These are a few of my favorite things

Hats on babies. Kill me now:


I know right?

Daddy reading to baby:



Marshall loves books. LOVES them. When I'm not feeling up to getting on the floor and playing or taking a walk, we just lay in bed and I read out loud whatever book I'm currently working on and he'll sit and listen for about 30 minutes. If its a kids book with pictures, he goes nuts! He loves to turn the pages and look at all the pictures.

Jerad also brought home this little treat last time he was out of town for business:

It is the most amazing play mat ever! First of all, its huge. Also it has a mirror, squeakers, different textures, and lots of bright things that Marshall thinks are veeeeery interesting. Since I've been home sick all week, this mat has been a lifesaver as far as keeping him occupied. He likes to bite/suck/lick the baby in the mirror. While growling....


I'm not sure if he'll ever learn to crawl, because as soon as you put him on his stomach, he does this superman thing all the while kicking and flailing like crazy:


If he was in a pool with some floaties, I'm sure he'd speed off. Well, that's what we've been up to lately.
Hugs!

Look who's sitting up:

6 months

Marshall is 6 months old today. As in 1/2 of a year. In some ways it seems like he's always been a part of our lives, and in other ways it seems like the time has flown by at a record pace. He changes so much and every month is better than the one before it.

We just took him to his first doctor's appointment and he got a clean bill of health. He is now 26.5 inches (about 60th percentile) and 16lbs 6 oz (around 40th percentile). He has exactly doubled his birth weight, and grown 7 inches since birth. So far besides a stuffy nose for a few days, he hasn't been sick, had an ear infection, or anything else. Heck, he hasn't even had a diaper rash!

His new favorite thing is the jumper:




He bounces, spins around, and swings.

In the last month he gave up the cute babbling and "dadadadad" and "babababababa's" and now just Shrieks. Yes, with a capital "S." He likes to vary the pitch and duration, you know, just to spice it up a little.

Breastfeeding is still going well, we've made it to 6 months with no supplementing and plan to keep going as long as possible. The logistics of breastfeeding and working full time suck. I envy the moms who don't have to deal with pumping 3-4 times a day, measuring ounces, and washing bottles! We haven't introduced any solids yet and don't plan to for some time. I talked to our pediatrician about it at his 6 month appointment and she recommends wasting till 9 months unless he starts wanting to nurse every hour and doesn't ever seem to get full. At that point we plan on skipping all the cereals and "baby food" purees and just giving him chunks of what we're eating. We have a different vegetable every night so he should get a good variety.

He loves to roll around and can quickly go from front to back then back to front again. If he's on the floor and there is a toy out of reach he will flip and scoot until he can grab it and get it in his mouth. Sometimes he will sit unassisted for 30 seconds or so, otherwise he can sit with minimal assistance. He also can FINALLY put his pacifier back in the right way if he drops it, even in his sleep. We aren't really encouraging the crawling per se, and instead are trying to enjoy this time where he's not really mobile and we don't have to chase him around and baby proof everything. Although I know the crawling will be adorable, I hope he holds off till after Christmas. I'd love to have a non barricaded tree:)

In the meantime he seems perfectly content:






Right now he goes to bed between 6 and 7pm, gets a dreamfeed before I go to bed at 10, and usually only wakes once around 2 or 3 to nurse, then sleeps until 5 when we get up for the day. We get up so early so that we have some baby-time before we have to get ready and both go to work. Then there are the occasional nights where he'll sleep for 6-8 hours straight, and the nights when he wakes up every 2 hours all night long. We just kind of go with the flow around here. He starts the night off in his crib and I just lay him in there fully awake once he's showing signs of being sleepy, and he lays his little head down and goes right to sleep with no crying. The first time he wakes up we bring him in our bed and if he's sleeping happily we love to have him cuddle with us all night, but most of the time he tosses and rolls and fusses so we put him back in his crib where he'll conk out and not move until morning. Usually when Jerad is gone Marshall will tolerate being in our bed more, I think he just likes the extra space and with 3 of us in a queen there isn't a ton of space to go around.

The morning is his favorite time and he loves to get in our bed and talk, roll, sit up, grab our faces, and giggle. Its the only thing that makes 5am bearable!



Can't wait to see what the next month will bring!

Our little chili pepper

First Halloween

Animal Names

Most parents teach their children the names of different animals. Apparently I need to teach my husband.

(Convo a few nights ago about different kinds of pets)

Jerad: You know, those fluffy things.
Me: ????
Jerad: Um, they have two names... and one of them is like the name of another animal.
Me: .... the hell!?!
Jerad: They have fur!
Me: What do they look like? Do they have tails?
Jerad: You get like two of them and they breed like rabbits.
Me: ...but they're not rabbits...

Finally we establish that he's talking about Guinea Pigs.

You know, those fluffy things with fur with two names (one of them is like the name of another animal) that breed like rabbits.

And Jerad is 28

Jerad turned 28 today!!! We started dating not long after his 23rd b-day and at the time I thought he was so old. Ha! We had a low key weekend. We repainted the guestroom/office:

(don't worry--its no VOC paint)

Now we just need to clean up, decorate, and hang stuff on the walls. Eventually Jerad is going to build a longer and shallower custom desk so he can have space to work and I can have space to craft.

While we worked we listened to Catch Me If You Can the audio book


Its one of my favorite movies and hearing the story was really fun. I've never listened to an audio book before. I love it! Usually when I read I just immerse myself in the book. This way I can get something done at the same time. Win-win. Jerad loved it too, now if only our library would get a better audio book selection...


We also rolled out the new wool rug I bought for the living room:


I'm not 100% sold on it yet. We'll see. I think it would be a better bedroom rug.

Saturday night Jerad's parents and sister watched Marshall and we went to Guiseppe's Restaurant. I told Jerad he could pick anywhere that he wanted to go and that's where we ended up. It's where we went for my birthday:) He loves the lamb.

For his birthday I got him the cell salts he had been asking for, and a make your own root beer kit:

Sunday (his actual b-day) I got up with the baby at 6 and let him sleep in. When he got up at 8, he started making the root beer:



It has to ferment for a few days to a week so it will be awhile till we get to taste it.


Sunday afternoon our friends Liz and Gregg stopped by for awhile, and then Melinda and Larry babysat for a little bit while we went out to lunch. At lunch we were looking at the dessert menu and decided it would be fun to make a chocolate cake. We came home and Jerad chose this recipe for homemade Hostess Cupcakes. They were by no means healthy, but at least minimal chemicals!





It was a great weekend, and nice to chill around home instead of jetting off for once. We will be jetting off next weekend for our anniversary though.

And just because it feels weird to not post some baby pics (I know that's why you all come here now-a-days), here you go:

(staring down Sophie)

(being a charmer)

(superman)

(chilling in the bumbo while I shower)

I'm so lucky to be surrounded by two such sweet happy boys.

Rainbow Baby

This one's for Danielle.

Is it over yet?

Man, I can not wait till this day is over. Bleck.

Yesterday Marshall went to bed super early, like 6. Jerad is traveling right now and going to bed early sounded good to me too, so I nursed Marshall in his sleep, read a few chapters in my book, set my alarm for 5:30am and turned off the lights around 9:30.

Setting the alarm is really just a formality because usually the baby wakes up at 4 to eat and I haven't quite fallen back asleep before the dogs and the cat all start whining/barking/beating down the door to be fed. This in turn wakes up Marshall who wants to talk and play. So, we start our day at 5 and the alarm is a "just in case."

Last night Marshall didn't wake up to eat until 3:30 so I got a pretty good chunk of uninterrupted sleep! I wish he'd wake up closer to 2:00am because then I'd have a chance to fall into a deep sleep before I get up at 5, but I'll take what I can get. At least he always nurses and goes right back to sleep. I remember waking up a few times last night and thinking it was weird that it was kind of light outside and that Marshall was holding so still. Usually he kind of thrashes around and wakes me up, but he was just cuddled up to me snoring. I decided to just enjoy the fact that the baby wasn't using me as a punching bag in his sleep, and not to worry about the light outside since it clearly couldn't be 5:30 yet.

Awhile later I got a text message and decided to check it. It was my mom wondering what time I was dropping the baby off. Oh, and it was 6:34 already.

I HATE starting my day off like that! I like to ease into my morning, have time to play with the baby, eat a little breakfast. Today I jumped up managed to shower, get dressed, get Marshall changed and dressed and fed, feed all the pets, load the car, and be out the door all in under 20 minutes. Do not ask me how, it was some sort of miracle. I always pack the diaper bag, all my pump stuff, and my lunch the night before. Thank goodness for that or I would have really been late.

Even with the almost 30 minutes that it takes to drive to drop off the baby and get to work I was only 15 minutes late. Still, its a crappy way to start the day and I'm ready for it to be over. Also Jerad gets back late tonight and it'll be nice to have him around.

If I remember, I'll take a picture of Marshall's outfit and post it. Since I was just trying to hurry he isn't the most fashionable today. He has a tie-dyed onesie and rainbow baby leggings. It sort-of almost matches. Love it.

Waste Not

Every week when I go to the store, I clean out the fridge and end up throwing away a lot of stuff. Its frustrating! A lot of times there are leftovers that we would have eaten had we remembered they were in the fridge. We also forget about produce and it ends up not being as fresh as it could have been, or even worse, getting tossed out.

This is our new solution:

We write down all the leftovers, fruit, and veggies that are in the fridge. Instead of standing with the refrigerator door open trying to figure out what to eat or pack for lunch the next day, we can consult the board! When we use up something, we just cross it off.


Besides not wasting as much, we're also having yummier lunches. Usually we grab something that we've frozen, and this makes it easy to find a good pairing. For example yesterday Jerad was going to bring some baked fish and was able to look at the white board and decide that sliced tomatoes and mashed potatoes would be good sides. I made a sandwich out of the hummus and olive tapenade.

As long as we make it a habit to check the list, cross off things that we use, and add new leftovers/produce as it comes in, I think this will be an amazing help!