blogging break

Apparently I'm on a blogging break.  It's not intentional...it's just life.  I never thought that much would change when Oliver came along, but it has.  I wouldn't trade my afternoons/weekend time with him and Owen for anything, and one day I hope to post more frequently.

We have three full memory cards, and I'm currently trying to muster up the energy to dive in and get them backed up and cleared off.  It's sad, but we have all these scrapbooks filled with photos of Owen and we have zero with photos of Oliver.  ZERO!  We have taken pictures, but haven't done anything with them yet.  I used to blog during a free moment at work, but now they have blocked all storage devices (memory cards and usb's) so that's a no-go. 

I've said it before, but I do post on Instagram, so you can follow me on there.  Or you can just come here and see my pics on the right sidebar. 

Oliver did turn one almost two weeks ago, and we had a great party with family and friends in our backyard.  We finally got to break-in Owen's swingset and luckily it held up even with the weight of 500 kids on top.  He also had his one year appt with Dr. P and everything is good.  He is a little guy at just over 20 pounds.  He has one tooth on top and two about to break through on the bottom.  He is starting to take steps on his own.  I think we've counted about seven or eight in a row.  He's going for his first haircut on Friday, so those baby curls are probably a thing of the past.  They were cute while they lasted.

Owen is enjoying his last year of preschool.  He went to the corn maze last week and is super excited about Halloween tomorrow night.  He wore his Batman costume from last year to the Ghost Walk on Saturday night, but he's actually going to be a fireman this year thanks to Sam.  He lent Owen his costume and Owen likes it so much he wanted to wear it on Halloween.  Mission accomplished!  Oliver is going to wear Owen's first costume which was a turtle. 

Ok...so that's about it for now.  Oh!  We are going to Disney pretty soon and it will be our first time leaving Oliver for any length of time.  We are all excited to go, but have mixed emotions about leaving him at home.  When we left Owen at home when Brig had a work conference in Orlando he got sick and we almost had to come home.  Fingers crossed that it's smooth sailing for all of us.

time to consign

the end of summer

We had a busy summer (as you can tell by my lack of posts), but thankfully school has started!  Parent night and meet the teacher were last week.

Last weekend we went to the mountains to squeeze out the last little bit of summer.  And it was a fitting considering we started our summer by going up there over Memorial Day.  We didn't plan it that way, but it did work out nicely.   

Oliver and I watched the passersby on Main Street in Waynesville, NC while Brig and Owen were in the Christmas store.  Going there for the day has become a new favorite thing to do these last few trips.

I ran up and down the road a few times before I keeled over and died decided to give up out of sheer exhaustion.  When I got back to the house Owen wanted to go on a hike.  And we did...

He even ran some too, and at the top we had a lesson about graveyards, headstones and the dead.  Not sure how he would react, but I don't think he really understood.  I should probably explain there is a cemetery at the top of the road for those who have never been here.  I didn't just randomly decide to have this discussion at the top of the mountain.

We meant to bring Oliver's swing and forgot, but I did improvise and made him a redneck baby swing...Brig pointed out it wasn't truly a redneck swing due to the lack of duct tape.  Maybe next time...

We came home on Monday and school started yesterday.  Unfortunately this is the only pic I got of the first day b/c we were on the verge of a bathroom emergency and were rushing inside.

Speaking of school...big news...we had a boy girl website!  This time I gave birth, but it didn't take 40 weeks.  I volunteered back in February to help with the St. Paul's website.  Little did I know it would be my baby from start to finish.  It finally launched last week and if you'd like to take a peek go to www.stpaulsclc.org.  I'm also on the board so you will see stuff on here all the time about school events.

If you'd like more pictures I post much more frequently on Instagram.  You can follow me at "myfirstnamemylastname".  That's not actually my acct, but I think you get it and understand why I won't post my full name on the blog.  I'm sure it's already here somewhere, but I won't post it again.




 

off the rails

Oliver is 9.5 months old today.  Just when we thought his development had stalled, everything happened at once.

The night before his 9 month well visit, I lowered his crib out of fear for his safety, and I honestly put it off b/c it is no easy task.  Who makes a crib that has to be completely taken apart for what should be fairly simple?  Young America, that's who.

Good thing I made time when I did, b/c a couple days later we found him like this.  Yes, he has crazy bedhead, but that's not the point.  He is sitting up and he got there all by himself.  We have yet to witness him doing this on his own, so we have a few theories how this occurred.  The most likely scenario is that he grabbed on to the bars and pulled himself up enough to either stand and then sit or at least get his legs underneath him.  If he can do it once, he can do it again, but now we aren't worried about him tumbling over the sides.

He also got tired of us debating whether or not he would crawl before walking.  I never did, so it wouldn't be completely abnormal for him to skip this milestone altogether.

He showed us and decided to become an inchworm overnight.

He isn't a crawling pro yet, but he is making progress.  He's also very interested in standing and has cruised along the couch a few times.

Now that he is a pseudo-crawler, he can have puffs and yogurt melts.  He loves them and took to feeding himself rather quickly.

His stats are:

weight - 18 lbs/10 oz - 25th percentile

height - 28.5 inches - 50th percentile

head - I don't remember but he def has a little peanut head

teeth - nada

I just did the math and we only have 11 more weeks on formula!  And of course the same amount of time until our baby is a year old.

...

Let's move on to big brother Owen.  He's had a very busy summer so far and school doesn't start for another month.

This is a quick pic I took of him before heading out for a sleepover with Sam.  He loves having sleepovers, or maybe he just loves getting a night away from our crazy house.  Sam has a couple years on Owen and doesn't have bed rails.  We normally send rails with him if he's going somewhere, but completely forgot this time.  In fact, nobody noticed until the next day.  I don't know if this was the right time, but we ditched the rail on his bed too and so far, so good.  Of course his bed at home isn't very high, so if he did fall it wouldn't be too far down.

He loves to draw and color, make cards for people, dance and play games.  Both the electronic versions and the old school kind.  Just last night he beat me at Go Fish!

 

I don't know about you, but I am ready for fall.  I get bored easily and I have had enough of mosquitoes and the heat.

One reason I'm excited is that we changed our Disney plans and instead of going in early fall, we will be going a couple months later.  We knew this would be the last time it would be just the three of us (Oliver is staying at home) so we decided to go when it was decorated for the holidays.  We've never been at that time of the year, and they extended free dining so we made the change.  Can't wait to see it snow on Main Street USA!

Oliver stuck out his tongue when I told him the news...

Litchfield 2012

Our annual beach trip to North Litchfield has come and gone.  Owen is the most upset about this, in fact he cried while brushing his teeth our first night at home.  He thinks we should move there, or at the very least stay there for eight weeks next summer.  Sounds good to me, although that would roughly be $28K.  

It was Oliver's first beach trip, and it took him a while to warm up to the new yet temporary surroundings.  The first time Owen went he was 16 months old, and Oliver was only 8.5.  That's a huge difference!  I'm guessing it was the sea air or the super squishy crib mattress, because he slept like a dream.

While we had a great time as usual, our trip did have its share of mishaps including:

1.  Stomach "issues" while on a night-time beach walk.
2.  Burn from a sparkler
3.  Sliced finger requiring four stitches
4.  Stepping on a nail
5.  Something puncturing a big toe in the ocean
6.  Dead car battery

Am I forgetting something?  I think that's it, and thankfully not all those happened to one person.

Here are a few shots in no particular order...

First hole of the week

Crab in the surf

This was right before he tried to eat a shell

This was Oliver's initial reaction to the beach

Hammock on the front porch...right before I fell asleep

Back porch

 

One of the maids took our group shot and she only took one!

Playground at the Hammock Shops...on our way out of town

a couple snapshots

It was crazy hot this weekend, so the only person who spent anytime outside was me.  I took some good pics of the boys, but alas, I forgot the memory card when I headed out this morning.  I did take these two with Instagram.  

Oliver took some pretty awesome naps this weekend.  This was taken right after he woke up from a three-hour one.  We are very surprised anytime he takes a long nap, but his naps are still so unpredictable we are shocked when he sleeps longer than an hour.  This kid is definitely the one who will keep us guessing.

Owen told us he wanted a corn dog for dinner.  This is highly unusual since he's always refused to eat a hot dog and only tried a corn dog once when Oliver was very small.  

Brig took the boys over to her mom's house for a little while so she just stopped at Sonic and got us all corn dogs for dinner.  I didn't actually think he would eat it, and I had to promise to take his pic and send it to Facebook before he would take a nibble.  Of course he loved it and almost finished the whole thing.  He wouldn't dip it in ketchup, which would have made it even more palatable.  Maybe next time.

our weekend

This weekend we celebrated Mallory and Anna Claire's 4th birthday!  I didn't get many pics b/c Oliver skipped his morning nap and decided to sleep once we got there.  I spent the majority of the party in the girls' room rocking him in the glider.

 

  

Sunday we all hit the pool and it was Oliver's first time!  As you can see below, he wasn't thrilled with his pfd...

He was slightly happier once we took it off, but it's hard to gauge b/c the water was pretty cold at first.

Owen sat at the bar and had a snack.  Later on, he walked around the shallow end unassisted for the first time!  I just realized we hit a couple milestones yesterday.  Of course I was with him, so I couldn't take pics, and Brig had gone home by this point b/c Oliver needed to nap.  Next time!

memorial day mountain trip

On the way home from work Friday (I get off at 11:00), someone on the radio was talking about being spontaneous.  They suggested you should just buy a ticket and go somewhere.  Well, I have been itching to get out of town so that's sort of what we did.

It helps to have a place in the mountains that you can get to by car.  Being spontaneous when you have a baby is not exactly easy.  Not only do you have to take all the baby stuff, you have to figure out naps, feedings, etc...  We had planned to make Oliver's first trip to the mountains this Fall...sometime right after his first birthday.  At least at that point he wouldn't need bottles anymore and that would make the trip a little less complicated. 

On the other hand, Owen is remarkably easy these days.  He loves to "go on an adventure" and he was packed and ready to go in about five minutes.  Prep wise, he's just like an adult.  He eats where we eat and sleeps in a real bed.  We did have to bring a bed rail, but that's not a big deal. 

We debated for about 30 minutes and I made sure no one else had reserved the place.  We (quickly) got everything together and left hoping to make it there by dark.  There was an accident right outside Columbia and we sat there for 75 minutes.  That took our allotted time for dinner, so we ate snacks in the car.  I also jumped in the back and fed Oliver so everyone got to eat/drink.   

The rest of our trip went much smoother.  Saturday we hit Waynesville, Sunday was the Dillard House and Dillsboro, and yesterday morning we headed for home. 

Here are a few snapshots of our trip...

The Dillard House Farmzoo

Gem mining

At the bottom of our road, there is a dock that overlooks the creek.

And a rec center with two playgrounds, tons of green space and a trail.  We both went for a run, but not at the same time.

Being goofy...the majority of my pics look like this one.

Our boys

Owen on his first mountain trip in October 2008

May 2012