4 months...*tear

He's so cute I can hardly stand it.  Seriously...I just want him to stay at this adorable age forever.  He coos and smiles and giggles and just loves everyone.  He's so squishy, I just can't get enough of him.
@ 4 months he is:
- pushing his chest up while on his tummy
- rolling to his side from his back
- sleeping through the night ( started ~ week 14), but occasionally still gets up
- being as cute as possible
- eating every 3-3/12 hours

We haven't gone to the pedi yet for his 4 month check up.  I think it will be next week.  He has all of us eating out of his hand including Cameron.  Cam is really into giving Eli sweet kisses.  He still wants to hold him but I'm pretty sure Eli is tipping the scales at ~ 20 lbs so it's a little awkward for him.

I haven't tried any solids with him yet.  Partly because the new recommendation if you're nursing is to only have milk until 6 months and the other part is because I don't want him to grow up:)

We love you so much little man!  I couldn't imagine my life without you and your sweet soul.

2 months!

We went in for Eli's 2 month well check.  He's doing great, but I didn't realize the poor little guy had to get so many shots at 2 months:(  It was quite sad.

Anyway, I wanted to post his stats so I will have somewhere to go back and look at them!
1 month ( because I never got around to posting these either:)
Height:  22.75 inches (90th %tile)
Weight: 11lb 2 oz (86th %tile)
Head Circumference: 15.87 inches (93rd %tile)

2 months:
Height: 24.5 inches (93rd %tile)
Weight: 14 lb 9 oz (97th %tile)
Head Circumference: 16.34 inches (85th %tile)

He has gotten to be a chubby little baby and just loves spending time smiling at everyone.  He is having some trouble settling into his sleeping routine at night though.  He will go a long stretch from about 7pm to 1 or 2 am, then he wakes several times before his ideal wake time of 6:30.  I have tried to sneak a dream feed in at about 10pm where I don't wake him, I just feed him, but he never eats very much.  It is just very tiring to be up that much during the night.

I started back to working 2 days a week this past week...it's all going to equal out to 1 tired momma but I think it will all work out.

Here's Eli sporting "Clif's look"

While I was on maternity leave some sweet ladies from church and our MOPS group brought us dinner.  One lady from MOPS brought JELL-O jigglers and Cameron was in love.  So today, he asked if we could make them.  Well...we made them.  We used fall cookie cutters and I learned that you should spray the bottom of your pan with PAM so they will pop up easily.  See below the "acorn" and "turkey" that were a bit distorted since they tore when we got them out of the pan...but they were still good:)

This past week Cam also had his 1st day back at Mother's Day out.  He was really excited to go and I think he will really like his teachers.

Below is the face that Cameron gave to me when I asked him to say "Cheese!"

 OK....let's try again please?!

Thank you....sweet sweet boy.

Around here...

Our little guy is almost 2 months old!  Wow!  We've been trying to figure him out and feel like we're making some progress.  He got a "cold" on his 6 week "birthday" where he was all congested and was having a hard time sleeping.  I took him to his pedi and he thought cold as well.  Turns out it is likely some acid reflux, but it is not bad enough for medication.  Just bad enough for Clif and I to lose sleep:)

I still have him sleeping in the pack and play in our room since his room is upstairs and pretty far away and he is still waking up to eat.  I just don't wanna make the trek in the middle of the night!

Today we took Cameron up to Dallas to meet my mom, brother and his 2 kids.  We packed up Cameron and a bit nervously sent him to Grammy and PawPaws for a few days.  I know he'll have a great time, this has just been the first time that we have left him that he has known exactly what is going on.  He just smiled at me when he got in Grammy's car so I guess he's not nervous!

We did manage to take some pictures of little Eli with Cameron and I when he was about 1 week old

 Brothers! Cameron loves Eli

Chillin' with PawPaw while they came to visit

Eli at 2 weeks old

 Eli at 3 weeks old, and already has a double chin!

4 weeks old and starting to not look like a newborn to me!

I know this time goes by very fast.  But it seems to go slow when you are not sleeping.  I've been spoiled with Cameron and his 12 hour stretches at night.  Here's to Eli learning that same skill!  I'll post his 2nd month pictures and stats after our doctor appointment.

He's Here:)

Eli Wade Oberle arrived on July 3rd as expected.  I became sick the night before, so we went in early so I could get rehydrated and hopefully start feeling better.  Some fluids and a couple of doses of anti-emetics later, I was feeling much better.  My labor was fairly short; she started pitocin ~ 6am and I got the epidural around 8 I think.  By about 11:30 I was dilated fully and ready to meet our little guy.  I pushed for about 10 minutes and then he was here!

After ~ 1 hour, they noticed he was getting lethargic.  His blood sugar was checked and it was 32 so they gave him some formula and rechecked it.  It did not come up very much and he was also breathing fast.  So, the neonatologist decided to admit him to NICU since he could not keep his blood sugar up and the xray of his chest showed some fluid in his lungs.  They ran bloodwork, submitted blood cultures, started him on antibiotics and scared his parents half to death.  Thank God, everything turned out to be just fine and he was released from the NICU 4 days later.  He's home now and doing really well.  He will be 2 weeks old tomorrow!

I forgot what life with a newborn is like!  I don't really mind getting up in the middle of the night; it's trying to keep the 2 1/2 year old occupied that is difficult.  He has been acting up a lot, and I have been doing my best to spend time with him too.  He really wants to go do things, which is hard because we have to stay at home.  To put the cherry on top, Clif was sent to Bangkok for the week.  I know....

But he is the sweetest little baby, such a cutie and we love him so much.  He and Cameron looked so much alike when they were born!  Thank you Lord, for blessing us with this little guy.

Eli's first bath 

Pasta!

Well D-Day is approaching.  I will be 39 weeks on July 5th and they are predicting that this little boy is going to be large.  So with that said, I will likely be induced on July 5th!  Not super excited about being induced again as the contractions with the Pitocin with Cam were AWFUL.  We'll see how things go, I know you don't always get to plan them:)  I'd love to just go into labor but there's no way I'm going to go past my due date.  

Heartburn...and I'm hot and tired.  Selfish I know.

Cam has also been a challenge lately.  Not sure if it's because he knows that a little brother is on the way, or that he's been getting to bed late because of VBS.  I took him to get his hair cut this morning which he is usually great for but was unmanageable this morning.  He got about half a hair cut, I left a big tip and we came home. 

When we came home we made a little pasta bracelet out of some macaroni noodles that I dyed earlier.  Cam asked for green and black noodles.  The green turned out great, but the black turned out greyish brown.  Oh well, he didn't care.  But what he DOES care about is doing it "ALL BY MYSELF!!"  Ok...ok...sheesh

Happy crafting!!

Nicole

A few weeks ago, we went and took some maternity/family pics with my very talented friend Alicia.  Enjoy!

Big Boy!

Sometimes when this kid speaks, I am amazed at what come out of his mouth.  I usually end up looking at Clif and saying, "How does he know that??"

He has started potty training and is doing pretty well.  I'm going to wait until the summer hits to totally stop with the diapers.  MDO isn't great about taking him to the potty so I want to wait until he has a break for the summer.  He's only there 2 mornings a week, but everyone keeps telling me that consistency is key.

Along those "big boy" lines, he also moved into his big boy bed last night.

 He was pretty excited about it and actually stayed in it all night!  Clif and my Dad made this gorgeous bed and it looks fantastic!  We modeled it after one that we like @ Pottery Barn.  I really would have been fine with him staying in his crib longer, but we will be needing the crib for #2 in a couple of months.

While we were getting ready to go to bed last night, we were hyping up the fact that "he was in a big boy bed!"  Well, he got pretty excited about it and told me that instead of Mommy or Daddy reading him his bedtime books ( as we ALWAYS do), he was going to read them "alllll by myself".  *Tear*

Thankfully, he let us go back to our routine tonight and Daddy and Cameron happily read their books before bedtime.  I don't think we'll do anything "big boy" for a while now, Mommy needs a break:)