men with cousin Alex

A few more photos that make me smile:

Lehigh Lafayette Tailgate

Helping mommy cook dinner

Loving taking Christmas photos!

Here is our Christmas card this year:

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.