A Lewis Legacy

We survived another New England winter! I feel as if we deserve some kind of medal after this one! After a few fake-outs from Mother Nature, I think I am pretty safe in saying that the worst is over and it is Spring now.

We have also survived the first few months as a family of 5! More than survived, in fact. I would say we are transitioning quite nicely. Noah and Audrey still adore Harrison and have been such big helpers.

Here's the low down on each kiddo:

Harrison:

Harry enjoyed St. Patrick's Day

He is officially the proverbial baby of the family. He only sleeps well when held and seeing as how he is the last baby, we are all content to just park on the couch and hold him for hours. In the mornings we have to wake him up to get Noah to school and Audrey to speech each day; it is only fair that we leave afternoons open and let him nap in mama's arms as long as he wants.

Nap Time

Part of the reason he naps well in our arms is that he prefers to sleep completely vertical. No horizontal Zzzz's for this guy. He's the only one of the three that had reflux so it was all new to us as we figured out ways to make him more comfortable. Poor thing never cried about it, just arched his back and wiggled his head from side to side enough to give him a nice bald strip right on the back of his head. At 1 month, he started Zantac and while he despises the taste of it (who makes a menthol medicine for babies!?) it kicked in a few weeks later and he has been resting a bit more comfortably now.

When taking him into the doctor's at 4.5 weeks to get the prescription, we had to weigh him twice. There was no way he could weight 12.9 lbs (8.5 lbs birth weight) after just a few short weeks. We were wrong, he could in fact weigh that much. By his 2 month appt. he was up to 14.4 lbs. Little guy isn't such a little guy, it turns out!

Happy 2 months, Harry!

At almost 3 months now, he is starting to enjoy a few toys, he loves the Bumbo seat already, and he is getting ready for his first cross country plane trip to spend his first Easter in CA as we visit Uncle Brian and Aunt Keala!

Audrey:
Audrey is 3! We cannot believe she is growing so quickly (said every parent ever, right?). For her special day, she chose Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, dipping pizza (Papa Johns) for dinner and Lorax cupcakes for her treat. Instead of a party, she chose a Special Family Day at the local indoor playground and had a blast with the slides, toys, cars and bouncy houses.

Audrey's birthday cupcake

Three is also the age where she had to say goodbye to her pacifier. Even though she only used it to sleep, she still loved it. We had been prepping her for a few months that at the age of three she could trade in her pacifiers for her birthday presents. She informed us she would if she got a little and a big present. After her birthday dinner, she collected up all of her pacifiers to give to our friend Miss Caroline who had a little girl baby in her belly (of course we actually threw them away), and opened her big present- a balance bike. Man, she is fast on that thing!

For her little present, we took the kids to Build A Bear (their first time) and Audrey got to pick a special friend to sleep with since she no longer needed her pacifiers at night. We were planning to let Audrey go wild with a bear, an outfit, maybe a few accessories, but instead she chose a dog, named it Lexei and only picked out a skirt for it, as none of the other BAB accessories fit on the dog! We thought we had really dodged a bullet until Noah picked a bear and wanted an Iron Man costume for it. Since we really aren't a fan of characters, we tried to persuade Noah to pick something else for his bear and enticed him with a complete Red Sox uniform, a baseball bat, ball and glove. So yeah, it was just about the most expensive stuffed animal you could imagine, and it wasn't even his birthday!

Audrey requested dippy pizza (AKA Papa Johns)

Audrey had been in speech therapy through the Early Intervention program since January. Her teacher came to our house 1x a week and Audrey adored her. When Audrey aged out of the program at age 3, she then transferred over to the public school system for therapy. Now Audrey works with a therapist 2x a week. So far, Audrey really enjoys it and feels special that she gets to go to a different school than Noah. Though she is too young for a complete diagnosis, the therapist believes Audrey's difficulty stems from Childhood Apraxia of Speech. We are hopeful that with proper therapy and a whole lot of effort on our part and Audrey's that she can have at least 80% of intelligible speech by the time she starts kindergarten.

Noah:

Lego head cake pops

Noah is 5! A whole hand! He is so thrilled to be 5 and was so patient as he waited for his big day after Audrey had already celebrated hers. He chose his Smolensk Auntie's cinnamon rolls for breakfast and homemade mini-pizzas for dinner. He wanted Lego Head cake pops for his school treat and being tired of so much cake, he wanted a cookie cake for his candle celebration. If there was ever one of those "What we do for our kids" moments, drawing 2 doz. little Lego Head faces onto cake pops with a black icing and a toothpick is definitely one of them. He loved them though, so it is all worth it.

Noah's mini pizzas

Instead of a big party, he chose a day with his best friend at the trampoline park. We are so thankful that Noah has a great best friend with a wonderful family! We all met up at the trampoline park and even the adults jumped. What a fantastic workout! I am pretty sure the adults had just as much fun as the kids, if not more. Then we all went out for an impromptu birthday lunch at Papa Gino's. Though not our favorite pizza, it was close and we were ravenous from all of the jumping. Noah's buddy informed the staff that it was Noah's birthday and all of the kids enjoyed some complimentary ice cream cups after their lunches.

Noah's candles

Other than that, Noah is enjoying life to the fullest. He adores his teachers and is very amused by the fact that he has two teachers named Mrs. Talbot (no relation). He tells just about everyone he knows of the coincidence. He also tells the Mrs. Talbots just about everything that is going on in our household. He loves talking to adults and he corners them at every opportunity to talk their ears off. Luckily we don't have too many family secrets!

He is very excited for kindergarten and also very excited to ride the plan to CA for Easter. We have been planning a fun carry-on for the kids and he is very adamant that he wants the contents of his book bag to remain a surprise until the airport. Upon hearing this time and time again, Audrey, of course, also wants her backpack to be a surprise. Dave and I have had fun planning activities and since it will all be a surprise, it feels as if we are doing Christmas stockings again! What fun!