hide and seek

When my cousins were down this summer Jay learned to “play” hide and seek- he LOVES it and asks to play frequently. His hiding places are less than stellar, he usually announces where he is hiding or giggles so loudly while hiding that it is impossible to miss him, and he almost never counts all of the way to 5 or 10 depending on the day before excitedly racing to find me. However, it’s hard to turn him down when he requests to play :)

counting

can you spy a Jay Bird?

hiding- if I can’t see you, you can’t see me…

the excitement of being found

today I am

10 months old!

It is so hard to believe that our little man is 10 months old already; pretty soon he will be one- slow down time, slow down!

Stats-

weight and height I don’t know about- I forgot to take them

teeth- 3!!!  Much to my surprise two weekends ago I discovered a bottom tooth when I was feeling around in there.  I say surprise because both Jamie and I felt sure that the top ones would come first.  He got his first on a Friday, the second on a Sunday and then one of his top ones last Thursday.  There are two other top ones that are SO close to peeking through so I am sure that he will get more within the next month.  I will admit though that it does make me a little sad that he has them, he is looking less and less like a baby every day.

Things of Note-

-He is moving- big time!!  He is crawling super fast right now and getting everywhere he wants to be.  He is cruising with confidence around everything that he can pull up on but hasn’t yet gotten brave enough to stand on his own unassissted.  He walks pretty confidently after his push toys and loves that kind of “walking”.

-Eating is going pretty well.  While we haven’t moved on completely from purees we don’t feed him that many anymore.  He still loves anything that he can put in his own mouth and you can barely tell that he only has 3 (very small) teeth right now by the way he eats.  Some of his current favorites are watermelon (he eats big slices of it all of the way down to the rine and LOVES every bite), cheese in any form, peaches and pears (bite sized not pureed)

-Sleep is still pretty much the same as last month although his naps are shorter on some days. Honestly, I am pretty sure that it has everything to do with his teeth and nothing to do with his sleeping patterns.

-Waving.  Along with “Yay, Charlie” he has added waving to his repertoire of tricks.  None of which he does on command.  Right now he mostly waves when he is tired and wants to go to sleep.

-Getting Excited.  When this little guy gets excited he picks his legs up and bangs (when he is sitting) them on the ground and then collapses in half of the ground.  It’s really funny to watch (and also hard to describe) but it is how you know he is really enjoying something.

Likes-

-Bath time.  This is one of Charlie’s favorites times of day, aside from eating.  Throughout the day he frequently crawls into the bathroom and just stands at the tub squealing because he wants to get in so badly.  He will splash in there for hours if we would let him.  Just tonight Jamie had drained the tub completely and the little guy had a blast just crawling and sliding around in the wet tub.

-Sally.  Sally is one of Jay’s pull back cars and it is by far Charlie’s favorite.  I think it fits perfectly into his little hand and he will push it around the office, kitchen, family room for quite some time.  When he pushes it he makes a little car noise that I think he picked up from Jay, it’s really cute.  Sally also makes a  clicking noise if you push her backwards for awhile which Charlie loves, he usually smiles and squeals when she starts clicking.

-Peek a boo.  It’s still a favorite game when he gets out of the bath or really anytime during the day.

-Walking behind the lion.  This is probably Charlie’s favorite activity right now.  He smiles the whole time and is doing a great job really walking behind the toy.  The only problem we are having with this is that he has no idea how to turn and gets beyond frustrated when he runs into something and can’t go any further.  It’s really funny to watch (well it’s funny the first or second time) when he runs into something because he will keep walking in place at first, then the walking gradually turns into a foot stamping and when he realizes that he really is stuck he melts and I mean really melts- big huge puddle on the floor of crying mess.  He will continue screaming until someone comes to get him or until someone helps him “steer”.  Jay has been helping him steer although he doesn’t always go as slowly as Charlie needs him too and Charlie has to flop down onto his knees and walk as fast on his knees as he can to catch up.

-Jay.  Nothing about this has changed.  They are sweet to each other and make each other laugh like no one else can.

Dislikes-

-Being tired.  This pretty goes without saying.  When he’s tired he will tell you and you better start moving to get him into bed.  This little boys knows his bedtime routine (for naps and at night) and don’t you dare try to change it up on him because he will know and he won’t like it too much.

-Being hungry. He likes to eat so this is a no brainer.

-Not being able to steer his lion.  See above for details regarding the mondo fit that he has over not being able to steer.

So this pretty much sums up our little 10 month old.  He is the happiest baby I think I have ever met and he steals my heart daily.  Enjoy some of the most recent photos :)

projects

It’s safe to say that I usually have a project (or two or three) underway at any given time.  I like to create, I like to make things with my own two hands and I really enjoy making gifts for others.  Creating has a way of recharging me that is SO, SO necessary to me these days!  So it works out well for me that fall is here (well almost if you are being technical about it) and the holidays are coming!!  I am so excited to get our fall decorations down and to begin working full tilt on some of my holiday preparations and homemade gifts.  Would you be jealous if I told you that I have already started on my Christmas shopping? Well I have, so be jealous ;)

Holiday prep aside most recently my projects have been centered on updating our home; however, in-between painting and reupholstering furniture I was able to make a few gifts for some sweet little people.  I am lucky enough to have dear friends that have either just had babies or have little ones on the way. And I, like many others, am a sucker for all things tiny.  Here’s a taste of some things I have been working on.

Some sweet headbands for baby Elise. I mailed them to Mississippi right before hurricane Ivan :( here’s hoping they arrived ok. And if they haven’t arrived yet, sorry Nan for the spoiler…

My models… Charlie had no choice but Jay begged me to be able to wear the headband too and who am I to refuse ;) Heaven help me if we ever have a little girl because the list of sweet baby girl projects I have in my head is ever growing.

A hand stitched mustache onesie for a little one that has yet to make his appearance. Really looking forward to December when I can cuddle with this one.

I have a few other things in the works that I will show soon, that is if I can remember to get photos of them. I am going to try my hand at quilting and I have a few crochet projects in the works too- yay for fall and cool weather projects!

crazy normal part 2

a few more from the phone

a GREAT mail day- now to get started on some projects ;)

he’s giving kisses now

prepping to wash the alphabet mat

what, you don’t wash foam letters in your dishwasher?

he is not a huge fan of the gate

he couldn’t quite get his hat off when he was riding in the car and this is how he looked when I opened the door

how many pears can I fit in my mouth all at once

paper, scissors, glue

impressive coloring skills for a 2.5 year old if you ask me

crazy normal

My immediate response when people ask lately how we are/ how I am is “Crazy, good but crazy”. However, the more I think about this the more I realize we are less and less crazy and more and more normal.  You see, before we had any kiddos we had plenty of time to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted and honestly I am not all that sure what we did with our boat loads of free time.  After we had Jay we thought we were seriously crazy and had no free time and then we had Charlie (bringing the parent child ratio up to one-to-one) and actually had less free time.  If you would have asked me about our free time when we just had Jay I would have found it rather laughable; now I am not sure what we did with it all.  Perspective is funny that way…  All this to say that we are crazy or normal; however you want to think of it and here is a taste of our crazy brought to you by the ever present iPhone.

monkey toes

yes that is a towel and yes it is soaking wet :(

the perfect little boy entertainment

duplo towers- Jay is REALLY into building these days

squishy returns ;)

what- doesn’t everyone have a whale and a cow in their pantry?

photographer in the making

his photo

reading the Monster at the End of this Book on the ipad… he really didn’t like it at first but enjoyed it after he realized “the blue guy” (Grover) was the monster

watermelon- Jay eats EVERY last bite

I apparently haven’t dumped my phone photos in forever so instead of overloading you all in one day I will post the rest tomorrow- stay tuned for part two ;)

my predicament

So it’s no secret that I am a little (or a lot depending on the day) OCD. I like things to be in their place, I like the counters to be wiped down, I like things to be clean and I really, really like our floors to be clean. I am sad to admit that how clean our floors are directly affects my anxiety level- SO sad but oh so true. If the floors aren’t clean I start to itch. In my defense, I spend the majority of my days at home AND the majority of that time on the floor. I play with little people and we play on the floor. Cleaning the floors seems a simple enough task right? Not so much in our home… we have two lovable but VERY furry pets- one long haired kitty and a puppy that sheds. They don’t make it more difficult it just means that the upkeep needs to happen more frequently.

Which leads to my current predicament- our vacuum is on the fritz again and is currently on it’s way to Chicago via UPS. It’s on it’s way to be fixed (YAY!) but I have no idea when it will actually get back to us :( AHHHHHHH! I haven’t vacuumed in a week plus (almost two) when I usually vacuum at least twice a week- again, sad but true. I am starting to twitch and itch- BIG time!! Someone might have to send help soon, too bad there isn’t a pill for OCD…

That’s all for now- I am off to enjoy my day with my boys regardless of the twitching and itching…

sghetti head

I have been sitting here for probably over an hour and every time I have started to write, my brain turns to mush and I end up erasing all that I have written and starting over.  So while I intended on posting some of the most recent happenings I am not going to fight it anymore.  I am going to resign to the supremo case of sghetti head (don’t know what that is? ask my hubby) and call it a night.  I will try again tomorrow if I am feeling a little less mushy…

However, since I am physically unable to post without a photo here is one of the four of us in all of our duplo surrounded, crazy hair, not looking self portrait glory.

Night all…

still no maid

Remember these photos of a sweet little boy from a few years back?  Well these ones reminded me SO much of those!

We still haven’t actually sprung for a maid (darn those ‘real’ maids wanting to actually get paid for doing work) but these cuties do help to make laundry more fun!  And apparently I push our little ones around in dirty laundry quite often- please no judgment ;)

Happy Friday to ya!