Last One Standing.

Things have been going well for our family, other than all of my boys being sick with some awful bug. It started out last Sunday, when Dylan fell asleep on me at church (that never happens) and quickly coming down with a fever. That quickly led to croup, which kept us home-bound until Thursday. And wouldn't you know it, as soon as Dylan seemed to be feeling better, Owen started running a fever. And then Ben! Seriously, my boys are a hot, fever-y mess right now. Luckily Dylan seems to be coming out of it, but he still is trying to kick a nasty cough. I'm praying that I don't get sick, because I feel like I'm barely keeping things going with my sick boys. I'm sure that this is pretty normal for moms of young kids, but I get super paranoid when my babies get sick. Like, check their temperature every 30 minutes, keep referring back to babycenter.com and webMD to make sure that I don't need to rush them to the ER for a fever of 101.6, fretting that my digital thermometer might not be accurate and my child might actually have a fever of 104.6 instead.... oh dear. 

Poor baby and his fever-induced rosy cheeks. 

Despite all these no-good sick days, I must report one thing: Dylan will now take medicine like a champ! Previously, Ben and I have had terrible luck getting Dylan to take any medicine. We always had to mix his medicine with juice or soda and had to be quite sneaky about it, otherwise it would throw a huge fit and spit it out everywhere. Folks, we have turned a corner and Dylan will take any liquid med we've had to give him. Thank goodness, because life is hard enough right now as is. 

Now I'm just praying that everyone miraculously gets healthy again overnight. Let's hope, right?

Also, I wanted to share two cute videos of Dylan and Owen. Goodness, they are adorable. 

Owen is on the move and has the cutest little army crawl. This video was taken just a few days ago and he's already gotten much faster!

And another cute one:

Owen at Six Months.

And just like that, Owen is already halfway to his first birthday! Time is going by so quickly and I wish that I could just slow it down for a while. Owen is ridicuously sweet and precious, and I am sad to see his new baby days quickly transitioning to his big baby days. Sigh. I think that this is pretty common for mamas with babies #2, #3, and so on. With the first child you are just so eager and excited for each new stage. Now that I've been through it all before, I just want him to stay sweet and snuggly for as long as possible. 

Anyway, enough harrumping (like that's even a word) about my too quickly growing baby... let me tell you what Owen has been doing lately. 

Owen has gotten much more interested in toys- especially anything that Dylan is playing with. In fact, it seems like Dylan's toy cars are his biggest preference right now. He still loves to chew on Sophie the giraffe, and is starting to prefer some of our "big baby" toys, like this one:

VTech Move and Crawl Ball

Owen is still happy, happy and seems willing to give anyone a big smile. He gives kisses and loves to grab anything that is close enough. That definitely includes my hair :) He loves his daddy and big brother so much and loves to play with them. Owen is super ticklish and has an adorable laugh. 

Owen continues to love, love, love solids. I've given him all sorts baby foods (green beans, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, squash, bananas, peaches, pears) and he is just happy as a clam. As mentioned before, I'm trying to chunk him up and I took the wonderful advice of my friend Stacey to add avocado to some foods to up the calories and provide some healthy fat. Owen eats baby food twice each day, and he is so excited to be in the high chair. Owen is still nursing about six times each day as well. He's also had a little formula mixed in his bottles when he's with his sitter (probably 2 oz. per bottle), since I haven't been able to pump out as much milk as he wants in his bottles. I've read that's pretty normal- for my body to produce more than enough when it comes to breastfeeding, but not give as much to the pump. When he has a bottle, Owen can eat about 5-6 ounces at a time, although he frequently only wants 3 ounces at first, and then will want a little more milk later. 

Owen's sleeping is getting more predictable with each month, which I love. He usually sleeps through the night and takes three naps during the day. The nap times are getting more regular- usually a one hour nap around 10, a one or two hour nap around 1, and a one hour nap around 4 or 5. Still, things vary by the day- for example, he took a 2 1/2 hour nap this morning, but his lunchtime and afternoon naps were just an hour. Owen usually is ready to go down for a nap after being awake for two hours. I still put Owen in his Woombie to sleep, although I plan on switching him to a Sleep Sack pretty soon.

Owen is getting so strong and is starting to be mobile! He can sit up by himself, although I stay really close. When he gets excited he sends himself backwards and I like to have a pillow or myself behind him all the time just in case. He's also started doing a little inchworm/army crawl type movement. This all started when Dylan was lying on the floor looking at the Target toy catalog. Owen so badly wanted to be seeing what Dylan was poring over, and he managed to get moving. He hasn't done this too much since, but still, it made me realize that crawling isn't far off! Owen still rolls all over the place and can pivot himself around to get to what he's interested in. 

Here are a few favorite pictures from the past month: