Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

pinterest

Ok, I'm addicted. I was slow to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon, but I'm totally obsessed with it now. Just in the 2 weeks that I've been on, I've found tons of projects that I want to do around the house and I've already completed a few of them. Such simple, but brilliant ideas for decorating and organizing:


Sticks from the yard decorated with ornaments



Collections of photo cards from past Christmases




Shoe rack for cleaning supply storage
















Monday, December 5, 2011

8 months

I wish I had more time to keep up with this blog - cute things happen on a daily basis that I know I'm not going to remember. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks though...


Tate - 2 yrs, 8 months


Me: Tate, did you know that God made the mountains and the trees and the oceans and the sky? He made everything!
Tate: WOW!!!! Good job do all that, God!

I noticed that he was scratching his face the other day and asked what he was doing. His response, "getting all of these freckles off!"

Says "yours" and "mines"

Knows his left and right and speaks in complete sentences, such as.. "Daddy, see that bridge out my window to the left, way over there?"

Can recite lines from "Beauty and the Beast", his baseball movie "Everybody's Hero", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and "Follow that Bird".

Stayed at my parents house in SSI for 4 nights all by himself and did great! He was very happy to see me, Keith and Brady when we got down there for Thanksgiving. Told me that night while I was putting him to bed..."Mommy, I missed you sooooo much."

After I read him a book, he'll tell me it's his turn and he'll try to repeat the story. I usually like his version better.

He's pretty much potty trained. Wears underwear most of the time and only has the occasional accident. If it's just pee-pee, he can do the whole thing himself...lights, potty, pants, washing hands, etc.

Still loves to get his hair cut. We go to Great Clips now instead of Pigtails and Crewcuts (closer and cheaper) and he does fine sitting in a normal chair rather than a airplane or fire truck. I'm pretty sure he just endures the whole experience for the 2 lollipops that he gets at the end. And they have to be orange. All candy, vitamins, ice cream have to be orange.

Remembers everything. Like, walking by a park in SSI in November, he remembered that he ate hot dogs there back in February. "That's the hot dog place." Knows and recognizes places around town, too, as we are driving...his school, our ice cream place, my gym, our neighborhood, Chick-fil-a, etc.

When he sees a cell tower, he always tells me "Mommy, airplanes land on those."

He says his l's funny. (tutorial: pretend you are sticking your tongue out at someone. Now open your mouth just slightly and say "l".) It's hysterical. The other day we were driving and a yellow leaf fell onto our windshield. From the back seat, Tate says: "Did you see that little yellow firefly?" Not normally funny, but VERY funny when he says it.

During Thanksgiving dinner, the conversation turned to football and Keith said something to Dan related to a potential scenario if a team scored a certain number of points. Tate immediately starting laughing and said "Daddy said the wrong words!!!"

Keith and I joined Peachtree Road UMC back when Tate was a baby and attended fairly regularly up until Tate was 15-18 months and would scream when we would leave him in the nursery. Not wanting to put him through that trauma, we stopped going for a while. The other night, we were watching a movie and he accidentally hit the remote and changed it to the church channel. I reached for the remote to change it back and he stopped me. Said he wanted to watch church...and so we did. For an hour. He sang, he repeated back what the preacher said, he stood up when the congregation stood up...and so, I decided maybe we were ready to try again. This past Sunday, I dropped Brady off in the nursery and Tate and I went in to "big church" together. He was perfect! Sat the entire time - listened a little, colored a little, played on the iPhone a little, but barely made a peep. We got several compliments from people around us afterwards. I'm so proud of my boy, and happy that we can get back into a church routine again!

Brady - 8 months

Brady is crawling, pulling up and cruising and is thisclose to walking. He's mastered the walker at school and paces back and forth across his room all day. When he's cruising, he'll let go and stand on his own for a few seconds before holding on again or falling down. He has taken a few steps...but I'm not sure whether I'm ready to call them his "first steps" yet. He's close though.

He's also climbing. This started in SSI when he learned he could climb into this plastic Toy Story chair that my mom has for Tate. He now likes climbing our stairs (with me right behind him). We never used gates with Tate, but we'll have to see with Brady. It was easier to corral one kid. I may have to get the gates this time around just for peace of mind.

Brady has 2 bottom teeth, and his two top teeth are growing in slowly and painfully. He can now eat finger foods...we've tried puffs, cheerios, and yogurt melts. Had a scary yogurt melt incident a few weeks ago where Brady started choking. I did a finger swipe (bad idea) and pushed it further down, but fortunately he recovered after a few seconds. The next day I noticed he was wheezing pretty badly and took him to the pediatrician, who referred us to Scottish Rite for x-rays. Everything turned out fine and clear, and although it was a whole day ordeal, I was glad to know for sure that he was ok.

Sits up in the tub by himself now and likes to splash and make a big mess.

He thinks everything Tate does is funny. I love listening to them in the back seat. Tate loves an audience and Brady loves him. It works out perfectly and makes for the best laughter.


That's all I can think of for now. Definitely enjoying our 2 little guys more and more each day!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

cake pops

So, over the past few weeks I seem to have stumbled upon a hidden talent/passion for creating bite-sized cake on a stick. I got a magazine in the mail shortly before Halloween with pictures of some cute pumpkin, pirate and mummy cake pops that I wanted to try for Tate's school fall festival. Not only were they a huge success, but they were so much fun to make -- edible art!

After posting a few pictures on Facebook and getting a few orders, I'm interested to see where this might lead. Just in case I eventually decide to open a shop on Etsy, I've started taking some better quality pictures. Here are the latest creations:



Wednesday, October 19, 2011

6 months

A quick update on Brady at 6 months (well, 6.5 months)...

Weight: 20lbs, 15.5oz (90%)
Height: 28.25in (91%)
Head: 45.5cm (86%)
Teeth: 2 bottom teeth
Diapers: Size 4
Clothes: 12month pants, 12- 24month shirts
Activities: Crawling, sitting on his own, spitting up on everything, laughing at Tate, chewing on Tate's toys, and he just started pulling up.
Food: Fruit in the morning (bananas, pears, apples) and vegetables in the evening (green beans, squash, sweet potatoes). Takes 7oz of Similac 3 times a day and still nurses 1-2 times in the evenings.
Sleep: Generally sleeps from 7pm - 7am with one feeding during the night.
Talking: Laughs, squeals, grunts, growls, and just started saying dadadadada.