Six Short Months

It's been a short 6 months, time sure flies when you are exhausted and taking care of 2 babies under the age of 2! (Well, if you want to get technical, I've had two babies less than or equal to the age of 2 since the end of June.) Anywho, my little man's half birthday is today! It really has gone by so fast. It makes me a little sad to think about! I feel like he was just born last week.

He had a 6 month photoshoot today with the fantastic Jennifer Magee, and he did great! He was so smiley, and well behaved. Made his mommy proud! We won't talk about his sister's lack of interest in being photographed...it feels like a knife through my heart.

I don't have any stats because his 6 month check up is tomorrow, but I will update on here after I get them.

For now, I leave you with this adorableness, courtesy of Miss Jennifer:

Pumpkin Pie

Something really exciting happened in my house today. My Bubba ate solids!! This might not sound like a big deal, since he is going to be 6 months old in a couple days, and that's the recommended time to start your baby on solids. Well, Abigail didn't eat solids until she was 10 months old. I waited until 6 months with her like I was supposed to, then spent four more anxious months worrying about her development as she continued to push every.single.thing. out of her mouth. I even took her to an occupational therapist to see if we could pinpoint the problem. Bam. She ate like a champ at the appointment, like she had been eating solid food her whole life. Of course. So I feel ridiculous even being there, but the OT was very nice about it and gave me lots of helpful information about what, and how much I should expect her to be eating. Anyway, on with the story.

I wanted something sweet today with lunch, and also needed some fiber (TMI? it happens.) so I made myself some pumpkin pie in a bowl. {A can of plain pumpkin, generous amounts of pumpkin pie spice(nutmeg, allspice, ginger), cinnamon, a little butter, and a little brown sugar, in the microwave for a minute and a half to melt the butter and sugar, relatively delicious.} I gave some to Abigail first, because she always wants to eat the same thing I am eating. Then Patrick ate like half of it, and finally I get around to eating some myself, and I think "hmm I wonder if Bubba would eat this."

There was probably 1/2 a cup left at this point, and I gave him a bite to taste. I noticed that he closed his mouth around the spoon, and REALLY thought about it. (Let me first say that I have tried solids only a handful of times, we've tried apples and sweet potatoes from the jar, both with not much luck). After he tasted it, I gave him another bite. He actually closed his mouth around the spoon on purpose! With the other foods, I've just kind of wiped the food on the roof of his mouth, pretty much forcing him to eat it. Or spit it out. He did a little of both. But today!! He loved it! He would get so excited when I brought the spoon to his mouth. After a while he had probably eaten a good 1/3 of a cup! That is a lot for a baby who's never eaten anything but milk before!

I am so very excited about this development. I guess he just needed to eat something yummy instead of nasty baby food jars. I guess it's time to bust out the Baby Bullet and make my boy some food! Now I just have to figure out how to keep Abigail from getting upset when she can't have what he is having. Oh well, we'll see. 

And now, here is an adorable sequence of photos I like to call "the story of a bite." Enjoy :-)

From a Tired Mommy

This is a poem I found that was just what I needed to read right now:

This sentiment is something that I am really struggling with right now in my life. I feel like this time with my kids is slipping by so fast, and I am so tired that I find myself just "existing" and trying to stay alive long enough to make it to bed time. And bed time isn't even that much of a reprieve because I have not slept all night in two years. There was one month when Abigail was 10 months old where she slept all night, but then I got pregnant, and even though she was sleeping, I began having lots of insomnia and night waking very early in my pregnancy that lasted til the very end. And then obviously I have a baby who wakes up several times a night now. I. am. tired. I feel like even saying it with periods after each word is still an understatement. Like, understatement of the century.

Not only am I tired, but for 6 months I have been co-sleeping with T Patrick and if you have ever breastfed in the "side-lying" position, you know how your neck feels when you wake up after falling asleep that way. If you have never fallen asleep breastfeeding like that, just imagine sleeping on your side with your bottom arm all the way up under your head ALL NIGHT. So my neck and my trap muscles hurt always. And I am always having stingers in my neck. So much painful nerve things going on, and soreness, and it is just interfering with my ability to participate in life.

On one hand, I have a husband who gets frustrated with piles of laundry and things around our house. See our house tour to see just why he is always frustrated with me. On the other hand, I have a beautiful two year old who, when I open the door to let her occupy herself in the backyard while I get things done around the house, or just rest, comes to me and says "hand? hand? hand? hand? hand?" because she wants to walk around our back yard holding my hand. It breaks my heart that most of the time, resting or cleaning takes priority over playing with my little girl, who will only be two years old for 340 more days. And don't get me started on my sweet little boy. I could just bite his little cheeks all day long. He is the cutest thing ever. So squishy! And growing so fast. I love my babies. But I'm not enjoying them as much as I want to. 

If anyone reading this didn't already know, I live in Washington state. My parents are in Oklahoma and Patrick's parents are still in Louisiana, where we are both originally from. I don't have a lot of time to make friends up here, and the good ones I have made have all moved away in the last year. One of my closest friends from up here hasn't left yet, but lives about 45 minutes away from me. I don't know any of my neighbors, because I don't have the energy to try to meet them and maintain a friendship with them. So this means that I have NO help. I am with two small children day in, day out, without a break once in a while to take a nap, paint a cabinet door, or get a pedicure. Or just have a couple hours with no responsibility. No constantly being on guard for a toddler about to get into something she shouldn't be, or a puppy thinking about peeing on the floor, or a baby that may or may not be crying waking up from a nap. It can get exhausting to always be "on duty." And yes, I have my husband here, but he is tired too. He gets up for work at 4:50am and is out the door by 5:15 every week day, and often works weird overnight schedules and weekends. And he does help out and give me breaks every now and then, but it's not the same as having my mom live down the road and being able to come help me out when I'm having a rough day. I am completely on my own. 

I am not trying to complain really, just putting it out there. I know lots of people make it through life every day with two kids 19ish months apart. I just feel like it is SO HARD. I don't know how other people do it and make it look so easy. I'm writing this so when my kids are older, and I am sad that I didn't enjoy them as much as a should have when they were little babies, I can read this and remember how difficult it was and not be too hard on myself. 

Oh, and back to not having time or energy to appreciate my babies...we are currently trying to get Bubba to sleep through the night. I feel so guilty about letting him cry so much. I am of the opinion that sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone just like rolling, crawling, sitting, etc. And I don't think you can make a baby sleep all night if they're not ready any more than you can make a baby crawl before he is ready. Despite that belief, I am going to give "cry it out" the old college try, because I am just at a loss with the sleep deprivation and neck pain. 

To make a long story short, does anyone want to come spend a few hours at my house, a couple days a week, so I can take some breaks, do some chores and have the rest of my time to spend enjoying my beautiful, smart, sweet, adorable babies?? 

Some Bubba Eye Candy

This is just a picture dump of my boy and his dog. Enjoy!

"Hmm this looks yummyyyy...."

Nom nom nom...

Oooooohhhh...what's this???

Mom I think he is trying to get me....

That's all folks. Haven't been getting much sleep around here so I haven't had much energy to do work on the house. Here's hoping for a restful night tonight!

Freebies! and a Miracle

Sorry for the tease in the title, but this post is not about freebies for any readers...I'm not famous enough for that yet! (However, if anyone reading this would like for me to review something, or use my blog to promote something feel free to contact me!)

What I'm talking about is all the free stuff I scored at Lowes yesterday! I went in just to price out having two more pieces of glass cut to match the piece I stole out of an old 11x14 frame and used in my new homemade frame. I asked the salesman about acrylic too, because I thought maybe it would be cheaper.  Well it turned out to be a LOT cheaper, because he had a bunch of scraps already there, and cut me two pieces for free! :-) Abigail was with me, and also got a free wooden toy to put together at home. It was their kid project for the day, and the lady who was taking the toys to set up walked past us and showed it to Abigail. It was a "Kung Fu Panda" on a stick that swiveled. Not the coolest toy ever, but Abigail was excited about the "PADA" so the lady gave us one to take home. Patrick put it together, and now this guy lives on our kitchen table, until it winds up on the ground and Stewie eats it.

And now for the miracle...

Abigail held her bubba all by herself on the couch yesterday for a few whole minutes AND SMILED while I took her picture!!! I am so excited! This NEVER happens!

Our photo shoot started like this:

Looking at the TV like usual, trying to figure out why the picture and sound goes away every time mommy gets out the camera.

Then she miraculously looked at me and did THIS:

And THIS:

(No, they are not the same picture...I promise. But I do have about 5 more that look just like these two. Just call me Patti Perkins. (That's my mom, and for those of you who don't know her, she is camera-crazy. For real. (How many parenthetical notations can I make inside eachother?? Should I stop?)))

Then when I thought we could call it done and had turned off my camera, she started giving Bubba the cutest sugars ever! So I pull my camera back up and by then I kind of missed the moment. I asked her to give him some more sugars, but all the pictures I got just look like she is torturing him. But here they are anyway for your viewing pleasure.

Disclaimer: No babies were harmed during the making of these photos.

Patrick Junior's Grand Entrance

I know a lot of people like to read other people's birth stories. Or maybe I'm the only one. If you don't like birth stories, then go ahead and skip this post! Ok, on with the story.

I had been getting weekly membrane sweeps since 38 weeks. We all thought I'd be having a big baby, so I was hoping for sooner rather than later. Fast forward to February 2. I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. I had been sick for a week, and also had been in prodromal (or false) labor for a week. Slightly uncomfortable contractions every 7-10 minutes. For a WEEK. With no progress. I was GBS+ this time, so the goal was to get to the hospital with enough time to get some antibiotics. This made it tough to know when to go in, and we had 2 false alarms where we decided to go ahead and drop Abigail off with our friends and go to the hospital. But each time I was only 4cm dilated, which meant that I wasn't progressing even though my contractions would get to be 1-3 minutes apart.

Ok so I backed up a little after I fast forwarded. So February 2nd rolls around, and my contractions are starting to get closer and stronger again. I am really feeling like this is it, so around 5ish we leave for the hospital. We brought Abigail with us this time, so we didn't bother our friends for a third time in case it was another false alarm! Sure enough, I am still 4cm dilated. We ask if we can just go ahead and break my water since they had already offered that to us the second time we went in, and it seemed like that was the only thing keeping him from dilating my cervix all the way. They said they couldn't do it at that time because they were not staffed enough for an "elective induction." So we decided to go home. Again. My midwife offered me some morphine to help with the contraction pain so I could get some sleep since the pain appeared to be futile (as in, not doing any work to open my cervix.) While pretty uncomfortable, the contractions weren't unbearable at the time, so I turned down the morphine. I also didn't like the idea of taking something like that when I didn't really need it since, you know, I'm growing a person in my belly and sharing my blood with him.

On the way home, my contractions started getting a little stronger, and I was so annoyed that I was having all these contractions and no progress! I got home and bounced around a while on my exercise ball while watching Grey's Anatomy, but decided I was tired and needed these contractions to stop so I could get some sleep. I took a warm bath in hopes that relaxing would get them to stop, or at least be less strong. I always think baths are a good idea, until I get in my tub and remember how stupid it is because the water turns luke warm after like 5 minutes. Not cool. Anyway, I start not loving my bath, and I feel like my contractions might have let up a bit, so I get out and get in bed.

As soon as I laid down I got the longest, most intense contraction ever (for this labor, anyway...). Then another one. I would classify these as "fairly excruciating" because I actually had to "breathe" through them, or make noise or anything else to cope. I get out of bed and call the L&D to see if they can call in the prescription for Morphine for me. No dice, turns out Morphine is a shot, not pills. Duh, Amy. I am in so much pain I can barely talk so while the girl on the phone was talking to me, I just blurted out "I'm just going to come in" and hung up. I was a little hesitant to go out of our room and tell Patrick we needed to go BACK to the hospital after just coming from there, but I was really hurting so I figured something had to be going on. My contractions were coming one on top of the other, so I just barely managed to load myself into the car while Patrick got Abigail out of bed and buckled in her carseat. Patrick asked me to call our friends who were watching Abigail and let them know we were coming. I said no way, Jose...So he had to call them as we were leaving.

We pulled up at their house after like 15 or 20 minutes. I am just writhing in the front seat of the car. (Ever tried going through transition in the front seat of a car? Not fun) Patrick ran Abigail, still buckled in her carseat (!) to our friend's front porch. Lindsey met him out there and grabbed her overnight bag and we were back on the road.

After another 15 or 20 minutes, we pull up at the Emergency Room. Now, let me take a minute to explain the procedure for when you're in labor with my hospital. You are supposed to enter through the ER. You fill out some paperwork at the first window, then someone takes you back into a hallway and you fill out some more paperwork in a little room, then wait for someone from L&D to come down and get you. L&D is on the 14th floor. (It's really the 13th, but there is no "13" on the elevator buttons) So this is why I came in through the ER. Back to the story...

We park illegally right in front of the entrance. I couldn't even move and had to wait for my contraction to end before I could get out of the car. I finally managed to climb out of my seemingly enormous, gargantuan, Mt. Everest-sized vehicle (really just an Expedition) and waddle my way into the first window at the ER. I tell the girl I am about to have a baby. I am very clearly in extreme pain. She says OK let me just ask you a few questions, and I say no that's ok I need to go up to L&D, we can do the paperwork later. Then she says "hehe, I'm afraid that's not how it works :-)" (smiley face added to indicate her silly, cheery tone while saying this to a laboring woman who is in so much pain that she has dropped to her hands and knees in a nasty inner city ER) My poor husband answered all her questions for me while someone else came out with a wheelchair to wheel me into the next paperwork prison. The wheelchair felt terrible so I walked/crawled/hitched a ride on Patrick to make my way down the hall to fill out more papers.

Once we get to that room, I hit the floor again. This time I feel some stuff going on down there, and I yell out "I'M PUSHING!" Someone runs at me with a wheelchair, and I try to sit down, but I could feel the baby's HEAD so I jumped right back up and freaked out. Patrick was right in front of me and when I jumped up, I flung my arms around his neck and pretty much started climbing him like a tree. I felt like I was trying to climb away from the baby's head. I'm not sure what I thought that would accomplish, but it just happened.

Next, they brought me a gurney since the wheelchair was a no-go. Someone asked me if I wanted to go up to L&D, or if I had time to make it up there, or something like that. I said NO! So they wheeled my gurney into some room and pulled the curtain shut after like a hundred people came in the room. I was group B strep positive this time around, which means you need to have antibiotics during labor, preferably for four hours prior to giving birth. I told the nurses this so they would know that I hadn't been able to get the medicine, and they put the heplock in my hand anyway to start administering it. Turns out having a baby is a great way to distract from the pain of getting a needle stuck in your hand, because I didn't feel a thing. I was too busy using every ounce of strength I could muster to fight through the pain of a contraction and lift my butt off the gurney so they could remove my sweatpants.

Two pushes later, Patrick Jr's head was out. (That's right, I was about 2 minutes from having a baby in my pants.) His head was out and my water STILL had not broken! My midwife later told me that my "bag of waters" was one of the strongest she's ever seen. It finally broke when I pushed again to get the rest of his body out. It exploded everywhere, and was really gross. And he pooped right as the water exploded, so there was just this huge mess of baby funk everywhere. But anyway, he was out and it was such a relief to not be pregnant! They handed him to me, and I hiked up my {Patrick's} sweatshirt to feed him a little while all the people were running around cleaning and doing whatever else they needed to do.

Everyone was like "He's SO big!" and "Oh he has red hair!" They did his apgars and he got a 9 and a 10! It is really rare to get a 10, even for full term healthy babies, my little man is such a champ at life! After all that, they wheeled us up to the maternity floor where you stay after you've had your baby. I got all stitched up, and they weighed Little Patrick and confirmed that he was indeed a huge baby. 9lb 11.5oz and 21inches long. Then they got all concerned about him being "macrosomic" (which just means "big" or larger than 4000grams to be exact. I don't know how many pounds that is, feel free to do the math if you're curious) and started throwing around words like "diabetes." I was not diabetic during my pregnancy, so I wasn't very worried about it. They did a blood test to make sure he didn't have high blood sugar, and it turned out his blood sugar was actually too low. So then they are like, "we will have to test his sugar every 4 hours for a while to make sure it stabilizes, and if it doesn't, he will have to have some formula." I just continued to feed him whenever he wanted to eat, and his blood sugar continued to be completely normal for every test after that first one.

We ended up having to stay in the hospital until Saturday afternoon (I gave birth Thursday night) due to his blood sugar and GBS+ issues. But he was perfectly healthy. My giant perfectly healthy baby boy! Patrick had gone to pick up Abigail from our friends' house on Friday and hung out with her at home for a while before bringing her to meet her Bubba. It was love at first sight for her, and she has loved her Bubba ever since! We think he's pretty cool, too.

Catch Up Again!

So I am a little behind on posting projects and such because we took a week to visit family back home in Louisiana and to get T Patrick baptized in the same church we got married in, and his sister was baptized in (St. Patrick's in New Orleans). I have read on blog land that you are not supposed to announce that you are leaving your house unattended for a week to the entire world via internet, so I didn't say anything here :-) I am still photography-shy from a childhood full of camera abuse by my mother, so sadly, I didn't bother people for too many pictures. But here are some that I did manage to take:

Here is four generations, Patrick, his grandmother holding little Patrick, and his mom, post baptism. 

Our family with Tpat's God parents, Patrick's little sister Jolie, and his cousin Mathew. 

Abigail and Patrick's cousin Stephen having fun in the pool! She LOVED the pool! She is totally fearless and walked right out to the edge of the diving board at the deep end several times (way to give momma a heart attack Abigial!). She jumped off the side of the pool into my arms for like 10 minutes, loved it when I lifted her up out the water and splashed her back down under it...she was like a fish! 

Overall we had a great trip and the kids did really well flying all day both times. It was nice to get to see family, and to be able to have our little boy baptized into the Church! 

In project news, I have started the tile around our bathtub and it looks awesome! I am so excited! Here is a sneak peak:

This picture was taken with my phone, so the quality's not great. Not that I make great photos with my fancy camera yet either! lol

That is just the back wall, obviously, and I have now done the same thing to the two side walls. All that is left to do is rent a wet saw on the next sunny day to cut down the pieces I need for the corners and edges, and then grout. Yay! This was actually a pretty quick and easy project. So far, anyway...we'll see how my attempt at using the wet saw goes. I made sure to take lots of step-by-step photos and will do a detailed post of how easy it is to do this very soon. 

Today, Patrick is off work and we are taking Abigail to an indoor bouncy house place for her birthday! I am so excited, she LOVES bouncy houses! She had her two year check up at the doctor yesterday, and is 26lbs and 34in tall. To put that in perspective, she weighs only 6lbs more than her 19 months younger brother. He is such a chunky monkey! We also discussed her lack of quality sleep with the doctor, and have an appointment this morning for an Xray of the soft tissue of her neck to see if anything is going on there, maybe causing sleep apnea or something. I am hoping for some answers so I can have my sweet little girl back, instead of this cranky super-tired toddler that drives me crazy!

That is about all the updates I have for now. Stay tuned for more progress on the tile, as well as a revelation I had about painting cabinets, AND some new bathroom storage. Exciting stuff, I know!!

Catching Up

Last weekend I was lucky enough to talk Patrick into going to the peninsula for a quick hike. We went to Lake Cushman and walked around an "easy" trail that still kicked my butt since I was carrying 18lbs of Bubba in a ring sling. {I dug through the attic to find my mei tai, but it wasn't in any of the boxes I looked in, so ring sling it was...Patrick needed the Ergobaby for Abigail.} Anyway, I survived, but my back may never be the same! We walked about a mile to a rock river bed where Patrick stopped to let Abigail play for a while. The rock bed was at the bottom of a 5ish foot mud cliff...like, almost vertical mud straight down. Not the kind of thing I wanted to slide down with Bubba and not be able to get back up. Ring slings aren't exactly made for scaling muddy cliffs. {If you're completely lost and wondering what a ring sling is, here is Abigail in the same sling-in-question as a teeny baby: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=785081443502&set=a.785081288812.2367144.17112016&type=3&theater} Here is a great one from Maya Wrap, but you can find them cheaper on Etsy:

Anyway, Patrick walked out about half a football field away from me, and started unbuckling the Ergobaby. Well, he unbuckled the waistband FIRST (???) and when he moved his arms to unbuckle the straps Abigail fell straight down onto the river rocks. Poor baby wasn't happy. I screamed like a crazy person when I saw her fall, and then I was so sad when she was crying and I couldn't go make her feel better! I eventually did make my way down there though, and snapped some pictures of Abigail spending some quality time with her dad. Here he is teaching her how to throw rocks with proper form:

 And here she is giving him some smooches:

{OK, so she missed during this particular shot, but she usually gets him right on the lips!}

And here is a picture I really like, even though I didn't really get Abigail in focus, and she's not looking at the camera...

On our walk back from the river bed, we encountered this little guy:

Yep that's right, folks. That there is a slug that someone used as an ashtray. Please forgive the lack of focus on the actual slug, I was in a hurry and forgot I had switched to manual focus while taking pictures of Abigail. Anyway, this poor little slug was just making his way across the path and I have to say it was one of the strangest things I've happened upon in my life. I yelled for Patrick to come back {he is the world's fastest walker, so naturally he was several yards ahead of me} and he actually plucked the cigarette butt out of it's head. It must have been there a while, because there was lots of slug goo that came out stuck to the tip, like it had been healing around the cigarette. It really makes me lose faith in humanity in general to find things like this. Why would you put your cigarette out on a poor little slug? Sigh. 

On a lighter note...

Another bright idea I had recently was to make some homemade playdoh. I got a wild hair up my you-know-what a couple weeks ago and decided to make playdoh with Abigail. I made a special trip to the store to get flour, since we don't keep it in the house {we try to keep a "paleo" pantry so I am not tempted to do things like make a random cake or batch of cookies and eat it all the same day...not that I do that...}. I ended up picking a recipe that needed to be made in a a pot on the stove, so I made it while she was napping and planned for her to help me knead in the food coloring to color the dough. She was a little less than impressed. I should have known, this girl got a tiny tub of playdoh when she was trick or treating and I was so excited to play with it with her when we got home, but she cared more about the container than playing with the squishy good stuff. I guess we are still a ways off from enjoying "bigger" little kid activities like this. I think I've decided I would be OK with just skipping this second year. Nothing good happens during year 2, they throw tantrums, they can't play "for real" yet, you have to potty train...what a bummer! Come on, THREE! Oh wait, she's not even two yet...sigh. I hope this year goes fast. Anywho, here is the best picture I could get while she was pushing a cookie cutter into the dough:

{notice that she is still not looking at me?}

 One "bigger" little kid thing she does like to do is play with puzzles. My mom sent this alphabet puzzle recently and she tried to play with it, but once she took out ALL the letters, she got a little frustrated!

And now, my first DIY project to post on here! We got this pine computer desk from one of my favorite local furniture stores, The Woodshed. They sell unfinished wood furniture. It's super solid and a great little desk. I stained it black, because at the time we were loving espresso colored furniture. {My tastes have since changed, and I am slowly but surely trying to get our furniture to be lighter, and airier (??) feeling} I decided I wanted to paint this desk a fun color and put it in Abigail's room as a nightstand and also for future schoolwork, since we plan to homeschool. Below is a photo of the desk after I sanded it to get it ready to be primed:

So there you have it! That is all that we've been up to lately. I will post a reveal tomorrow to show the finished product of the desk, so stay tuned!

A Couple Things

Cute things first...I have been meaning to write about this for a couple days now, but Abigail has started tickling Bubba while he is standing in his exersaucer, and saying "tickle tickle tickle!" It is SO darn CUTE! She sounds more like "teegull" and I just love that she likes to play with him. She is also obsessed with giving him things. She will hand him anything and everything, and say "here go, baby." When he doesn't grab whatever she is trying to give him, she will grab his hand and try to force him to hold whatever toy/thing she has. It's great. {Side note, she says "baby" after just about everything. I call her baby a lot of the time, so whenever she falls, or knocks something over she says "s'OK baby" ("it's OK in abby-speak) or "sorry baby"} She is also really enjoying pretending to sleep everywhere. She grabs her blanket, lays down, and says "night night momma" then squeezes her eyes shut.

"night night mom. Blanket???"

 She is really getting to be a fun age, aside from the terrible twos attitude that creeps out sometimes...I can't wait til she is a bit older and can really start doing fun activities like painting, coloring, playing with playdoh, playing with barbies...I seriously can't wait to PLAY again!


In Bubba news, he is seriously trying HARD to crawl. He is really strong and can lift up his chest easily during tummy time, and today he even lifted up his belly off the floor. Like I totally saw daylight under his tummy. My big strong boy is definitely following in his daddy's footsteps. He is also wearing 12m size clothes. At four months. Crazy. Speaking of four months, he had his check-up on the 5th, and weighed in at a whopping 18lb 5oz! He will be 20lbs before we know it! He was also 26.5in long, and his head was 43.5cm around. Both of those put him in the 85th percentile, but he is off the charts for his weight! Basically the 99th percentile, since I'm sure he isn't the heaviest 4 month old in the world. He is one big dude! Daddy is proud. {And mommy, too.}


I am also really excited to say that two days ago I got my first Etsy order for the monthly onesie iron on designs!! I am so excited! OK, it's not THAT big of a deal. But it kind of is. Anyone else want month by month onesie iron ons for their babies?! Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodlawnLane.

More Big Changes!

Well this has just been a big week for my BIG little Abigail. After a couple nights of failed story time, I decided to get her a real TWIN bed! When I tried to put her in her bed, tuck her in and read her a story while kneeling next to her toddler bed, she would always want to climb out to sit on my lap for story time.  Then one afternoon, we were in her room cleaning when Patrick got home from work and he came upstairs to find us. He thought he would lay on her bed with her and hang out for a bit. Well, the board under the mattress on her toddler bed bowed down so badly, it practically touched the floor. Clearly it was not made to be supporting huge men! That was when I decided we needed a twin bed. 

So we got this one: 

It definitely does not look white in the photo, but I called the manufacturer and they assured me that it was indeed true white. So I ordered it, and it came OVERNIGHT because wayfair.com is awesome. It took no time to put together, and looks so cute! I will post real pictures later when I get her bedding situation figured out. So far, Abigail loves being able to cuddle in bed at bedtime/naptime! 

Our next big change: forward facing in the car!! She is a couple weeks shy of her 2nd birthday, and starting to get annoyed a lot more in the car. So I decided it was time. Patrick and I are looking for a new, smaller car {more about that soon!} and were planning on driving about 45min up north to look at some, and I thought it would be the perfect time to try her out forward facing. I brought her out to the car, set her down in the seat, and she sat there looking around, then whispered, "woooooow!" It was so cute! She was VERY excited to be able to see a whole new view from the car! Plus, we can finally see eachother in the rear view mirror. {I never could get her little mirror to line up with my mirror in order to be able to see her face when she faced backwards}. So far she is having a great time facing the world, but she hasn't figured out yet that she needs to hold onto her blankets better because she can't reach them when they fall she throws them on the floor! Cause and effect, baby. Maybe one day she will learn. 

In Bubba news, he had his four month check up yesterday afternoon. My huge little man was 18lb 5oz, which is around the 99th %ile. My son is bigger than 99% of four month old babies! Crazy! {Abigail was consistently 50% for weight} He has remained steady on his 99% curve since birth, and is exclusively breastfed so the doctor isn't worried. She said he will just be a HUGE man! Which we knew already. Anywho, he was 26in long, which puts him around the 85th percentile. And his head circumference is also in the 85th percentile, but I don't remember how big it was. Possibly 43.5cm. Basically our Bubba is one big dude. And will probably continue to be that way. 

She gave me the go ahead to work on night weaning, and start introducing solids to help him make up the calories if he doesn't nurse more during the day. {He wakes up to eat A LOT in the very early morning after I bring him in our bed for his first night-time snack around 1 or 2}. My new goal for now is to start putting him back in his own bed after he eats, so as not to be tempting him by having him sleep next to the all-night open bar! We will see. I don't plan to do anything serious until we get home from our trip to Louisiana because it would be silly to make progress then shake it up by going out of town. I am looking forward to getting more sleep in the very near future though! But I am sad for all of the crying to come, as well as the fact that my little baby is already growing up on me! Slow down babies!!

Just a quick Update

This past week in photos:

I picked out some pulls for our cabinets since the white paint attracts grubby finger prints! Here they are:

I downloaded a free trial of photoshop and have been playing around editing photos all week; here is one of my favorite transformations:

My generous parents are getting Photoshop Elements for my birthday so expect lots more fun pictures in the future, and fancy schmancy graphics here and on the website one day.

Patrick was working overnight all week before last and then spent 3 days in Georgia this past week so I've just been waking up to this handsome little man and about 10 minutes of raspberry blowing every morning. Just imagine that video in the previous post, only right next to your face in bed at about 5:30 am.  Good thing he us so cute or he'd be kicked outta my bed for sure!

Now I'm going to take a minute and brag about how my almost two year old (sniff sniff, tear..) shovels spoonfuls of broccoli into her mouth like it's chocolate cake. She loves "brock-y"! 

That's all for now! Stay tuned because I am going to be making a pair of curtains for my friend soon and will post about it here. Custom curtain orders will be available on the website in the coming months so keep an eye out for that!

Raspberries!

Here is an exciting video of Bubba making his new favorite noise and playing in his exersaucer.

Potty, Pins & Pictures

We had a huge event in our house yesterday. HUGE. Abigail told me "poop!" then grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom! I plopped her on the potty on top of her kiddie seat cushion, then we waited. And waited. She was all kinds of excited, asking for sugars every 5 seconds, smiling so big I could see all of her teeth. She was SO proud. Except she never actually pooped. But she sure thought about it! I'm thinking this is a big, good step in the right direction toward potty training! With any luck, she will be potty trained to at least poop in the toilet by the time bubba starts eating solids (at which time I will be switching to disposables with him). Then Abigail can go back to cloth since she will hopefully just be using diapers for peeing. Fingers crossed!

In other news, I made this:

I had this frame in her room before; it was black, and had ribbons strung across the opening to clip her bows to. Except Abigail doesn't wear bows because I failed at girly-mommyhood when she was a baby and never got her used to having something on her head at all times. So she just takes them out and hands them to me whenever I try to put bows in her hair. Sigh. Anyway, I found a very small pin of baby feet in an old purse, and I know they were important and that I got them around the time she was born, I just can't remember where they came from...woops. Mom fail #2. Or 2 million. I wanted somewhere to keep it that it could be displayed and not get lost. Ah-ha! Pin board. I just spray painted it and used some leftover fabric from her curtains.

Bubba got a new toy on Thursday.

He loves it! He is past the stage where he is ok laying in his bouncy seat when I need to get things done, and he arches out of his bumbo, which seems a bit dangerous, so we have graduated to exersaucer. He thinks it is the bee's knees. I love it too, because Abigail plays with him in it. Well, mostly she plays with the toys and he watches her while he smiles and laughs. Sometimes he plays with the toys too. It's wonderful. I really have to keep an eye on the dog when he's in it though, he keeps trying to chew on poor Bubba's feet!

In other news, I have discovered photo editing. It's so cool to take my crappy pictures and make them look better! I am trying out a free trial of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements for 30 days to see which I would like to buy. Anyone feel free to weigh in on which one you use, and why you prefer it! I know there are a lot of people out there who are hobby photographers and real photographers, so if you're reading this, please help a sister out!

And because she's awesome, here's a picture of Abigail to round out the day: