6 Months

It's time for a belated "Andy is 6 months old" post. What a darling little boy. People constantly tell us, "He must be the most smiley baby in the world!" He is incredibly smiley, the light of our lives, and we love him to pieces.


Thoughts about our little Andy:
-He loves songs! We can get him to smile instantly by singing "Patty-cake," "If you're happy and you know it," and "Andy, Andy I've been thinking." He also loves, "The eensy, weensy spider."
-While doing turbo jam, I discovered that he he finds any kind of crazy, unusual movement absolutely hilarious. We do crazy dancing for him all the time attempting to make him giggle.
-He can sit up securely by himself.
-He loves his new johnny jump up! (Thank you Grandma Liz!)
-Loves to play airplane, be thrown up in the air, and be turned upside down.
-Weight: 19 lbs 10 oz (75-90%), Height: 27.5 inches (75-90%), and Head Circ: 46 cm (90-95%). He is growing out of his clothes at an alarming rate! His 9 month clothes are almost too small, and he fits in 12 month stuff comfortably.
-Loves when people clap! It makes him so excited. Especially when I chant his name while clapping or say "Yay!"
-Sucks on absolutely everything. Still no teeth in sight, though.
-Has a love/hate relationship with all his toys. He loves them for about 5 minutes at which point they turn very frustrating to him because they just don't seem to do what he wants them to do.
-Still needs constant attention! He's happy as long as he's being played with.
-Likes reading books. He likes to turn the pages. Though he's ready to be done with the book after about 1 minute.
-He has the most beautiful, long eyelashes.
-Still doesn't seem to like going on walks in his stroller.
-Loves to play the piano. I like to sit his bumbo on the bench and watch him pound away.
-Still hates tummy time. But he'll roll over if he's not too tired and is in the mood.
-He wiggles and moves constantly! I think he'll be so relieved when he finally crawl and walk around. We always say he's so tired of being a baby.
-He hates to sit and loves to stand.
-Is still not the best sleeper. We're hoping to get a more regular schedule set up soon so I can start teaching piano again. He still wakes up 2-3 times during the night. Yuck.
-LOVES bath time! He does it now without his little infant bath. He lays down and kicks like crazy. He soaks us!
-We waited until 6 months to try solids. He HATED rice cereal. Like--gagging, crying, hated it. We tried oatmeal. I wouldn't say he liked it, but at least he wasn't gagging. Still, most of it ends up on his bib. He doesn't get that he's supposed to swallow. I tried mixing it with pureed bananas today, which didn't seem to make any difference. Good thing he still nurses so well!
-Grew tons of blond hair this month.

Thanksgiving

This year marked the first year we've ever hosted Thanksgiving! I think it turned out really well. Cameron's family flew in for the weekend; we also had Cameron's cousin Aisling join us along with her husband Bryan and adorable boy Carter. It was a late dinner (about 6 PM) which was ctually really nice--it gave us lots of time to do everything. However, near dinner time we had 2 disasters. Disaster no.1: Andy was screaming. And I mean reallllllly screaming. We laid him down to sleep a little too late, so he'd reached the overtired phase and wouldn't calm down. We listened to him scream for the first half of dinner. It was such a relief (to everyone) when he finally fell asleep. Disaster no. 2: Aisling's dog somehow escaped off our deck. Everyone went out to find her for 30 min. or so. Eventually we found her and all was well. Somehow everything stayed warm and dinner turned out well!

Our turkey: (We cheated and didn't make it since we only had one oven to do everything. We got it from Rudy's, an amazing BBQ place. It was sooooooo good!)


My first attempt at homemade rolls. I was so happy they didn't fail miserably.


Cam and I each made a pie. He made chocolate cream and I made tollhouse. They were delish.


We also made jello salad, a green salad, mashed potatoes, and a yummy sparkling drink. And we bought a costco pumpkin pie. Bryan and Aisling brought stuffing, sweet potato pie, homemade pumpkin pie, and an apple onion pie. It was all so good! I wish I would have taken more pictures, but between the hustle of bustle of preparing, Andy screaming, and looking for the dog, it didn't happen. Oh well.

5 Months!

Our darling little boy is 5 months old! We can hardly believe it. He is a complete joy. Just when we don't think he could get any cuter, he does. We see more and more of his personality every day. He learns new things all the time.
Andy:
-Is super smiley. The pictures are evidence.
-Has mastered grabbing things! It's been fun to see him get better at it all month. He's a pro now!
-Chews on everything and slobbers constantly.
-Loves the activity center my mom & sisters gave him. It has absolutely saved my life. It's the only thing that can entertain him for longer than 5 minutes. Sometimes I even get a good 20 min. of entertainment out of it!
-Much to my dismay, has started to hate our walks. They are my sanity so I'm super depressed about this. I end up carrying him and pushing the empty stroller.
-Went on the slide and swings for the first time! He loves them both. The slide makes him giggle every time.
-Had his first Halloween. He went to two parties: he was a chicken and a pumpkin.
-Loves to be held. Loves attention. He is very happy and smiley as long as those two things are happening. He is usually screaming when these needs aren't met. This means I get absolutely nothing done.
-Is super chunky. I'm guessing he's about 18 pounds now? He only spent a month in his 3-6 month clothes, and is now in 6-9. Whenever I tell people how old he is, the response is always the same: "What a BIG boy!" I think this is mostly because of his gigantic head. As my mom told me while skyping a few days ago, his head is the same size as mine.
-Loves to put everything in his mouth! Including his feet. He has loved the discovery of his feet this month. He is always grabbing them.
-Is a wiggler. He wiggles and moves alllllll the time.
-Is starting to the grasp the concept of books and stories. By this I mean he actually looks at the pages rather than sitting there clueless that anything unusual is happening.
-Still loves songs! He loves when I sing along with the Pandora Disney station.
-Loves sitting in his bumbo on the counter while I cook.
-Still loves to stand.
-Can sit up! This is the big accomplishment of the month. He's never lasted longer than a minute without my help though. We're working on that one.
-Still hates tummy time, but I finally witnessed him rolling over a few times this month.
-Makes all sorts of sweet noises.
-Unfortunately, he's discovered his ability to make high pitched screams.
-Is still the sweetest nurser ever. Though it's frustrating at times, it's mostly sweet how he unlatches constantly to stop and smile and to talk. Cameron and I have to make sure we don't talk while I'm nursing because Andy stops and looks up to listen.
-Is not a good sleeper. In fact, he's gotten worse. He wakes up 2 or 3 times consistently every night. And his naps are horrible. He has about 4-5 mini naps every day. We tried the whole month to work on sleep training--getting him on a schedule and getting him to fall asleep unassisted. It was horrible to listen to so much screaming and there was virtually no improvement. I've been so frustrated and depressed about all this, but I'm actually feeling better after reading more in "the book" (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) and realizing he doesn't fit in the "normal child" category because he was such a colicky baby, which I guess means it takes longer for his sleep habits to develop. Even though I'm depressed I'm not getting more sleep, I feel better knowing it's not because I'm doing something wrong. We'll just have to give him some more time. And I need to stop comparing his sleep to other babies because it is so discouraging. He's his own person and that's okay. We love him just the way he is!

I kept my resolve to be better at taking pictures this month. We have tons! Here are some favorites:

the beautiful new addition to our home

I've been meaning to post for a while now about our new PIANO! My parents were generous enough to let us sell an old piano they had and use the money to help buy a new one here in Texas. Looking for a piano was quite the experience. We knew we didn't have room (or the money) for a grand, but we needed a piano nice enough for me to teach on. So we settled on finding a Yamaha U1 or U3, both fantastic upright models. At first we spent some time looking around on Craigslist, but not many pop up and they go really fast. (Random: we almost bought one from the lead bassist from the band Fastball. Remember them?) We eventually decided to go with a refurbished one from a store. We missed the selection you'd find in Utah--there are so many piano stores there! There are maybe two stores that sell Yamahas here? After visiting this horrible music store here that seriously tried to sell us a Clavinova (okay...nothing wrong with them for certain purposes, but I couldn't believe they were trying to convince a teacher with a piano degree that a Clavinova would be a much better choice), we ended up at this great store called Strait Music where we found a gorgeous refurbished U1 with an absolutely gorgeous sound, tone quality, etc. We fell in love and got it a few days later. It felt like Christmas Eve the night before it was being delivered...we were both soooo excited we could barely sleep. Though neither one of us have been able to play it as much as we would like, we are so happy to have music in our home. We're hoping Andy gets a little better at a schedule by January so I can start teaching.



We framed some of my most favorite pieces I've played above the piano:

Some Gems

I found these gems on Cameron's phone the other day. Didn't even know about them. It made me miss when Andy was super little.


A few minutes old:

With my sweet Grandma:

Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween this year. The festivities actually began the Friday before Halloween with our ward party. We found this adorable chicken costume for Andy, so we decided to make a theme of it and be farmers. It was such a fun party! There was a chili cook-off, a bake contest (which I sadly didn't win), and a bunch of other stuff. As you can tell, we don't know how to use our camera.



On actual Halloween, we went to a party thrown by our good friend Kasee. She threw such a fantastic party...I decided I'm never going to host anything again because it would just look horrible to everyone after going to her party! (You should all check out her fantastic food blog: theaprongal.com) We did a little costume change so Andy could wear the adorable pumpkin costume that my mom gave him for Christmas last year (before he was born).




And what better way to introduce our new friends than to show them in their costumes?
Juan and Cami (honey bear and flower):

Amelia, their beautiful little girl who closed her eyes in every picture I tried to take: (She was dressed up as a bee at the ward party.)

Matt and Andrea (Zombie Steve Jobs and a Witch): sidenote--they had their beautiful little girl Adelaide just 3 days later...yay!

Janssen and Landen sans husbands:

Kasee and Jason: (Cop and Inmate)

Blakely, Lindsey, and Little Charlie: (Jazz fans and a skeleton)

Speaking of Charlie, he is Andy's new best bud!


Sadly, I somehow didn't get a picture of Allison and James who were dressed up as Twitter and Facebook.

Some pictures of the spread:



It was an awesome party--thanks Kasee! We love our new friends here!

Sleep, Sleep, Sleep

Sleep is all I think about these days. No, it's not MY lack of sleep that's constantly on my mind (though I long and dream for the day when I can sleep through the night again). I'm constantly trying to help Andy develop healthy sleep habits. I've heard so many people swear by the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," and I love and feel good about using the principles it teaches. So, I've pretty much been trying to do everything it says since Day 1.

He's never been a very good sleeper, but we've worked on one thing after another and he's gotten better. He now actually sleeps at night, which is AMAZING. I can pretty much plan on him going to bed about 7 PM and waking up about 7 AM (with a couple feedings in there). However, he's never been good at taking naps. They used to be about 15 min. long and we've worked to him getting to 40 min. or so. Anyway, I've been long awaiting the day we'd get to the chapter titled "Months 4-12" in the book, so that I could begin an actual sleep schedule and hopefully help him take more substantial naps. Part of that plan includes letting him cry it out so he can learn to fall asleep unassisted. We tried the Ferber Method of this at about 6 weeks (as the book calls it, "graduated extinction") but didn't have much success and decided it might be a little early. Now we're doing what the book calls "total extinction," where we let him cry it out as long as it takes at night without going in, and with naps we let him cry an entire hour before we'll go in. The point being that he learns that no matter how long he cries we won't come in, and he just needs to go to sleep. (I know some people think this is horribly mean, etc....but we choose to think it means we care about him enough to let him sleep, which is what he really needs.)

Before we started all this, I had lots of people tell me their experience with it and how it just took their child a few days to learn, and then they wouldn't cry anymore. Consequently, I had high hopes. (Although, knowing that Cam and I both were horrendous sleepers as children, I should have known better.) Like I said, night time actually isn't an issue for him. He maybe cries about 15 min. and gives in. But naps are a whole other story--we've been doing it for about 10 days and I am ready to pull my hair out. It absolutely breaks my heart to hear him cry. I spend so much of my day sitting on my bed (which is just about the furthest I can get away from Andy's room) with my door shut, with the monitor on, but turned all the way down, so I can see it light up to indicate if noise is coming from his room but I won't hear it. Sometimes he only cries for 15 min. before he sleeps, but it's not uncommon for him to go the entire hour. And even if he falls asleep, he'll usually only sleep for 15-30 min. and then I have to let him cry some more in hopes he'll fall asleep for longer. And I still worry about his night feedings. Should I not feed him at one of them so he'll stop waking up? But what if he's hungry? Blah, blah, blah. All I think about is his sleep. There are definitely times when I see some improvements, but I feel like they should be far more significant. I feel like he should have caught on by now? Perhaps he's just incredibly stubborn like his dad? He certainly couldn't have gotten the stubborn gene from me. ;)

Anyway. I know I'm an overly worried and concerned first-time parent. This is such a small issue in the grand scheme of things, but I swear it is consuming my life. I wish he would just learn to nap a little bit better!

People I Love: Kathy

I've decided I'd like to dedicate posts here and there to people that I love. Today, I'd like to write about my mother-in-law Kathy, since it's her 40th (wink, wink) birthday today!


I literally could not imagine a more perfect mother-in-law. My thoughts about this sweet woman:

-The first time I met Kathy, I was stunned with how gorgeous she is. And the more I've gotten to know her, the prettier she becomes because she is so beautiful on the inside too.
-She has always made me feel so comfortable and welcome. Our first Christmas married, she spoiled me rotten. She took such great care to plan so many gifts that I would like. I felt so special and cared about.
-On that same note, that's what Kathy is good at: making everyone feel special and cared about. She is always doing things for other people. Truly, one of the most selfless people I've ever met. She will do anything for anyone.
-She organizes these wonderful parties for extended family. They are elaborate and take so much work! She always has all these little games planned, delicious dinners, good desserts. She puts so much work into making sure family time happens.
-Birthday crowns! She makes birthday crowns for everyone in the extended family. And they are elaborate!! This means she's making 50+ crowns every year. She's amazing.

-I think a story Brendan tells captures Kathy well--I guess Brendan loved his stuffed animals when he was young and wanted to throw birthday parties for each one all the time. Kathy would go all out and make the stuffed animal a cake, etc. What a fantastic mom.
-She is so generous. One example: we lived at their house for a couple months and she wouldn't allow us to buy any of our own food or anything.
-She is so talented! She designed their gorgeous house and has decorated it so beautifully.
-I have never met anyone so organized. Everything in her house has a place. And it's always there.
-Everything she does is exceptional. I don't think she's capable of doing anything half-heartedly. I've noticed this with her callings, parties (like my bridal shower and baby shower), her job (after all, she won employee of the year in the school district her first year!), making movies for people...everything.
-Speaking of making movies. I had to get some video clips put on a DVD for a teaching certification I was doing. I didn't really know how to do it, so I asked her for some help. In true Kathy fashion, she stopped everything she was doing and made me a fancy-DVD with a menu, music, pictures, etc. It took her more time than I initially thought it would, but she acted like it was no big deal.
-She keeps all these amazing traditions. She buys us all a Christmas ornament every year, depending on what we've been working on for the year. She buys Cameron a nutcracker every year for Christmas.
-She is an amazing gift giver. For example, for my most recent birthday, she gave me a book of my blog for all of 2009. It is beautiful. It must have taken her ages to design it. That means so much when she is so incredibly busy.
-She is such a hard worker. She works full-time and does all the book-keeping for Greg's business. She is seriously busy and stays on top of it all.
-She tolerates her husband's and sons' endless teasing so well. :) She's so good natured and is so fun to be around.
-She is such a good grandma to Andy. You can just see how much she loves him. She bought puppets to entertain him with when we skype.
-Most importantly, she raised my sweet Cameron to be the wonderful man that he is. I couldn't be more grateful for that. There are so many things I see Cameron do and I think..."He got that from Kathy," or, "Kathy taught him that."

I love you very much Kathy! Thanks for all you do. We miss you!

My Shows

I probably should be embarrassed to admit it, but I watch a LOT of TV these days. When I'm left without a car a lot of days and nurse a few hours a day and Cameron works late, it's easy to just pop on a few shows. I don't watch all of these all the time, but some favorites (in no particular order):

We don't watch it as religiously as we used to, but it'll always be a favorite.

One of the funniest shows ever. We are soooo happy it's on netflix now.

We're into this one right now because of Vocal Point. GO BYU!

House is such a fabulous character.

We had high hopes for this one when we saw the ads all summer. (Who doesn't love Job?) It hasn't quite lived up to our expectations but we still enjoy it, perhaps because of how it seems to parallel our lives right now.

A new one we sometimes watch. Pretty funny.

A big favorite of ours. We stumbled upon it a couple years ago and have loved it ever since.

LOVE THIS SHOW. It's got mystery, but isn't too dark. And Dr. Brennan is just an adorable character.

Embarrassing...I'm a 26-year-old that watches (and enjoys) the Disney Channel. Maybe it's because I didn't have it growing up and desperately wanted it. Anyway--I love this show. I discovered it this past summer and can't get enough of it.

Also found this one this summer. There was a marathon on while we were packing to move. I had never understood why the family was famous so I curiously turned it on. This family is crazy...which is very entertaining. Cameron won't admit it, but I even got him into watching it.

An embarassing guilty pleasure. But I have loved it for a few years now.

I found this one because it's on before Modern Family. It is soooo funny. A hidden gem.

Who doesn't love this show?! A favorite for Cam and I.

A new show that is totally a guilty pleasure. But I look forward to it every week.

This is an oldie, but I really like it. I'm always up for a good mystery and there are plenty of re-runs of this on.

Considering pregnancy consumed my life for nine months, this show blows my mind.