Fall Baby and Ears Are Always a Good Idea

I love fall for all the reasons you probably do including:

the brilliant colors

the perfect sweater weather

hot chocolate

the magical feeling of the world changing

but my most favorite thing about cooler weather is the hats.

 i love hats. and baby hats are no exception.  

and ears are a must on the baby hats. 

They make the sight of the cute baby into "oh-my-goodness-was-that-drool-that-just-landing-on-my-lap-cute."

Just wait. You may want to invest in some sort of drool catching device- I would suggest a towel maybe. 

"All-By-Myself" look. He does this when he thinks he is doing something important. i love it.

Those cheeks- (yes this might be a caption that gets repeated as often as necessary).

perfection captured. 

I've never seen cuter baby hands in my whole life. So precious.

pretty leaf huh grant?

yah, let me have a closer look.

Tricked ya! I was planning on eating it the whole time.

*** there were no actual leafs eaten in the process of taking these pictures.

Fall

I love fall.

"Cute Bum"

Our friend's little girl the other week said that when we were changing his diaper and we just laugh and laugh about it. Now whenever we change his diaper, we say it in a high pitched little voice- it's just so funny to us.

It has been the cutest thing seeing all these young kids adore our baby. It has surprised me, however, that most of these children are little boys around the ages of 8-12.

I remember visiting my friend's family and her little brother spying on baby G and whispering to his parents how cute he was and that he wanted to look closer. So his dad would bring him over to me and the baby and the little boy would just stare shyly but then they would walk away and the boy would say things like, "I hope I have a baby as cute as THAT ONE".

Then, when we taught primary we had one boy in our class, One rowdy, crazy shoot-pretend-guns-while-laughing-hysterically-hide-under-chair-when-can-we-play-games kind of boy. Yah, one of those boys. When I let the kids take turns holding the baby and his turn came, he sat there and stared at the baby and held him so gently and lovingly. He was so sweet- I couldn't believe the transformation this baby had on this boy.

Randomly, in church most often, some young boy will come up to the baby. It's not little girls, it's the little boys. They come up and say something to the effect of, "He's so cute" then just stand there....staring. It's really sweet that these young boys are drawn to a little baby though- makes me think that boys are more nurturing by nature than we give them credit for.

Well, last sunday was our second week in our new ward and we sat next to a little 12 year old boy. He was making funny faces at baby and then let him have his pencil (yikes- I saved both G's eyeballs from being poked out by himself), then this little boy drew a picture. I asked him what he was going to do with this awesome picture and he shrugged his shoulders and I practically begged him to keep it. I love it so much- it captures everything so perfectly:

He's got the chubby cheeks, two front teeth, hair sticking straight up, awesome eyebrows- everything. I love this picture so much.

Friends and the Babies Meet!

Man, these last couple weeks have been so so so so fun. It's like I've been living in a cave for the past 5 months and all of a sudden everyday there was something or someone fun happening. And Jay made me go to things that would have been easy to not go to just because working the baby schedule into social life can get tricky sometimes.

One of these amazing fun things was when my friend Rika and her baby Macks came out and visited us for a bit. Remember when we were both pregnant? Now our babies are around 6 months and they just had to meet.

our cute baby bellies!

We were able to chat and catch up a bit and then we headed to the pumpkin patch (of course our babies were tired and had about enough by then) but that's when I took some pictures. They were just so darn cute together- they would hold hands sometimes and drool on each other. Great times.

Fattest scarecrow I've ever seen. 

They were so tired. Look how cute G's Erklness is. ha ha.

Just snackin on the dead corn stalks. 

Macks was so cute- it was so weird because everything she would do would be exactly how G would do it- it was like G in a different body! She was so fun.

Got them both looking! Miracles do happen.

There's a smile!

And we didn't get any pictures together Rika!!! Hello! Okay, next time.

Epic Fail- Our Family Outing

We planned an awesome hike today.

Jay has been working and working and working. A LOT. I never even see the guy anymore. He's got crazy classes going on including Calc 2 and Physics and he's still working his part-time meter reading job. I don't know how he is doing it. I know he needs a break once in a while and we said that Saturday would be our day to go and do something fun together- as a family! I knew just the thing!!!!


The plan:

Drive to sundance 5-5:30
Start on trail to Stewart Falls 5:30, baby sleeping in the Ergo carrier (he loves to sleep in there).
See beautiful fall trees, enjoy brisk fall air and see beautiful waterfall. 5:30-6:00
Leisurely make our way back to car laughing and frolicking in the bright colored leaves as we take pictures and capture our magical happiness. 6:00-6:30.
Drive back home refreshed and energized with awesome pictures of our day out in the canyon together as a family.

What ended up happening:

Where is it? Oh, we need to google map it. Does that map make sense? There should be signs once we get up there right- okay well it gets dark at 6:45 so we better just go.
Grab bunch of snacks, diapers, jackets, water bottles, etc. Stuff in backpack- great.
Drive to canyon 5-5:30
Get lost...5:30-6:00
Pull over at random cabin parking lot that hopefully nobody comes out of while I feed the baby in the car right in front of a hot tub. 6:00
Frustrated, knowing it's going to be too dark now, we start heading back promising each other we will look next weekend. What a wasted drive.
Baby starts screaming his head off- he should be sleeping right now.
I climb over the seat into the back while Jay stays on the narrow dirt road so I can try to tell the baby nobody was murdered. I soothe and "comfort" baby who only manages to scream louder. He screams and stares at me with eyes saying, "Why are you not helping me? I thought you loved me????!!!"
6:00-6:30 Screaming, teary child, mother with a broken heart that I can't hold him in the car.
6:30 pull over and put take baby out of car-seat  *BURP*. crying stops. shouldn't I know the "burp cry" by now? why didn't I know that he was in pain. guilt for being a horrible mother.
7 pm get home exhausted and overwhelmed. Put way too tired baby down for a nap knowing that going for a nap right now means he won't go to bed at 8 and his sleeping schedule is totally messed up.
Family frustrated. No happy memories, no fun. Plain old tired exhausting, total misery.

EPIC FAIL.


On a good note, because who wants to end on that depressing spell?:


 I can eat chocolate again!!!! I ate a brownie AND some chocolate chip cookies on Friday night and the baby was FINE!!!!  Usually he can't sleep because of the pain his stomach is in but he was completely and totally fine. He actually only woke up twice Friday night to eat and barely ate anything and went right back to sleep. How can I be depressed now?

I can have chocolate again.

Just the word "chocolate" swimming in my thoughts soothes my soul. I feel better already.

Just try it: just say the word "chocolate".

Good right?

Five Months and Wha Wha What?!!!

Talking to momma 

Stats: 21 pounds, 6 ounces
         27 inches long
Clothing size:  I just bought him a couple of shirts that are 18 months and 2T. We have to roll up the long sleeves but the body fits nicely.

Updates:
He is growing out of his infant carseat! We are going to try getting a convertible one coming up here in the next week hopefully. Seriously didn't think I would run into this problem so soon.

His bottom two teeth cut through!!!! Oh my goodness, his smile was already cute and I was like "uh-uh it is not going to ever get cuter than that gumminess" but I gotta say I love those two little teeth. We have been trying "all natural" ways of dealing with the pain- my finger massaging his gums works really wll- it hurts for a minute but after I'm done, he seems to calm down really fast- within 10 minutes. Frozen breast milk seems to be the fave though- I put it in muslin cloth and crush it up and he sucks on the cloth and he already likes milk so having it cold I think helps numb it up.  I don't know though- I'm going to have to find some more ideas because I think there are some more here that are coming soon- we woke up every hour last night to crying baby. Like I said though, just massaging them and frozen milk seem to be helping within 10 minutes so I'm going to keep on doing that along with trying other things.

He does a lot with his lips now- *SMACK!* and sucking them into his mouth.

Here is the "Wha, wha, what" part of my post title:
You are not going to believe this. I almost don't believe it as I'm sitting here typing this. But I knew it in the moment and I knew that baby G knew it and I just can't pretend like it didn't happen:

So...I've been teaching G some sign language: "Milk", "More", and "All Done" along with some other random ones that I learn that I think could be useful to him. Anyway so usually he is nursing on only one side and I always offer the other side, saying "More?" and signing it to him. When he refuses (which he almost always does) I say, "Okay, all done" with the sign to that.

Now because he's been teething I have been letting him nurse to sleep. So on October 12th, 2012, Friday of last week, I was nursing him to sleep. I kept trying to sneakily unlatch him and did a couple of times only to have him root for more comfort. Okay, I thought, he needs it probably because of his poor gums hurting. But on the third time unlatching him I thought he just needs to go to sleep so I put the comfort away. He starts rooting and realizes there is clothing in between his mouth and the comfort he is seeking. Immediately he opens his, what I thought, sleepy eyes, locks his eyes to mine and makes a noise, a noise that he is clearly trying to convey a message to me. It was a simple, clear noise that actually sounded, as clear as daylight, like the word "More."

Shock, bewilderment, amazement, confusion and disbelief. Did he just say...how did he... his first word?...no...

All I can do is act. I take it back out again and stare down at my baby that just talked to me. Not only did he say a word that meant what he wanted, but he said it in such a manner to remove any doubt I would have had that it was just a coincidence  Just have it. I just rocked and let this process. He said it. He said more. I can't believe that was his first word.

Genius baby.

With my beautiful Grandmother

So other than my baby looks like a 1 year old and is already talking to me like he's a little person and has teeth and everything, he isn't walking yet- no worries. He hasn't started solids although I let him try a banana and a pinapple one day which he LOVED but I'm reading this book about Baby Led Weaning which I absolutely love and the thing I am waiting for is him to reach out for the food- I'm so impatient- I just want him to discover all these amazing flavors- which I guess he gets flavors from my milk but I don't know I'm just so excited about it.

He's not jumping yet, but he's getting that he can turn and move around in the johnny jumpup

.

Yes, his hair is still sticking up like that. It's his trademark.

Rolling over more consistently now. One time I put him down and immediately over he goes. From front to back. He's tried from back to front but those chubby legs look heavy to lift ha ha.

Mandi and Patrick Preview

My sister-in-law in getting married!!! Yay! And her fiance is awesome, just like her.

Mandi, you are beautiful and thanks for letting me practice!!! It was soooooo fun and you guys are just adorable.

Here's a goofy one from the shoot:

This is the one to re-create every year as you get older, right?

They are such a handsome couple.

Congrats Mandi, we are excited for the big day!!!!!

New Trick! (4 Month Video)

Sittin' Baby

Strollin'

We love going on our daily walks!

Jay joins us when he can! We love it when he comes with us!!!

Hippo Hat!

Dad is so entertaining!

Dad sure makes G happy!

Enjoying the remaining of the warm weather.

This park is my favorite park ever! There is a duck pond and vast green grassy areas!

It has these picnic areas with shady vines- it is beautiful.

huge trees make it feel out of the city

Feeling the grass- he looks like a little angel baby huh?

His eye shape is so neat- I love those dark beautiful eyes.