Quiet Books, Post 2!

The quiet books are coming along nicely.  This has been a really fun project. More than I set out to do, but still fun.  I already have a lot of ideas for add-on pages for John's book, but I know I need to finish my own contributing pages first! (I have about 12 more at varying degrees of completeness.)

L: Mirror with flap, and a vinyl window for a picture with a flap. R: Xylophone for imaginary music play.

L: Beads on a String for counting, R: ribbon lion

L: Peek-a-boo animals. R: Baseball glove (insert hand)

L: Learn to tell time. R: Under the Sea (sliding fish)

L: Apple Picking  R: Sensory Octopus.

I have to hand it to these moms.  For many of them, this was way out of their crafting comfort zone, and I am so proud of them for knocking these out of the ballpark!!! And all of the moms either had a second kid this year, their first kid last year, or are currently pregnant.  So we are all pretty tired!!!  Hopefully these will afford us a nap. :)  I can't wait to get John's put together and see what he thinks.  So far when I just show him one page, he plays with it for 10 seconds then tries to fold it or eat it.  In true book form, I hope it will be a little easier to interact with.

9 Months

So John is 9 months later this month and I thought I'd beat the 9 month post for once. I wanted to write about travel and food but I'll get these updates out of the way first.

We've gone to our first park now. "John. Hey John. Do not put that in your mouth! Look at Mommy for the camera!"

Then this happened. Oh well. 

John continues to be extremely mobile, here is crawls under the chair and then pushes it around. Very entertaining.  Praise God he has entertained himself very well this week. Not long ago he required constant interaction. Now I can pretty much lay on the floor and doze at 6am while he plays with his toys while I earnestly pray he doesn't fall on anything if I fall asleep.

 While he is playing well, he is napping, well, slightly worse.  Kiddo does NOT want to go to sleep!!! Major angry screaming (I know, a sign of being tired) but no matter when we put him down. Also, up to 3 wakeups a night after being down to only a dream feed.  Sigh. But he squeezed out his second tooth and now is drooling like a crazy man, so maybe we're working on the top ones now.

My "baby" barely fits on my lap for pictures anymore. I used to prop him up on my knees in the recliner and read, play, photograph, etc with him - now he takes up all the space and is huge! I had to hold the camera way back to even get this shot.

Sweaty boy can really rock the curls.

John is also waving, knows his way around the house (translation: crawls down the hallway and around the corner to my office and bangs on the door if I am inside.) He says Adada and Tsstsstss. He loves all food, lately especially chicken, watermelon and strawberries.

Life Happening

Well, I'm ridiculously late on the 8 month update as well. And I put him in the same onesie as 7 month. Oops.

Someone loves crawling "freestyle" after bath time.

Finally met Uncle Nathan

I hated my road trip with John (only hated the driving) but I love the Central Coast in the spring. Gorgeous.

First Swim Lesson...must take more pictures next time!

First wagon ride...

Introducing backyard water play, aka, how to wear out your child to get them to nap. Also known as, how wet can you get with 2 cups of water?

Not impressed with Easter or a fake chocolate bunny.

Mildly interested in bubbles.

John is 17 pounds and described by many as "having a lot of energy." He crawls, pulls up on everything, loves to be tickled and play peek-a-boo, and the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song.

Quiet book update soon!

Then and Now

I can't believe how fast this little guy is growing. I was scrolling through my instagram feed and seeing our sleep training chronicles (evidenced via many pictures of an awake boy) and realizing how long ago that was.  We don't have a total schedule going, but we have perhaps 4 different possibly day schedules that seem to shake out depending on wake time and length of first nap.  

So here are little baby fingers within the first month.

 Here are chubby 7 month fingers dirty from crawling in the backyard.

 One month old, chilling on his play mat.

 7 months old, can't keep him on the play mat! And chubby legs for days!

 Case in point - Popeye escapes the blanket.

 We're trying out some cup training. What better place than the bathtub? With clean water of course.

 Blinked.

 Happy bathtime boy!  Zach usually gives the bath and usually climbs in. John wants to stand in the tub all.the.time. so this seems to be the best way to keep him safe for now.

Nothing special

Non-baby topics? Does anyone even read this anymore except for John updates? Who knows. I do know that I love reading all sorts of updates from other friends, from kid stories, hearing about favorite products, and thoughts from the heart.  So I'm challenging myself to write something more about myself or something interesting.





This is a busy time for us. Well, mostly Zach. His senior project is shooting their film at the end of the month and into May. He is the Assistant Director so he has a lot of pre-production responsibilities organizing the 6 days of filming.  Plus there are 3 other senior projects in full swing as well and everyone is helping on the other projects as well.  This makes for long weekend days away working on sets and lots of Mommy-John time on weekends. (Oops, I just talked about the baby.)  I don't mind this time since I'm back to working full time and I don't frequently get full days with John. But I find myself cramming activities and chores into our time together, at the expense of reading books and tickles.  I wonder if he likes playing with the babysitters (15 hours/week) more than me since they devote all of his waking time to him.

I was feeling pretty low last week, no real reason why, probably mostly stress.  After the weekend with John and visiting some friends, I felt a lot better.

At a church work day Saturday.

I did a trial box from Citrus Lane. Its a company/website that sends you a little box of baby treats monthly. There was a deal and I was able to get a trial box for $9.  However, the site is devoted to showing you awesome baby products (yay) but it makes me think I need all of those things (not yay.)  It would be so easy to spend so much on unnecessary things!  I appreciate the glimpse I've had into this website (and I'm excited about my box) but I'm trying to remember that we don't need more things!!!  Already during baby proofing I fill up a bag of excess stuff for Goodwill every week. Ironically, many of them trinkets, vases, and other decorative items originally bought at Goodwill.

Prayer. We are hoping to dedicate John on Mother's Day (or Father's Day) and we have to do some prep work including reading "Shepherding a Child's Heart." I'm excited to start it after hearing good things from several friends.  I've been praying a lot - when I am at my wits end with a crying baby in the high chair, a crying baby not wanting to go back to bed, a whiny baby I am tired of, and ideally during happier times as well [put down the ipad and pray for John during nursing.] Mostly I pray that we are parents enough for John. God gave him to us to watch, to teach, to love - so he must have known we can do it (with His help!)  We DO have enough strength to sway and shush a teething baby 5 more minutes. We DO have enough strength to pick up his spoon, thrown to the ground, again.  This has really helped my attitude when times have been hard.  Which is not super frequent - John really is a joy - but if you consider my time with him during the week is 6a-8a (I'm tired) and 5p-7p (dinner, bath, nighttime and he is cranky) - is not the best time for either of us.  I am so grateful of a job I can work from home so I can fit in some snuggles and books during lunchtime. And I'm thankful that most of those working hours, John can be cared for by Zach.

So much for not talking about the baby.  I feel like I might have had some other thoughts but now sitting here at the computer I am drawing a blank.

How our photo shoots go

Yesterday John was wearing a cute coordinating outfit. (Love hand me downs!) So this of course requires a good picture, right? (Future additional kids: sorry there won't be any of these of you.) So here is how our photo shoots usually go down. My general thought process is in the captions.

Look tired much? 7am is too early for you? Also - background: horrific.

Grab closes blanket and drape over couch. reposition squirmy baby. Again. And Again. Chair is still showing.

Open the blinds and get the kid to sit. Blanket still looks horrible.

But if you crop a lot, you can get an OK picture.

Still not the best. Wipe off drool and snot. Then I put pillows on the couch so the back blanket would go higher.  Since there were pool noodles right there (planned baby proofing tools) I also sat him on top of those for a little height.

Final product! Still a little bunchy but with enough high pitched random noises we can get a big smile.

7 months has already passed us by!

Well, the 7 month mark is nearly half past by the time I got around to posting these.  Someone was insistent on crawling around during his 7 month official picture so I'll have to post that later.

As I've mentioned on Instagram, "Wagon Rides" (and any form of movement) are a big hit in this house.

 And one more because he still looks like my little baby boy here:

 Then a few minutes later getting horsey bounces on my knees...smile much?

 He may whine a lot but when he is happy (or tired) he laughs really hard!!!

 Here is is pretty proud of his Pinterest Fail shamrock footprint art. In his Pinterest Onesie! (Shower gift/craft.)

 Chub Chub Chub

 Favorite hangout spot - fine by me!

 Exploring the backyard...

 Why is that shelf empty? Because who is that standing up there??  John is in the phase where he stands up at everything but can't sit down and just turns to move to the next thing and -- crash. I've caught him most of the time...

What else is up this month? Well, he loves the Twinkle Twinkle song (sung by me or the iPad - instant calming), yogurt, back scratches, being tickled, bath time, and still loves being outside (2nd instant calming technique!)  He also really likes his babysitters (as long as I don't interrupt a lot) which is a great blessing!  He recognizes the baby sign for "milk" and sometimes "all done" but hasn't repeated them yet.  He is usually pretty quiet still so I am trying to get him to babble more. He uses his left hand a LOT - like equally or more than his right. Will he be a lefty like his Daddy???  Time will tell!  This is a fun age - but definitely a handful!