Jex is 6 month's old!

Jex turned 6 months old today! (I DID post this on his actual 6 month bday but blogger decided to work against me and it's gone. Sigh.)

Yesterday we went in to the doctor for Jex's 6 month check-up an he is nice and healthy! He is also a stinkin' big boy as we found out in his measurements! Poor Cailen won't be the "big"brother for long if their percentiles as infants are any indication! Here are Jex's stats:

Height: 28 in, 93 %
Weight: 16 lbs 14 oz, 40 %
Head: 42.9 cm, 28 %

We love our roly-poly munchkin! He is such fun although lately he HASN'T because his little tummy is taking issue with baby food. We tried baby food at 4 months and he would have nothing to do with the stuff. We took a break and started again at 5 months with MUCH more success. Yay! Then Saturday came. Not a good day for eating or nursing. He has had gas/constipation issues pretty much from the get-go with solids but as of Saturday he hasn't been the happiest/best eater. He eats his baby food alright but he doesnt nurse well and he definitely has some tummy issues. Not so fun for me. Otherwise though, this baby is a winner! He is so happy and smily, he loves to play, he loves to grab everything (he loves eating my mail, he gets mad when I try to open it and won't let him eat it) and he loves to SIT UP! Yay! This is something he has pretty much gotten the hang of. He still topples over, but he is improving every day and I just love it! However, he could care less about rolling over! Anyone out there have experience with their stubborn children on this? I don't know if it's important enough to worry about. I mean,what 16 year old can't roll over right? He'll get the hang of it eventually. But he is a trooper with the grabbing, drooling, sitting, drooling, smiling, drooling, laughing and did I mention drooling? But still no tooth! Cailen had his first at 4 months so I'm feeling restless for that first tooth to pop! I can't believe that my little baby is now going to be closer to one than to birth. WHOA! My little man is growing up *tear* It is so fun to watch though and I love my two boys. They are a blast to watch play and I LOVE how much Cailen loves Jex. I also love how Cailen can get Jex to laugh with the dumbest things, it's hilarious. Jex loves his big brother. We have really enjoyed this little giggler and look forward to many more months of fun changes and laughs. We cherish them all.

My other little guy is getting big too! He is almost 4! I had to snap this gem of a picture today to capture my budding whiz kid on the IPad. Man, kids of this generation are going to be so tech-savvy and I am sure look at me like crazy when I talk about using pay phones "back in my day." Hey, at least he's outside :)

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had an amazing Easter holiday! Being a mom really adds to each and every holiday and event that happens. I get to see everything through my children's eyes and I LOVE that! Teaching Cailen about the true meaning of Easter has been fun. We've read stories, we've talked about it, etc. We have actually talked about the resurrection of Christ often in the past few months, so I think he has the basics down. Well..I think! But I love the awe and interest that you can see in a child's eyes. And then of course, there was the candy of Easter! All in all, Easter this year was loads of fun

We decided to get some pictures taken at Kiddie Kandid - they have an awesome photo membership, so I get a free 8x10 every time I go in! Even if I go in like every week! So I go often :) They turned out DANG cute

 We decided to have invite the Easter Bunny for a visit Saturday morning, which worked out SO great. Cailen had to have a few hints to find his basket, but he did eventually! Mark and I hid ones for each other which was fun :)

Looking for eggs!

Confetti eggs! A definite hit with Cailen.

Jex's thoughts on the whole morning:

Cailen then had to re-hide eggs for everyone else to find, which was very funny (I think he put 3 in the same spot)

More dying eggs!!

Easter Sunday - my boys with their matching ties! Sooo cute! (Thanks Mark for agreeing to be matchy)

I decided to jump in on a pic, since I'm always the one taking them! We NEED to get a family picture this summer!!

That was our Easter!

April!

I am really annoyed because I can't seem to upload any videos. I don't know if I'm just not in the know-how of how to do this or I just have bad luck with technology (I'm voting the second...). But at least my pictures work so I will share those. We have had an awesome April so far. I am sooo wanting warm weather and Utah, as usual, is teasing me. It's warm for a little while then BAM, snow. Or crazy wind. Or rain. Yeesh! But there has been decent enough weather to do some fun things, and when there hasn't been good weather, we make do and entertain ourselves indoors :)

Cailen and Jex enjoyed the backyard some more. We had some friends over and Cailen really wanted to play basketball with them...man, he's such a cutie. He was trying SO hard to make that basket.

General Conference (look it up on www.lds.org if you're curious) was the first weekend in April and we tried to liven it up for Cailen by playing some Conference Bingo :) He loved it because of the marshmellows. And he totally ate our stockpile so we never really finished the game!

My cutie-patootie Jex hanging out "reading" books

Oh man, this was great. Mark let Jex watch some TV (I know...) and he was LOVING Blue's Clues. He was literally laughing at the television. It was hilarious!

Jex is getting all handsy with toys and stuff lately. But...he's still working on the coordination. He totally WHACKED himself with this lovely pink rattle my mom has in her bin of baby toys. Slightly funny, but there was definitely some pity for poor Jex when he started crying. I have a video of this actually, but, as mentioned before, I can't upload it! Grr!

We're still trying to nail this eating solids thing. Finally he started doing well (we're kind of on the not-doing-so-hot side of things currently) and I just had to capture his cute food-face. Sigh. Jex, you're a doll.

We went to a nearby park because Cailen has been dying to go back and see the ducks there. I think it has been like 2 years since we were there, but he remembers seeing and feeding the ducks. So we went back and it was a blast! There were a couple crazy geese that freaked Cailen out with their LOUD honking and they were a bit overwhelming to the poor ducks, but I tried to throw my pieces of bread AWAY from them and to the poor little ducks that were geting overpowered. That's me - I root for the little guy :) It was a lot of fun. Despite being muddy and having to nurse Jex at the park (fun times), it was a lot of fun to watch Cailen feed the ducks (with my brother Ryan too) and get excited by animals/nature as well as play at the park. Good times. Oh summer, how I long for you.

(look at that GINORMOUS chunk of bread! I could not get Cailen to understand the concept of small pieces. A duck is going to choke one of these days on Cailen's bread)

Proud duck-feeder

Jex didn't feed the ducks. He chewed on Woody instead.

On the 16th we had an Easter party with Mark's family. His mom always has an Easter egg hunt and hides their baskets and then they dye Easter eggs. Always a good time!! Here is Jex "finding" his basket. He got some fun treats aka baby food and spoons and pacifiers :)

hehe, couldn't resist taking pictures of Cailen on the hunt, totally bewildered as to where his basket could be. I had to give him some hints eventually... He is looking with his cousin Becca, who is almost FIVE! Look at how tiny she is! She's adorable and pretty much Cailen's best friend

He found it!

Cailen was a trooper to hold Jex for some pics of the boys and their baskets. It's times like this I seriously wonder how some people do it. I did NOT take a very good picture! Sigh...

Mark's mom and Gma posing with the grandkids

The shirtless boys dying their eggs! Cailen had a blast!! I had to try to slow him down because he would just plop them all in and then want to take them immediately out! We eventually got some good ones and even had some "magic" ones (wax crayon, sneaky mom)

So proud! Showing Grandma Sharon

Carefully seeing if they are all dry. He looved his eggs.

The first 6 of 18...

Next up, actual Easter. Yay! I love having a 3-almost-4-year-old (most of the time). He is such a fun kid and really interested in learning, which is awesome. We've talked about the Resurrection before, but with it being Easter time, we're doing a bit more talking and I love how much he knows and how excited he is about things. Gotta love kids!

Cailen is growing up!

I love the fact that Cailen is in Primary now! And I also love the fact that my mom is his Sunbeams teacher because then I hear things about him that I may not otherwise! Like how he went up in front of everyone to be Jonah and told more about the story than his teachers had prepped him for (yay for reading books and scriptures!). And this past Sunday he got the chance to say prayer for the first time at the microphone. He has been wanting to talk on the microphone for quite some time now. He was so excited! And I was planning on coming in anyway to help him, but I ended up subbing for my mom so I really got to see how Cailen does in Primary. I barely helped him at all! He did such a GREAT job! I helped at the end when he ran out of things to say but otherwise he did it on his own. He was so excited to sit in the special chair beforehand too. It was lots of fun to do sharing time and singing time with him. Man, is that kid tired during Primary though. Darn this schedule! He needs his nap! Anyway, I love my smart little man. And I love bragging about him :) He really soaks up things we talk about and I guess we've covered lots of topics because he really knows his stuff. He has known who John the Baptist was for like 2 years now. He can identify him at the drop of a hat. And he knows all about baptism thanks to cousins and other friends getting baptized. During sharing time, the lady who was teaching asked the kids in the back (the ones who have been baptized) what you can do to wash your sins away and Cailen pipes up with "Baptism!" It was awesome. I was a proud mama. He also knew all the answers to my questions on birds and bugs during the lesson (not that other kids didn't...). Way to go kiddo! Here is a pic of my big Primary man with his prayer sticker. I can't wait until Mother's Day to see if he will belt out those songs to his mommy!! (Mark wants to put a wager on if he will sing or not...I'm hopeful he'll sing, but not dumb!)

My cute kids!

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