The White House: August 2014

Change is something Derek and I are becoming pros at, just as we were getting adjusted to being a family of four in a new town we decided to change it up a little, lol! I have started working part-time and am very excited of the opportunity. A good friend approached me about working for her non-profit as their special events coordinator. My big responsibilities will be to plan their two big fundraisers each year and right now helping with tasks as they have been short handed for awhile. The good news is I get to work from home for most of it and will go into the office the mornings Madelyn is at Preschool. On those mornings Gabe can go with Derek to the Y or they have even offered to have me bring him into my office with me:) It is such a wonderful opportunity and we are very grateful, however, working from home with a two year old and 3 month old is no easy task. Derek has been such a huge help and we are finding a new balance to make it all work:)

Last week we went on our annual beach trip with the White family and it was such a great week. Madelyn absolutely loved the beach! This is her 3rd summer to the beach and the first two she was to little to really enjoy it. This year she loved the sand, sitting in the ocean and everything about it! It was of course nice having so many people around to help and love on Gabe! He did make it down to the beach one overcast day for about 20 minutes most of which he slept through, ha!

As for updates on the kiddos:
Madelyn:
This girl continues to be our little diva and shinning star. She LOVES to sing and right now can sign Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC's, You are my Sunshine, The Wheels on the Bus and most of Twinkle Little Star. She can spell her name, recognize all letters in her name, say her full name (Madelyn Marie White.) She is counting to 20, with 17-20 sometimes giving her trouble and her biggest accomplishment this week is going to bed by herself now! This was a big job for us because when we moved to MD Madelyn of course had a new room but also a new big girl bed. Knowing all this change was a little overwhelming and scary for her we got in the bad habit of laying down with her at night until she feel asleep! We never knew what a hard habit this would be to break and was miserable the nights someone would have to lay up there 30-60 minutes and most of the time fall asleep themselves. We started weaning this and has gone since Monday on her own!

Gabe:
I don't think there was a family member who visited who didn't comment just how good of a baby Gabe was and that is still mostly still true. However, he has decided now that he must have you right by him or holding him at all times, great timing Gabe as I am trying to work now, lol! You can literally lay him down and he will scream and the second you come back in his sight he will start smiling and cooing at you, makes it pretty hard to get mad at! To top it of he went form the newborn stage of sleeping all the time to taking little cat naps all the time usually no more than 20 mins! I am working hard to get him on a routine and hoping a nap schedule will make him a better sleeper so I can survive but for now I am getting very strong arms and having to wear him in a wrap like crazy!
Even with that we are so in love with this little boy and he sleeps wonderful at night for us! He is laughing like crazy, trying to mimic the sounds we make and rolling from side to side. He has gotten very close to rolling onto to his stomach but hasn't yet.