Protecting the neighborhood

Don’t be fooled by his sweet ride, this is one tough dude.

Keanan at 4 months

Our tiny little man is already four months old…a 1/3 of a year…nearly a toddler, really!  I know every mama has to say this about her babies, but her really is the sweetest little guy ever!  He smiles with his whole body (really, if you make eye contact with him and smile, he absolutely beams and nearly folds in half out of excitement) and is SO vocal – he squawks and screams in delight…and anger, but only in the middle of the night.  Speaking of the middle of the night, in the last month, I have seen more of Keanan in the wee hours of the night than I did during his first three months of life combined. He used to be an amazing sleeper and then the wheels fell off…along with the doors, the bumpers, and at least one headlight.  He went from waking once for a quick feed after sleeping 9-11 hours, so being up 3-4 times a night and often not going longer than 3 hours between feeds.  I’m confident that he’s not hungry, but he has decided that nursing is the only way he’ll go back to sleep…and he can and will scream for hours on end until I give in.  Turkey.

Anyway, he’s definitely not suffering from malnutrition!  I got his stats when he was just a week shy of four months and he weighed 15 lbs, 13 oz. (74th percentile), was 26.5 inches long (94th percentile) and his head was in the 78th percentile.  He seems to be following a similar growth curve to Charlie, despite weighing a pound and a half more than him at birth.  At four months, Charlie weighed 15 lbs., 10 oz. and was 25.5 inches long.  Ellie at four months had already left the boys in the dust, weighing in at 16 lbs., 15 oz. and measuring 27 inches long.

For Father’s Day 2008, I had pictures taken of Ellie and one of them remains one of Damian’s favorites.  I had a similar one taken of Charlie and went this week and had one taken of Keanan.  Damian just loves the “planking” stage and Keanan is a first class planker!

 

Some other cutie-patootie pictures of the little guy:

I found these pictures of Charlie at about the same age:

School pictures

It’s January.  And I’m posting school pictures.  In my defense, the pictures weren’t taken until October…or maybe even November.

This year, the school had less traditional school pictures taken and they were SO much better.  Unfortunately, the price tag reflected the difference, so we only bought one of each kiddo.  Thank goodness for scanners.

I think the photographer did such a great job of capturing their sweet personalities!

Those are some crazy kids

The kids’ school often has fun themes – crazy socks day, pajama day, favorite sports team day, etc. – and I NEVER remember to send the kiddos in the appropriate attire.  In fact, on crazy socks day, I sent both kids without socks at all.  Ops.  So when Charlie’s sweet teacher, Mrs. Holmes, emailed last night to remind us that today was crazy hat day, I decided it was time for the Hirsts to make a respectable showing.  I don’t know if they’re “crazy,” exactly, but here are the hats…and the sweet faces under them:

Too bad Mrs. Holmes had the date wrong.

He's mobile(ish)

Keanan had a big day -- he learned to roll over (from his back to his tummy). I'm praying that this big event was the cause of all of the sleep disturbances that he's been (we've all been) experiencing for the last month. My tiny guy went from being an awesome night sleeper to being up A LOT! I suppose that since he did really well as a newborn, I shouldn't complain that he's not sleeping well now...but I'm too tired to be concerned with what I shouldn't be doing. ;-) Luckily, he's just about the happiest little guy in the world, so he can get away with this torture for a little bit longer.

Hard at work:

So pleased with his new-found talent:

Big brother "helping":

Christmas

We had such a fabulous Christmas!  We missed everyone who wasn’t here, but had a great time with Gigi.  And every year just gets more and more fun with kiddos.  Ellie definitely understood the whole Santa thing and was super excited to see what he left for her.  I was shocked to wake up at 8:15 a.m. and look on the monitor to see Ellie just sitting in bed holding her stocking.  We expected her to tear through all of her stocking gifts the second she saw it, but she waited patiently…and then it was ON!  She and Charlie tore through gifts at an impressive rate.  Damian actually had to hide some gifts behind the couch because they were flying through them so quickly and we caught Charlie, mid-lunch, climbing over the back of the couch to open the rest – cheeky boy!

Gigi and her boys:

Ellie got a scooter and a kitty from Santa:

Daddy’s massage shirt was a big hit:

Charlie wrestled a new toy to the floor and ended up with a big fat lip – poor guy.  Not sure how to explain Ellie’s face. ;-)

Keanan loved all of Gigi’s cuddles:

Our crazy Christmas dinner:

You can’t see the flames on the Christmas pudding, but Gigi’s face is classic.

Unfortunately, the camera spent part of the day on the manual setting, so this picture is out of focus, but not too out of focus to show Keanan’s sweet face:

   

Charlie is so sweet with his new train.  He asks every single time before starting or stopping the train: “Daddy, go?  Daddy, off?”

We didn’t manage a picture with all six of us, but this is pretty close:

My little helper

Charlie loves playing in the kitchen sink.  While I think it’s super sweet that he wants to help and be involved, it’s sort of a pain in the neck because I usually let dirty dishes accumulate until I can do them during naptime and after the kids go to bed, so he’s always got his hands in mucky water and/or on knives.  I finally figured out the solution and we’re both as happy as can be!