3 + 2 = 5

We are excited to announce the third addition to our family! I will just answer everyone's questions so there is no confusion or wondering. Yes it was planned, yes we know how sex works (and sex protection), yes we know we just had a baby, yes we know we multiply like rabbits.... There... did we cover everything? ;)

Having our babies so close together all started when we realized the time frame we had originally planned for baby #3 landed me 9 months prego or very postpartum during a big family race Scott and I will be training for the end of next summer. We then decided I needed to either be postpartum enough that I could still train and run the race or we needed to hold off enough that I would only be 7ish months prego and would still be able to participate in the race. As you can see we shot for before the race which meant Ida and the babe being 15 months apart and Jacob and the babe being almost exactly 3 years apart. Although we decided to try for before the race doesn't mean that after I found out I was pregnant that I didn't have a huge freak out while all the realizations hit of the reality of the situation and how close together all my children would be. I freaked out and wondered what the heck I had just gotten myself into. I also wasn't really thrilled to deal with all the "judgement" we were going to receive for having our children so close together. I didn't want it to bother me but it really did. Why should I care what other people think? It's not their family and it's not really their problem. Now I'm over it and have accepting my kids are going to be so close and I'm just excited for the journey... Most of the time. :)

16 week baby bump

This pregnancy has been so awesome compared to my other ones. My sickness has been minimal and the first trimester wasn't that bad. Just normal tiredness and having to pee all the time. I really think the Lord is blessing me because I'm still taking care of a baby.

Date: December 9, 2015

How far along? 16 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: I'm up 6 pounds bringing my total to 140 lbs. My pre-pregnancy weight was 134. But I was still in the process of trying to lose the weight from Ida so I have a feeling I might gain more weight. Already by the time I was  into my second trimester I had gained 7 lbs. Which is more than double the amount that I gained with either of my two other pregnancies. So that was really depressing for me and I just felt really fat. But now it seems I've evened myself out again and I'm on track for being up 10ish pounds at my half way mark which is the same with the other two.

Maternity clothes? I am not wearing any maternity clothes yet. Sometimes I do pull out some of my long sleeve shirts though just because I don't really have any and I want to wear a long sleeve shirt. But it's not needed by any means. 

Sleep: I probably would be sleeping good if not for two other children getting me up 2-5 times a night. I've been so exhausted lately. Worse than I was during my first trimester. At my appointment today my midwife started me up on a 5,000 UI dose of vitamin D. I hope it helps.

Movement: I felt the little babe move the first time 4 days ago while I was out shopping with a friend. I love those first movements. I think they feel like little fingers lightly scratching you from the inside.

Feeling sick? This pregnancy has been soooo awesome!!!! Yes I am sick. But I remember shortly after finding out I was pregnant I starting thinking about what that really meant and I started dreading feeling sick. Then when I starting feeling sick around 7 weeks I was just miserable. And I just kept waiting for it to get worse. But it never really got very bad. I've never thrown up once this whole pregnancy. And now I should still be feeling sick all day long and throwing up but I feel good most of the day as long as I make sure to keep food in me. Usually in the evenings I feel sick regardless. But it's so much better then any other pregnancy! I've been so happy with it! I haven't taken any zofran in at least 2 weeks and it's just been awesome! I finally understand what people say when they say they forget they are pregnant. Because there are lots of times where I don't feel sick at all and I really do forget that I'm pregnant.

Other pregnancy symptoms? Other symptoms I'm having are round ligament pain and heartburn. I went through I really bad stretch a couple weeks ago with the ligament pain. Every morning getting out of bed always created this sharp pain. And If I coughed or sneezed at the wrong time. OUCH!! It was so painful. Like I tore my ligament in half. The heartburn just started a week or so ago. But it's not super bad especially if I make sure I don't eat right before going to bed. My groin/hip pain does bother me sometimes in the morning. But not very often. I feel like the hardest time I've been having lately is dealing with my emotions being crazy. I feel very overwhelmed by them and often spend some part of the day feeling like I can't take care of my children and in tears. It's been so exhausting on top of my exhaustion. It doesn't help that I've had this ridiculous sinus cold that has lasted for like 12 days now and I feel so crappy and achy and Ida has been teething and sleeping terribly and Jacob has been getting up 2-4 times a night. It has really just been awful. Thankfully Ida is done teething and I think I'm finally starting to kick this sickness so I've been feeling better. I hope in the next week or two I start feeling a lot better.

Have you started to show yet? No I don't think so. I think it's funny because you feel so huge! Then when I take my picture I'm like... Oh.... I'm not that big. But it always feels like it's so obvious that I'm prego. Like if anyone sees me they will think it. But I'm not really showing. Just feeling like I'm really fat and all my belly skin hangs over my pants. It's great.

Gender prediction: We have decided not to find out the gender if this baby. We figured why not since we have a boy and girl so we have everything we need. I'm pretty excited for the experience! Scott is currently thinking it's a girl. I've kind of always felt like it was a boy. So I don't know. I really wouldn't mind if it was a girl just because Ida and the babe will be so close in age... But it will be good either way. 

9 Months

This little lady is 3/4's of a year old... It's hard to believe in just 3 short months she will be a year old. We had a doctor's appointment today and discovered that Ida has gained a whopping 3 oz in 3 months. Bringing her total weight to 13 lbs 12 oz and dropping her to the 1st percentile. Although she is still growing and is now 27 inches (15th percentile). The doctors were a little concerned that she hasn't gained a lot of weight but after passing her physical exam and telling them I'm still nursing every 3-4 hours and she practically never stops eating table food they seemed to be less concerned. Jacob dropped a lot of weight as well. He just started in a lot higher percentile. I was only 16 pounds when I turned a year doing the same thing. So we are going to do a weight check next month and I hope that she starts gaining a little more. The Doc said she looks really healthy though! I moved Ida up to 6 month clothes about a week ago. I think I probably could have held off a little bit more, but honestly. I was just ready for some new clothes! Babies aren't supposed to be in the same clothes for 6 months! They seem a little baggy on her, and long, but she'll grow into them. She is still in size 2 diapers as well.

9 months is such a fun stage. A couple weeks ago I think Ida went through a mental developmental jump. She just became so much more aware of what's going on around her. I love watching her watch the world around her. I also love when their personality starts to shine through. She is very very loud and lets you know when she isn't happy with something. Especially when pertaining to food. I feel like I have to stay on the ball and make sure I'm giving her something to eat every 3 hours or less. She just always wants to eat. She is still very content and isn't so much a busy body that has to get into everything. Although her crawling has improved much and she is now able to navigate around things and from room to room she still isn't interested in getting into things. Mostly she's interested in just getting to me. I feel like she follows me around everywhere and I'm not used to it!

Ida got her first tooth a couple days ago. I started suspecting she was teething after a week straight of me not being able to put her down and her sleeping horribly. So the day before she got the tooth I looked in her mouth and her little gums where all red and swollen and I knew that had to be it. She got her second tooth 2 days later. So now she both or bottom teeth and I hope she will start feeling better.

Ida took a long time before pulling herself up onto the furniture. I thought she would get it quick, but I'm realizing I think she needs a little extra motivation to do things. She wants to make sure she can really do it before doing it. She has been pulling herself up to her knees and sitting on her knees all month. 3 days ago I decided to see if I could get her to do it with a little incentive from food. Well it took her about 3 seconds to crawl over to the couch and pull herself all the way up without even a hesitation. Haha little stinker. She had figured out how to get herself down from standing before she even learned how to pull herself up from mom and dad standing her next to the couch so that wasn't even a problem.

Ida has started clapping her hands this past month as well as blowing. I find the blowing pretty impressive although I don't really think she knows what she is doing... One thing she hates though is people touching her hands and trying to make her do things with her hands. She has a bubble and always has. (Which is also why we can't cuddle her). I feel like she thinks Jacob gets in her bubble way more than her liking. 


Finally nursing has gotten better! YAY! Man am I excited... Because that was a really rough month. We are now nursing every 3-4 hours. Although I think my milk supply has dropped a bit, I haven't really been supplementing much because a couple weeks ago Ida decided she no longer wanted to take a bottle or drink formula. (Can't blame her. It smells nasty!) That was one of the incentives I had to keep with nursing. I had almost decided to give it up and just go to formula when she stopped drinking it. So we are doing the best we can with nursing. This past month I also discovered Ida will eat purees if it's from a pouch! So my friend found some reusable ones online and I ordered some and LOVE them! It makes feeding her so easy and fast and she is getting her veggies and fruits again! I also love them because I can put my own homemade baby food in them and add cereal to them. She is still eating a lot of table food. But she loves eating out of the pouches so we do a good mixture of both. I also started giving her a sippy cup of water during meals to help wash down the food. She is really taking on to that as well and loves drinking out of it. Now if only I could get her to hold the pouches and sippy cup herself.....

This past month Ida dropped down to only waking up 2 times a night instead of 3. It was great because she dropped out the middle one which means I get the most sleep. She is so considerate. :) That is until she started teething and then was getting up like 5 times a night and refusing to go back to sleep. But, thankfully that is over and I hope she goes back to her only getting up twice a night again soon. I've realized quickly that Ida does not deal with pain and sickness nearly as well as Jacob did.  You have to be a lot more hands on with her which is why the majority of her Christmas presents are for teething this year. :) She is also still taking 3 naps a day.

8 months

Ida is now 8 months old. She is the cutest! She is still wearing 3-6 month clothes and I'm itching for  her to get into 6 month clothes! I feel like she'll never grow big enough for them. At this rate we'll be lucky if she is in 6 month clothes when she's a year old! She is still a cutie though. She is weighing 13 lbs  10 oz and is 27 inches tall. So at least she's growing in length! She is in size 2 diapers and her hair is starting to grow on top. Just like Jacob's. Super fine and sticks straight up!

Shortly after turning 7 months old Ida started transferring from both her hands and knees to sitting as well as sitting to hands and knees. But then that's where she stayed the majority of the month. I was really starting to think that she really would never crawl.... She had been so close for so long! But she finally figured it out about a week before she turned 8 months old!

I was so excited! All it took was me practicing with like non stop for like a whole day.
Then pretty much the next day she had it figured out. Again, super excited and even more excited that I have a baby that is more happy because she can move the direction she wants to! It is pretty funny though because she still hasn't figured out how to really go around things or how to navigate room to room. She thinks the only way to get from point A to point B is to go in a straight line which doesn't always work. She also very quickly after learning to crawl learned how to pull herself up to her knees next to the furniture but isn't quite ready to pull herself all the way up to standing yet.


Ida loves playing pick-a-boo with herself. It's the cutest because she's the one who puts the blanket over herself then I'm the one that takes it off. But she loves it! She has also gotten pretty good this past month at clicking her tongue and making a kissing sound. One of my favorites that she does is tilt her head to the side when your interacting with her or if she's trying to get you to interact with her. It is seriously so cute! Also when she is playing or in the car seat she will often cross her legs and I think that is adorable.

Nursing went from bad to worse this past month. Ida and I both got to such a negative place with it. For about two weeks we would go a good 9 hours without nursing during the day because she wouldn't be patient enough for a let down and I wasn't letting down because I was so frustrated. It was so hard. I finally had to give in (which was hard for me, but I knew it needed to be done) and starting supplementing with formula.

Love this adorable head tilt!

We started feeding her every 4 hours whether with my milk or formula. The weird thing was if I wasn't at home then I usually let down just fine. The past week in a half or so we have been doing much better. The change happened when we went to Boise for Ondrea's state soccer and I was able to let down fine the whole time we were there. We've continued to do well since getting back and I hope it will continue. We've had a bad day here and there. But so far so good. Ida also decided a couple weeks ago that she was done with puree's. I think because she can't feed herself. So we have started her pretty much on table foods and she is doing really well with them. Sometimes I can feed her with the spoon but it usually doesn't last long. Which I'm not too sad about since I don't like feeding babies anyways.

Ida's sleeping is about the same. Still getting up 3 times a night to feed. I've began to lose hope that she will ever sleep through the night.
I will always and forever have to get up to feed her because she is anti cuddle and I can't get her to calm down and go back to sleep any other way than nursing. She is sleeping great just getting up a lot. She goes down to bed very well and goes to sleep on her own very well. She is still taking 3 naps a day probably a total of 3 hours a day. Shouldn't complain but I do have a hard time not getting frustrated at night when she's waking me up every 3 hours to eat when I don't really feel like she should still need that and I'd really just like to sleep.

Spider Halloween costume!

7 Months

We are well on our way to a year old.... Ida is 13 lbs 9 oz and 26 inches tall. She is just a little girl wearing 3-6 month clothes and wearing size 2 diapers. I always get comments about how small she is. Also, I noticed that her bald spot on the back of her head has started growing in. I guess she's spending more time sitting now and less time on her back.

Ida has starting moving all over the place.... That is.... All movements expect for forward movements. She pushing herself backwards across the whole room and will constantly get herself stuck in a corner, or under the couch, or under the side table and it is driving me crazy! Because then she gets really mad because she can't move anymore so I have to go rescue her and then she goes right back into pushing herself into a corner.

I feel like I spend all day saving her from corners. She just wont figure out that forward motion! She is sitting really well though and learning to control her body really well. While she is sitting she rotates a full 360 to get at toys and she can reach out her whole body so it's practically on the ground to get a toy then get herself back into a sitting position. I feel like as soon as she figures out how to move forward she will be everywhere!

She has seemed to be a little more fussy lately and I think it's due to that fact that she gets frustrated because she can't move where she wants to because she can't move forward. I've been working with her and trying to teach her how to figure it out because I think she will be much happier once she figures it out but she just isn't getting it.

About two weeks ago she had a huge developmental jump. She was learning something different every day of the week. She can now hold her bottle very well, walks with help if I'm holding both of her hands, gets on her hands and knees and rocks and can feed herself. She learned all of those things in one week. She picked up feeding herself super fast! Less then a week. I was very surprised. But she is good at picking up the food with her finger and thumb and will even grab it out of the palm of her hand with the other hand in order to get a better hold on the food. She also now recognizes her name.

Ida is eating her solids very well but we are struggling with nursing. And I feel like it's my fault because I wont let down. It's very very frustrating. I try to remain calm but I know when she starts getting frustrated because she's been patient and the milk still hasn't let down then I automatically start feeling frustrated over my body. I don't want to stop nursing but I feel like it's not fair for Ida if I can't get my milk to let down for her. I think I'm going to look into some let down solutions before I stop and then we'll see how it goes from there. Ida seems to really enjoy eating her finger foods. Right now I'm just giving her the puffs but I'd like to start giving her other things. I hate feeding babies purees. It makes me feel so anxious! The faster I can get out of the feeding stage the better. She has still been constipated but it seems to be getting better so I hope I can start into table foods soon.

Ida's sleeping is also frustrating. I want her to sleep longer than a 3-4 hour stretch so bad! I know she can do it because she does it on occasion. So now how do I get her to do it more frequently? She is taking naps great and will take 3-4 naps a day every 90 mins. In the evenings she has started to have a 3 to a 4 and a half hour waking period. She is going to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 and waking up between 7:30 and 8:30. It is super cute though because I noticed that 75% of the time Ida goes to sleep with her legs in the air. I find it pretty funny. :)

6 Months

My little Ida is 6 months today. Already half a year old. She weighs 13 pounds 9 oz and is 24 1/2" tall. She is wearing size 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. Unfortunately Ida doesn't do so well with vaccinations. She gets a fever for a couple of days and doesn't sleep well. Fortunate it only lasts a couple days then she's back to being her content self.

This little girl has the longest attention span for her age! She can sit and play with the same toys all day long without getting fussy. She is so content to sit and play with her toys or watch Scott, Jacob or I do stuff around her. I just don't know how she can be so content and so happy. Now I consider Jacob to have been a happy baby but she is happier then Jacob was. She always has a smile on her face. Even when she's upset she has a smile on her face. After receiving her shots this last doctors visit she was smiling at the nurses before they gave her the shots. During the shots she screamed and cried. Then after, when I picked her up, the first thing she did was look right back at those nursing and flashed them another smile. They loved it and said it was very rare that they were ever smiled at right after shots. That's just who she is. She see's a face and she smiles at it. You don't even have to be looking at her for her to smile.

I had started to think Miss Ida wasn't ever going to start moving around. She is just so happy to sit or lay on her back and play with her toys. About a week ago though she decided she would venture out and start rolling. Now, she's had the ability to roll for a couple months now but she's just never had the desire. She will now roll from her back to her stomach either direction and is working on rolling back onto her back. She isn't the biggest fan of being on her stomach but she's getting better as she learns she can move her body. She is very good and pushing herself up with her arms and rotating herself to the right while on her stomach. It doesn't take long before she has ventured off the blanket. Just one of the steps to mobility! She still isn't moving a ton but it is a start. She will only roll over once.. Maybe twice. She is great at sitting though and she picked it up really quick. Now that is all she wants to do! She is also getting pretty good at face planting it when she wants to get down from sitting. Not the  most graceful I've seen...

Ida has starting saying her first consonant: da, da. She loves anything that has to do with her tongue and is very interesting in learning how to click it. When I do it at her I can see her mind and her mouth just working to try to figure out how I'm doing it. I think it's great! She will blow raspberries though and has decided she loves screaming. Not in an angry kind of way. Just in a "I figured out how to make my voice really loud and now I like using it" kind of way... While we are in stores Jacob and Ida like having screaming contests at each other. It gets very loud very quickly. I find it funny. I'm sure others don't think it's as funny. :) She has also started tilting her head to the side when your talking to her sometimes and I think it's super cute. She has discovered splashing in the tub and now spends her bath time doing so and she loves to suck on her fingers and sucks on her middle fingers a lot. It would not surprise me if she decided to be a finger sucker.


Ida is gasy... Always has been. Her digestive system has also seemed to be a little more on the sensitive side than Jacob's was. She struggled with me eating dairy for along time. I just now have started introducing it back into my diet and she seems to be handling it well. We have started Ida on some veggies: peas, sweet potato's and squash which she seems to really like! That is until they hit her digestive system and make her constipated..... To help out with the constipation I have also introduced pears and apple juice. It seems to be helping... Either that or her body is just getting used to eating purees. At first she was the messiest eater of all times. She loved grabbing the bib and sucking on it between each bite which just created a huge mess everywhere! She has now gotten better and for the most part leaves the bib alone. She is also getting better at keeping the food in her mouth instead of accidentally spitting it all out as she tried to work it to the back of her mouth to swallow. I had intended to just start her out with the feeder and do spoons when she a little older but that didn't work out because she decided very quickly she does not like feeder. Apparently this is why you should never make plans with babies. Even this young they have a mind of their own. Feeding babies with spoons is not my favorite thing so I was just hoping for easy, no mess, feedings using the feeder..... She obviously thought differently. Good thing she is cute ;)

Ida's sleeping has finally started improving... That is when we aren't sleeping at home.... When we are sleeping anywhere other than home she will sleep for 7-9 hour stretches. Which is AWESOME! The only problem with that is once we get back home she starts only sleeping 2-4 hour stretches again... :( I wish I knew what it was that made her sleep so much better everywhere other than home. One idea I've had is she just likes sleeping in the same room as me. Gives her some kind of security or something. I've thought about moving her back into our room for a bit just to see if the sleeping improves.... We shall see. Right now she is going to bed between 8 and 9 and usually wakes up between 7 and 8. She wakes up multiple times a night. I will only feed her every 4 hours though. If she wakes up between I make her find her pacifier and go back to sleep. She is taking anywhere from 3 to 5 naps a day every 90 minutes depending on how long her nap is.

And here are a couple of Jacob and Ida cuz they are the cutest together! :)

Utah with the Bartholomew's!

We always love going to visit the Bartholomew's and Jacob's best friend Hunter! It's so sad that we don't live closer together so Jacob and Hunter can play more. Scott wasn't able to go down to Utah with us so I was on my own with the kids. Our first stop while in Utah was the Ogden Fair.

Jacob and Hunter loved feeding all the animals!

Unfortunately our Fair trip was cut short due to a huge rain storm. The rain and wind started while we were feeding the animals and we should have left 10 minutes before we did because by the time we were headed back to the car we got hit full force. The wind was blowing so hard I was struggling pushing the stroller. I was running with it and moving at a walking pace. Jacob was not a fan of being pelted in the face with the the sideways rain either. I ended up turning the stroller around so the back was facing the rain storm and not hitting Jacob in the face. By the time we made it back to the car I was completely soaked, Jacob mildly wet and Ida completely dry. At least the combo of the car seat and the stroller worked to keep the rain out for her.

The rest of our trip wasn't quite so eventful and the weather even cleared up so the boys could play outside for a bit.

 Throwing mud. Love these boys!

 Jacob reading to Ida.

It's always so much fun to come visit!