hard to say goodbye

it was a whirlwind weekend, but we had a great time. it was definitely hard saying goodbye to everyone, and to the house that grady and i got married at. since grana and grampa are moving to san antonio VERY soon, this was our last trip to their house in nc.

before we hopped in the car to head back home, grampa had to also show the dude his fish pond. if you look closely in the top right hand photo you can see two of his HUGE koi. again, the dude was mesmerised. he couldn't stop looking at the fish.

good bye nc,

good bye tree we got married under,

good bye road trips to grana and grampa's...

...we're going to be jet setters now!

cuckoo

of course before we left this morning, grampa had to show the dude the awesomeness that is the cuckoo clock!

he was completely mesmerised.

thinking about it!

he's getting the motions! won't be too much longer!

four generation family dinner

it's not very often you get four generations at the table!

of course the little dude provided some table side entertainment!

great grandma and great grandpa

we were so lucky that our trip to see grana and grampa also involved a visit from great grandma and great grandpa! we couldn't have planned that one more perfectly. we wish we could have visited for longer, but we were happy we got to see them before they drove back to indiana. and thank you for the cute outfit, awesome book with matching stuffed llama and the coolest new truck toy!

it's a shame that great grandma doesn't like babies! :)

kicker

during one of the wind storms that grana and grampa had this great pink ball happened to blow under some of their trees. between grampa and i, we were able to get the ball out and cleaned off. the dude LOVED it. here he is showing grana his new found kicking abilities! yes...the dude is very ambidextrous and uses his feet whenever possible to move things, push things, feel things, etc.

grana and grampa's for the weekend

i've been playing a little bit of catch-up lately with my blog. it's been just somewhat busy around here lately! sorry!

well this weekend we headed down to grana and grampa's. of course when we woke up this morning to drive down graham woke up with a low-grade fever. gave him some tylenol and that seemed to do the trick. he, again, was an AWESOME traveler. he slept for probably a good 3-3.5 hours, ate a bottle on the go, played with some toys and then just kind of hung out. not a bad 6.5 hour drive! although, we were all ready to get out of the car by the time we got there.

the little dude had lots of fun playing with grana and grampa!!! we found out this weekend that grampa likes to put things on the dudes head. :)

(oh, by the way...look at those chunkamunkers...aka chunky legs!!!!)

before bedtime, the little dude sat with grana and read a story. i think this was the first time he actually sat and listened to the whole book instead of just wanting to turn the pages or eat the book. must be because of grana's expert story reading skills!

seven months!!!

my little dude is somehow seven months old today! how did this happen?

and let me tell you, you are definitely becoming one cute little dude!

no well visits this month, so we're not sure what your stats are. but i know for sure you're growing!! here's what you've been up to this past month:

- wearing size 3 diapers...thinking we might need to switch to 4's very soon!

- still wearing 6-9 month clothes.

- totally transitioned to formula (sniffle!).

- still gobbling up 1/3C of cereal twice a day and getting 2oz of fruit and 2oz of veggies everyday. (i'm proud to say i'm still making all his food too. makes me feel good that i know what's going into him!)

- LOVES pears and sweet potatoes

- likes apples and peas

- has recently started rolling over to your tummy at night after i place you in your crib on your back.

- starting to make the motions of crawling, but no movement yet. although you can spin yourself in a circle on the floor when you're on your tummy.

- would rather be sitting on your own than reclining or laying down. no assistance needed with the sitting either!!!

- uses the BIG big boy bathtub!

grampa

is the bestest!!

the little dude has one major budah belly going on! must be from grampa's expert bottling skills!

so big!

grammie came over to visit and i snapped this one of the dude STANDING with almost no support!!! little dude has learned to lean on his belly and stand up on his own. how did this happen?!

even mojo can't figure it out!!

:)

sippy cup

so today was the dude's first experience with a sippy cup. i've been wanting to give him the option of drinking water with dinner for awhile, and since grana and grampa bought his first sippy cup and they are in town...i thought what better day than today!

i think he may have gotten a couple sips, but mainly he was interested in rubbing his gums on the sippy part! silly dude!

heart

happy anniversary hun!

can't believe it's been four years already!

blocks

who knew that blocks could be so fun. well and when 'melissa and doug' make such colorful and silly ones, who can resist!! i mean who wouldn't love a block with a turtle wearing a tie while sticking his tongue out! :) the whole set of blocks is 3' high, but daddy just stacked some of them. enough to capture the attention of our little dude.

and can i just mention how proud we are of our little dude. he is sitting up all on his own for LONG periods of time now. he'll teeter back and forth sometimes and he uses his balance to catch himself. we even got a comment from one of the teachers at school that she was surprised to hear how young he was and how well he did sitting up. go dude!!

shutter bug

so it turns out the little dude is a little shutter bug. take the camera out and point it at him and he comes to life!!!



i call this collage our 'ode to blue steel!'
(zoolander with ben stiller....great movie!)

first mother's day

wow! today is my first of many mother's day. such a special day for me. i love my son. i love my husband. i love being a mom. it's funny how you don't realize how incomplete you are before having a child of your own. now that the dude is in my life i have something to really live for.

you don't care that you've only had 4 hours of sleep. seeing his face first thing in the morning is priceless and makes everything else disappear. you don't care if you've had a bad day at home, work, etc. the minute you walk into that room and you see your baby smile ear to ear at you, your heart melts. the things you thought would gross you out (throw up, blowouts, etc) now make you laugh. and your day seems to be consumed with poop....and that's okay!

i will do everything in my power to do the best for him and hope that someday he'll do the same for his family. i can't wait to watch you grow up into a little man (not too quickly though!!) of your own.



i love you dude.

pre-mothers day celebration

thank you to miss amber and mr bruce for hosting a little pre-mothers day cookout. i think it's safe to say everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves! these pics were snapped shortly after we walked back to the murrays. as you can see, the kids were WORN out!!



and it was one big sleepover since miss jodi, mojo, grady, myself and the dude spent the night. so great! mojo enjoyed sleeping with criostoir and bella, and then migrated to miss jodi's bed with yoda.

big boy

i had been hearing from school how all the teachers were impressed that the little dude held his bottle by himself (not propped up on a blanket or anything), but i had never seen it until...today! having him reclined in his high chair he was able to easily hold onto his bottle and feed himself. my goodness...where did my helpless little baby go?! :)

such a big boy now!

must have monday

so first i have to pat myself on the back before i get into my must have monday for this week.

*pat* for making it 6 months exclusively breastfeeding! *pat*

the goal i set was 6 months, and i met it to-the-day! to me this was a huge accomplishment. i wasn't sure how things were going to work out with pumping at work. i have been very diligent though. twice a day i close my office door (thank goodness i have an office) and hang a 'do not enter' sign that i made on my door (because, yes, i had someone walk in on me even with my door closed...embarrassing!!) and away we go!

right around the 5.5 month mark though i wasn't getting as much as usual and had to start dipping into my frozen stash. then at exactly 6 months i ran out of frozen and had to send in his first formula bottle to daycare! he didn't seem to mind it at all (phew!). not being able to keep up with his demands has led me to send in two bottles of each, which i still think is pretty good. but making formula bottles in the individual bottles is kind of a pain in the neck.

unless you have my must have monday!!!

dr. brown's formula mixing pitcher!!!

i have to give a quick thanks to miss lisa for telling me about this wonderful contraption! no more shaking individual bottles. all you have to do is put in the amount of water and formula you need in the pitcher, then move the handle up and down and the formula is mixed perfectly! then you just pour that into your bottles and you're done. LOVE it!!

i end up hand washing mine since we don't run the dishwasher every night, but all the parts are dishwasher safe. all the parts are BPA free too. if you're using any type of formula and want a couple minutes back in your day i would HIGHLY recommend getting one of these. at $15 you really can't go wrong!

sweet potatoes

today was the dude's first taste of 'real food!' we decided to start with sweet potatoes. i mean who doesn't love sweet potatoes (besides grady!)!! seems like the dude loves them just as much as mommy!

and thank you thank you thank you to miss meena and mrs. khalili for the AWESOME babycook steamer/blender! it was SO easy to make these sweet potatoes for the dude and i felt so good giving it to him knowing that there was nothing but good ol veggies in there.