Growing, Growing, Growing

Both of our boys are growing WAY too fast, and are turning into little men, but one of the interesting things to watch has been Hayden growing into all of Leeland's hand-me-downs. When Leeland was born, I had two huge baby showers which was really lovely and he got LOTS of clothes and thankfully my friends were kind enough to vary the sizes a bit and we were pretty set for about 9 months.  After that it was up to Daniel and I to provide other than what we received for his birthday or holiday.  Leealand has always been a small kid, tall but in the very low 10-15 percentile for his weight, so once he reached the size 12 and 18 months, he wore them for a long time.  And when I say that I mean like a year-- I was just going through some of his old clothes and we have both summer clothes in size 12 months and winter clothes in size 12 months. 
This whole time (before #2 was even thought about), I had been saving some of Leeland's clothes for future kids.  (And it's a good thing!)  Essentially I weed out most of my favorite outfits of his and anything that I would like to see worn again and store it away in a tote, everything else goes to the consignment store.  The consignment store gives me 50% of the sale in store credit and I'm usually pretty good about dropping off frequently enough that I almost always have a running balance.  I go in and spend my store credit on larger sizes, so it's pretty much like I'm exchanging his clothes.  It works well for us!  (Side note-- I'm also thankful that we kept a lot of the larger things like the swing, infant car seat, changing table etc.)
Unlike Leeland, Hayden has been "average" size at all of his appointments.  To us, he looks like a little roly poly because we aren't used to baby chub since Leeland was so tiny.  Hayden has been really going through the sizes, and fast!  Just this week, I cleaned off his shelves of all the 6-9 months and pulled out all the size 12 month hand-me-downs. We thankfully haven't ran into an issue of wrong sizes with seasonal wear yet.  All of this to say that it is super weird seeing the second child wear Leeland's clothes.  I don't know if it's because I have a good memory or if it's just still fresh in my mind, but I can picture all of these clothes on Leeland's body, and even picture some of the memories attached to them.  Even weirder is that when Leeland grew into size 12 months, he was walking and doing some talking so it's just weird seeing Hayden crawl around in them.
And just in case, we're doing the same thing all over again with Hayden's clothes.  We try to take good care of everything so much of it can definitely be worn a 3rd time if necessary, and I weed through and take more to the consignment store.  It's not in the plan to have a 3rd for a long time.... if we ever have a 3rd, but just in case it's always good to be prepared... I mean, we've been surprised before! ;0)