Macky's Baby Crew

I am so lucky to have so many friends who have had babies in the last year (or are expecting one soon!). Mac has so many built in buddies! Augustino and Kellen (Lacey and Tonia's babies) were the first of the bunch, we haven't seen either of them in far too long but hopefully as the weather warms up we can have some playdates soon. I had to post this picture because Macky and Kellen are always outfit twins :-)

This is Mac's Longmont Baby Crew: Niko (Sarah's baby) and Cam (Lindsay's baby), and soon to be joined by Emmy (Kelly's baby).
Mac's first girl friend is Stella who he sees at least once a week.
Today I had all the girls I used to teach with up for brunch. They have all had babies in the past 6 months or are expecting soon. So the Swanson Baby Crew is: Timothy (JoEllen's baby), Stella (Aimee's baby), Mac (who was clearly so over having his photo taken) and Gus (Anne's baby). They will be joined by Michelle's baby anyday now.
I had to do a quick wardrobe change so Mac and Gus could wear their matching outfits :-)
And I would never want to leave out my Bubba. James has reset his little internal alarm clock and now wakes up between 5 and 6 am each morning. What?!?! I was walking him home from school one day last week and noticed he was being really quiet and sure enough-crashed out. I just pushed him right into the house and I enjoyed his first nap in weeks.
I have really enjoyed watching James grow up with so many of my friend's kids and am so happy that I will get to do the same with Mac and this latest batch of babies!

Snapshots from Houston

Things to remember from our trip to Houston:

Mac meeting his Great Grandpa, Uncle Mark, Great Grandma, Aunt Jenny and Cousin Zephyr for the first time.

James and Zephyr playing together-lots of pretend play and enjoying being outside.
Celebrating my birthday with my birthday buddy for the first time since 1997 (I think...).
Eating a lot of good food-I think Tim managed to have pork 3 meals a day for the entire trip.
Spending time with Grampa.
Trying out a highchair for the first time.

Craft time with Ama.

What a great trip with a lot of great memories for all of us!

Surprise!

We flew into Houston on Thursday afternoon to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday. When my dad got home from work that night, James ran and greeted him at the door. Do you think he was surprised?!

We had a great weekend filled with family, food, fun and more food. My Uncle Mark, Jenny, Ian and ZP and my Grandparents were also all there. James had a great time with everyone and enjoyed the warm weather.
Mac was generally pretty adorable and sleepless.
I have about a zillion photos to go through, but here is a pretty decent group shot of everyone besides Macky.
I had a great birthday weekend with my dad and am so glad we were able to pull off the surprise!

Maybe the Groundhog was Right!

We have had a cold winter so far. 2 weeks ago when I drove James to school the car thermometer said -11! But this week we have been spoiled with an early taste of spring. It has been nice enough to play outside again and take some walks that are much appreciated by the schoodle. We put Mac in the stroller for the first time and James got to try out his ride on board on the back. It worked out pretty well!

Mac seemed to like his new ride well enough, he looked around and drooled a lot.
We were also able to break out some toys that have not gotten much use this winter. James' stomp rocket that he got from us for Christmas and the basketball hoop that he got from Mimi and Papa for his birthday.
We are hoping this nice weather sticks around, we all have Spring Fever now!

Sleep

I love to sleep. Seriously, I think it is my number one favorite thing to do. Too bad I make babies that do not feel the same way. Mac seems to have gotten the memo that Nichols babies aren't supposed to sleep and just when I think it can't get any worse, it does. Boo. But really, how sweet does he look when he actually is sleeping?

And then 2 seconds later after the click of the camera woke him up.
He gets his cuteness from me and his sleep issues from Tim.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Why I am not sending out Valentines this year...

Macky Moo, our not so Chunky Monkey

Mac had his 4 month well baby visit today and once again surprised us all by not being as fat as we thought. Even the nurse was shocked that he didn't weigh more. I guess those giant cheeks are deceiving. His official 4 month stats are: 14 lbs-50th percentile, 26 inches-80th percentile and his head in true Fererro form is in the 90th percentile. Tim had the morning off so was able to come with us and had Mac cracking up while were waiting for the doctor to come in.

As you can see from the pictures, he is still rash-tastic and has super sensitive/dry skin. Dairy is still bothering him so I am still dairy free for the time being, and he randomly breaks out from other things too. For now we keep him slathered in a combination of Auquaphor and mandarin balm which makes him nice and greasy and are hoping that he grows out of having dreadful skin as he gets older. Rashy-ness aside, Mac is just perfect! And not to leave out our other perfect boy, here is James bundled up before school today.

And a cute one from a couple of weeks ago.

4 Months Old!

This last month flew by! Cormac has changed so much this last month, I can hardly believe how big he is getting. Laughing is a daily occurance around here for Mac and he is still extremely ticklish. Mac has gone through a couple of growth spurts this past month that have caused some crankiness and constant eating around the clock, but for the most part he is still a very happy baby and getting smiles out of him is pretty easy for all of us.

Mac has become a little more enthusiastuc about nursing, which makes me happy most of the time. Some nights he will sleep an 8 hour stretch before eating, and some night he will do a 3 hour stretch and then want to nurse non-stop the rest of the night while in bed with me. I wish there was more of the 8 hour stretches, but like I said I think the growth spurts are to blame for the most part.

The big news this month is that Mac has started sleeping in his crib for most naps at home and for his first stretch of sleep at night. He used to wake up the second I laid him down in his crib and scream, but we bought something called a Magic Sleep Suit, that just as the name implies is truly magic. I can now put Macky in his suit, rock him for a few minutes and lay him in his crib and he goes right to sleep. It is nice to be able to put him down when James goes to bed and have some time to ourselves in the evening. And during the day it is very nice to be able to shower, get things done around the house and spend some one on one time with James while Mac is napping. I wish that his naps were longer than 30-45 minutes, but hey, at this point I will take what I can get.

Mac has also taken a couple of bottles this month, which has been awesome. This allowed us to leave him with a babysitter and go out on a date for the first time since he was born, and allows me to go to yoga once a week in the evenings when Tim is at home with the boys. We have found that he will not drink milk that has been frozen, so I have to pump in the morning if I want him to have a bottle that day.

Mac has become a drooling maniac this month. He has found his fists and sucks on them pretty much non-stop while he is awake and between that and the steady stream of drool coming out of his mouth, he soaks through a couple of outfits each day. He has started to hold onto a toy if I hand it to him, but he isn't really reaching out and grabbing things yet. He has rolled over a few times from tummy to back, but has yet to go from back to tummy. Mac is super strong and has great head control, he does really well for pretty long stretches of tummy time and will look all around. His core muscles are also really strong and he can sit up on our lap with only a little support for balance. He has also started to like standing up in our laps to look around.

James continues to do great with Cormac. He is really into bringing Mac toys and is really excited for him to start playing with things. He loves it when he and Mac wear matching things and always tells Mac he loves him. When we pick him up from school, he always runs over to Mac and says, "Mac, did you miss your big brother today?" Sometimes I think Mac looks a lot like fat James, and other times I think he looks totally different. We are anxious to see what he looks like as he grows up. It is hard to believe that Mac just came into our lives 4 months ago, I can't imagine our family without him!
Mac goes to the doctor on Wednesday for his 4 month well baby visit, so check back for his official stats. I am guessing he weighs about 16 pounds-about the same size that James was at 1 year.

My Boys

My smiley Macky....

And my maniac Bubba....