Matthew Prayers

This morning David brought Matthew into our room to see me still in bed. He explained to Matthew that Mommy is sick and doesn't feel well and that he needs to obey really well today. Matthew started saying something, and as David and I are trying to translate it in our minds, we hear him say "amen". He prayed for me without being asked to!! How sweet. Since I thanked him and told him he was sweet to pray for me, he's been doing it all morning!

Two Month Stats

We went to the doctor yesterday for Jacob's 2 month check up. He's still healthy and growing strong. Dr. Bird's comments about Jacob were that he was a "tolerant guy" and "a big guy". He mentioned that Matthew better be nice to Jacob now because Jacob may end up bigger than him! Here are the stats:
Height: 24 inches (80th percentile)
Weight: 13 lbs. 2 oz. (80th percentile)
Head: 50th percentile (for some reason I never remember the head measurement, just the percentile!)
Looking back at Matthew's baby book, he was 23 1/2 inches and 12 lbs 6 oz (and started almost a pound ligher), so he was growing just as fast.

It's exciting to see how Jacob is growing and who he is becoming! He seems to be very calm and sweet and likes to snuggle. I love it!! I remember with Matthew that he couldn't sit through his first Christmas Eve service at 4 months old. So I'm excited that Jacob may be a little less active (not that I don't love Matthew for the active child he has become! I just don't know if I can keep up with two of them!! :)

It wasn't meant to be...

It was a fluke! The full night's sleep that happened Monday night was a one time deal. Last night we were back to every 2-3 hours :( Hopefully it was a sign that it might be coming soon, though!!

I Thought This Day Might Never Come!!!

While I really knew that one day, by the time he was a teenager, Jacob would sleep through the night (or at least longer than 3 hours), it felt like it might never come! But alas, the day arrived! Sunday night Jacob was still waking up every 2-3 hours, and then last night, magically, Jacob slept for almost 7 hours!! Now, of course, Matthew woke up at 3:30, but the night was a lot better than most! We'll see if it continues! Jacob wasn't too interested in eating yesterday, so I think that's why he might have slept longer - he just wasn't hungry. But we'll see!! Yay for Jacob and yay for sleep!

Brothers

On Saturday we had the boys' picture taken together. I bought matching outfits...I couldn't resist. That's a perk of having two of the same gender!! Matthew was nothing less than a two-year-old. We bought a package where we had to pick only one picture. It wasn't hard at all!! In the picture we chose, I'm actually holding Jacob's head up, since Matthew wouldn't. They had to zoom in to cut my hand out. It turned out pretty nice. You'd never know the adventures of our day by looking at the picture. Here it is. I had to take a picture of the picture, so it's not the greatest quality on the computer.

8 Weeks

I'm not calling it two months....that seems too old to be true! How can my precious little infant already be two months old???

Here are this week's shots. He's not a super smiley baby (more of a quiet cuddler kind of personality), but I managed to catch him smiling again!

Here are 7 and 8 weeks together. Did he change?

Can you tell what I'm doing in this picture???

....pooping.....

Such a sweet face!

The First Week

Matthew started potty training himself 10 days ago now and is still doing awesome!! In that time he has only had two accidents: one was the first day in big boy underwear while he was outside playing, and the other was at 6 a.m. after a long night's sleep. Both times he was trying to get to the potty and didn't make it. He is awesome at remembering to go himself - he doesn't have to be reminded. We are weaning ourselves off of stickers and M&M's, but he often reminds us that he would still like the encouragement ("M&M's, please"). He's doing great at night, waking up dry most of the time (he even wakes up in the middle of the night to go...whether that's good or bad is still up for debate! It just makes for more sleep interruptions!) We're so proud of him!!! He's doing a great job!

Earlier today I told him he was awesome for helping me put some dishes away. When I told him he was awesome, he said "M&M's, please? Sticker, please?" I think he's getting carried away...

Cute quote: I had just finished talking to David about something, and I had addressed him as "David" (not Daddy). 5 minutes later, Matthew starts following David yelling "Wait for me, David. Wait for me, David." At dinner we had a conversation talking about how mommy and daddy have real names. Daddy is David and Mommy is Mary. He then went around the table, first pointing to himself, saying "Matthew Rudolph". He pointed to David and said "David Rudolph". Then he pointed to me and said "Mommy Rudolph".

Last night Matthew was throwing a good fit refusing to try the asparagus I had put on his plate. We told him he just had to try it, and he could spit it out if he didn't like it. After spending the entire dinner trying to get him to try it, we gave up. We told him no dessert and no popcorn for movie night, and he was okay with that. A little while later we were watching a movie. He must have noticed the lack of popcorn and asked for it. We told him he had to try his asparagus, and that it was still on the table. He decided it was worth the try. He and David went to the table to try it. David was ready with a bowl for Matthew to spit the asparagus out (we weren't expecting him to actually like it). Matthew takes one bite and says "Mmmmm! Me like!!!" What a goofball!!! All that and he liked it!!

Progress, finally...

Jacob slept 5 hours in a row last night!!!! (unfortunately it was followed by a two hour spurt after that.) This hasn't happened, probably since he was one week old. If you've talked to me in the last couple weeks, you've probably heard my frustration that he was still getting up every 2-3 hours at night (and Matthew was sleeping through the night by now! Not to compare my children....) So, yay for Jacob and yay for sleep. Hopefully it continues!!

7 Weeks

I set a goal for myself (thanks to a suggestion from Sarah!) that I'm going to try and take Jacob's picture once a week, probably in the same place. I started this week. I put him next to a stuffed animal of mine when I was a baby. I have a similar picture of myself leaning against Snoopy. So here is Jacob's 7 week picture. I caught him smiling :)

Here are some other cute ones from tonight. Check out the rolls!

We'll see how long the weekly picture thing lasts...I tried it while I was pregnant and I think it lasted about two weeks!

Moving Quotes Over

Here are the really old kid quotes from the side of the blog. I just want to move them to a post so I can delete them off the side wihtout losing them.


1. (After Matthew had just pointed to his belly and told me he had a baby in there...)
Mommy-If you have a baby in your belly, what's in my belly?
Matthew-Snacks.

2. Mommy- Matthew, what letter is that?
Matthew-D.
Mommy-What words begin with the letter D?
Matthew-Dada......dog dog.
Mommy-That's right!! Can you think of another word that begins with the letter D?
Matthew-D-me!

3. Matthew (to his baby doll in the baby swing): Want underdog, baby?

Potty Updates

Friday Matthew spent all day in a pull-up and was dry from when I put it on him in the morning until we put him in a diaper for bedtime!! Last night we made a trip to the store to buy a second potty for the basement and some big boy underwear! Matthew is very proud of both!! He wore his big boy underwear today and only had one accident (he was playing outside and didn't quite make it inside in time... :) Who knew we'd be doing this this weekend???!!!

One of my favorite things about this is when Matthew says "ta-da" (however that is spelled!) when he's gone potty. Another cute memory was this morning when I was feeding Jacob on the couch and Matthew walks out to me, pants around his ankles, carrying the bowl to his potty to show me what he had done :) Thank goodness he didn't spill!

I'm glad Matthew is doing this on his own. We have no idea what we are doing!! Any tips on night time potty training???

I'm In Shock!

Matthew stayed with my mom for 4 1/2 hours tonight and went potty 5 more times all by himself. He did it all without rewards (although he does enjoy dumping it in the toilet, flushing, and washing it out...that's his reward!) The diaper we dropped him off in was totally dry when we picked him up. When asked what kind of big boy underwear we should buy, he said "Spiderman"! (Not what I would have guessed, but he was very insistent on it.)

Now, the real challenge will be leaving the house, being that he goes to the bathroom all day long!!!

More Potty Talk

I am in shock that our little Matthew has gone potty on his big boy potty 4 times today!! This morning I was getting dressed while he was watching TV and he hopped up and ran into the bathroom saying "me go pee-pee". Sure enough, he did. Today at lunch he did the same thing, and then did it two more times after that. The last time he even tried to dump the pee-pee in the potty (while I was out of the room, so therefore it ended up all over the floor. Bless his heart...he even flushed!) I am so shocked!! The kid is potty training himself!! All I have to do is provide a little assistance with clothing and diapers (which, by the way, I gave him a pull-up today and he is so proud to be wearing big boy underwear - so he thinks!), give him a couple M&M's (thanks mama and papa!!), and give him a sticker to put on his potty. I hadn't planned on doing this until after Christmas, but maybe we need to think about this sooner! I'm not totally sure he's ready physically because his diaper is always wet, but we'll have to start working towards it.

A couple cute stories that go with our potty events today: At one point he asked me to read him a story while he was sitting. Jacob happened to be screaming to eat at the time. So we took on some serious multi-tasking. I was sitting on the bathroom floor feeding Jacob, reading a book upside down, and Matthew was going potty. It was quite a scene. Right around then, Matthew starting grunting and looks and me and says, "Hard work, Mommy". :)

Good job, little buddy!! We're proud of you! (Hopefully you'll still take a nap after all those M&M's!!)

One last thing...as I'm sitting here writing this, he was standing in the bathroom, pants and pull up already down, yelling "pee-pee". He needed to go again!! I better start learning where all the potties in town are!!

Happy Halloween!

This video says it all!!

We had a great Halloween. It was fun to watch Matthew start to understand what it was all about. As his teacher told us, he can't remember last year, but next year, he'll remember this year. Matthew quickly figured out what the day was about....candy! He had a hard time saying "trick-or-treat", so we had him say "happy halloween" isntead. His first stop, Mama and Papa's house. Papa loaded him first, and then when we all weren't looking (so Matthew thought...), he decided to slip a little extra into his bag.
At the end of the evening, Matthew's big cousin Dylan came over to visit. When I told Matthew that Dylan was there, you would have thought I had said that Buzz Lightyear had just arrived. He was SO EXCITED. They had lots of fun being silly together. By the end of trick-or-treating, even Dylan agreed that they had enough candy. So we all went back to Mama and Papa's house to hang out.

Little Mr. Three Blind Mice

Our ferocious lion.

"Two boys" (as Matthew would say)

Loving on Dylan.

Cheese!

Our Little Burritos

Last Friday, for Halloween, Chipotle gave away free burritos for anyone that dressed up as one. Being that I don't pass up many things that are free, I had to take advantage of this opportunity! So while David was at school, I ventured out on my own, with my two boys and a roll of foil. I dressed all three of us up in the parking lot. I wasn't sure if they'd give me a burrito for Jacob, but it was worth a try. By golly, they really gave me three free burritos. They even took pictures of the boys in their foil and talked all about how Jacob, at 6 weeks old, was their youngest burrito fan. When I talked to David after our adventure and told him how easy it was (I didn't have to wait at all!!), he went up and got a fourth burrito!!

Here are some pictures of our little burritos.

It's exhausting being a burrito!