Elynn - 4 months

( I planned on having the kitchen reveal up today, but I'm still adding final touches to it. I'll have it up Friday and you will get to enjoy this cutie today instead! Winning!)

4 months!?

My little chunk is rolling!! 

Which makes for super duper interesting photo sessions...

Elynn has decided that Ellery is his most favorite person and he lights up when she is within sight or he hears her voice. 

 (love that extra chin!!)

I think we are going to try adding in some solids here soon so this momma can have a bit of a break at night. Hoping a little cereal or avacodo helps him sleep longer.

Also, I think he may need to be moved out of the cradle and into a the crib soon, which pretty much means big brother needs a big boy bed.

 I'm dreading the transition to a shared room thing!

eeek!

Do your kids share rooms?

Any tips for me?

Any suggestions for a good baby monitor (he will be upstairs and we will be down...)???

Help!

You can see past photos here:
Week 1 Photos 1 Month Photos 2 Month Photos 3 Month Photos

Elynn- 3 months

3 Months!!

Elynn is getting cuter by the day, no... by the HOUR! I swear!

He's a little ham and giggles uncontrollably when you tickle under his chin...or on his thighs...or on the palm of his hand!

He loves his daddy and will happily sit on his lap ALL. DAY. LONG, especially if there is a baseball game on!

He's starting to be a little mover too... hence the slightly blurry photos.

I have had several strangers flat out tell me they have never seen such a fat "healthy" baby. I find it a little funny people are so honest!

I'm not offended, just puzzled!

This post is dedicated to all the people who must think I can't tell how huge my child is, Specifically the weird guy at Home Goods who felt the need to squeeze Elynn's chubby foot as he walked by. Why?
If you want to see more baby goodness be sure to check out the whole series!
Monthly Photo Project!

Elynn - 2 Months

Two Months!!

Elynn Colemen... or "Cole" if you're talking to my husband, has plumped right up!

At his last well baby, he weighed in at a hefty 15 pounds and 13 ounces.

He's almost off the charts for weight! 

Booby milk for the WIN! 

(TMI????)

I just had to go shopping for 6 month size clothes, which I find a little hilarious! I guess all the clothes I stashed away from Ever won't be as handy as I thought.

He is such a sweet & patient little guy. Doesn't even mind how many pictures I take of him....

and he doesn't mind that his big brother loves to to give kisses and hugs and steps on him at least once a day (if not more...)

 Tie/onesie from Myleah

I'm totally loving his #fatbabyinalittletie look.

More pictures to come from a recent photo shoot I did with my kids!

 There was a sneak peek on Instagram!

Also be sure to check out his Monthly Photo Project!

Elynn's Photo Project

Where does the time go?

These first few weeks with a newborn have been a whirlwind!

We spent two weeks up at my mom's in Western, WA, while my husband did his National Guard Annual Training (AT) then we came home for 3 days and then decided to take a last minute trip to North Idaho for the 4th to see family and to escape the 100 degree weather here.

In case you are wondering, that puts us in the car for approximately 1,900 miles or 32 hours with 3 kids, three and under, all before our newborn was 5 weeks old.

WE. ARE. CRAZY.

Since this means computer time has been limited, I have been doing Elynn's photo updates via good ol' Instagram and I really like how that is going...

(in case you are curious, I use three apps to get this look... Instagram, DoodleSnap, and Instacollage)

Cute Right!!

I'll have the real 1 month photos up tomorrow, plus I will be updating this page monthly and will add it to the menu bar (when I get a moment to clean up my blog!)

You can catch up on past photo shoots here...

Elynn's 1 week photo shoot

Elynn Coleman - one week photoshoot

I really wanted to carry on the tradition of taking monthly photos of the new baby like I did with Ever.

Starting with his 1 week photos. 

This time around I chose to keep it very simple - using our bed/headboard for a backdrop and a simple swaddle blanket for scale purposes. (tutorial on swaddle blanket coming soon! I PROMISE!)

I love keeping the poses simple too. 

(this photo ended up one of my favs even tho it was just an iPhone shot that I edited with an app called Doodle Snap)

I'll carry on this style of adding his age from here on out (only I will be doing it in PSE)

 There is one exception to my "keep it simple" rule...

I have to photograph this cute little baseball outfit that my sister bought for Ever...

Here is Ever in the same outfit... Do they look alike?

I think they do...especially with the hat hiding the hair!

It"ll be fun watching him change and grow over the next year!

You can read all about Elynn's birth story here:

Part 1 - The Name

Part 2 - Birth Story

Elynn Coleman {birth story- part 2}

Yesterday I talked about our name choice for Elynn and today I will tell you a little about his actual arrival.

From this point on, if you are not interested in a birth story stop reading and just look at the cute baby pictures ...

You've been warned.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that this was my longest pregnancy to date...as in I have never ever made it to my due date in my last four pregnancies. 

Until now.

My due date came and went on June 1st and I had scheduled a doctor appointment at 4:20 for that Monday.

My doc gave me the option to be induced the next day, but I had strong reservations about that. 

Primarily I hate Pitocin. 

Together we decided that he would strip my membranes to encourage labor (at this point I had 3 solid weeks of daily contractions). His guess was we would have a baby within 48 hours if it was going to work. 

I was at 3 cm when he did the stripping and almost immediately I began having contractions and felt incredibly sick. We left the office with no expectations and headed to Costco to do some grocery shopping and walk a bit. We also managed to fit in a haircut for little Ever and a walk around Gordman's. The whole time I was having contractions, but they were only every 10 mins or so. 

Finally we headed home.

We warned both our moms that the contractions were pretty regular, but neither of us thought baby would be here before the next afternoon. So both moms planned on heading our way in the morning. 

As the night went on, I tried to stay busy puttering around the house and finally decided if this kid was going to come I better get some rest. I watched the rest of a Mariners game and then we headed to bed.

I manged to sleep off and on despite getting some strong contractions now and then. I was still sure they were going to stop like they had been doing and even told my mom that I wasn't sure she need to come unless she wanted to. 

Then around 3:40 am I woke up to use the bathroom and realized I was having pretty strong contractions every 3-5 mins. I woke up my husband and had him start making calls. We had to wait for my Aunt to get to our house before we could go to the hospital which gave my husband plenty of time to take a shower and eat breakfast. 

It was kind of torturous!

Finally we headed to the hospital and were checked in by 5 am. 

I was measuring a 5 at this point and all I could think about was getting some relief from the pain. I knew I wasn't going to play super hero like I did with my last birth. 

At 6 am the epidural was in!

Sweet relief!

Well for all of 20 mins or so...

I was checked again and was at a 7 and then shortly after that I told them I could tell I was feeling lots of pressure. They checked me again and I was already at a 9. 

The doctor broke my water and after letting a couple contractions pass, I knew I was ready to push.

In less than one and half contractions we had our baby at 7:08 am!! 

After only being at the hospital two hours!

Smooth, uneventful and way quicker than we were expecting!! 

We are so in love with this little guy!!

If you missed Part 1 - go HERE

Elynn Coleman - all about the name... {birth story- part 1}

Let's clear something up, right off the bat...

Elynn is pronounced "ee-lynn". 

Not Ellen.

For those of you who are curious about why we picked such a potentially confusing name, I'll give you the back story.

First we wanted another "E" name to go with our daughter, Ellery and son, Everett.

I even asked you all for suggestions, and there were some great names thrown into the pool ...like Easton, Emmett, Elijah, Ezra... etc..., but either they didn't fit my criteria (unique, unpopular and not the same beginning sound as the other two kids), were already being used by friends or family, or we just didn't like them.

I was at my wits end and ready to nix the whole "E" name idea. I actually even started Googling names of TV characters from one of our favorite shows Justified. One name that popped up was Raylan. 

Some how my mind made the jump from Raylan to Lynn, which happens to be both my mother-in-law AND father-in-law's middle names. 

Then I thought, what if we put an E on the beginning of it.

(because that's the logical thing to do when your no longer searching for an E names...)

E + Lynn = Elynn

Low and behold its a real name too.

Albeit a Swedish girl's name.

On a shot I suggested it to my husband.

AND HE LIKED IT.

We debated the spelling,...

Do we double the  E to make it clear how its pronounced? 

-No, it just looked weird to me.

Do we leave off one N to make it look more boyish?

-No, we wanted to keep the family part of the name intact.

Basically it kept coming back to the fact WE liked the name as it was.

Plus, it paired really well with Coleman - my husband's little brother's name.

It was a perfect fit. 

Who cares that he already has been called Ellen by the nurse at our first well-baby checkup. 

Better get used to this kid...

You can find Elynn's birth announcement HERE

and

PART 2 of his Birth Story HERE

Introducing...

I can't get enough of this little guy. 

His hair, especially!

Since I will be soaking up all the snuggle time I can get in these next couple weeks, the blog will be taking a back seat for awhile.

Don't worry, I still have some fun things headed your way (just slowing down a smidge.)

They are only this little for such a short time, ya know!?

Stay tuned for Elynn's birth story and more squishy baby photos!

-Thanks-

Amber