Mazie...Weeks 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8...the joys of being the fourth

Remember the days when I took pictures of my babies, shared them with friends and family, and wrote down all the wonderful things that were happening in our lives? Me neither. It seems so long ago.

With Mazie, I'm lucky to actually take pictures, let alone post them. But I'm determined to make sure none of my children end up with no baby pictures of themselves, like I did. Maybe by the time I have my 7th, I'll give up on the picture taking like my mom did, but I'll do my darndest to avoid it!

It's been 6 weeks since I gave up dairy and Mazie started doing SO well. But then I bought the wrong butter and we started seeing the "old" Mazie returning. Then Braden accidentally put the wrong milk in our breakfast one morning and we've been battling getting Mazie feeling good for the past 10 days. She's doing much better.

The comfortable Mazie is happy, content, peaceful, and SMILEY!  She started smiling mid December, right before our trip to Arizona. She only cries when she's hungry, dirty, tired, or gassy...or is being sat on, cuddled too much, or has a binkie being shoved in her mouth. Her sisters adore her!

She is growing SO fast! Remember how she gained a pound in a week? Well, now she weighs in at over 11 lbs and actually has rolls. Our first baby with rolls!

I'm exhausted. The holidays sure took their toll and we suddenly went from 8 hours of sleep (interrupted, of course), to 6 1/2 because Keara went back to school. I was so tired the other day driving her to school that on the way back, I pulled into the rest stop and took a 20 minute nap! Man, I was out cold.

Other than that, things are beautiful.  Braden and I decided to start sleep training the other night so we could start moving toward full nights of sleep again.  Two nights before we started, Mazie went 7 1/2 hours between feedings!  Unfortunately, that was from 7 pm  to 2:30 am, so it still interrupted my sleep, but I was proud of her!  The next night, though, she was up every 3 hours.  The night we started sleep training, she went eight hours all by herself between feedings, waking up at 4:45.  It was SO nice to get 5 straight hours of sleep!  Thank you Mazie!  Hopefully she'll go longer and longer between eating so I can move to getting a full 8 hours of sleep (as long as I go to bed by 10:30). 

We're getting back into the groove of school and routines, we started a membership at the YMCA so Taryn and Avery are in classes, Taryn will be starting karate soon, story time at the library starts next week, and I'm determined to get back into shape. If only I had some semblance of an abdominal core to start with...

Now onto the pictures! 

4 weeks

6 weeks

6 1/2 weeks

Christmas Morning

8 1/2 weeks