My gorgeous little boys

Joel was already 2 months old on the 10th. It feels like he has always been with us though, he has really fitted in so nicely. Jared loves his baby brother and is still very good with him. We do have to remind him from time to time that Joel is still little. He will try and give him a train or a car to hold and I'm not sure he understands why Joel won't hold it. I wish I could bottle it to show him in a few years time when he is frustrated with Joel who won't leave his toys alone!!!

We moved Joel into his own room tonight. It is a month earlier than we did with Jared but he sleeps so much better than Jared did at this age, and also the house is so much warmer than the house we were living in when Jared was born was. I don't have to freeze walking down the passage to the nursery and I don't have to worry about Joel getting cold in the middle of the night. Our house is a constant 22 degrees so it's really nice and toasty. Not to mention the ease of the breastfeeding versus the bottle feeding and fighting with kettles and bottle warmers etc etc. Joel's early morning feed is 15 to 20 minutes start to finish!! Now it's just a question of him liking his new, bigger bed as opposed to the cozy little crib he's been in for the last 2 months. Mmmm... I'll update you all on that soon.

Here are a few photos I took of the boys just before bathtime tonight. I managed to get a few of Jared too. You'll see the proof of the cheesy grin I mentioned in my last post.

Baby Joel at 8 Weeks

Look at this little frown!! So many people comment on how cute his frown is. It is terribly cute and he has frowned like that from birth. It is a really enquiring little look he gets. Joel is doing really well. Let me just say that he is the chairman of the marketing department. He sleeps for 8 hours at a stretch at night. He is breastfeeding like a pro and is just overall an incredibly content and happy baby. We are very blessed indeed.

Jared is still doing very well and he is enjoying his little brother. He takes great pride in introducing him to people as "this is my friend, baby brother Joel". I am also "my friend mommy" and Hannes is "my friend dada". It is very precious. We have enrolled him to start playing soccer at the end of April. I have no idea how they control a bunch of 3 year olds with 1 ball so I'm thinking they must surely give them each a ball!! We'll see how they do it. We may even learn a thing or 3. He still loves school. We may have to concede and send him 5 days a week for 3 hrs after the summer break. I don't have any new photos of him to post I'm afraid. It is a challenge getting decent photos of him these days. We're at the pull a funny face when I see the camera stage. You'll just have to take my word for it, he is still beautiful and still has the happiest most contagious smile I know!!

'Till next time xxx

Joel at 7 weeks

I can't believe that it's been more than 7 weeks since this precious little boy joined our family. He is really such a happy, content little guy. He feeds like a pro and sleep really well (for the most part). He loves watching his big brother and is very generous with his smiles. He is incredibly chatty and will talk to you and smile at you for ages. He still loves his bath at night. We're really all enjoying him tremendously.
Here are some photos I managed to snap on the bed a few days ago. I even got a bit of a smile captured. He was very funny, he would be smiling until I lifted the camera up to my face. Then I would get this cute little frown, a kind of "hey, where did you go" look.

Our family of 4 and other bits and bobs

We had our first family of 4 photoshoot done on the 29th December. It was fun. Jared was on form and we got some lovely photos. She managed to capture Jared's personality really well I think. Here is a selection of a few of my favorites.

We've had a week or so of really nice weather so the other day I decided to go for a walk with Jared and Joel. I thought that it would be a good idea to take Jared for a haircut while we were out. Let me just say that haircuts are not a pleasant task. For some reason he is petrified and so he cries and shakes throughout the whole thing. I have to have him sitting on my lap, it's actually awful and I don't know why he is so afraid. I'm sure like all these little things though he will outgrow it. Anyway, I bribed him with ice-cream this time thinking that might make a difference but it never did, he still cried. After the lady was done she offered him a mohawk and a choice of colour for his mohawk. He chose purple and thought it was very cool. In his words, "my mocork is very very smart". Thankfully it was a temporary style that washed out that night in the bath. Maybe next time the mocork will be motivation enough not to have him scared *crossing fingers*.

A little update on our newest family member. Joel is doing really well. We had his 6 week check-up yesterday and he now weighs 4.9kgs. The biggest shock was his length. He is now 60cms long. He has grown 7cms in 6 weeks!!! I wondered why he is almost too long for the 0-3 month babygros and now I know. He is an angel baby though. He sleeps really well. He goes for 6-8 hrs at night, in fact last night he slept for 8 1/2 hours. This is even more astounding since he is an exclusively breastfed baby. (that feels so good to say!!!) He is a really happy baby and loves to smile already and is very generous with his smiles. It is so interesting to see how different and also how similar he and Jared are at the same stage. Joel like Jared won't take a dummy anymore. He took one for a few weeks and has now decided he no longer likes them. He has started to rediscover his fingers though so I recon he'll have his thumb in his mouth before long. He loves to be held. His favorite place to sleep is on my chest. Jared wasn't that much of a cuddly baby. He seems to be a real mommy's boy and often won't settle until I take him. Jared would go to pretty much anyone.

Jared is loving his baby brother. He calls him baby Joel or baby brother. He really is very sweet with him. I often find him just chatting to Joel and he gets very excited if Joel smiles at him. We have had no jealousy issues so far and no issues of him being too rough. He really seems to have gotten the whole baby thing very easily. He doesn't seem to mind if people hold him in the house but I have had him politely ask 2 people to please give his baby brother back to his mommy when we were out!! Thankfully he did it in his usual polite way though.

Hannes, Jared and now Joel all bath together at night. Jared likes to help to wash Joel. We've had to tell him a few times that Joel doesn't like to have water put on his head but other than that there have been no issues. Thankfully Joel seems to take after his brother and he loves the water. He really enjoys his bath and I started massaging him a few weeks ago and he loves that too.

Here are a couple of photos of Joel taken on Wednesday on his 6 week birthday. I need to work a bit harder on getting a shot of his smile.




'Till next time xxx