It's blurry, I'm not wearing an ounce of make-up & Logan isn't even looking at the camera - despite all that, I love it.  I love it cause I know I was sitting on the floor taking pictures of the girls cause they are hams and love having their pictures taken but then Logan came and sat in my lap and said "You take my picture, say cheese!" 

click

This is what we got.  I showed him and he said  "thats you, thats me, nailed it! All done"  

lol
Such a boy.

Christmas 2016

 We are going to call this little one night unplanned getaway the start to the Christmas season.  The Hertels traveled all the way to VA to visit us & go to Massanutten ski resort. Their trip didn't quite go as planned in order to prevent a viral vacation that kinda happened anyway.  But such is life.  We got some pictures (none of the adults??!), had two fun nights together (one at Massanutten and one at our house) & the kiddos wore each other out. Sounds like a good start to Winter Break to me!

I fear in the upcoming years we will have too big of an age spread to get all matching jammies.  But I managed to do it this year 8years old down to 7months old. 

- Nailed it - 

These two were pretty inseparable :)  

I didn't get very many pictures of the boys because they were so movey but I did get these that are worth posting.

I feel like most of the pictures I have of Logan from the fall/winter so far he is wearing this outfit.  haha.  Clearly one of my favorites on him.

We will just call this picture of Mason my 2017 goal

 Getting ready to see Santa!

Santa!  One year they will hire an actual photographer instead of just someone that knows how to operate a camera.  This is the cell phone pic we got.  The $30 picture we got was no good.  Lucy did great and was mesmerized by Santa :)

And just as soon as the Hertels left the next guests arrived!  Kevin's sister & her kids flew in from Colorado.  Cheers!!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning

Christmas Afternoon

Christmas Night

And then after all that - this little girl turned 8 months old.  She's babbling a little more & the sounds Dada come out most frequently but I'd hardly say those were her first words ;)  She screams with happiness when Logan and Reagan run around & play.  She is still happily sitting and observing, still happily nursing, still happily waking once or twice a night nurse & she is still so gosh darn cute & happy.

Maybe the only constant??!

How on earth this bow has survived almost 6 years & 3 moves is beyond me but its the one single piece of hair garnish that she always goes for.  And it still fits??!  

7 months, 5 1/2 & nearly 7

She is 7 months.  Not really up to any new tricks yet this month but dare I speak it out loud that she is doing a smidge better at night?! Not that she was ever bad but she must have heard Kevin & I talking about doing some tough love soon.  

She is on a pretty predictable schedule nowadays.  Up around 6am, down for nap #1 around 8am, up around 10, down for nap #2 around 1:30, up around 3:30 and then down for the night at 7.  I'm feeding her at 10pm when I go to bed & she's had a couple nights that she makes it all the way until 4 :)  Then there are some days/nights that look nothing like that (like today) & the master plan gets thrown into the wind and we just roll with it.  She's also great at doing that....have I mentioned this baby is so good :)

& because I forgot I took this picture and lo and behold it's a cute one AND Reagan is now officially 5 1/2 years old and Logan is just about 7 :o  holy cow....those ages don't seem possible.

Speed him up to slow him down

It seems counter productive to give this child any form of stimulant but through the magic of medicine somehow it helps?  We have attempted another ADHD medicine with Logan.  He has been on 10mg of Adderall XR for the last 30days.  So far we've had a much better experience with this medicine compared with the last medicine (Ritalin) we tried a couple years ago.  His reports at school, since starting the medicine have indicated more focus & a little less of Logan jumping from activity to activity.  At home we have noticed a very slightly more calm Logan.  So after a month of slight improvement his Pediatrician agreed we should very slowly increase his dosage every month until we hit the magic number.  Adderall has a long list of side effects but so far we've only really seen 2 from Logan (albeit two big effects) - it decreases appetite & he has lost 2lbs in the last month.  It causes sleeplessness & he can be found in his room at 9:30pm or later bright eyed and playing. This from the kid who could barely stay awake till 7pm ... is a big difference. We have to go to the doctors every month to check weight & if he continues to drop weight we'll either lower the dosage or switch to yet another family of medicines known to help with ADHD.  As for the sleep the doctor said there are things we can do to help with that if it becomes a problem.  

So we go today to fill his 15mg dose of Adderral XR & hope that 15 is the magic number.