Getting Used To New Things

This week hasn't been very eventful.

X received a wonderful gift on Monday in the shape of a cold. He's so loving towards Baby A that he gave it to him as well! So I've had sick babies all day and all night long. We've had crankies and congestion.

I've been dressing Baby A up in more outfits ever since we got their clothes set up.

This is my favorite this week.

I unfortunately don't have any great pictures of X this week, they all turned out very blurry and he wasn't having it. He is currently putting my high heels on and strutting around the house, it's very entertaining.

This week our dryer died and so we've had to set up clotheslines up in our living room from wall to wall. We've been doing one load at a time.

Adam can roll over and he's tried eating rice cereal (very diluted with formula or momma milk) twice this month and ended up with a tummy ache both times so we are not going to do it until next month.

We found some grocery stores that are near us and I'm going to give them a try next week for grocery shopping.

I'm getting sick sorry this isn't very good or long.

-TBC

Aaaand... We're Back! Back East I mean UPDATED TO INCLUDE WORKING VIDEOS!!!

Well, here we are. We have officially moved into our new apartment and finally (after a long and stressful wait) got out boxes. Hubby has been plowing through them and getting things put away in the general area they belong. I'm better and detailed organization so I've been making progress at putting clothes away and organizing our living spaces as much as I can.

Mr. X and Baby A have been SO VERY CUTE! They really have a lot of fun playing together. Here are some of the stories we have to share with you from our trek across 10 states and many hotels :).

-Baby A woke up one night and was crying out loud. X begins singing to him (just like I sing to him when he is sad or hurting) and immediately A begins to calm down and talk to X.

-Sometimes Baby A has tummy-time on my bed and X gets so excited that he jumps up and down and gets A to giggle. X also loves to grab A's hands and "dance" with him.

-X loves to ask A for "a hug"

Videos (Until I can fix them)

-X was doing something naughty, Mommy asked him, "X, please stop." A laughs at X's naughty-ness, X laughs back and continues to do the naughty thing, Mommy says, "Wow, Baby A, you're starting early..."

-X flirts with a woman at the store. She flirts back. He follows her for a while and tries to flirt with her again all the while she's laughing hysterically and loving the attention for a charming 2yr old.

-X loves "kissy kissy" and will sometimes lay next to A and give him sweet kissy kissies on his cheeks. It's sweet and make my heart swell

We've been having pretty nice weather, it's been pretty warm and raining. Hubby's been working hard at his new job and has had a few projects he's been plowing through. One great thing is the first paycheck shows up on Friday so it'll be good to have income again! We're pretty broke right now but we're happy :)

We've been given lots of help and support during this struggling crazy time in our life. We are so very grateful for all of the help we were given and we are planning on returning the help and also going to pay forward as much as we can.

A is drooling like no tomorrow now, he's showing all the starting signs of teething. He's also getting very fat and getting to wear stylish clothes now he doesn't poop through his clothes. Yay!

X is getting more and more vocal. Sometimes though he doesn't want to use his words because A doesn't use words! So unfair!!! He's starting to become a bit of a three-nager (he started terrible twos early too) so he can be quite stubborn and bossy. He also does NOT like inside voices but has a beautiful singing voice.

We are going to start homeschool again in a couple weeks, I'm working on new lessons for X right now and he and A will have individual time. It'll be good.

Thanks for reading my ramblings!
-TBC

Holiday prep and packing, we're getting closer!!

Our days are getting packed full of things we are trying to do before we leave for Maryland.

I have finally detoxed a good portion of the house and got rid of three lawn bags full of clothes. They were mostly mine and Hubby's because I had gone through X's last year so there wasn't really any need to get rid of any more. I really need the supply for Baby A. So I feel pretty good about what we have left. We are still getting rid of our couch, we bought it when we first got married and it's been well and fully loved. We are also getting rid of a small TV stand and our Christmas tree. We might get rid of the lights too... I haven't decided yet. If you know of anyone who would want these things around December 27th let me know! In order to get rid of the excess I held a Swap at my house, but, alas, no one came. So instead someone from the ward came and picked up the clothes for those in need and the rest of the items went to DI.

I've been trying to make Christmas treats this year for us to munch on before and during the trip. These include some cookies I grew up eating. Every year for Christmas, my grandmother- Gommy- would send a box of treats and each of us kids got a gallon sized ziplock bag full of our very own treats. These cookies and treats just scream Christmas time for me. Candy cane shaped cookies, honey almond powdered balls, peanut brittle and homemade almond rocca. I'm going to do the rocca with walnuts though because I have SO MANY WALNUTS!!! I'm constantly looking for ways to use them. Hopeful it ends up being delicious.

On Monday we were supposed to have dinner with another family in the ward, but on Sunday evening she texted me and told me that she was going to have to cancel because her littlest one had goopies all day and they were getting worse and she didn't want any goops to spread to our family. Well, I felt kind of bad that she'd have to throw something together when I had enough chicken to feed  both families in my fridge marinating so Hubby and I decided that we would still provide them with a main dish (Chicken Coconut Kurma) and a spinach salad. We were going to drop it off but she decided to come over and pick it up instead. While she came over and spent some time with us, her husband called and told her to come home because, "The kitchen broke". We sent her home and didn't think anything of it until she posted on her Facebook that her kitchen cabinets had broken off the wall and 50lbs of cabinet and food landed where she and her kids would have been standing to make dinner. I'm really grateful that she still took our dinner that we provided and decided to come get it instead of waiting for us to drop it off! Because she came over her little family was playing in the living room waiting for her to come home. It's really amazing how God works in little ways, slight shifts in one person's schedule helped keep her whole family safe.

X is rarely throwing tantrums about us not understanding his needs, he's getting more patience with us and also becoming more understandable. It was really entertaining one of the mornings this week because he woke up, very concerned and looked at Hubby and said, "Baby A, a fish...". He also uses one word to describe multiple things, right now "Treat" is a treat or a tree. So on the way to his Grandparents' house he saw a Christmas tree and I did not. He starts saying, "A treat! A treat!" and then I tell him, "When we go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, we'll eat dinner first and then you can have a treat." There was a pause and X says slowly, "Ooookay?" The hubby pointed out the tree and I felt very silly.

A has slept at least 8 hours every night all week long!!! Hallelujah! He's also very smiley and giggles a lot. He's enjoying being played with more and more and loves to flirt with any one who has the potential to pick him up and love him. I actually got Hubby to record a really cute video of A and me with X giving commentary in the background.  A loves to rough house and I recently found the "Pow pow"s are the best way to get him to smile and giggle.

Because A's been sleeping so well I've been able to squeeze in a very short work out in the mornings. I'm mostly doing it to help my back so the progress in regards to weight loss is very slim. I'm only doing yoga right now but I would love to start doing my running again when I get the chance and my hip allows me to.

Hubby is almost done with school and work! He has one project to do for each and then he's all done and can help me more with packing. I'm glad we're going to be able to have a better life for our small family soon.

Until next time,
The Broadway Chick

P.S. Christmas update letters are being created soon, please message me of Facebook or send me an email if you want to make sure I'll send one to you. I don't want to accidentally forget anyone and with the current mile long to-do list in my head, I might! So yeah, let me know!!

Much more busy and fun filled!

I apologize for the lateness in posting, it's been a very busy day!!! I'll get to that in a moment though.

This week we've have a lot of adventures and craziness, much more exciting than the majority of last week.

Hubby and I got to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I liked it if I didn't compare it to Harry Potter. I'm not saying that the Harry Potter movies were necessarily better but the feel from the Harry Potter movies was different than Fantastic Beasts and if I keep trying to get that same feel then I get disappointed. I really enjoyed the mating dance that gets performed at one part. That had Hubby laughing heartily and loudly. It was really entertaining. Apparently, (according to an interview) the actor read that he had to do a mating dance and he looked up videos of mating dances performed by birds and other animals and sent himself doing a few of them to the director. The director then had him do a combination of what he saw. So, the outcome was quite hilarious.

We also got to see Santa Claus on Thursday when we visited my Mom's book fair. I've been prepping X to not freak out when he sees Santa by watching Christmas movies that feature him in some way and reading stories. We aren't really emphasizing Santa but more of what Santa stands for, I just wanted him to not scream when we took pictures with Santa. When we got there X went right up to Santa, climbed and his lap and even sort of smiled for a picture.

We also looked around a little bit before leaving and found an amazing book called "King Baby", it's hilarious and very accurate of how babies act. We've always called our babies, "Your highness" or "Your Poopiness" so we found extra joy because it applies to a family joke (? probably not the best word but all I could think of).

My in-laws were so kind to buy us tickets to see BYU's Christmas Around the World and provided us with babysitting. It was really fun to see the different dances but what blew our minds the most was the work and effort that the people exerted to give a beautiful performance. I also saw someone I knew when I did theater dancing. I checked out the program and confirmed it, he's always been a superb dancer and his performance was flawless! It was good to see someone I knew still doing something they love and excelling at it in every way.

Yesterday I spent a good part of my day baking/cooking and cleaning. I made brownies, rolls, corn chowder, cracked up TONS of walnuts, and packed up more of the living room breakable decorations. The walnuts came from my Dad who has a coworker or boss(?I can't remember which) who has a walnut tree and gave him a huge bag full, my mom can't eat them so he gave them to me to use up and I've been finding ways to incorporate them into dishes. So by the end of the day, my hand was pretty red from using the nut cracker so much and my hands were a darker shade because of the dirty shells. But all done, no more shell cracking for me for a good long while.

We also went to a Christmas party that night that was put on by my parent's ward. The theme was "A Night In Bethlehem". The meal was catered by a Mediterranean restaurant called Galilee. They  were pretty good, they had some chicken that seemed like it was marinated in a yogurt sauce and they had delicious rice and grilled veggies. They had this interesting garlic type of sauce but it was really over powering if you weren't careful. They had a cute little slideshow of the Nativity story that was done by the Primary kids and it was pretty cute. While I was there though I needed to feed Baby A and so I walked into the Mother's Lounge and while I was there I got walked in on twice... I thought people knew that it's not a hang out spot it's for nursing mothers to use. Oh well... I guess the teenaged girl got an education? Sort of?

Today was a very special day and was the reason for all my baking/cooking yesterday. Baby A got blessed today!!!! Hubby did a very short and powerful blessing introducing him to the church. It was nice having all the people we love come to a special event like this. It'll be harder for them to come to baptisms and future blessings so it's nice that we could at least do this. Baby A wore the same outfit X wore for his blessing. X was only a month and a half old when he wore it so it was a lot more snug on Baby A, when X wore it it was kind of large. He still looked cute though, here's some proof:

We are so incredibly blessed to have our family around for this event and that they've all been so willing to help us and take care of our little family.

This morning X was pretty cute when Hubby went to go get him, he was pretty groggy and a little concerned and told Hubby, "Baby A.... a fish" apparently A was in his dream and it had something to do with fish... it was pretty cute. X is getting so good a praying, he's catching on to the fact that when you pray you need to pay attention to the prayer and not do other things during it (like eating or looking at books). He's becoming more and more understandable. He tries to have conversations with him and we're getting better at actually being able understand what he's expressing and can respond most of the time with a response he wants/ was expecting to receive.

Baby A's personality is starting to really come through, he's super smiley and it's infectious. He's also kind of ticklish and does a really cute laugh when you get him going. He loves to play with X and Hubby on his toy mat and loves being held and bounced. He's also discovered his thumb and loves to self soothe himself to sleep that way.

I'm still working my way through with the packing slowly but surely. Hubby finished school this week and when that happens we'll start packing a little quicker and continue to deep clean the apartment so we can get as much of our deposit back as possible. So far it's going pretty well, I've been able to get into all the little crevices and remove lots of stains.

Until next time,
TBC

Fairly Boring

This week hasn't been entirely eventful. If you read last week's post you'll know that we did Thanksgiving early with both sides of the family. So our Thanksgiving week was very relaxing and low stress.

We had some friends over for dinner on Monday, it was nice having some adults to talk to and hang out with. They have two little girls one older and one younger than X. So they ran around during dinner and got into all sorts of mischief. We adults tried to play a Harry Potter trivia board game afterwards but kiddos wanted to play too, so it was put away.

I am really hoping to find some Harry Potter  enthusiasts out in Maryland, mostly book but movie too. I'm not totally into knowing everything about the actor's lives, I'm more into the story and diving into fanfics and Pottermore and rereading the books. I  still like the movies and watch them frequently but the books are my safe place.

We had a small dinner outing on Thanksgiving Day with my Mom and sister (the kids call her Coco). We went to a buffet styled restaurant and I was swiftly reminded why I make my own food. It was fine but it wasn't as great as I remember from eight years ago. I'm pretty sure it's because my palate has developed and become kind of snobbish over time.

On Friday I did do some minor black Friday shopping. I didn't wait in lines or stay up all night. I went later in the day and found some great finds spending only $10/person. So, I say it's a win!

Hubby and I helped my mom set up her school's bookfair yesterday, she's a librarian. She had to reconfigure how she does it every year because Santa is taking over a portion of her library on Thursday for a few hours and she usually has that part of the library blocked off. So we spent at least three hours moving things around and trying to give the book fair some flow and still make it kid accessible and friendly. She was supposed to have more help but they all cancelled or forgot so it was just us, my Dad and her. The boys did pretty well, Baby A fed once and slept the rest of the time and X made himself at home, taking off his socks, looking at books, and running around.

Baby A is smiling when you make eye contact with him and smile at him. X is expanding his vocabulary and starting to be able to express his needs more and more every day. I don't have a good pic of X this week, but here's a cute on of A's smile.

'Til next time!
-TBC

Craziness and Growth

Baby A had a doctors appointment on Monday, he's a very big boy measuring the the 84% for height and weighing in in the 74%. He also received some shots and he took them pretty well. He didn't want any milk after them though so I had to use the binki to soothe him.

Baby A is starting to smile and laugh at will, it's infectious and I love trying to find things that please him. He also really likes to play with toys the best way a baby can play with toys. He wacks them with his fist and giggles while he's wacking. We have a play mat that we put him on that has toys dangling at various angles and he's in heaven while he's on there. He has all the signs of being an early crawler, he loves tummy time and would just like to play all day if he didn't take naps. :)

Mr. X and I went on a Mommy-Son date! We had so much fun! We visited Grammy (my mom) and then we went to the mall to play in the play center. But X had other plans, he grabbed my hand and walked all over the mall with me. We eventually made our way into the Disney store and he started gathering characters from The Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and acting out the scenes with the characters. So I bought him Piglet, who is one of the characters he didn't have yet. After that we went to a store that sells inexpensive soft serve ice cream and got that for our treat. We had a lot of fun and laughs and I really needed the one on one time with him. I've missed it just being the two of us.

Here's pictures of the boys showing some love:

With them in the bed, Hubby took A into X's room and plopped him in the bed and X affectionately say "Baby A!" and began to cuddle him. Then I asked X if he wanted to hug A, he said yes and the picture on the chair came to pass.

I'm very blessed to have these sweet boys in my life. I love how affectionate X is and how A always smiles for X.

This week I've been working like a mad woman to make the house presentable for people to come look at our apartment. We had an open house this week and two people showed up during the morning showing and the landlords sold our contract to one of the people who came. Then they spent the next half hour telling people that the apartment was taken. I'm glad it was solved so quickly because if our contract wasn't sold then we'd have to continue paying rent until someone did buy it, even after we've left. So it's a huge weight off my shoulders to have that done.

 Now I can focus on deep cleaning and packing because we are only about 1 month away from moving. Which isn't actually that long if you factor in the holidays and the time they take up. So, no rest for the wicked!!!

Today my family is having Thanksgiving dinner due to many of my family members being unable to come on the actual holiday. So I made the turkey by brining it ahead of time and my brother-in-law cooked it in his Traeger and it came out perfectly!!! I also made cranberry sauce from scratch, which is super easy, and a dressing from freshly crushed walnuts.

We're about to eat, so make sure to enjoy your time this week with your family and Happy Thanksgiving!!

-TBC

Happy Veterans Day! "Thank you, I enjoyed my freedom today!"

Our little family has had a bit of a rough week. Baby A wasn’t feeling his best earlier in the week and had a rough time sleeping at night. I was pretty sleep deprived but still had to continue getting the apartment ready for showings. 

I’ve been using this time to get rid of anything we don’t use much, pack away and reorganize. So I’ve been able to organize the pantry, craft closet, and almost all of the bedroom closet. This has been made possible by may father-in-law, his job involves him getting a lot of boxes and he so kindly saves me them (and the bubble wrap that comes) and gives it to me.

Mr. X has been wanting to act like a baby this week to get what he wants but wants all the things a toddler can have too. Well, we are teaching him the “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” mentality and trying to increase our attentions to him. He can trace the letter M almost perfectly, his fine motor skills are definitely increasing . He's also been improving his days of the week recognition. (He just barely lifted up his shirt and asked me if he could help then tried to lean over Baby A in an effort to feed him, haha, my little helper). He’s also improving on picking up toys when he’s done with them. That will definitely help with getting ready for the apartment yo be shown.

Hubby has had a fever the last couple of days on and off. This is pretty uncharacteristic for him, he’s a really quick healer. So he went to the doctor and found out he has strep! So he is currently taking some antibiotics for it but can’t give kisses or help with the kids at all until he is well. Touch is one mine and Hubby’s love languages though so it’ll be difficult for us while he’s sick. 

Tomorrow we are going to my brother-in-law’s home to celebrate Thanksgiving because my sister-in-law is in town and my mother- and father-in-law will be out of town during Thanksgiving. Unfortunately Hubby will not be able to join us, so I’ll be going alone with the boys. I’m going to bringing my fresh bake pumpkin pie (everything from scratch, even most of the spices are freshly ground, and the pumpkin roasted and pureed) and a sweet potato and apple casserole I make that Hubby is quite fond of.

My mom comes back into town on Monday after being gone for two weeks. She’s been with my dad during a work conference. I like the boys having the opportunity to be around grandparents as much as possible right now before we move. 

Happy Veterans Day, until next time,

TBC

P.S. In light of election results this week. Just a friendly reminder that we need to be kind to each other. And no one is superior or inferior because of their race, gender, or religion. If you see bullying please stand up and stop it, the bystander is just as guilty as the bully. I love you all.

An update, how life flies by

We have some updates to do!

Baby X is now grown to be a toddler and will be called X or Mr. X from this point onward.

I'm also pleased to say we have a new little human in our family, Baby A! He was born in mid-September in 6 hours, more than half the time it took to deliver X. He didn't have to see the NICU at all and was able to be with me for most of the hospital stay. The only time I sent him to the nursery was because he is a very loud grunter and I could sleep with the noise so he got escorted away for a couple of hours so I could rejuvenate a bit.

We had an enjoyable Halloween were X was Peter Pan again this year, though much more excited about it than he was last year (“A Pan!”). Hubby was again Hook and I would have been Wendy, but this year I'm nursing and that costume is not nursing friendly. So I put on a blue striped shirt I already owned, some shorts and quickly crocheted a red beanie and went out as Smee. Baby A was supposed to be Micheal but no one knew who he was so I dressed him up as a beanie baby instead. I put a coverall with bear ears on him and attached a heart with a white “ty” that I made onto one of the ears. It was very cute. We had a cute X trick or treat and Grandmother's homes and show off at other homes as well. By the end of the night X had mastered his own way of saying “trick or treat” which ended up sounding more like, “Tic ah tee”. Hearts were melted :)

We are also sporting some exciting news. We'll be moving to Maryland in a couple of months! It's going to be an interesting change. I won't have family support so close by anymore and we'll be the farthest away from anyone on either side. It's scary but a necessary change in order to progress in our lives. This company had Hubby intern for them during the summer and apparently has wanted him back ever since. They were in a hiring freeze though so they couldn't hire right away. They were convincing higher ups to make an exception for Hubby and it eventually happened. They gave an offer we couldn't refuse. We're very optimistic about what the future may hold for us.

X is talking so much! He is even starting to try and tell jokes, laughs, and proceeds to tell us, “ees fun!” translating to “it's funny”. He likes to help clean, put things away, read books, and watch Disney movies. He loves hugging Baby A and giving kisses. He's a really good and kind big brother.

Baby A is turning out to be quite strong. He already can hold his head up for large amounts of time. He loves tummy time and already has a fascination with toys. He'll one day talk my ear off with words I can understand but right now he's talking it off with grunts.

Hubby is trying to survive this semester, he's trying to still do well in his classes despite his employment because he plans on finishing his masters once we become official residents of Maryland. It's tough on him because his hardest class he was taking for his current job but now that class is going to be useless to him. He can't drop it because his funding will have to be refunded and we can't afford that. So I try and soften the burden by making him treats and trying to keep the house as clean as possible.

Life is good, til next time!

TBC

We share because we care!

This week has been going by like a whirlwind. I was supposed to do a cute Dr. Seuss activity this week with Baby X and friends. However, disaster struck!

A friend of mine at church posted how both of her little ones ended up with RSV because someone brought a child with "Just a cold" to church. I then heard of another little one who got RSV from church, and I was not sweating it because Baby X didn't seem to have any symptoms and I didn't think he caught the bug. Wishful thinking my friends.... wishful thinking.

On Tuesday he started showing mild signs of a cold, and I was OK with that, "I can handle just a minor cold" I thought to myself. Then Wednesday happened and he was having an eternal waterfall of goobers coming out of his nose and kind of a wheezing sound when he started breathing hard. Thursday, I called his Doctor first thing in the morning because he started having a mild fever.

When I get there, I explained to one of the staff that he had all the symptoms but one that fell in line with RSV and she told me that she doubted that Baby X had RSV because his Oxygen intake level was so high. However when the doctor came in she started listening to his breathing and had us test him for RSV. Guess who was right? Mother intuition strikes again!

So, this week was exhausting! It's the first time he's been REALLY sick and I'm kind of glad he doesn't do it that often because I don't know if we can handle the lack of sleep and the constant clinging, I like cuddles but, I don't want the heat of a fevered body on my chest. But when all is said and done, he handled it really well! He is still happy most of the time and he will still play with all of his might!

Oh! And, I should mention this, Baby X is almost into crawling mode! He's now getting up on his knees with ease and almost has the motion figured out for going forward! Yay!!!

Anyway, if you think your little one has RSV keep them inside and please refrain from bringing them to group functions, I know misery loves company but that's misery, you can get company from not being sick :)

-TBC

Somewhere, there was a Rainbow Day!

I had a lot of good stuff happen this week. On Monday, it was President's Day so I got to spend a lot of time with the Hubby. It was really fun! We went to the BYU Art Museum and saw some really pretty Japanese Deco art pieces, we also saw and exhibit on origami and how it's being used in technology today. Really neat stuff. Hubby and I went to high school with one of the people being featured and the exhibit. So, we were pretty proud of that.

The rest of the week was pretty ho-hum and not much really happened. I tackled our never ending pile of dishes almost everyday. How I wish we could have a dishwasher. Such a luxury would be so much nicer than washing every little thing by hand every day. *Sigh* But, the weather has been warm enough this week that Baby X and I have gone outside and played for a couple hours basically once a day all week long. It's been nice, I get a chance to socialize with some of the other moms who are out there at that time and it feels good to talk to adults that aren't just my Hubby. I love talking to my Hubby, but he doesn't talk about girly things well, I don't blame him. After all, he is a dude, so, he is allowed.

Yesterday, I had went to a Women's Conference and I learned some new stuff about practical food storage and basic meal plans that help rotate your food storage. It was really neat! Like: don't store your cans by what is in the can, you can keep track of what you'll actually use if you store it by meal. So in a basket you can have all the things you'll need (can wise) for Chili: Beans, chicken, cream of mushroom, etc. Apparently that is a trick also used in a lot of restaurant kitchens as well! Who knew? I also got to listen to a women's great insight on raising a family in the gospel and how to help children have good habits towards the basic principles of the gospel. One of the things I liked is she said that the goal we should have as a family on Sunday afternoons is to go to a church building, specifically a temple if possible. I really thought that that was a good idea, and since we live right by a temple it's a worthy activity for our Sundays.

After I came home from that, Hubby and I had the wonderful chance to  go to the temple. Baby X was baby sat by his Aunt and we went to the temple by her house because we had yet to visit it for other than a wedding. It was really pretty and we always feel good when we are done with our visit to the temple.  It was fantastic :)

Ok, I know you're wondering what any of this has to do with the title? Well, since nothing really happened this week, I wanted to tell you about the Rainbow Day that Baby X and I had a while ago!

 I made spaghetti and dyed it different colors in cold water with food coloring to help it cool and change colors at the same time!

I also made edible paint out of cornstarch, hot water and food coloring. At first Baby X didn't know what  to do, but then I made him put his hand in things and then the fun began!

Look at that face! Isn't that just the best?

 When all was said and done, I took my messy boy into the bathroom and took some glamor shots before giving him a much needed bath!

 We had a lot of fun! I love spending time with my Baby!

-TBC

Say "Hello" to.... Baby's First Snow

Where I am, we are have incredibly warm weather. But on Christmas day until the beginning of January we actually had snow on the ground! It was so nice to have a white Christmas, but one of the things I was most excited about was Baby X trying out snow for the first time.

Please excuse the lateness of the posting of this post, but better late than never! Right? :)

 

Here he is seeing snow up close and personal for the first time. I couldn't get a good shot of him from this angle so I flipped him over and  he gave me the face of seriousness. 

(Sorry for the jumping "videos" I can't figure out how to make my .avi footage into something that can actually be seen and played. Any help in that department would be greatly appreciated)

 Eventually I decided that he would have more fun sitting up and poking the snow, his balance wasn't the best while sitting up at the time so I had my legs beside him helping him out. But, I still wanted to take a picture of his cute self. So I stretched out my arm and tilted the camera down and upside down and pressed the button.
Please, let us all admire my photo taking skills:

 Isn't that just perfect? He's got the perfect face! Ah, I just love my baby. He makes me happy :)

However, the snow days were short lived, because the next week is when it all melted away. Perfect timing? I think so!

Next time: Rainbow Day!

-TBC

PS Family members: If you would like the videos they transfer well over email and I can send you them, so shoot me a message and I can send you the little guy in action!

PPS It may show that Hubby is the one always logging in but that isn't the case, it's always me... so yeah.

Library Day!

This has been a very busy couple of weeks. I wasn’t feeling very good last week and this week I was feeling the repercussions of not feeling well last week by feeling tired and having way too many things to clean. But I’m not going to go into boring things…. That’s not why you’re here,  right?

LIBRARY DAY!

Baby X and I had so much fun at the library! One of our local libraries has a really amazing child’s corner that has quiet toys and is perfectly located next to a very nice selection of books!

We were able to find a fun ABC introduction book and we looked through that together. We also read a book about an otter and a fish falling in love. Baby X didn’t care for that one too much, it was a little high for his cognitive level but I like to have to have him have exposure to things he doesn’t know how to do yet.

After we looked at our books for a bit I let Baby X play with some of the toys that they have for kids to come and play with. It was really fun watching him figure things out! He’s getting so good at problem solving and he just keeps getting bigger every day!

He really had fun and was super friendly to everyone who came up to him.

So, library day was super fun. What other fun things do you recommend for little babies who can’t walk or crawl yet?

-TBC

Time... it flies!

Wow! I can't believe it's been seven months already since my little man has graced our lives! One of the most questions I've been getting is. Why do I call my little guy Baby X? They are like: Is it a gender thing? Is it because you couldn't decide what his name was going to be? No to all. "X" is his first initial. I was being clever people!!! See? I am clever :) One thing everyone can be sure of is the fact that nothing about him was undecided or unplanned. I knew his name long before he was born and I knew he was going to be loads of fun! And a lot of hard work!

He is flopping all over the place now. When I was in church, I put him on the floor and he was flopping all across the floor. It was very entertaining. Also embarrassing for me because I may have chortled during one of the lessons because he was just SO CUTE!

He has two pearly whites on his bottom gums.Which helps to make his smile absolutely adorable!

He also is wearing 12 Mo. clothes now! He is fitting them perfectly right now, height wise! Who said he could get so big? Definitely not me! It's actually pretty hard finding clothes for him that will last him more than a couple months. I have to rely on Grandmas buying him clothing, thrift stores, or charity events.

We've been having a lot of fun together now that I've made a career change! I'm now a stay at home mom and I love being there for my Baby X! I also like how before, when I was working, I never really got into the swing of cleaning, keeping house, cooking things or really anything. I was just surviving. Now, I have a new system. I use a planner everyday and I do:
a) one thing with Xander everyday that we don't always do: i.e. edible finger paints, water play, adventures to free events, etc.. Even if it's something silly like: playing with him on the floor or letting him chew on something he's never seen before.
b) I pick up and spot clean one room a day (Doing laundry counts as a room, we have to use a laundry mat so it's an involved event)
c) make something from scratch (I have a bread day, I make chicken stock if I'm going to be using it later in the week, or anything I feel like making)  
d) I do dishes every other day
e) I keep a digital menu that I update every Sunday with meals and how many calories they are and my grocery list of things I need to make the meals possible.

There you go that is how I've been happy and maintaining my sanity. Yay for technology and planners!! I've also noticed that with my new system that I'm loosing weight, my husband is happy when he comes home, and -most importantly - we have more time together as a family and get to love each other more.

I have been doing pretty good on keeping my new plan, I'm currently on week four of doing it. I'm determined to make it stick! I like being organized and on top of things.

Hubby and I have been very blessed lately to have more financial stability than we've had in a while and we've been enjoying going on dates. One of our most recent ones was to see "Big Hero 6". LOADS. OF. CUTE! Hubby's cousin worked on the film and so we were really excited to see it. I really had fun with the quirky cuteness of it all. It tugged on my heart stings a bit too. Not as much as "UP" but close. We also have fun with the quotability of the script in our house, "Hairy BABY! Hairy baby..." :)

Also, we did had an adventure and went to our Sprouts Grocery Store and tried some of their bulk food that we've never had before. We tried chocolate covered honeycomb, it was so yummy! I recommend it!

Anyway, loads posts are soon to follow. Coming soon: Rainbow Day! and Snow Day! But until then, enjoy the cuteness of my Baby:

-TBC

He's here!...

My sweet Baby X has been here for a month! Even though his due date was May 24 he wasn't able to make my body contract and make the trip out on his own. So Hubby and I went to the hospital on our 1 year anniversary, June 1st and I got induced.

The contractions didn't start to hurt for a while, but then I ate some lunch... bad idea! After getting sick with the food I started having severe pain with the contractions. I got an epidural to make it more manageable. After about 5 hours though, I started feeling all of my contractions in all their glory! At first the nurse and anesthesiologist thought I just wasn't pressing my button enough or I was just super sensitive. So they kept giving me stronger stuff through my main line with my epidural. I felt really light headed and they weren't really concerned, except for the fact that none of it took away the pain. At all.

The next 5-6 hours I was in constant pain, begging and pleading for it to stop. When the anesthesiologist got back from helping with a C-section, he gave me the "strongest stuff [he] had". I blacked out. Hubby says that I was out for a while and the nurse said, "That isn't supposed to happen". All I can remember is being able to hear Hubby's voice and feeling pain. When I finally was able to function somewhat they found out that my epidural was not in the proper spot anymore. It had wiggled out when I moved or something and they had to do it again. When they finally got it in the right spot I only got to enjoy 2 hours of my labor before starting to push.

I pushed for 2 hours. With the help of my doctor manually turning him face down and a vacuum extraction we discovered that my little guy had a hard time coming out because his umbilical cord was wrapped his neck 3 times. They immediately checked his respiratory and he was perfectly fine. And he had fantastic RED hair!!! He came out 21" long and 8lbs!

We are so proud of him being such a trooper! I loved meeting him for the first time.

However, his blood sugar started to drop and no matter how much I nursed him, he wasn't getting any higher. So they gave him formula. Nothing. So they admitted him into the NICU. I pumped with all my might and they fed him through a series of tubes and put him on antibiotics. Slowly but surely over the next 3 days we got him off the machines but he still had his IV in his head.

 

Then he turned extremely yellow that day. His jaundice was pretty high. They put him under the billi-lights for two days and I finally got to take him home! As long as I put billi-lights on him at home.

I wish I was a glowworm. A glowworm's never glum. 'Cause how can you be grumpy when the sun shines out your bum!?

 Look at him with the billi-lights on! He was a cute little glow worm his first week home. With the cutest hiccups!

Having him home we've been adjusting and figuring each other. Also, I've been finding out that Baby X is a really sweet boy. Most of the time at night he will wake up only once if at all. For that I'm extremely thankful!

So fast forward through all the diapers and screaming and bottle pumping. He was blessed two Sundays ago at our church. I've worked for a few months on his out fit. 100% hand sewn or crocheted:

Look at how charming he is!

Our first picture together as a family outside of the hospital.

He was so well mannered the whole day! Hubby also did a fantastic job in blessing him. It was a great experience to have.

In the family pic, do you see his had in his mouth? That boy will suck on anything and everything. He doesn't care if it's a binki, me, a bottle, or your chin; it's his to suck on!

He is so funny. I love his guts!

Now, Baby X is officially 1 month old! I can't believe that it was a month ago that I gave birth to his sweet soul! He is such a blessing into our lives already. I find that Hubby and I are try more actively to love and respect each other. We are quicker to forgive flaws and try to make improvements in our lives. I find it's easier to love my Hubby when he comes home after taking care of a baby all day. I may be tired but I appreciate him working and supporting us.

Baby X is growing so well too! Check out his recent milestone:

I'm so proud of him! I made his do it about 4 or 5 times in row to make sure it wasn't a fluke! He's getting so big!

Sorry this was such a long post, I needed to catch up :) But you got to see cute baby pics so it's all worth it! :)

Have an awesome day!
-TBC