Four Months- 4/30/12

To My Sweet Boy,

Today you are 4 months old!! Exactly 1/3 of a year. This past month has been really fun watching you grow and learn new things. It seems like everyday you learn a new trick and become more engaged and active and curious. I love to just sit and watch you play, it amazes me how you will just "know" how to do things without being shown or taught. You make us smile and laugh multiple times a day and whenever we take you out in public you seem to charm everyone you meet with your infectious open-mouth smile. Daddy and I always say how lucky we are to have such a good baby and talk excitedly about watching you grow into a running, jumping, talking little boy. We love you more and more everyday.

Some of your 4 month stats:

Weight/Length- Your 4 month doctor's appointment isn't until Thursday so we'll get the official update then but I weighed you on our scale this morning and you clocked in at a chunky 18 pounds!!

Eating- Eating still seems to be one of your favorite activities. We had to up your bottles to 5 1/2-6ozs at the request of your daycare teachers who were saying that you kept crying for more after each of your 5oz bottles. A lot of nights you will fall asleep before you are able to finish your bedtime bottle. You've also been wanting to eat more often in the middle of night, instead of the typical one time middle of the night feeding some nights I'm having to feed you twice, every 3 hours or so. I guess it's yet another growth spurt. We will talk to the doctor this week about whether or not to start you on solids or wait a little longer. You have been eyeballing our food a lot more lately which I've read is a sign you might be ready to start solids.

Sleep- This past month has been a challenge. You seem to have regressed back to your newborn sleep days. We still get a few good nights out of you with only one wakeup call but more often it seems you are waking up every 2-3 hours either just wanting your paci put back in or to be fed. That past two night especially, you will just cry even after being changed and fed and given the paci. I'm not sure if it's allergies that are affecting you since you always are rubbing your eyes (though you don't have pink eye) or if maybe you are starting to teeth. We plan to talk to the doctor about it at your next appointment.

Clothes- You've outgrown all your 0-3 months and most of your 3 month clothes. Your 3-6 months outfits are getting snug and you seem to fit best in 6 month or 6-9 month clothes and sleepers. I have a whole dresser full of clothes you've outgrown in the spare room already. I plan to save most of them however in case you one day have a little brother.

Diapers- You are currently in size 2 diapers but have pretty much outgrown those and we will be buying you some size 3's this week.

Appearance- Unfortunately it seems one of the few things you've seemed to have inherited from me is my side's tendency for eczema. The past month it seems to have gotten worse, primarily on your cheeks and forehead, elbows and back. We've cut back on your baths from every night to 2-3 times a week which seems to help a lot and started using some Eucerin Calming Lotion which also seems to help if applied multiple times a day. We're having to put mittens on you at times so you don't scratch your face up since the eczema is causing you to itch.

Personality- This month you've really started to want to "play" more. You LOVE your playmat and have gotten really good at grabbing things. You also now like little rattle toys and always want someone playing with or engaging with you. You also "talk" a LOT nowadays. You are constantly cooing and cahing and yelping especially when you lay on your back. You will have full conversations with yourself. I would love to know what you think you are saying. You are still a mama's boy and have started to get a little bit of the "stranger danger" around new people. You also still have your fussy period most nights between 6-8pm but so long as you get lots of naps during the day it cuts back on the fussiness.

Likes- (all the same likes from last month as well as the new ones added)
-You like riding in the car and will typically fall asleep.
-You like our stroller walks in the evening and also typically fall asleep.
-You like the t.v. and will always try to turn your head to see what's on t.v. even when we have you faced in the other direction. We put on some cartoons the other day and you were fascinated!
-You LOVE bathtime. Sometimes it's the only thing that will calm you when you are being fussy.
-You like being carried in the baby bjorn
-You love to lay on the floor and kick and flail about or lay under your activity mat
-You have a love/hate relationship with your swing, somedays you love it others not so much
-You love to lay on the changing table and will just smile and coo at me when I get you dressed.
-You love to chew on your fists (I suspect you will start teething soon)
-You love to "stand", you have very strong legs and can stand with very little support from us.

-You love your rattle toys

-You love to just people watch when we take you out in public

-You love the stuffed bunny that your great grandma gave you for Easter

-You like to sit in the bumbo seat but only for about 10 minutes at a time.

-You like when mommy sings and dances around while holding you.
Milestones-
-You tried some rice cereal in your bottle on Easter night but did not sleep well, we think it gave you gas.

-You celebrated your first Easter.

-You met your Uncle Keith for the first time .

-You went out to three different restaurants and were very well behaved each time.

-You can now pull your paci out and put it back in your mouth.

-You are holding onto toys now.

-You will now grab and pull at the toys that hang over you on the play mat.

-You are getting very close to rolling from your back to the your belly.

-You went on your first fishing adventure with mommy and daddy.

-You've started giggling (mainly at your daddy who you think is very silly)

Four Month Photo Shoot

More pictures from the past month:

You and your Great-Aunt Phoebe

Easter morning.

Watching "Sunday Morning"

With your Aunt Michelle

Mommy and Daddy love you Hunter!

My little girl is One!

Today is a very special day. It's my fur-daughter Moxie's first birthday!!! One year ago today our little bundle of fur and energy was born. She has brought so much joy and many many laughs since we brought her home last June. So this weekend we will be celebrating with a trip over to her grandma and grandpas house to play with her fur-cousins Jack and Lily, possibly a new fancy collar and toy to tear apart, and probably her own cheeseburger from McDonalds.

The day we brought her home.

Her first trip to the beach last 4th of July.

Our family photo while I was pregnant.

Moxie was in love with Hunter from day 1!

She's the perfect "mama dog".

Cuddling with her daddy and Hunter is one of her favorite things.

Who could resist that face?

Typical Moxie "love eyes"

Happy Birthday Moxie!

Fifty Shades of Disappointment

By now I'm sure most of you have heard of the newest, hottest book that seems to be making the rounds and has been dubbed "mommy p*rn" (btw I hate that). Yes I'm talking about Fifty Shades of Grey. Well I finally finished reading the first book of the series the other day and wanted to give my review since unlike most people I didn't really like it. *Gasp*!

First I should say this is the first real book I've read since having Hunter. Obviously I don't have much time for reading nowadays. Hell it takes me 4 days to read my Us Weekly's. But I downloaded it on my Kindle and would read while I pumped at work or at home. So having to read in little 15 minute increments here and there was a bit tough.

Anyways, back to the point, yeah not so in love with this book. For those that don't know, it's apparently some fan fiction based loosely off of Twilight and you can definitely see the similarities between the characters- an impossibly handsome, super rich, kinda dark and mysterious guy falls for an average looking, clumsy, naive, innocent girl and pulls her into his dark and twisty lifestyle. Only instead of vampires it's kinky sex.

First let's start with the sex, which let's be honest is the reason why I most people read this book. In the beginning I admit it's kinda hot but there are SO many sex scenes that towards the end I just started skimming them because they were not only redundant but unrealistic in my opinion. I was like "Really? They are doing it again?" Pretty much anytime they are in the same room with each other they have to be humping. And maybe I'm weird but the thought of having sex that many times in one day just sounds painful.

It was also incredibly unrealistic to me that this 21 year old *spoiler alert* virgin whose never even touched herself would suddenly give it up after only knowing this guy for a few days and not only that but be willing to do some of the stuff that he's into all because he's super good looking.

I also couldn't root for the couple. The main guy, Christian (love the name btw), is a super controlling, jealous, abusive, creepy, stalker with enough emotional baggage to fill an airport. So what if he's rich and good looking? And Ana is just irritating (if she mentioned her inner goddess one more time I was gonna lose it). Basically all the characteristics that I hated about Edward and Bella in Twilight these two possessed.

And finally the writing itself is just terrible and redundant. Ana says the same few expressions throughout the book and there just didn't seem to be much of a story other than all the sex.

I should say, it wasn't the worst book I've read and there were some parts I enjoyed and that kept my attention but I just don't see why people love this book so much and root for this couple? I heard that books 2 and 3 are much better so I was tempted to read them anyway but I don't want to waste what little reading time I have if it's just more of the same.

So tell me...have you read this book? Did you like it? Am I missing something about why this is so great?

A Lot Changes in a Year

One year ago this morning I anxiously woke up and went into the bathroom, pulled out the digital pregnancy test I had bought the day before and took it. When I finished I laid it on the counter next to the toilet, not looking at it, afraid to see the result, and proceeded to start my normal morning routine of feeding the cat and brushing my teeth. I still didn't expect a positive result despite the very faint second line I saw on the cheap tests I had bought in bulk online the two days leading up to this one. After all this was only the second time I had actually ovulated since getting off the pill in November (yeah I have wacky cycles) and we weren't seriously trying yet. But I was tired of trying to determine if there really was a second line on those other cheap tests and decided to just splurge on a digital. I wanted words not lines to tell me if my life was about to change forever.

And after five minutes I took a look and saw the one word that did in fact change my life forever and in the best most amazing way! I started to shake a bit and climbed into the shower and cried. I cried out of happiness- I was going to have a baby!! Cried out of relief- my life long fear that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant was apparently not true. And cried out of fear- Holy Shit I was going to have a baby! And now I have to tell my husband who had only VERY recently gotten on board with the whole maybe having a baby thing.

The whole day was so surreal and unbearably difficult to not tell anyone especially when one of my coworkers brought her 7 month old son in for a visit and my other coworker brought her 4 month old granddaughter in for a visit, both on the same day, both on the day I find out I'm expecting a baby. Talk about amazing coincidence. But I had to wait, I had to tell my husband first and I wanted it to be in person.

I ran out to Target at lunch and bought a baby themed picture frame and put a piece of paper inside that said "Picture to deliver in 9 months" and a onesie that said "I Love My Daddy" to give to him that night. When he got home I gave him the frame and after what felt like forever he looked at me and said "I don't get it" Pause "Are you pregnant?" Cue the smiles and hugs and tears. It was an amazing moment that I will never forget and truly one of the best days of my life.

One year ago today I saw this...

And one year later I got to see this...

My amazing baby boy who is exactly 16 weeks old today.

Hopes

My Sweet Hunter, from the moment I found out I was going to have a precious little boy I've had so many hopes and dreams for you.

I hope that you always follow your dreams, no matter what they may be.

I hope that you have compassion for others, no matter how different they are.

I hope that you find something that you are passionate about whether it be sports or music or art.

I hope that one of your passions includes fishing and that you and your father can spend many hours together sharing this common love.

I hope that you don't want to run off every weekend with your father to fish or hunt but also want to spend time with your dear old mom.

I hope that you continue to be the happy, smiley, sweet boy that you are now, even when you become a man.

I hope that you find someone that you love with all your heart and that they love you back just the same.

I hope that you treat this person as wonderfully as your father treats me.

I hope that you learn how to cook a nice meal, sew on a button and change a tire. There are just some things that every person should know how to do.

I hope that you have a love of animals and that you and your dog Moxie are best friends.

I hope that you grow up and look just like your daddy (because I think he's a pretty handsome dude) though I'm still crossing my fingers your eyes turn green like mine.

I hope that you are never too embarrassed to give your mama a hug in public, though I know this will probably be the case during your teenage years.

I hope that you always know how much your father and I love you.

Hunter's first fishing adventure

On Sunday evening the weather was beautiful and we decided to take Hunter on the first of what I'm sure will be many fishing adventures. Kristian carried him the baby bjorn through the woods and down to the water behind our house. Kristian pretty much goes fishing for at least 30 minutes every night (both a blessing and a curse of having a river in your backyard) so we decided to join him for a change.

Apparently Hunter (or maybe it was me) brought good luck because he caught the biggest bass to date out of that area while we were there. After he caught this fish I took over Baby Bjorn duty so that he could really focus and the whole having fishing hooks near my son made me nervous.

The fishing training has begun already.

Hunter checking out the smelly fish.

Hunter not really a fan of the smelly fish.

Hunter REALLY not a fan of the smelly fish.

 If he grows up and hates fishing I think it will break his father's heart!

Adding some color to my life

As I mentioned last week we recently had our living room and bedroom painted. After living in this house for over a year we had had enough all the white walls. The only two rooms that were painted were the dining room (which we painted right away since it's so small) and of course Hunter's room.

We decided to have these two rooms professionally painted for a few reasons:
-Having a 3 month old who insists on constant attention makes it's very hard to even clean let alone paint the house. Props go out to John and Sherry at Young House Love who are able to renovate their entire house with a toddler running around. That ain't happening at our place.

-Both rooms are fairly large, and the bedroom has high ceilings which makes painting more of a bitch to do.

-We wanted it to look really nice since these are two large rooms we spend a lot of time in and frankly neither of us are the best when it comes to painting.

Fortunately Kristian has a friend that is contractor/painter/man of many talents who cut us a great deal. He knocked out each room in a few hours and it was fun to come home after work for two days and see our new rooms.

Now for the colors. In the living room we went with Valspar Del Coronado Amber. I'll be honest I'm not a huge fan of the color. I wanted something lighter. Kristian pushed for something darker so we compromised on this shade. It was hard to pick a color for this room because we needed something that would work with the red of the dining room, so green was out (since it's not Christmas all year round), I thought blue would make the two rooms a bit too patriotic, orange would clash, we were already planning on gray for the bedroom and I thought beige would blend too much with the couches.

On it's own I like it but since the living room is open to the dining room which is a dark red I'm just not a fan of the two colors together. We plan to get some curtains for the smaller window and the sliding door that we are hoping will pull the two colors together better. Kristian LOVES it though. And I think the paint job itself is great, just need the color to grow on me.

Here is the wall that leads into the living room. The print that is hanging on the wall is actually where we got the color inspiration from.

This is looking into the living room from the dining room. You can see the dining room color in the mirror's reflection. We desperately need some curtains now. I also tried to angle the shot so that you don't see all the baby items on the floor. It's like daycare in here.

This is the wall to the rightside and you can see the couch against the wall. I do think the color makes the wall hangings pop more.

This is the wall to the leftside. Please pardon the laundry basket and other crap in the picture. That's basically how my house looks all the time at the moment.

Now for the bedroom, I've been pushing for gray walls since we moved in. I wanted a color that was neutral enough that we could easily switch out the bedding and curtains as often as we wanted and gray goes with most other colors. Right now we have a sage colored duvet but I'm thinking of switching it out for something in blue.

We used Valspar Woodlawn Colonial Gray and I LOOOOVE it!

I think our espresso colored furniture looks great against the new color.

You can see a bit of the current curtains that we have hanging which I no longer really like. I'm on the hunt for something with a bit more color in them since the curtains now blend into the walls a bit.

We also need some art for above the bed. We have an idea of what we want to put there, we just have to do it since it's a bit of a DIY project...thank you Pinterest for the inspiration.

Now we are saving our pennies so that we can have the stairs and upstairs hallway and basement painted. Again we could do it ourselves but since we're able to get a good deal we'd rather just have it done professionally. We have our hands pretty full raising our little human.

Odds and Ends

I'm much too tired to formulate a coherent blog post on any one particular topic so this will be bullet point style:

-After sleeping like shit for the past week and a half, Hunter finally got a 5 hour stretch of sleep last night. I'm hoping whatever the hell was waking him up every 2 hours is gone.

-Because of the lack of sleep I'm taking a vacation day from work tomorrow, dropping the kid off at daycare and coming home to SLEEP and rest and relax. Three things I haven't had much of the past 3 months.

-Since he seemed to be hungry a lot more at night and in an effort to get him to sleep longer we gave him a little bit of rice cereal in his bedtime bottle for two nights, it didn't work (he was still waking up every 2 hours), we suspect it made him gassy. Our daycare lady suggested Oatmeal instead. Last night (when he finally slept well again he had just gotten breast milk). I think I will hold off on anything else until he hits the 4 month mark.

-Kristian had to work late last night so I left work a little early to pick Hunter up from daycare (Kristian usually picks him up) and when I walked in I could hear him fussing in his bouncy chair. I walked over and got down in front of him and he stopped fussing and gave me the biggest open mouth smile. Those are the moments that melt me into a puddle of mommy mush.

-This morning when I dropped him off at daycare I laid him in his crib and he smiled at me, grabbed my finger and held on when I tried to leave. Those are the moments that break my mommy heart.

-In non-Hunter news we had our living room and bedroom painted last week (I plan to write a separate post on this when I get my brain capacity back). I LOVE the bedroom color, not so much a fan of the living room color but almost anything is better than boring white walls.

-I've started reading the much hyped about book Fifty Shades of Grey and the sex scenes are as racy as people say. I'm about a third of the way through the book and so far it's okay, I'm hoping it gets better. It doesn't help that I'm only able to read it in short increments, typically while I'm pumping.

-I got a raise yesterday! I haven't had one in a couple years but in this economy I know how lucky I am just to have a nice paying job let alone a raise and I do typically get 1-3 bonuses a year so not getting a raise didn't bother me too much but it's definitely a nice treat. With the way Hunter is outgrowing his clothes I need all the extra money I can get.

-Pinterest has become my ultimate time suck and not a day goes by when at some point I don't say to Kristian "so I saw this thing/idea/recipe on Pinterest today...."

Hunter's First Easter

Hunter had a very nice first Easter despite the fact that he has decided he's not really interested in sleeping at night again, sigh, and the fact that he's now a total mama's boy and wants to scream bloody murder if anyone other than me holds him. This wouldn't be so bad if I weren't raising a future NFL linebacker who at 3 months is already well into 6 months clothes and weighs something like 50 pounds (okay I'm exaggerating...a little). My biceps are growing by the day.

Easter Photo Bomb below:

"I have to look this cute to make up for the FIVE times I woke mommy up last night"

Yeah true story.

"Who need candy when you have fingers to chew on?"

"Hey Ma, where's the candy? Or better yet the boob milk? I can't eat these plastic thingys can I?"

"Get out of the way Moxie, this is MY photo shoot"

"Oh cool, a bunny!"

"Who cares if this bunny is bigger than me? We're BFF's"

Me and my chunky Monkey. He's wasn't happy about his preppy attire.

He's a camo boy like his daddy.

Hunter and Moxie's first Easter

Mommy's little dude

Hunter was NOT happy to be woken up after the car ride and gave everyone his best stink face.

"I am NOT the Easter Bunny fools"

Hunter was not won over by his Great-Uncle Stanley's charm. (He and Hunter share the same birthday which is pretty cool)

Family photo

Handsome like his daddy

Three Generations + one wiener dog

"Hey Great Grandma look, I can stick my whole fist in my mouth"

It's amazing to me that last Easter was the weekend after I found out I was pregnant and since we didn't want to tell anyone yet I was paranoid the whole time that someone would figure it out (especially when I turned down the wine that I would always drink at family events) and here we are a year later with our little dude. Crazy how fast time flies.