Those Penny Boys

2012: Week Three

2012-01-28T17:12:00.000-05:00

I didn't do so great for week 3...oh well. Here's what we were up to:

Trying to get Cole to take a sippy cup. He's not a fan.

My baby prefers to fall asleep with his bottle.

The boys got out their chairs to watch tv one morning. So sweet.

I definitely took a ton more pictures last week, so the week 4 update will be big!

2012: Week Two

2012-01-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

We had a pretty standard week last week...not too much to tell. Joel was out of town at a conference so we just stuck to our normal routines of school, gym and home. I wasn't feeling great towards the end of the week, so we were very glad to have Daddy home on Friday afternoon!

I put the boys in these matching jammies one afternoon and Nate wanted to play in Cole's crib.

Cole's new cheesy face.

The boys got these fun chef hats from their Aunt Megan & Uncle Dion. This monogram loving momma approves and so do they!

Cole is still loving his jumpy.

Nate has become quite the navigator, telling me which way to go to various destinations. He also gets rather annoyed when he thinks I'm going the wrong way. This is getting old fast!

2012: Week One

2012-01-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends and happy 2012!

Last year my blogging was spotty at best, so I am going to try a new approach this year. I'll (try to) post once a week, recapping the previous week...mostly with pictures. As always we keep our pictures uploaded on our SmugMug account.

Here is how we started off our year!

We broke out our party hats to celebrate the New Year (at 7pm!) Nate loved running around yelling "party hats!" Cole wasn't a fan of wearing his hat.

Cole is cruising everywhere, but not walking yet. He is pulling up and wanting to climb stairs, so security measures have been heightened around here.

Late last year I joined a gym. It has been great for everyone! Nate and Cole love the childcare (and the providers think Cole is especially adorable!) This is my "before" shot for January. Working on these last 10 pre-baby pounds!

Nate went to his friend Marshall's birthday party at the "Fire Nation" as Nate calls it. He did so great with the fireman, even giving him a hug.

I think he was a little disappointed he wasn't going on a ride along...he jumped up in the fire truck and didn't move!

Nate update!

2011-10-09T15:46:00.000-04:00

Nate is two and a half now and continues to do more and more every day. His verbal skills have really taken off and he is mastering his two word sentences and is constantly mimicking what we say.

He also loves singing! I think the longest string of words he says is "Old McDonald had a farm." He is ALWAYS asking to sing it. Other favorites are Itsy, Bitsy Spider, Jesus Loves Me and Wheels on the Bus. He has also started requesting "The Baby Song" (Rock a Bye Baby) and will climb in your lap and want you to rock him and sing. We have no idea where this came from as it isn't something we ever did, but it's too adorable not to give in. He will also go on to request "The Daddy Song" or "The Mommy Song" and want you to fill in other names. This has gone on through several family members, even Sammy.

Nate is getting better about eating different foods and we are also working harder on eating meals as a family and not just giving in to his food requests (otherwise he would live off of granola bars and goldfish.)

Being a rambunctious 2 year old we are definitely having some battles of wills and starting to figure out what kinds of discipline are going to work best for us. For weeks we were having lots of sleep time issues after we took his pacifier away. He will take off his pajamas and destroy his room at times, but we have come up with ways to combat all of these behaviors. Let me tell you, it is no fun to find your toddler naked and sitting on top of his (tall) dresser when you got to get him up in the morning.

Nate enjoys school and seeing his friends at church. He is always very excited to leave the house! He is also so sweet with Cole and I know they are going to be good friends! Nate will say "What's wrong, Cole?" when he's crying and will sometimes help put Cole to bed, saying "Night Night, Cole. Sweet Dreams"

His favorite playtime activities include stacking blocks, playing with his animals and his Thomas "cuter" (computer). That was a great consignment sale find and has letter and number games that he loves. As for tv shows he is more into Nick Junior shows like Yo Gabba Gabba and Backyardigans but still also loves Caillou.

Cole: 9 months!

2011-10-09T15:28:00.000-04:00

Cole is 9 months old! He has done an awesome job of not going up too fast for Mommy (though I was literally screaming and crying this past weekend when he was trying to pull up!)

He is a healthy boy, weighing in at 19 pounds 10 ounces (50%) and standing 28 inches tall (25-50%). He continues to be fitting into the same clothes Nate wore during the same seasons, which has been so nice! I recently unpacked all of the 12 month clothes and he is starting to move into those.

For such a fussy infant, Cole rarely fusses now. He is awesome at bedtime and really just wants to be put in his crib and he'll go right to sleep. When he wakes up he doesn't cry and often just plays and talks to himself! Truthfully he cries the most when he is trying to get Sammy to "play" with him and Sammy isn't having it. He can make quite the sad face at that! It can be hard to coax a smile out of him at times and he has a habit of sucking on his bottom lip...it's pretty cute.

He loves eating- feeding himself his bottles and picking up his own finger foods. Poor guy still doesn't have any teeth...though it seems like he's been teething one since forever. He also doesn't have much hair :( And he's so pretty he often gets mistaken for a girl. ha!

First Day of School!

2011-09-07T15:04:00.001-04:00

Nate had his first day of preschool for the year today! He will go on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9-1.

I tried to take a picture before school and this is what he did. Wasn't in the mood!

Once at school he dove right in to doing puzzles and meeting new friends.

His school has a fun aquarium with turtles!

He loves his new backpack!

I know it will be so much fun for him to tell me about his days this year, since last year he couldn't say much. From today he "told" me that he recognized his friend Eli, who was in his class last year and that they sang Wheels on the Bus.

Check this guy out!

2011-09-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

**You probably want to mute this because baby talk apparently gets exponentially worse with each child**

I'll do a proper Cole update after his 9 month (yes, sad but true) appointment that is in 2 weeks!

Still on Summer Schedule!

2011-08-16T16:06:00.000-04:00

Hi there. We are still on Summer break here and probably won't be back to regular posts until after Labor Day! Enjoy our new header with beach pictures...and I will try to keep pictures updated on our Smug Mug!

Cereal!

2011-07-03T20:53:00.000-04:00

Feeding Nate his first cereal is one of my favorite memories...it's so funny how different it was for Cole. I had been putting it off for a while and finally decided it was time. He was not much of a fan....

Then with us making a big deal about cereal, Nate chimes in and says that he wants a bowl of cereal too!

Oh, these boys!

I'd been trying to shove rice cereal into Cole every night. He would be so tight lipped I'd have to make him laugh to get any in! It was pretty frustrating. At his dr's appt I said that he wasn't a big fan and she said just to try a different kind of cereal- I didn't even think of that! So, we have now switched to oatmeal cereal, which he loves! I guess we will start fruits and veggies soon too.

Nate the Photographer

2011-07-03T20:35:00.002-04:00

We were stuck at home one day last week when Nate ran a fever and I happened to find our old digital camera. Thinking it might entertain him for a while I gave it to him....and he really enjoyed playing with it! Started off with a good self-portrait....

then moved on to some (lots) of random shots (many with a finger over the lens)

But if you are diligent, you'll come out with a few gems...Like this one of Cole!

He even gave Mommy a little love. I'm assuming he cut off the top of my head because I was having a bad hair day :-)

Maybe I'll do these posts periodically and see what Nate captures!

Cole is 6 months old!

2011-06-22T14:08:00.000-04:00

Poor Cole is definitely a second child...I'm a little behind on his updates. But no news is good news and our little guy is doing great!

Here are his 3, 4, 5 and 6 month bear pictures (I have been good about taking those!)

At 4 months he was weighing 15 lbs 11.5 oz (50%) and was 24.75 inches (25-50%)

We just had his 6 month checkup yesterday and he is weighing 17 lb 5.5 oz (50%) and is 26.5 inches (25-50%) He is average sized, which is great in making up the 3 month seasonal difference in hand-me-down clothes from Nate. I just unpacked all of the 9 month clothes I had saved, most of which Nate wore on our beach trip, and Cole will fit in them perfectly when he takes his first trip to the beach in July!

Cole is FINALLY sleeping through the night. It clicked about a month ago. He will still stir some, but I have started running a fan next to my bed so I don't hear him as much and he will settle down on his own.

We are working on eating cereal, which he doesn't like at all and I have to make him laugh to open his mouth and then shove it in.

He is getting more interactive and loves when you sing to him. His most favorite thing is anytime Nate plays him any attention!

Movie Night!

2011-06-04T15:44:00.000-04:00

We decided to have a movie night, let Nate try popcorn (now that he finally has enough teeth) and watch Tangled!

Step 1: Jammies :-)

Step 2: Make popcorn (the real on the stove kind!)

Step 3: Taste and settle in for a good movie!

Nate did really great and watched most of the movie, aside from going to his playroom for a little bit. We'll definitely do more movie nights!

A small house project

2011-05-23T21:53:00.001-04:00

We haven't done many projects in our "new" house, just painting Cole's room. I have 2 projects brewing right now, but when I realized we could tackle this one Joel knocked it out really quickly!

We have a small area between our front entry and our living room where the door to the basement is. We thought it would be fun to paint the wall opposite the basement door with magnetic and chalkboard paint so Nate could have a little play area!

It came out great! Nate loves to "stick" the letters and numbers on the wall. We haven't pulled out the chalk for him just yet (mostly because I haven't had the time to sit with him to do it), but we hope this little wall will lead to hours of entertainment!

Nate Says

2011-05-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

I've sooooo been looking forward to start these posts, ever since Sharla started "Jacksonisms." Nate's finally getting chatty enough for me to make a post!

Basics:
He's working on colors, shapes, letters and numbers. I'd say letters are his favorite and he enjoys "reading" them in various places. He has really learned them from the Melissa & Doug puzzle we got him for his birthday--highly recommend it!

He knows almost all of the letters and knows that "N" is for Nate (he will finallllllllly say his name!) Another funny is that he won't say "M," but rather says "monkeys." Ha

For numbers, he can count to 13! Sometimes he likes to skip 7&8.

Working on sentences:
Though his first "real" sentence was "[Where] are you"/"There you are" I really wish I could claim it was this newest one: "Daddy at work." Lately he's very concerned about where people are- including when Joel's not home/with us. It started when we drove separate to church and I said Daddy was in his car. Then during the week he would say "Daddy car" and I'd reply, "Yes, Daddy's in his car. He's at work" To which "Daddy at work" came to be. It has now been extended to "Daddy not home. Daddy at work."

Baby stuff:
He's doing great not being too jealous of Cole, but something funny that he does do is ask for a "turn" in the exersaucer. It took me a while to catch on to what he was saying since we don't have to deal to much with taking turns at home. He's very sweet about it and isn't pushy trying to kick Cole out or anything....yet.

If he wants to you pick him up he'll say "Carry you" and something about that makes me want to melt :-)

We're working on getting him off of the pacifier (he calls it "see") and only has it at naptime/nighttime. We started having him put it in a bucket after he got up and that routine is going great. He's teething the first of his eye teeth and it's been rough, so we probably won't out the paci completely until after that is done!

Other words:

One of his funniest pronunciations is for milk, he calls it "musha."

He's picking up words quickly now if he wants to. Before Nana & Papa came last week I pulled up pictures of them on the computer and we "practiced." Of course they were both so excited to be greeted with their names!

And I'll leave you with this video--Nate's discovery of a certain item (Joel loves this!)

Happy (Early) Birthday to Me.

2011-05-09T15:57:00.000-04:00

My birthday is this Friday--reminder for any of you who forgot to get me something....j/k

I'm gifting myself my own little piece of the internet in the form of another blog. One that's just for me to talk about shopping and cooking and decorating and all those other things I enjoy aside from being a mom to my two awesome little boys :-)

If you would like to give it a try send me an email (amylpenny@gmail.com) and I will send you the link :-)

Brothers

2011-05-08T15:40:00.000-04:00

Joel's Birthday!

2011-04-23T22:12:00.000-04:00

Catching up here....March and April have been busy months and May won't be any different!

Soon after Nate's birthday was Joel's 30th Birthday!

He chose a Big Steel Keg for his birthday gift- it's a fancy grill/smoker. He has cooked us many awesome meals on it already...burgers, ribs, pulled pork barbecue, pork tenderloin, whole chicken, pizza and steaks! Besides the delicious food, I'm enjoying a break from most of the cooking :-)

He also requested strawberry shortcake for his birthday dessert.

We made a quick trip to North Carolina to meet up with friends to celebrate his birthday. We were able to have an overnight trip to Chapel Hill without the kids!

Nate is 2!

2011-03-20T21:32:00.000-04:00

It's so hard to believe that Nate is 2! We started the celebrations by taking these cookies to church Wednesday night to celebrate before his birthday on Thursday.

I also took cookies to school for him to share with his classmates on his actual birthday.

That night we had our family celebration at home. He opened presents and had balloons and a cupcake!

Instead of a party this year, we opted to take Nate on a special outing just the three of us. We decided the zoo was a good pick! We were hoping for nice weather, but ended up with a rather cool morning. It was really nice though after we had lunch and visited the petting area and rode the carousel and train.

Nate had his 2 year check up the Monday after his birthday. He weighs in at 28 lb 11.5 oz (50-75%) and is 36.5 inches tall (90-95%). There is a wives' tale that says if you double your height at age 2 that you will get your adult height...that would have Nate measuring 6' 1"

He is still enjoying coloring and playing with his animals and puzzles. His language is definitely taking off and he really tries to mimic words now. New words/phrases:
Sorry
Okay (instead of yeah/yes he now says okay....all the time!)
Yellow (sometimes used correctly)
Where are you/there you are--a new game we play, usually when looking for his dog before naptime. He'll say "are you?" while looking for him and then "there you are" when he finds him.
Lots more....can't wait to do posts on funny things he'll come up with when he really gets talking!

Cole's Birth Announcement

2011-03-06T17:16:00.000-05:00

It scanned really grainy, but I love it. I used a new site mixbook.com because I had purchased a Groupon a while back (LOVE Groupon!) We used one of his newborn photos taken by Lauren Liese. You can see all of the photos here!

Cole is 2 months!

2011-03-06T16:55:00.000-05:00

I dare say we are starting to get into a groove. I'm learning what Cole needs to be consoled and to be a little more patient too. The days go fast, and I know I'll look back and miss holding my little baby. He is sleeping better, which helps a lot. At best he'll get up at 2:30/3 and then at 6:30. At worst it's 12:30/1, 3 and 6...but at least he is sleeping in between feedings!

He has done a lot of growing. At his checkup he weighed 13 lbs 5.5 oz (90%) and was 23 in long (50%). He is still wearing some 0-3 months clothes, but quickly moving into the 3-6 month outfits. We are having lots of "photo sessions" these days because I want to capture him in all of his cute outfits. Be sure to check our SmugMug site for these!

Cole is really liking his play mat and was actually happy "playing" this morning for over 30 minutes! This is great! He also still loves his swing and birds that fly on that. He is sleeping in his basinett now, but will move to the crib soon, since Nate is in his big boy bed (will have to post on that later!) I know he will love the mobile once he is in the crib and that may buy me some time in the mornings :-)

Some favorites from our photo shoots:

Cole's Dedication

2011-03-06T16:30:00.001-05:00

We had Cole's dedication at our church on February 20th. Aunt Lauren came and took pictures for us. Both boys did great! Cole was asleep until we posed for pictures and though he went back and forth between us a few times, Nate didn't cry, yell or run through the choir loft ;-)

Nate's not sure what to think of all these people!

Jim always has great and funny insights

His rose was soooo pretty!

Lovies

2011-03-06T16:19:00.001-05:00

Most children have items they become attached to when they are young. For Nate it is his paci, blankie, but most of all his little stuffed dachshund that I used to call "puppy" but he now calls it dog. I bought it before I was even pregnant from Gymboree when they had an adorable line of dachshund clothes. And I only bought one. It is my sincere fear that "dog" will someday be lost and I won't have another one! I've scouted ebay to no avail.

Joel and I both had animals we loved growing up. Joel's was a stuffed dog named "Mutt." Mutt still resides at his parents house, so I couldn't take a picture of him, but some googling brought forth this photo- which is very much what Joel's Mutt looks like.

So cute and well-loved to adorn a book on the subject. I think I need to add this to my Amazon Wish List!

I had a love for Roo- the baby kangaroo from Winnie the Pooh. Thankfully for my family Roo was in production for many years in the early eighties and when one got a little too loved a new one would appear. Of course, none of the other Roos would leave, the new one was just added to the pack. I believe there is a picture of me with no less than 8 Roos. This one is the one that went on to live a happy, retired life in a bin in our guest room closet. I'm sure he'll see some love again soon.

For Cole's lovie I thought maybe he would get these hand me down bears from Nate, which I intended to be his lovies (hence there are 3, lest one was lost.) But Nate never really attached to them. On a whim I ordered this lovie from My Blankee on my favorite (aka dangerous) kids sale site, Zulily. It's a little blanket with a snap that you use to put a pacifier on (kind of hard to explain unless you look at the pic.) Very early on Cole started grabbing for the blanket and it's also nice because if he spits his paci out it doesn't fall far--lost paci is a BAD thing! He is also starting to be able to push his paci back in when he grabs the blanket. So, once I saw that he was attaching to it I panicked because we needed more! They retail for $25-36...insane for a 10x10 piece of cloth with a snap! I checked their website-which is stocked with many more clearance options now than when I looked- and etsy for some cheaper options. Thankfully another sale came up on Zulily and I ordered 2 more for the rotation :-)

Cole's first road trip!

2011-03-01T18:39:00.001-05:00

I hit the road pretty often to visit my bestie, Sharla. For the past few years I have planned a trip around a consignment sale that she shops. This time I took Cole for his first of many visits and left Nate and Joel at home.

Cole in his Meredith bib :) We had fun watching some old Stunt videos!

Rockin the dark frames-old school style!

The consignment sale was kind of a bust...not to say I didn't buy anything, haha. The sizes they had for Nate & Jackson were really limited and pretty bad selection/quality. I did get some cute smocked stuff for Cole. Most of which Sharla cringes at, but she's a good friend and congratulates me on my finds :)

The best part of the visit was going crazy at Target and Old Navy trying on Spring clothes. We got some good deals and had fun playing dress up. I don't know the last time we had gone clothes shopping together!

Our pile to try on--people did ask if we had kids under there!

And a big shout out to "Auntie Steph" for getting up way too early on a Saturday morning to watch Cole for me!

Date Night

2011-03-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

Joel and I had an awesome date night recently. Aunt Lauren was nice enough to carve out some time of her busy last semester of grad school schedule to watch the boys. We have a long list of restaurants in Atlanta we want to try (ideally a nice dinner every quarter) and chose Woodfire Grill. The chef/owner, Kevin Gillespie, was a finalist on Top Chef (one of our fav shows!) and is up for many up-and-comer awards. We went all out and chose the 7 course chef's tasting with wine pairings. We never seem to take a picture of the two of us on date nights, but I did capture this photo on my phone when the glasses were a little backed up on our table.

Our favorite course was the scallop....I always love a good scallop! You do not see the menu when ordering, so each course is a fun surprise and you have to listen carefully to hear the descriptions. At the end they give you the menu, which is a fun souvenir. We are such wannabe foodies and are really looking forward to our anniversary in-town getaway to the 1st Atlanta Food & Wine Festival!

Nate Update!

2011-02-14T21:02:00.001-05:00

Nate has seemed to have grown up so much this last month. Last Friday we decided to convert Nate's crib to the "toddler bed" to get him ready to move to his big boy bed soon. He is doing great with it and we haven't had any issues with it disturbing his sleep.

Pretty excited about his "new" bed!

Nate has become a great helper. Some of his favorite things to do are to help me load the washing machine and push the buttons, unloading the silverware from the dishwasher and handing them to me to put away, and pushing the button to put the garage door up when we are going to leave. When we go to church on Wednesday nights he has to help me push Cole's stroller. And I'm very happy that he has been really great about staying close to me and holding my hand when we go out...it makes it much easier to handle 2! The hand holding trick has also worked around the house to get him to follow directions.

Play: He has started really playing independently for longer periods of time. He is very much into lining up things and also stacking his blocks. He can get them really high! Also more pretend play- like pretending that a piece of food is a car and making vrooming noises.

Language: He still jabbers a lot. We can't wait until he's talking in sentences and we can know what's going on in his head! More new words include star, yes (with the s sounds at the end sounds a little like yesh), bear, and Cole--so cute...sounds more like "coe" and he'll often say cole-cole. Check it out in this video!

Pardon me, but I spoke to soon

2011-02-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

Remember this post where I went on and on about how wonderful my baby was and how everything was "sweetness and light" (as our pastor would say)? Well, I don't know if it was the hormones talking but things took a turn for the worse. I'll dare say things are leveling out again, but Cole is definitely a more challenging baby!

Sleeping- Around the 3 week mark Cole wasn't sleeping well at all. He was either not sleeping in between is 1am and 4am feedings (other than in 30 minute increments) or he wouldn't go back after his 4am feeding unless I held him. We were hoping the reflux meds would help this, which they did a little bit. We realized that he naps well during the day in the swing, so we broke down and started letting him sleep in the swing at night. He still wakes up sometimes he wakes up in between feedings, but I usually just need to restart the swing (it stops after an hour I think) or replace his paci.

Eating- Yes, Cole is a fantastic eater. So fantastic that I can't even touch the amount that he needs and we are already weaning. He is up to 8 oz of formula every 3-4 hours at some feedings! I think he would need to be continually nursing to be satisfied, and that's just not an option! My deepest respect goes out to mothers that can put themselves second and do everything to nurse their baby. But that's just not me. And I'm not beating myself up about it.

Snuggler- I call Cole my high maintenance child. There are some days, like yesterday, where he continually needs to be held and consoled. Sometimes he's just not happy playing on his mat or swinging or sleeping when he's tired. I got a dvd copy of Happiest Baby on the Block at a consignment sale last year, which details the 5 S's that can soothe a newborn- Side, Swaddle, Suck, Shh and Sway. Yeah, Cole often needs ALL of these! Oh, I forgot to mention that he sleeps with my phone playing a white noise. Thank goodness for free apps! And I was definitely the crazy, sleep deprived mom this week with my baby in the cart at Target with the phone wedged in his cart seat running the white noise!

As frustrating as it can be, I try to remember that these moments are fleeting. I will sleep again. I will be able to have a clean house again. And we love our little guy so much. But it is totally unfair to have your "easy" baby first. Although he is handling his little brother wonderfully, so at least that's not an added difficulty!

Cole's Birth Pictures

2011-02-09T15:31:00.000-05:00

I got Cole's birth pictures from the photographer today and was blown away! They are so beautiful in my opinion...I know the thought of it may freak some of you out! I promise they are not graphic or gross. I mean I am posting them on the internet! I have a few favorites--

and our new header picture (I really want to get a pic of the boys together for it, but haven't had time/been brave enough to try yet!)

If you are in the Atlanta area I highly recommend Lauren Liese Photography! You can see the rest of the pictures here!

The Best $5 I've Ever Spent

2011-01-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

Nate has been more into animals and animal sounds, so when I saw these farm animals in the $1 section at Target I knew we had to get some! He has had so much fun playing with them, moving them around and his favorite (as you can see in the 2nd video) lining them up and then knocking them down yelling "no, no, no!" I'm guessing this is something he's learned at school and I hope he's not terrorizing the other kids messing up their toys. But I can't really discipline him since he's just playing with himself.

Side by Side

2011-01-27T19:27:00.000-05:00

Can you tell who is who?

Hands and Feet!

2011-01-20T15:11:00.000-05:00

Nate's teachers love to do cute art with prints of his hands and feet. I still don't know how in the world they do it, but here are the two pieces he brought home this week. A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!

Cole is One Month Old!

2011-01-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

It seems like Cole has been a part of our family for more than a month because he has transitioned in so seamlessly. Here are some highlights about him-

He weighs 9.5 pounds (from the doctor today, we were there checking on some reflux issues..more on that later).

He eats every 2-3 hours.

He wears size 1 diapers and newborn or smaller 0-3 month clothes.

He usually naps in his swing, but most of all likes to sleep on me. At night he sleeps in his bassinet and wakes every 3 hours to eat. However, after his 3:30/4 am feeding he has been very fussy and not wanting to go back to sleep. This along with some congestion/increased spitting up gave me reason to take him to the doctor today. We now have a prescription for Zantac and hopefully that will do the trick.

He still sleeps so much, so we haven't caught many glimpses of his personality. I have been trying harder to do his tummy time, and he can turn his head well from one side to the other. We still call him "floppy baby" though, since we were so used to Nate having real head control and core strength from birth. He does love to snuggle and we love that about him!

This modeling stuff is hard!

A Video featuring Nate and Cole

2011-01-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

doing what they do best...Nate with a snotty face and mouth full of snacks and Cole napping away :-)

Nate Update

2011-01-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

Nate is 22 months old now! Crazy that he will be 2 in 2 months!

I really don't have any pictures from this month that aren't Christmas/snow related, so I thought I would post his silhouette. A childrens consignment store that I frequent often brought in a silhouette artist for a day and I jumped on the opportunity to take Nate. It was on a Tuesday (a school day) so I made a 5:00 appointment and prayed I wouldn't have to wake him up from his nap to make it. He did really well and did great playing with the puzzles and books she uses to keep them sitting still. It was also amazing to see how she just sat there and cut the silhouette by hand so quickly. I hope she comes back next year so I can get one of Cole. She does have a website and you can send her a picture to have one cut: http://www.silhouettesbylena.com/

Probably the only thing to note this month is that Nate's language skills are still developing. New words-- you can definitely tell what he loves from this list ;-)

Elmo, now pronounced properly

Barney

Woody

Mommy- no more mama. And for a while I thought he was just saying Barney.

Straw- for his beloved veggie straws

Bar- meaning a Nutragrain cereal bar

Cereal- sounds like "seer"

Apple- "pull"

He also still enjoys songs a lot. I forget that they sing at school and get surprised when I sing a song and he starts doing the hand motions and getting more excited...I don't sing that often. One of these is Wheels on the Bus. I wish I could see how much fun he has singing with his classmates.

So far Nate is being a great big brother. He pretty much ignores Cole, but will often say "baby" when he sees him. Some days (like today) I test him and bring Cole over to him and tell him to say hi. Today he laid a bunch of kisses and hugs on him and it was sooooo adorable. He really does love his little brother!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-11T12:48:00.000-05:00

The excitement surrounding Cole's birth led right into Christmas for us! It was fun to have a Christmas at home and to be able to have Nana, Papa and Aunt Lauren here too!

I had such fun dressing Cole up in fun little outfits! Since Nate was/is such a big boy, I don't think I could even find a "My First Christmas" outfit that would fit him last year!

We had the special privilege of attending our church's Christmas Eve Service. Each year our pastor holds the newest baby while he reads the Christmas story to the children. For weeks he kept telling me he really wanted me to have Cole in time (I believe the next youngest "baby" that would be able to attend was 7 months old). Even when I knew we had scheduled the induction I still wanted to play things by ear. But Cole was healthy and we were all feeling great and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to show off our sweet little guy to everyone!

We went home, opened up our Christmas jammies and then Santa's elves got to work on some assemblage :-)

On Christmas morning both of the boys slept in and the adults got to enjoy a leisurely breakfast...probably the last year of this happening.

Nate opened his stocking and was very excited about his "choo-choo" Thomas DVD and Buzz & Woody toys

We were able to snap a successful first family picture (half of Sammy included)

Nate received a play kitchen and a tricycle from Santa. And way too many gifts and toys from family. So much so that he wasn't able to open everything before he needed a nap!

Cole just laid back and took everything in

I was able to capture a sweet moment with my boys

And then a very unsuccessful family picture!

We ended the day with a dinner of prime rib, twice baked potatoes, glazed carrots and salad...all while it was snowing!

Nate was able to play a little bit outside with Nana the next day, and I took Cole out for a minute to take a picture.

We had such a special Christmas...my very favorite that we have had!

Cole's Shower

2011-01-11T12:02:00.000-05:00

I realized I never did a post on the fantastic baby shower that friends threw for me and Cole!

My good friend, Carla, who is an awesome hostess held the shower at her home with help from my other friends Jan and Rebecca. These awesome ladies are part of our church family and are really family to us here in Georgia. I know I can call on them for anything and cherish that so much.

Me with Jan, Rebecca and Carla

We all thought it was a great idea to have a diaper shower, since I still have all of Nate's toys, clothes, etc. Here is the adorable invitation they came up with!

(the invitation slid into the little "diaper"...too cute!)

I did receive a few non-diaper gifts, including this super cute onesie!

Snow Day!

2011-01-11T11:38:00.000-05:00

I'm going to use this snow day to catch up on some blog posts!

We are covered in snow here (and a little ice too) and are enjoying being snowed in. Joel and Nate went out yesterday for a little fun in the snow. I need to get Nate's wardrobe a little more prepared with better gloves and boots, so they didn't stay out too long.

Inside we're enjoying staying in our PJs, movies and snuggles on the couch!

Cole's Birth Story

2011-01-01T18:07:00.001-05:00

So, I had scheduled my last OB appointment for Friday, Dec 17th. I was hoping to go in, get checked and have my induction scheduled for Monday. All that went as planned, except for when the doctor called over to L&D, they said they were all full on Monday! So we checked Sunday. Nope, full that day too! I jokingly asked if I just needed to go ahead over right then. Finally we found an "opening" on Saturday night- the next day!

On Saturday we took our last trip out as a family of three to Target and Costco for some last minute Christmas shopping. Nana and Papa Penny got in around lunchtime and we hung around the house for the afternoon. Our check-in time was 7pm, so we left around 6:15 and headed to the hospital.

One last picture of me and Nate as an only child!

We checked in and made it up to L&D. A nurse showed us to our room and said it might be a little while before they got to us, as they were putting someone in for a c-section and 2 women were close to delivering. So we settled in and relaxed for a bit...it was almost like being in a hotel!

Modeling my pretty delivery gown-a gift from Megan

Things really didn't get rolling until almost 11pm. A funny story here- one of the ladies that was delivering had been pushing for an hour and then put on the brakes demanding an epidural. Our nurse was covering her as well, so we had a fill in for a little bit- a hilarious woman who was French Canadian via Trinidad. She told us the story of the fully-dilated-epidural-woman and then encouraged me to go ahead and get my epidural since the anesthesiologist was already on the hall. So, I got my epidural before I even started the pitocin! I felt a little guilty, since I know a few moms who begged for epidurals and couldn't get them until a certain point.

When I was checked at 11, I was at 3cm. We tried to get some sleep, but that was hard with all the monitoring. I got rechecked at 4am I think and was still at 3cm. I started to freak a little bit, thinking maybe I got the epidural too soon, and hoping I wasn't stalled completely. When I was checked again at 7 or 8, I was still 3-4. I tried to stay calm, knowing that one way or another I just wanted to deliver a healthy baby. My nurse called the doctor and got the go ahead to up the pitocin. I really prayed that it would do the trick!

My doctor came at 11 to check me and break my water to get things going. I was 5-6 cm and she said it's normally 1cm per hour progression. So she left the hospital and Joel went out to get some lunch. I called Lauren, the photographer, to give her an update that it would be a few more hours. Then, I started to really feel the contractions and a lot of pressure. And hitting my epidural top-off button. I called Joel at 11:30 to make sure he was on his way back and he was in the elevator. I had him get the nurse when he got in because I was feeling like I needed to push. My nurse checked me at 11:30, and I was indeed completely dialated! Crazy! So she calls my doctor to come back and Joel calls the photographer. And I'm lying there, trying not to push! It was interesting to experience...with Nate I didn't feel ANYTHING.

My doctor got back and I started pushing at 12:30. Everyone took special care not to get my "pretty" gown dirty- but at 1:05, Cole Alexander was born and we enjoyed several minutes with him, before they took him to get cleaned up. It was wonderful and I can't wait to see more of the pictures Lauren captured of the birth--it will be so fun to see it again from a third party perspective!

Pregnancy/Baby Wish List

2011-01-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

I love nothing more than to get my way and have things go exactly the way I want them. :-)

During my pregnancy with Cole, I made a mental wish list of how I wanted the pregnancy to be and preferred traits that Cole would have...and so far I've really gotten my way! Above all I really just wanted a healthy baby, but here are some things that were on my "list"

Pregnancy/Birth:

Gain the "normal" amount of weight: I ended up gaining 30 pounds. Much better than the 50+ pounds I gained with Nate.

Experience spontaneous labor: Although I had a scheduled induction, my hope was to really experience the excitement of going into labor. I didn't originally plan to have an induction, but when my due date was changed from Dec 18th to Dec 27th early in the pregnancy, I pushed for an induction so we could be sure to be home for Christmas. A few nights before the induction I could not go to sleep and thought I was maybe starting up labor. I ended up taking a bath to relax and that worked. It may have ended up being early labor, since I was actually contracting (without knowing it) when we started the induction.

Not feel (and look) like I was ran over by a truck for weeks after labor: I always see these women who look and feel fantastic after labor and really hoped that could happen for me. I guess the second time around you know a little more what to expect and how to take the time to brush your hair and put on makeup because you know it will make you feel a lot better. Gaining less weight probably helped with this. And knowing that a photographer was going to post pictures on the internet of me during/after labor. haha I have really felt great since Cole has arrived and look forward to getting my body back for myself after the last 3 years (~2 years of being pregnant and a whole year of struggling to get back to normal after Nate's birth).

Have a great nurse during my labor/birth: I was so happy with all of the nurses we had. With Nate we just had one, since I was laboring for less than 12 hours and didn't labor over a shift change. That nurse was an older Eastern European woman and while she was just fine, she wasn't someone I had much in common with. Since I labored overnight this time I had a few nurses at night, and then a new nurse that started at 7am and was with me through Cole's birth. You would have thought I handpicked her myself. She was 29, sweet as could be, laughed at my jokes and new how to reassure me with a pat on the leg and great coaching during pushing. And she hugged me and wished me luck when we moved to our postpartum room.

Cole:

A "little" baby: Nate was 8lb 7oz. He never seemed like a little baby to me. A few months ago a friend of mine had a little girl who was 7lb 7oz and I thought that was a perfect size, but definitely didn't think Cole would be that small...but he was 7lb 7oz!

A good eater: I never could get Nate to nurse and ended up pumping for 3 months. It was something I really wanted to experience and not have the added stress of pumping (cause I'm not sure I would be ok not being "fair" and just put Cole on formula.) Thankfully we had a great lactation consultant and Cole is eating like a champ!

No jaundice issues: We didn't escape this completely, but he only had 1 night in the bilibed and only 3 footpricks.

A snuggler: I think Nate was/is your typical independent first born. He always wanted to be sitting up, seeing what was going on. He wasn't a snuggler and screamed when I tried to wear him in a sling. Cole has been my little snuggle buddy and was happy as could be in the sling last night while we ate our New Year's Eve dinner. I hope Cole won't be too much of a momma's boy, but I'm enjoying it for now!

A good sleeper: Time will tell on this one, but for now Cole is doing two 4 hour stretches between feedings (roughly 3.25 hours of sleep) which I'm loving. Nate didn't sleep through the night til 5 months, so I'm hoping to beat that!

I know this probably sounds like a huge list of how I want Cole to be "better" than Nate. It is hard not to compare, but we love both of our boys so much. We look forward to them growing up together and enjoying their similarities and differences!

Nate visits Santa

2010-12-23T19:45:00.001-05:00

I'll be completely honest and admit that I was not at all looking forward to taking Nate to see Santa this year. The potential for disaster was high, and being in the last phase of pregnancy/bringing home a newborn doesn't tend to lend itself to wanting to take on high risk situations! We decided it would be a great idea for Nana and Papa to take Nate. So on Tuesday they headed for the mall while we took Cole to his first doctors appointment. I had NO expectations as to how the picture would turn out. Actually, I fully expected to get back one of those awesome screaming toddler pictures. But, this is what we got......

our little man looking as happy as could be with good ole Santa. Adorable. And I don't know who bribed him to fold his hands like that! So, I think from here on out, it may be a tradition for Nana and Papa to take the Penny boys for their Santa pictures...and maybe Mommy will just wait at Starbucks :-)

Newborn Pictures

2010-12-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

Sneak peek at Cole's newborn pictures that were taken yesterday....there will be more to come after the holidays!

Cole's Nursery

2010-12-20T18:07:00.000-05:00

I went ahead and drafted this post since I knew once we got home I wouldn't have time or energy to make this post (and I'm sure his room will not be this clean again!)

We will probably forever call this the "room that spray paint built." After deciding on the blue and brown scheme, the brass hardware didn't really fit in. I had read on some blogs about rubbed bronze metallic spray paint and decided to give it a try. Joel painted the ceiling fan, door knobs, hinges, and outlet covers. Those turned out so well I continued to find things that Joel could spray paint for me to work in the room--the dream sign, backer to the bookcase, 2 lamps, picture frames, trashcan, name canvases....

I did help out with a little bit of the painting with acrylics on some decorative blocks, his name letters and a tissue box cover.

Here is the view from the door:

His sleeping area--we'll move the crib here once we move Nate into his big boy bed.

My new comfy glider!

I love how it turned out!

Little Brother is here!

2010-12-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

Cole Alexander Penny

12.19.10

1:05 pm

7 pounds, 7 ounces; 20 inches

Some friends of ours made us aware of a fantastic opportunity that a photographer they had worked with was offering. Lauren Liese is trying to expand her photography business to include photographing births and to build her portfolio was offering a few free sessions. We were lucky enough to coordinate with her to attend and capture Cole's birth and we look forward to sharing more pictures of his arrival soon. Here is one she has given us as a "sneak peek."

Nate's Christmas Program

2010-12-16T16:14:00.000-05:00

I was so looking forward to Nate's Christmas program...hoping Little Brother wouldn't arrive and prevent us from making it. Some bad weather almost canceled schools, but thankfully our county was just on a 2 hour delay. It was pretty entertaining...Nate didn't cry the most, but he did cry and eventually ended up in my lap. With me and Joel for parents, it's no surprise if he doesn't have the "entertaining" gene. Of course, he was also supposed to sit in the buggy for the performance, which I can't imagine he's a big fan of...on the video you can see his escape move getting out of his shoulder straps!

When the kids where wheeled in we saw they had on reindeer antlers. It was no surprise that Nate had taken his off...not a big fan of things on his head!

Ready for lunch with his classmates!

Working on a star ornament craft!

The awesome video.... :-)

Oh Christmas Trees....

2010-12-16T15:52:00.001-05:00

Since we were not home last year and didn't put up any decorations, I was really wanting to go all out this year. It will be our first ever Christmas at home, and we inherited some great trees from some friends that moved and needed to downsize. We actually didn't even put up the only tree we had prior to last year...it's a little old school and really takes an effort to put together!

I'll call this our "formal" tree....simple red and gold decorations in our foyer (since it's so tall it looks best here.) I may gaudy it up a little more in the future if I can get some good decorations on clearance, but wanted to work with what we had this year.

Our little rustic forest of trees in the dining room. We bought all new decorations for these this year, but found some pretty good deals. Also note my new Christmas dishes which was a gift from my parents....love them!

Our basement tree-- it'll be the "tacky" tree with multicolor lights and kid ornaments. For now it just has a set of small Sesame Street ornaments that Nate busted into while we were shopping at Garden Ridge and a few other bright colored ornaments.

And our "real" tree that houses our family ornaments. We didn't load it up too much, but picked our favorites. Also, a round tablecloth doubles pretty well as a treeskirt (and very affordable!)

21 months

2010-12-16T15:21:00.000-05:00

Going to do a post by pictures to show what Nate is up to this month:

Getting naked. Yep, all by himself. I didn't mention it last month, but Nate likes to unzip his jammies and get into his diaper. We started duct taping his diaper at night over the tabs to make it hard to get off (or so we thought.) This morning I heard he was awake but he sounded like he was playing happily, so I took a load of laundry downstairs. I checked the video monitor before making my breakfast and saw a naked baby in the crib! Luckily he hadn't made a "mess" and I was able to take the camera in to capture this Kodak moment.

Shoes: He loves putting on my shoes and walking around. He's also getting harder to dress....likes to take it as an opportunity to play "chase" and obviously he won at this moment.

Brushing teeth: VERY obsessed with brushing his teeth. And taking his time. Like 10 minutes. I guess this could be helpful if I'm needing to attend to Little Brother, whose room is right next to the bathroom. For now I try to deter him away if we are on a schedule, since removing him from the bathroom results in a major sad tantrum.

Coloring: He is getting better at coloring and I'm loving these big coloring pages that my parents gave him for Christmas....less likely to color on the table! Still also loves putting stickers on paper.

Other things--

Teeth:
He has cut 2 new teeth this month...his top first molars. That gets him up to 9!

Movies:
It has been awesome that Nate is more into movies for these last few weeks of pregnancy. His favorites right now are Elmo in Grouchland and the Toy Story movies. I LOVE snuggling on the couch with my little guy!

Language:
Not sure why, but he calls Elmo "Sahh"
Also recognizes Cookie Monster and Big Bird
Other words:
Cookie
Please
Baby (sounds like bebe)
Duck
Dog

We're trying to enjoy our last few days with Nate as an only child...but also looking forward to how he'll be with his Little Brother :-)

Our Thanksgiving

2010-12-14T21:26:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful, laid back Thanksgiving at home this year! Aunt Megan came to stay with us for a few days and Aunt Lauren joined us for Thanksgiving day. They both did much better at taking pictures than I did, so thanks to them I now have pictures to do a post!

Here is our spread...Nate wasn't too interested in eating and opted for a nap instead...after sitting at the head of the table, of course!

On Saturday we took a trip to Dahlongea, GA to pick out our Christmas tree from a client of Joel's who has a small tree farm. This was our first year to have a real tree, and hopefully a tradition that will continue.

Nate enjoyed playing on the toy tractors while we got our tree loaded up!

Once home we decorated our tree and put up a few other artificial trees around the house (another post on that coming later)
That night we had early Christmas exchanging gifts with Megan and the gifts the Cornetts had sent with her. Nate got this awesome shopping cart from Aunt Megan & Uncle Dion!

Christmas Cards!

2010-12-05T15:11:00.000-05:00

So I missed out on the free 50 Shutterfly cards that they were offering bloggers that reviewed their products, since I ordered these way back in October when they were on sale. I am a big fan of Shutterfly's cardstock cards!

Our card picture was taken by Nicole Faby back in August when we were in Raleigh. I hid our album of pics on Smugmug because I wanted the card pic to be a surprise. You can now see our family pics here.

Pregnancy Update- 36/37 weeks

2010-12-02T15:56:00.002-05:00

So, I've been reassured that I will not have to go past Dec 20th (I may even be able to go in the night of the 19th to get things started), so I've updated Little Brother's arrival ticker to the left to reflect his "adjusted" due date--I like to see the maximum number of days left! And of course now they have cute Christmas graphics, so I had to pick that one!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 36 Weeks

Size of baby: should be over 6 pounds now...have one more ultrasound on the 14th to check his size
Total Weight Gain/Loss: +25lbs. (thank you t-giving)
Maternity Clothes: Mostly maternity clothes but still a few regular things (like cardigans and shoes, haha.)
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Yes, super crazy that Megan and Lauren got to see at Thanksgiving
What I miss: A good night's sleep (not that I have many of these coming in the future) and not always feeling rundown.
Sleep: Having to get up at least twice a night to go to the bathroom. Crazy dreams have returned with a super vengence

Symptoms: Just really moving slower.
Cravings: Carbs, Carbs, Carbs!

Best Moment this week: Hearing that I'm 1-2 cm & 50% effaced at my checkup, and another confirmation that the induction can happen at 39 weeks.
What I am looking forward to: Finishing my to-do lists!

34 Weeks!

2010-11-19T14:09:00.001-05:00

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 34 Weeks

Size of baby: weighs 5 pounds 3 ounces (from the ultrasound)- 49th percentile
Total Weight Gain/Loss: +21lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Mostly maternity clothes but still a few regular things (like cardigans and shoes, haha.)
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Yes, and they're getting more uncomfortable by the day...
What I miss: A good night's sleep (not that I have many of these coming in the future) and not always feeling rundown.
Sleep: Having to get up at least twice a night to go to the bathroom. Crazy dreams have returned, blah.

Symptoms: Just really moving slower.
Cravings: Something different every day...but one consistent one is Sonic Vanilla Coke Zero!

Best Moment this week: Seeing that little brother is head down on the ultrasound and looking great!
What I am looking forward to: Our shower this weekend and fun family times for Thanksgiving!

20 months!

2010-11-19T14:03:00.000-05:00

Our little guy, soon to be big brother, is growing up so fast! Be prepared for a scattered post here because I don't have a good format going for these yet and am just kind of winging it (with pregnancy brain nonetheless!)

Physical-

Nate is weighing in around 27.5 lbs and I have no idea how tall he is (I keep meaning to measure), but he's wearing size 2t tops and 24 month bottoms. He is up to 7 teeth...I swear he may be teething in college! His eating habits are getting a little better, but he still shows no desire to eat with a spoon. He is still a really busy guy! His running and climbing skills are getting better, he can climb up stairs while holding a rail or someone's hand. He loves to play on the "big kid" playground rather than the ones for his age and has no fear on the big slides! I have started "training" him to hold hands to walk into stores or church since I know I will soon need my hands to carry little brother and not Nate. He's doing well with this, aside from the occasional meltdown...like deciding he needed to sit on the sidewalk as we were leaving Kohls this week.

Communication-

He is adding new words everyday...although we are still at a stage where it is often hard for him to communicate what he wants. Here are some of his favorite/most commonly used words (sorry the list is long, but I haven't done a good update on this lately):

Sit- this means, I must sit square in your lap to read a book. This proves difficult for me and my lap is ever shrinking...but I do love how much he likes to read.

Shoes

Side- as in "outside"

See- learned this from me saying "see you later" to the house anytime we leave

Zoo

Choo-choo- anytime he sees Thomas the Train it's all about "choo-choo"

Car

Hi/Bye- These are still his very favorite words

Sa- Sammy

Dat- this is a funny one, he calls himself "Dat" In an attempt for him to learn to say his name, I started asking him "Who's that?" when looking at a picture of him or in the mirror and so, naturally, he will point and say "dat!" Guess I should have said "There's Nate!"

Ding- When the toaster oven goes off he'll chime in afterwards with "ding!" He also has a toy that has a bird that hits a bell and goes ding!

EIEIO- His See-N-Say sings Old McDonald and when it finishes he will repeat EIEIO

tee-cle- "twinkle"...took me a while to figure this one out, but he will make the stars with his hands and say tee-cle

No- We hit the "no" phase a few weeks ago, where he just started answering no to everything. He's started using it more appropriately...especially saying "no, no" when he's doing something he knows he's not supposed to do.

Play-

His favorite thing to do right now is read books. He is getting better about playing independently (but only when I am completely out of sight) and I often come back to find him reading books. His favorites are Goodnight Gorilla, Blue Hat Green Hat, That's Not My Puppy, and a Baby Einstein big picture book. He has also been OBSESSED with the holiday toy catalogs. We didn't even show them to him, but he picked one up and loves to look through them as though he is reading a book to point out Thomas (choo-choo!), Elmo and other toys that he has or characters he recognizes. Chase is one of his favorite games and anything silly like Hide & Seek, Peekaboo, I'm gonna beat you (we play this going up the stairs so he doesn't take for-e-ver!) He's really starting to get into Sesame Street, especially Play With Me Sesame, and Barney. And as much as he loves to say choo-choo and recognize Thomas, he could really care less about the show.

Here are a few quirky things that he does-

Before he gets out of the crib he must throw out every blanket and stuffed animal.

If he has a paci and sees a different one he will go and switch it out. He may continue to walk around with the first one in his and and then switch it again.

Ok, I'm running out of energy and still need to do a pregnancy post...I'll leave you with 2 pics I stole from Sharla from their visit this past weekend....

Trunk or Treat/Halloween

2010-11-04T16:29:00.000-04:00

We attended our church's annual Trunk or Treat again this year. We decided we were not up for doing a "trunk" but went to enjoy the festivities.

Nate got to enjoy several suckers.

Getting hugs from his buddy, Carlton aka "Thomas"

Nate's favorite trunk was the Thomas the Train Trunk by the Wallaces (Carlton's family). Nate kept stealing the trains from their display.

He got a cool snake painted on his hand by our friend Mrs. Brandy

All hyped up on sugar, once we got home he played in his costume for a while.

And this was Nate's opinion of actual Halloween:

He woke up crabby from his nap on Sunday afternoon. We dressed him up to go to our neighborhood party, but ended up only staying 10 minutes because the party was wrapping up and Nate was fussing just to be held. When we got home Joel wanted to put his dragon head on (which I had not attempted thus far). Obviously, he loved it! We decided to forgo any door to door trick or treating, since we don't really know anyone in the neighborhood and he really didn't know the difference. Next year should be a lot more fun!

Fun at School!

2010-11-04T16:13:00.000-04:00

Last week Nate had a "Fall Fun Fest" at school. This being the first parent event I had no idea what to expect. They had a big bounce house (which is where Nate stayed most of the time) along with carnival-type games to play and fun prizes.

Here is Nate getting a tattoo!

He continues to love school and gets so excited when it's time to leave the house and once we pull into the carpool line. Once we're in line I unbuckle him and he'll sit on the seat until it's his turn to get out.

30 weeks!

2010-10-19T15:28:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a little while (10 weeks, oops), but life is sooo busy! I was reading a blog that I stalk about a mother who is on her 2nd pregnancy also and is trying to document everything the same or better, since she was a 2nd child herself and felt forgotten/neglected in the details sometimes. Well, Joel and I are both firstborns, so we don't have that sympathy. I know once he's here I'll baby little brother to death and he'll probably get lots of "extras" since we're planning for him to be the last child. Anyway, here's how we're doing at 30 weeks.

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 30 Weeks

Size of baby: weighs 3 pounds 9 ounces (from the ultrasound)- 54th percentile
Total Weight Gain/Loss: +16lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Mostly maternity clothes but still a few regular things.
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Lots- he got "extra points" at the ultrasound today for movement. Starting to get bony jabs now.
What I miss: ?
Sleep: Having to get up at least twice a night to go to the bathroom. Crazy dreams have died down a little bit.

Symptoms: Had a few Braxton Hicks contractions yesterday...definitely starting to move slower.
Cravings: Lots of chocolate.

Best Moment this week: Nate really starting to notice my belly. He thinks it's hilarious. Of course he has no idea there's a baby in there!
What I am looking forward to: Starting the countdown! If all is well my doctor said I can be induced on Dec 20th (39 weeks) so we can be home for Christmas!

And because I've had soooo many requests, here are 2 belly pics (the lazy self-in-the-mirror kind). Please ignore dirty mirror and roll of toilet paper on the floor.

Nate starts school!

2010-09-26T15:53:00.001-04:00

When we found out I was pregnant, I quickly starting looking for a Mother's Morning Out type program for Nate to attend. I KNOW I am not one of those super moms that can handle 2 under 2 (or any more for that matter) every day of the week on my own and I wanted to get Nate into a routine before little brother arrives. I found a program at a church near our home that has wonderful facilities and a thriving Preschool/Pre-K Program. Nate is going 2 days a week from 9-1 and it has been such a blessing, for him and me! He gets some good social interaction, music, art and bible stories and I pretty much get a whole day to run errands, home projects, drs appts, ect. When we get home he is wiped out and has been napping until 5:30 on most school days!

This was his meet the teacher day. He warmed up to Mrs. Denise very quickly!

This is the table they use in his classroom to eat snacks/lunch and do art and other activities. It must be hilarious to have all those little toddlers jammed in there! (you can also see Nate's awesome face bruise in this picture...his bluest yet...)

On the first day of school with his big boy backpack :-)

Since Nate comes home with an art project every day, I've started scanning them and made a gallery on our SmugMug page here.

Let's go to the mall, today!**

2010-09-26T15:32:00.000-04:00

**A little HIMYM reference for some of you :-)

This summer we got a coupon booklet from our local mall. They expired at the end of August, so we went one Saturday to use a few. Nate and I go to the mall at least once a week to play in the indoor play area, which he loves.

We started off with a pretzel....

Played in the play area (which we forgot to take a picture of...oops). Then rode the train that circles around the play area

Had a Chick fil a lunch

rode the carousel (despite this picture Nate really hated it and I got woozy...we'll probably wait a while before we try that again!)

Then while I ran to a few stores, Joel and Nate went back to the play area. There happened to be a balloon animal artist down there, so Nate got his first balloon animal, a monkey!

Catalog shopping for baby names

2010-08-28T18:20:00.003-04:00

I love looking through Restoration Hardware Baby & Child and Pottery Barn Kids catalogs for ideas to knock off or things to look for at their outlets. I noticed recently that most of baby names in them that are my "style," which i would loosely define as classic and unique at the same time. I guess if I love the styling of their merchandise I should love the names they use as well. It's probably also subliminal messaging to get me to buy more stuff :-)

Here's a list of some that I love from my recent catalogs:

Dylan
Mason
Audrey
Charlotte
Madison
Emily
Hayley
Riley
Cameron
Conner
Laney
James
Graham
Hunter
Blake
Samuel
Chloe
Cooper
James
Daniel

Note: I'm listing both boy and girl names for fun. Many of which I would never choose for us because they just don't "go" with our last name and many of our front runners are not included in the list. We are not even close to having a name for Little Brother penned down :-)

Book Recomendations

2010-08-27T14:09:00.002-04:00

I've added a "Now Reading" section to the sidebar. Nate is getting to where he will play by himself for some amounts of time, but doesn't want me to much except sit and watch him. He will tolerate me reading, so I've tried to read more lately and am in the middle of South of Broad which has been awesome so far. Others I have read recently are Eat, Pray, Love (not my cup of tea) and The Help, which I would definitely recommend. Please be sure to pass along recommendations of anything you've read recently...since I only have 4 months of "free time" left!

Beach Highlights

2010-08-24T19:51:00.006-04:00

We just returned from our 2nd Annual Penny Family Beach Trip! This year we cut our week a little short, due to part of the air conditioning in the house being out and Nate's age...he's just not ready for a whole week at the beach yet!

We arrived on Monday and Aunt Lauren had been at the cottage the previous week. After we got in we went straight for the beach!
Nate loved this swing that faced the ocean...he really didn't want to get out!

Lauren stayed with Nate and we were able to have a date night! We had a wonderful dinner and then played putt putt! It had been soooo long since we had played, but we both did well. Joel only beat me by 3 strokes.
On Tuesday morning we went to the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. We've picked these pictures to recreate each year--

That afternoon we hung out while Nate napped
and then went to Morehead City to pick up some things and enjoyed the air conditioning at the Chick fil a playplace.

We went to the beach again that evening and realized that Nate really only does the beach for about an hour and he's done! We took the video camera that night, so no pics.

The next morning we got up and went to the beach to take some pictures of Nate. It was SOOOOO much easier to capture him last year...he just keeps moving now!

Hanging out at the cottage- watching Pajanimals, of course!While Nate was napping we were starting to think that we really didn't need a whole other day to do everything we wanted to do and decided that we would go back to Buies Creek the next day. So on Wednesday afternoon we checked off the rest of our excursions off our list!

Joel and Nate's traditional cannon pic at Fort Macon. Nate really enjoyed running around the middle of the fort and checking out all of the rooms.

Ice Cream in Beaufort

One last trip to the beach (which we cut VERY close to a storm coming in!)
On Thursday morning we set our alarm early so we could get good lighting for the family pictures we wanted to take. It is soooo hard to try to do a self timer picture with a toddler! We captured the one I have put in our header, which is probably the best. I should work on a bloopers post to show you the rest! We were able to get a few better ones of me/Nate & Joel/Nate since you can coax him to look at you a little more-sometimes :-)Then it was time to pack up, clean up and head back over the bridge. We timed it so we could stop for lunch at Andy's in Havelock on our way back like we did last year. Nate enjoyed his chicken nuggets and french fries served in the car!

In planning for next year's trip with 2 kids (do I even want to think about it?) we think we will try to go in May. It will be cooler and little brother will be 5 months old-the same age that Nate was when we went last year, which seemed to be a really good age for the beach! And hopefully at 2 years old there will be more things that Nate will be able to do.

2 Cents Coincidence

2010-08-24T12:43:00.002-04:00

We were discussing recently any vacation traditions we might like to start and decided that the thing we were most interested in are the National Parks. We have already visited many as a couple (Wright Brothers Memorial, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Yosemite, Alcatraz) and have a list of the ones we'd like to visit next.

While at the mall today I noticed an ad for a Give 2 Cents campaign. It caught my eye, as anything with "2 Cents" does, and it turns out it is a fund raising effort by the National Parks Conservation Association. You visit their website, post stories from your National Parks visits and then donate 2 cents for every word of your story. I'm not the kind to go around asking people to donate money for things, but if the National Parks have contributed to your family's memorizes, I'd urge you to think about making a donation. The parks often have no charge, and it's easy to pass by the donation boxes as you're taking in the sights as I can say we have.

Nursery!

2010-08-12T14:55:00.003-04:00

Alrighty, time to get planning! A girl would have been fun, but I am really excited about little brother and Nate being so close in age and being great buddies. And I already had a very good idea of how I wanted to set up a boy nursery. I was completely lost when it came to a girl's. I had thought about doing a blue/brown/white scheme, which was confirmed when I found this bassinet and bedding at a consignment sale (for $30 no less!) We'll be reusing Nate's crib eventually, maybe we'll try to make the switch to his big boy bed around his birthday. So little brother will sleep in the bassinet and we also have the pack n play as an option.

This is the bedding I've chosen (not even pretending that I've asked Joel's input on anything, haha). It's hard to tell, but there are light blue polka dots on the comforter and wide stripes on the bumper/skirt. I'd like to paint the walls a light blue to match.Since we're not having to buy a crib/dresser/changing table this time, we're going to splurge on a nice glider. The brown fabric will work in many other rooms in our house once he gets bigger.

And a little something cute I picked up last week that matched the blue/brown :-) Y'all have to let me know if you see anything that would match the room!

20 Weeks

2010-08-12T11:47:00.002-04:00

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 20 Weeks

Size of baby: weighs 12 ounces (from the ultrasound)
Total Weight Gain/Loss: +2 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Still a mix of maternity and my regular clothes...it really just all depends.
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Yes, we were up at 4am together the day of the ultrasound :-)
What I miss: ?
Sleep: Still crazy dreaming and having to get up sometimes to go to the bathroom

Symptoms: nothing new...just the same stuff
Cravings: same here, just kind of settled in to the 2nd trimester

Best Moment this week: The ultrasound, of course!
What I am looking forward to: As I said last time, shopping! Nursery planning post coming up... also picking a name. For now I've taken to calling him "little brother"

It's a........

2010-08-12T11:36:00.003-04:00

BOY!

Y'all were fooled again :-)

Last chance to vote!

2010-08-10T14:14:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the big ultrasound....be sure to get your votes in. It's heavily favoring girl, but if I remember correctly I believe that was the case when we did the voting for Nate. We'll see! This mommy is ready to shop!

Getting crafty!

2010-08-10T13:35:00.005-04:00

I've almost had an early nesting bug this time around...or part of it could be that we've waited longer this time to find out the sex of the baby and I'm just getting antsy to do something! Anyway, my laundry room had been driving me crazy. We had a laundry sorter/rack that just wasn't working with the layout. I asked Joel to move in this buffet table that was his Nanny's. We had/have plans to refinish it and get a marble top to use as a proper buffet table, but for now that is way down on the list of projects and it was just collecting dust in the basement.

Joel and I are a good team when it comes to crafts- he does the wood part, and I do everything else (as long as it doesn't include sewing!) He cut me a new top from MDF and I got to work with fabric and a staple gun! (It still needs a little help since the handles are half falling off)

He had already made this stand for our washer/dryer, but I had wanted to make a skirt to cover the bottom. More fabric, stitch witchery, an iron, staple gun, glue gun and some trim and this is what I whipped up!

Maybe if this baby is a girl I will finally learn some sewing...to make pillowcase dresses!

Yet another post about Pajanimals

2010-08-10T13:27:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's all about the Pajanimals in our house right now. Nate loves them so much that he quickly made up his own "sign" to ask to watch them. I tried my best to capture it...he basically waves his arms up and down (this is how he dances when he watches them). He "asks" to watch them roughly 4 times a day. Needless to say we know ALL of the songs. I also caught his happy reaction to when I turn it on.

Our favorite Pajanimals song

2010-08-02T19:38:00.000-04:00

This one is our favorite...we hope you like it too!

Nate's favorites at 16.5 months

2010-07-29T20:27:00.004-04:00

Here are some things that Nate is really enjoying right now:

"Talking on the phone"- he has a few toy phones, but is really happy using anything to serve as a phone. A few of the funny ones are the remote control, a hamburger bun, his stuffed dachshund and, as seen here, a pot lid. His favorite, of course, is to steal your real phone! But if there's someone on the line he won't say a word.
Songs: All of a sudden Nate started doing the motions to "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" so that is his favorite right now and he'll put his "spider" fingers together to get you to sing. He still enjoys "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "If You're Happy and You Know It." We're working on learning more body parts with "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."

Toys: Getting more into trucks and things like that. Has a new car ride on toy that Nana bought him. He'll get on and wave "bye-bye" to us. Is more attached now to his stuffed dachshund that he sleeps with and often carries it around the house.

Pajanimals:

Nate came home from Nana and Papa's with a new video- The Pajanimals. We all love them! The video is 30 minutes and is 12 "music videos" with songs that are related to bedtime/sleep issues. The songs are catchy (but not annoying) and Nate loves to dance to them. We also love that these are good topics for him to learn about once he can understand- bedtime routines, scary dreams, being ok in the dark, when it's time to get up and staying in bed, etc.

Pregnancy Update: 18 Weeks

2010-07-29T14:30:00.002-04:00

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 18 Weeks

Size of baby: 5 1/2 inches long and weighs 5-7 ounces (about the size of a pickle).
Total Weight Gain/Loss: -2 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: I'm wearing a mix of maternity and my regular clothes...it really just all depends. If I try something on and it doesn't fit right anymore I move it to a different part of the closet.
Gender: Will know in 2 1/2 weeks
Movement: Feeling more and more.
What I miss: Not much right now...enjoying the 2nd trimester!
Sleep: Still crazy dreaming and having to get up sometimes to go to the bathroom

Symptoms: Having more body pain- sciatica, ligaments and some vein issues-fun times!
Cravings: yes- different everyday! One big one this week was chocolate chip cookies.

Best Moment this week: Nate sleeping a lot? Gave me lots of time to rest!
What I am looking forward to: Shopping and planning the nursery once we know the sex!

Nate's Vacation

2010-07-29T14:10:00.003-04:00

Nate had one of his first "rites of passage" at the ripe, old age of 16 months- a week by himself at the grandparents! This is something that both Joel and I did growing up, and Nana and Papa couldn't wait to get Nate to themselves for a whole week! They did a great job taking pictures for us....here are a few from the week!

No doubt he was spoiled all week...lying back, waited on hand and foot!

Playing on the new playset they put up for him in the backyard

Taking scooter rides with Papa

Picking (and eating) blueberries with Nana

These are a few pics from Marbles Museum in Raleigh

Playing hockey with cousin KK

Perhaps a future banker, following in Daddy's footsteps?

All smiles on the pirate ship!

Nate and I had a sweet reunion when I went to pick him up. It will be more fun in future years when he can tell me all about the fun things they did!

Cravings!

2010-06-30T11:47:00.003-04:00

This should be a fun post :-) I think the real interesting thing about cravings are the logistical issues that they create. You always hear stories about late night cravings, etc. I've never had those. With Nate I had morning cravings--as in 2 bowls of cereal and then a "2nd breakfast" which meant I had to keep my stock of cereal since I was going through several boxes a week and then take my extra breakfast to work.

This time my cravings (and most of my hunger for the day) is centered around lunchtime. This brings a whole other set of issues.

1- Mostly I am wanting something I have to go out to get. I feel bad about this since I know it's expensive and often unhealthy. I tried to stifle my craving for a certain greek salad, that is completely unrealistic to get to with our schedule, by making my own. After spending close to $20 to get all the ingredients (which could have made probably 5 salads) I made it and it just didn't taste right. I think I had 2 bites...so then I decided maybe it was just best to give in to the cravings and not go crazy buying stuff at the grocery store I may or may not eat.

2- It is best if Nate goes down for nap around 11:30-12. Many places do not open until 11. This means that, like today, I am sitting in the parking lot of Moe's at 10:55 waiting for them to turn the open sign on so I can bust in to get my Close Talker with chicken to go! I have also gotten in line at the Chick Fil A drive thru at 10:32, ordered my #1 only to realize that they think I want breakfast and am told it will be 6 minutes until I can get my chicken sandwich and waffle fries :-( Needless to say I just at breakfast for lunch that day. Also, I would love it if every place had a drive through. I won't feel so guilty once I really look like a crazed pregnant lady; but for now I feel a little silly dragging my toddler out of the car just to get mommy's lunch. It would also be more fun if Nate didn't nap at lunchtime so I could meet friends out for lunch. For now I usually eat on the couch and catch up on dvr. (I won't really complain about his nap though...I would like it to stick around as long as possible!)

3- Location, location, location. If I know what I want I often plan our morning outings/errands around where I need to be to get my lunch. (Sad right?) This is crucial when craving Bojangles or Krystal, since there is only one of each in our area. Also, sadly, sometimes you have to frequent more than one grocery store to locate the exact sushi roll you are craving.

4- Neglected husband. I have not been good about planning meals. I'll cook maybe once a week (usually Monday), we'll eat leftovers Tuesday, church on Wednesday and then it's downhill from there. Many nights Joel comes in the door starving and I haven't even thought about heating anything up. Hopefully, for his sake, my appetite will kick in a little bit more around dinnertime.

So, that was probably way more than you wanted to know about my cravings.
Hope you got a laugh :-)

Finished Deck!

2010-06-28T17:35:00.003-04:00

After several months, tedious sanding, patching, replacing boards, picking out a stain, too much rain, and a bout with bats in our attic vent we are proud to announce that our deck is finally finished! Our deck furniture that was delivered months ago has finally found its home. We are looking forward to much lounging out here during our staycation next week!

Fun with Sharla and Jackson!

2010-06-28T17:14:00.004-04:00

Nate and I took a quick trip to visit Sharla and Jackson at their new house! We had a fun time playing, visiting Lazy 5 Ranch and Sharla and I even got to go out to dinner without kids! Yay!

Here are a few pictures from the ranch and then a cute video of Jackson and Nate.

Those birds were SCARY. Notice Sharla's hand blocking Jackson's face, as in "bird, don't eat my baby!"

Nate actually smiled at those crazy birds....and then I rolled his window up!

What do you think?

2010-06-28T15:03:00.002-04:00

I've added a poll so everyone can weigh in on whether baby #2 will be a boy or girl. I think these are always fun, so be sure to leave your vote!

Big News!

2010-06-24T18:39:00.003-04:00

Here's our newest addition who will be debuting around Christmas- hopefully before if I have my way :-)

I'm already feeling the second child guilt for this one as I haven't documented anything from this pregnancy so far. I have seen a lot of people using the format below for updates, so I'm going to try it out! I guess y'all can leave a comment if you have any specific question that I've not answered!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 13 Weeks

Size of baby: 3 inches long and weighs almost 1 ounce.
Total Weight Gain/Loss: Lost 7 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: I wear workout clothes to hang out mostly. I am wearing one pair of maternity capris that I loved when I was pregnant with Nate. Wearing normal shirts.
Gender: Will know in 6-7 weeks
Movement: Not yet, but ready for it!
What I miss: Having more energy and patience to keep up with Nate.
Sleep: Not good. Crazy dreams EVERY NIGHT. Medicating myself with benedryl as the doctor recommended, but it usually wears off around 5:30am, so I have odd dreams from then until I get up.

Symptoms: Crazy dreams are the worst...and a few more that no one wants to hear about.
Cravings: Sushi (cooked), Mexican food

Best Moment this week: Hearing his/her heartbeat at my checkup (170bpm) and sharing the news with all our friends and family.
What I am looking forward to: Shopping and planning the nursery once we know the sex!

15 months!

2010-06-14T14:48:00.002-04:00

Well, I realized it's been 2 months since I went to our "freeform" Nate updates...so I'm sure you are all ready for one!

Nate had his 15 month checkup last Friday. He is weighing in at 25lb 5oz (just under the 75th percentile) and measuring 32 3/4 in tall (90th percentile).

His top 2 teeth did come in, and he has another one on top trying to work its way through.

He is still very mobile and has been enjoying running, going backwards, turning in circles, climbing in, under and on top of everything.

We have definitely entered the "pointing" phase. Nate is also understanding us more--knowing to go to the stairs if we say upstairs, to the highchair if we say eat or snack, etc.

His language is progressing, words include Mama, Dada, bye bye, up, wah (water) and still plenty of jabbering! Also cute is when singing Twinkle, Twinkle he will sing "up above."

Tantrums are progressing also! Yay! He is quick to get upset when he doesn't get what he wants. No public tantrums yet, although I know they are coming :-(

Other adorable things- will hold his hand up to his ear like a phone if he hears a phone/ringing sound, gives Sammy full hugs....I know there are more, just hard to think of when he keeps coming over to get my attention by crying :-) Off to play with my boy!

PS- lots of updated pictures on SmugMug!

Mr. Paint Pig!

2010-05-20T18:53:00.002-04:00

Nana gave us some of her old classroom books on one of our trips home last year, including Richard Scarry's Color Book, featuring Mr. Paint Pig. Nate is getting much more interested in reading and the minute he lays his eyes on this book he grabs it and quickly sits in my lap to read. I think I almost have it memorized and saying "Mr. Paint Pig" over and over is quite the tongue twister! This afternoon I asked Nate to point to Mr. Paint Pig, which he was able to do on several pages...I was pretty impressed! Other favorites right now are Blue Hat, Green Hat and Dear Zoo (now that he has figured out the flaps.)

Learning from Daddy

2010-05-06T12:53:00.003-04:00

Nate has been taking good notes while Joel has been refinishing our deck!

Road Trip!

2010-05-06T12:41:00.003-04:00

A few weekends ago Nate and I took a road trip to Charleston, SC to visit my grandparents. I was again worried about traveling 6 hours each way with Nate by myself, but he was still a trooper (Praise The Lord!) and took about a 2 hour nap each time and happily watched his dvds for the rest of the trip. We were also glad that Aunt Megan was able to meet us there to have some fun before taking her last exams!

Swinging with Grandpa

Riding cars at the mall

Walking at Charles Towne Landing

Having fun with the rails at Grandmother's

What It's Like to Be One

2010-05-01T20:21:00.004-04:00

I just got my May issue of American Baby magazine and there was a cute article on What It's Like to Be One--they posed these questions to the parents of 8 different 1 year olds. It was a good lesson on how each child is different and I thought it would be fun to complete for Nate!

One word to describe him: gregarious (Joel's word)
Tell us more: happy-go-lucky, runs full speed ahead
How many teeth: 2 (but his top 2 are ALMOST through!)
Drinks from cup: yes
Walking yet: yes, running would be more like it
First words: definitely has mama mastered, other favorite syllables with no meaning are bah, da and lots of other babbling
Favorite thing in the world: being held while we're standing
Favorite food: bananas
Favorite book: That's Not My Reindeer
Favorite song: If You're Happy and You Know It
Favorite game: Hide & Seek
First reaction to new people: curious look & then big smile
It drives me crazy when: he throws his cup down
Cutest thing he does: Laughs a lot!

What Nate is doing!

2010-04-16T14:38:00.005-04:00

*2nd go at this....darn Windows 7 for making our computer freeze**

So, I'm going to abandon the "monthly" Nate posts and just post with things that are fun, new and interesting. I'm trying to focus on getting photos and videos updated in a timely manner to SmugMug for the families and then I don't seem to have too much time to blog after that.

We are enjoying the Spring weather and will especially happy when our neighborhood pool opens the weekend before Memorial Day. Nate still likes his water table...but we have to keep it really clean because he enjoys drinking big cups of water from it. Not fun.

I am praying that Nate's top teeth will come in soon....at 13 months he still only has 2 teeth. This makes it hard for him to eat some foods. I also like to blame every rough day or bad mood on teething, but that obviously hasn't been true yet.

Nate is a rough and tumble kid- he plays hard and usually isn't too upset when he falls or bumps himself.

He loves to push and pull things, climb under and now on top (yikes) of things.

He's a real attention hog and if you smile at him nicely he'll likely want you to hold him or give you a hug.

I'm sure I'll think of more things later....for now just check out all our new pictures and videos :-)

12 months!

2010-03-25T13:43:00.003-04:00

First off, I just realized we haven't taken a bear picture....bad parents! Here's a quick rundown of what Nate's up to.

Weight: 23.5 lb (75%) still hanging around this weight now that he's movin and shakin
Height: 30 in (75%)
Clothes: 18 month tops/12-18 month bottoms...this guy has a long torso so most of his 12 mo tops left his belly hangin out

Food: Food is crazy right now because at Nate's 12 mo checkup Dr. Pearlstein said that there is no reason for him to eat babyfood anymore. He was definitely paying attention, because he would not eat a single bite of babyfood after that. So we are working on finding out what he likes. He definitely LOVES these veggie straws...I think he would eat them all day long

He also likes bananas and vanilla wafers (I know Nana will love to make him her famous Banana Pudding next weekend!)

Schedule: He is definitely down to one nap now, 3 hours (you could almost set your watch to it) from around 11:30-2:30. He goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps 12 hours.

Toys: Still loving our toys best- the remote, cell phone and keys. Also loves his VTech Piano and also new helicopter he got for his birthday.

Exploring: He now loves to go UNDER everything- tables, his crib, etc. and also love pushing things...the kitchen chairs are constantly being moved around.

Welcome to Babyland!

2010-03-25T13:30:00.004-04:00

I don't know why I thought of this quote today....but "babyland" is constantly surrounding us! Moving into the new house we were thinking that Nate would love his playroom, but he really loves exploring in our common living area. I cleaned up all of his toys yesterday, but by this morning the living room/kitchen looked like this:

In this photo you see a nice scattering of toys, pillows and magazines strewn on the floor. A baby gate blocking the front room, a cardboard box covering the fireplace that Nate is obsessed with and yes, party decorations on the mantle...because we are celebrating birthday month--definitely has nothing to do with me being too busy to take them down......

And here Nate's 2 cabinets open with a few pieces removed for playing.

Nate's really taken over most of the house...and he needs a change of scenery about every 45 minutes, so we rotate playroom, living room and his room. And that is why we rarely stay at home for an entire day!

First Day of Spring!

2010-03-25T13:03:00.008-04:00

We celebrated the first day of spring by heading to Suwanee Town Center to start our Spring/Summer ritual of Five Guys burgers and Rita's Italian Ice! Rita's was actually giving away free Italian Ices in honor of the day so it was even better!

How cute are these guys?

Nate worked on his walking/running in his new big boy shoes....and I hover so he didn't dive head first into that stone wall :-)

Here we are a little more than a year ago starting our tradition.

Things that make me happy!

2010-03-25T12:50:00.003-04:00

New shoes!

and a trip to the park with this cutie! (matching polo shirt and sippy cup not required)

Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL and we couldn't resist a quick trip to the park. We like this one best because they have some things that Nate can actually play on/with aside from swings. Here is his favorite- the chimes.

Birthday Month!

2010-03-18T08:48:00.004-04:00

It has been a busy birthday month around our house, preparing for Nate's 1st birthday party and Joel's upcoming 29th birthday this weekend. Add to that lots of traveling on weekends, chasing around a completely mobile Nate and lots of other distractions and you would get my excuse for not blogging as much lately...

Anyway, I'll hopefully be back to it soon, but for now check out our Smug Mug site with pictures from Nate's birthday taken by our friend and aspiring photographer, Alex King.

Recipe of the Week- mmmmm, fries!

2010-03-02T15:58:00.003-05:00

This week I'm going to share a recipe for oven fries. I made these several weeks ago and they were wonderful, but then made them again and they were pretty lackluster. I gave it one more try last night and they were back to their golden brown perfection.

Here are a few tips that I think ensures a better fry-

-for some reason "older" potatoes are better. I don't think potatoes have a "ripeness" but the 2nd batch of yucky fries were made from potatoes that were fresh from the store, but batch 1 and 3 were from bags that I had for about a week.

-be sure to weigh your potatoes. The likelihood of picking up 3 8oz potatoes is pretty rare--just make sure your potatoes have a total weight of 24 oz to ensure a proper oil to potato ratio.

The recipe is from The All-Time Best Recipes issue of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. We faithfully watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS every weekend which shows the extensive testing that goes into each of their recipes...this particular article details trying different potatoes, different cooking temperatures, how much oil and salt and how to apply it, etc... Needless to say, their recipes are usually divine (sometimes highly labor intensive, but divine nonetheless.)

So, this isn't your typical leave it and forget it oven fry recipe, but you won't be sorry! Also note this recipe says it serves 4....but Joel and I devour every single fry. Well, we did let Nate have one :-)

Ultimate Oven Fries

3 russet potatoes (8oz each), scrubbed, and each cut lengthwise into 10 to 12 even wedges
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp. vegetable or peanut oil
Table salt and ground pepper

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 475 degrees. Place potatoes in large bowl, cover with hot tap water, and let soak for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, coat 18x12 in heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet with 1/4 cup of oil and sprinkle evenly with 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.

2. Drain potatoes. Spread potatoes out on triple layer of paper towels and pat dry thoroughly with additional paper towels. In bowl, toss dried potatoes with remaining teaspoon oil.

3. Arrange potatoes in single layer on prepared baking sheet and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove foil and continue to bake until bottoms of potatoes are spotty golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating baking sheet after 10 minutes.

4. Scrape potatoes loose from pan with metal spatula, then flip over each wedge using tongs, keeping potatoes in single layer. Continue to bake until fries are golden and crisp, 7-10 minutes longer, rotating pan as needed if fries are browning unevenly. Spread potatoes out over paper towels to drain briefly, discarding oil left on baking sheet. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Sick Boy

2010-02-27T18:50:00.003-05:00

It's been a rough week here as Nate has had his first big sickness...a lovely stomach bug. There has been lots of fussing but also lots of cuddling.

Before the sickness struck Nate and I were able to travel to Charlotte for Jackson's 2nd birthday party! Once we got there and I realized that everyone had cameras I didn't even break mine out....check out 2 great blog posts about the party here or here!

Recipe of the week

2010-02-24T12:49:00.002-05:00

I haven't been doing so well with cooking lately...but I got back at it this week. Italian Sausage was on sale so I started looking for a recipe to make and came across this recipe for Baked Penne with Italian Sausage.

BAKED PENNE W/ ITALIAN SAUSAGE
www.RecipeGirl.com

1 lb sweet and hot Italian sausages, casings removed
12 ounces whole milk ricotta cheese (about 1½ cups)
4 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil, divided
salt and ground black pepper
12 ounces fresh whole milk mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 3 cups
3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (about 1½ cups)
1½ lbs ziti or other short, tubular pasta
4½ cups Marinara Sauce or jarred tomato sauce
¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves (for serving)

1. Bring 6 quarts of water to boil in a large pot over high heat.

2. Meanwhile, cook sausage in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, breaking the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until the sausage loses its raw color, about 5 minutes. Drain the sausage on a paper-towel-lined plate and set aside.

3. Mix ricotta cheese, 2 Tbs. of the olive oil, ½ tsp. salt, and ½ tsp. pepper together; set aside. In a separate bowl, toss the mozzarella and Parmesan together until combined; set aside.

4. Add 1½ Tbs. salt and the pasta to the boiling water and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is just beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Reserve 1½ cups of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta. Return the drained pasta to the pot and stir in the marinara sauce, sausage, remaining 2 Tbs. oil and reserved pasta cooking water.

5. Pour half of the sauced pasta into a 13×9-inch baking dish. Drop large spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture evenly over the pasta, then pour the remaining sauced pasta over the ricotta layer. Sprinkle the top of the penne evenly with the mozzarella mixture.

6. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400°F. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil that has been sprayed with vegetable oil spray (or use nonstick foil). Bake until the sauce bubbled lightly around the edges, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake until pasta is completely heated through, 25 to 30 minutes longer. Sprinkle with basil before serving.

Cooking Tips
*If you’d like to make this dish ahead, wrap the prepared casserole with plastic wrap and then foil, and refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to one month. (If frozen, the casserole must be thawed completely in the refrigerator, about 24 hours, before baking). Be sure to remove the plastic wrap.
**You can also divide this meal into two 8×8-inch casserole dishes (each will serve 4). Eat one and freeze one!

Recipe Source: The Best Make-Ahead Recipe

Read more: http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/09/21/baked-penne-with-italian-sausage/#ixzz0gTdTcihs

It made A LOT of food...I just saw the note about dividing it into 2 dishes, which I will probably do next time if I'm making it for just us.

11 months!

2010-02-24T12:06:00.006-05:00

This is slightly late...our sweet boy will be 1 year old in 2 weeks! We can hardly believe it!

By at home weighing, he is still around 23 pounds. We can tell he is getting taller because his 18 month footie pj's are now fitting his feet and not hanging off. We had started him in those a little early because they fit his chunky monkey thighs better :-)

He is walking more and more every day and has stood himself up on his own a handful of times. No longer is he content in his jumpy (which is my go to place for him when I need to take Sammy our or run upstairs for a quick minute.) Maybe I'll part with it on his birthday :-( He's also become a bigger fan of the paci lately...not sure when I'll take that away.

Nate is a real social boy with no stranger anxiety yet. The other week at Gymboree he even crawled across the big mat, into the lap another mom (whom he had never met) and gave her a big hug. He has even been more clingy with us lately, wanting to be held more and snuggling before bedtime-complete with the cutest little sighing sound you have ever heard. I need to try to get that on video.

We're looking forward to warmer days and getting outside! He picked up his first stomach bug and was sick last night, but seems to be better today. It's a cold day here though, so we don't mind staying in for a pajama day.

Heartbreakers Playdate

2010-02-15T09:22:00.004-05:00

Last Friday Nate and I hosted our first playdate for our friends Carlton and Micah and their mommies. We were also glad to have Mrs. Rebecca our Childrens' Minister and Carlton's older brother Harris come to play too! We had Valentines decorations and lots of brunch food for us to snack on!

They maybe, kind of "played" together a little bit :-) I did, however, wait way too long to try to take a picture of them all together which was met with much protest, screaming and crying (from Nate). So I didn't get to capture that :-( Lesson learned is to take a picture at the beginning! Here are a few that I did get!

Carlton reading a book with Mrs. Rebecca

Nate working some more on his walking
Micah playing with some links and Harris with a puppet!

We hope you all can come play again soon!

Nate's Walking Video

2010-02-09T14:28:00.003-05:00

Chili Cookoff and Bakeoff

2010-02-09T14:17:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday night our church had a Super Bowl Men's Chili Cookoff and Women's Bakeoff to raise funds for relief in Haiti! It was a fun time to get together to fellowship and eat some yummy food! Here are some pictures a friend of ours took at the event.

Nate wore his Panthers jersey...too bad they didn't even make it to the playoffs :-(
Sweet Carlton "leans in" when you take his picture

We always have a "baby table" with the Wallaces and the Neals

All the baking ladies- it was announced that Jared won 2nd place- Heather was so proud!

Joel and some of the chili entrants

Well it turned out to be a memorable day!

2010-02-04T18:51:00.004-05:00

The turkey breast turned out well, so I'll share that in a minute.

But the big news of the day is.....

NATE WALKED!

Joel came home from work a bit early and we were playing in the playroom. We've been trying to encourage him to walk from one of us to the other, but he'd never done it. I let him go and he took about 5 steps from me to Joel! I love so much that Nate tends to save these milestones for times when Joel and I can both see it together for the first time and it makes me sooooo happy.

We'll work on trying to get this on video. After dinner he wasn't too happy and didn't want to agree to our numerous attempts to get him to repeat his performance.

Ok, Turkey Breast! It was yummy, easy (I don't know how it could get much easier) and I doubt you could really tell the difference if you had cooked it in the oven and basted multiple times. Once it cooked for a while I was able to replace the corningware with the proper lid.

Crock-pot Turkey Breast
source: Cedar Rapids Gazette, Desperation Dinners column

1 turkey breast (6 to 6-1/2 pounds), frozen (see note)
2 tsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 medium onion
4 garlic cloves

Rinse the turkey and pat it dry with paper towels. Rub the turkey all over with oil. Sprinkle the breast lightly with salt and pepper to personal preference.

Place the breast, meaty side up, into a 5-quart slow cooker.

Peel the onion, cut it into quarters, and place the pieces around the edges of the pot. Peel the garlic cloves and place them around the sides of the cooker. Cover the cooker and cook the breast on low for 9 hours, or until the meat thermometer registers 170 degrees. Remove the breast from the cooker and let the bird stand at least 10 minutes before slicing. (The internal temperature will continue to rise while the bird is standing.) Discard the vegetables in the cooker. Serve the breast sliced, preferably without skin.

Note: If the turkey breast is not frozen, check for doneness (170 degrees) with a meat thermometer after 7-1/2 to 8 hours of cooking on low. Be sure to wash your hands well with soap and water immediately after handling raw poultry. Wash sink and counter surfaces the meat touches with soap and hot water.

If you do not use the entire turkey in the meal you can refrigerate, covered for 24 hours before chopping the meat and freezing. Place the meat in a freezer-weight plastic bag and freeze for up to 2 weeks.

Kitchen Hack

2010-02-04T09:25:00.003-05:00

Well today started off as a lovely day...at 5am Sammy was barking to go outside. So I drag myself out of bed and half awake take him out. And then I hear talking? This freaks Sammy out (as do most things) and I realize there are 3 women walking down the street. At 5am. In February. We have officially moved to the most active neighborhood I have ever seen! People are constantly walking (with and without dogs, which adds an added level of stress to Sammy) down the street. All. Day. Long. Which makes for a long day of Sammy barking at ever person that passes. We're trying to figure out a way to make this better...

After TRYING to get back to sleep and failing I get up at 6:30. Nate woke up shortly after that anyway....I was hoping today was going to be a sleep in day :-(

I was ready to go ahead and put my dinner in the crock pot. Joel mentioned the other day that he wanted to have a mini-Thanksgiving type dinner- turkey breast, sweet potatoes, etc. I found a turkey breast crock pot recipe that looked really easy- you just throw the turkey breast in a frozen crock pot add a lil garlic & onion and let it go!

Well, I knew my crock pot was on the smaller side (not the oval or roaster kind), so I got the smallest turkey breast they had. And here's how it fit:

Or rather, didn't fit! Great! I quickly google "cook in crock pot without lid" and found most people just saying to use a different lid or a Corningware lid. Ah ha! If there's something I have plenty of it's Corningware! So I fashioned this little extension for my crock pot. Now let's just hope it actually works!If this recipe turns out well I'll pass it along. Haven't been the best cook this week...only made a standard lasagna and bought an apple pie from Publix rather than making my own dessert this week. Nate has been teething again and my free time to cook has been quite limited.

And now featuring live action!

2010-01-31T19:13:00.002-05:00

We finally decided to upgrade our SmugMug account to include video uploads...so you will find most of our videos uploaded now! Still working on the technology to upload from the tape recorder-which is sooooo 2004, I mean really, who records anything on tape anymore? haha.

Follow me and recipe of the week!

2010-01-26T19:50:00.003-05:00

Whitney reminded me in her recent post that I hadn't checked my analytics lately to see how many people are visiting, from where (apparently searching for "bandages on my fingers," "puppy car seat" or "my baby grew 3 inches in 2 months" will get you to our site), how long they read, etc. It's pretty fun to spy on your account.

That said, since I signed up for the analytics a little over a year ago there have been 813 unique visitors to our blog. Crazy! A little scary too, but I like keeping our blog public and will for the unforeseen future.

Anyway, one way to let us know that you are one of those many visitors (other than comments) is to become a "follower." You can do this by clicking on the follow button in the right hand column. You can login with an existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID. Or you can make a free account with Google.

So I hope at least a few of you will join me as a follower. And especially if you have a blog...I love to read other blogs!

Ok, on to recipe of the week. I was planning to make fish tacos tonight, but I am feeling under the weather and spent the afternoon on the couch. So I will share an awesome Bread Pudding recipe that I made yesterday. It is REALLY good and will definitely not last a whole week in the house.

Ingredients:

12 slices day-old baguette, cut into 3/4-inch
cubes
4 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of salt
4 cups milk
1/4 cup dried cranberries or raisins
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Directions:

Lightly butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Spread the bread cubes in it.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until well blended. Pour in the milk and whisk until combined. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes. Let stand, pressing down on the bread occasionally, until it is evenly soaked, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat an oven to 350°F.

Scatter the cranberries evenly over the surface of the soaked bread and press to submerge the fruit. Set the baking dish in a large, shallow roasting pan. Add very hot tap water to the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish.

Bake the pudding until a knife inserted near the center comes out almost clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Generously dust the top of each slice with confectioners' sugar. Serves 8.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection Series, Dessert, by Abigail Johnson Dodge (Simon & Schuster, 2002).

A few more things....

2010-01-21T08:39:00.004-05:00

I forgot a few things I wanted to include in Nate's post....

He LOVES paper. He loves to hold catalogues and tear out pages (and then try to eat them.) And he tries to steal my grocery list the whole time that we're shopping.

His favorite books are Usborne Touchy Feely Books...we have 3 of them :-)

He is babbling more and says ba-ba, ma-ma and da-da...I'm only sure that he says ma-ma to mean me, but he doesn't do it very consistently yet.

We are working on clapping, but for now pat-a-cake just means you put your hands together and hold them...it's still pretty cute.

A few things he does know is "jump" where he will bounce up and down and "shake" where he will shake whatever he is holding.

One funny thing that he doesn't quite understand yet is that when he has a paci in his mouth he can't eat cheerios. I'll put him in his highchair sometimes with a paci in and he'll pick up some cheerios but will either just hold them, or try to bring them to his mouth and then just ends up holding them under his nose. So he doesn't get that you have to take the paci out! Again, it's pretty cute.

He is ticklish! Mostly around his neck, but also is tummy and feet. It's fun to have tickle fights and get him giggling.

I'm still probably forgetting some things...but now I feel better that I got those down :-)

10 months!

2010-01-20T14:25:00.005-05:00

At 10 months Nate weighs 23 pounds! I missed his 9 month post, but at his checkup he weighed 22 lb 4.5 oz. and 29 inches (75% for both.) He's starting to level off a little bit! He wears size 4 diapers and size 12 month clothes fit perfectly *right this second*...any new clothes I'm buying him are 12-18 months size.

and he's wearing size 4 shoes--like these cute Sperrys I bought last year at a consignment sale :-)

Nate has a tooth! He got his first tooth the week of Christmas...it's his bottom left one. We thought he was starting to teeth for the 2nd one...but nothing yet!
He will finally hold his own bottle. Another step towards self feeding! And he has found that biter biscuits are yummy.....and REALLY messy!

Here's a little recap of other things he is up to:
*He generally goes to bed at night around 7 and will sleep until 7. There are occasional days where he will go to bed at 6:30 and sleep until 8 (these are really nice when it happens on days that I want to sleep in also...like today!)

*He still usually takes 2 naps a day, that are about 1.5-2 hours each....but the days where he only wants to nap once are becoming more frequent.
His favorite toys are anything that can fit in his mouth....and an added bonus if it also makes noise.

*His favorite toys that aren't really toys--Sammy's rawhide bones (yuck), tags on things, door hinges (I hate this one!), diapers & wipes.

*He pulls up to standing all the time and can stand on his own after letting go for up to 30 seconds or so...we're working on encouraging him to take a step, but nothing yet. Thankfully he is very steady on his feet and plops down well...he just got his first little baby black eye this week when he tripped and fell on a toy.

We're loving this age as he is so fun, generally really happy and very sweet. And in a little less then 2 months he'll be 1! Wow!

Recipe of the week- Taco Soup

2010-01-19T10:08:00.002-05:00

I know you were all waiting for this...

Taco Soup

And this will be the shortest blog post ever! Lots to do!

Recipe of the week

2010-01-12T10:07:00.003-05:00

So I decided to take it easy this week after my fiasco last week...and upon Sharla's recommendation there is now a frozen pizza waiting in my freezer for such days. :-)

I needed to make a meal for one of Joel's coworkers who recently had a baby, so I made a double batch of my favorite Baked Ziti recipe.

Baked Ziti (from Publix Apron's Simple Meals)
16 oz ziti pasta
1 lb ground beef
1 cup diced onions
1 4oz. can diced green chilies
1 26oz. jar pasta sauce
1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes
1 tb Italian seasoning
1/2 tb basil pesto
cooking spray
2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook ziti according to package instructions.

Place ground beef, onions and chilies in large saute pan; cook over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes until meat is brown and no pink remains. Stir frequently and break up meat as it cooks.

Stir pasta sauce, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and pesto into meat. Reduce heat to medium; simmer 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until hot and bubbly.

Coat 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Pour ziti into baking dish. Stir in meat sauce; top with cheese. Bake 12-15 minutes until thoroughly heated.

Enjoy!