Just Chillin’…

…Like a villain

-Linds

Play date…

Yesterday we decided last minute to go visit our friends Jac and Parker since Auntie Stephie had the day off and we were all free. Of course the boys were on opposite schedules for eating and napping, Doh! Parker can’t wait for the time he and Eli can actually play together. Right now they do a lot of staring at each other and the extent of their interaction included Parker attempting to eat Eli’s shoe.

“Um Eli, can we play now?”

“cool shoe buddy”

Our 1,939,322,333 attempt to get a “good” picture of the 5 of us. The boys weren’t having it

One would cry and it would send the other into a fit of hysterics…




“"Lets try that again”…and again…and again…

Oh well, maybe when they’re older.
Steph showed up to my house wearing just about the same exact outfit as me! You can’t tell in the above pics because she has Jac’s hoodie on but we had the same Old navy top and dark denim on. Ha ha too funny.

           
Steph on the left, me on the right.

Thanks for the play date guys!
-Linds

Some new kicks…

So My mom had introduced me to a set of twin boys in her town who are 4 months old. They are super cute and just about the same size as Eli (don’t get me wrong, they are normal in size, my kid is just ginormous). With the colder weather coming up I decided to make Eli some shoes and he suggested I make a pair for his new friends as well (Such a thoughtful kid). They all now have matching kicks:

Baby shoe tutorial found here.

It’s kind of hard to see but the twins’ shoes have their initials in the stars so mom and dad can tell them apart, but I ran out of the letter “e” so Eli’s are plain. That’s ok, he didn’t mind. I tried them on him over his sleeper, aka “baby spanks” while he was sleeping so you could see them. ha ha.

Thanks honey for humoring Mommy.

Up close and personal 

Eli wore his all day today and they stayed on! They’re a little big yet since they typically fit a 6 month old but they still looked cute.
-Linds

Eli is EIGHT weeks old! But not TWO months yet…huh?

I’m confused. It must be the blonde in me because for a moment I couldn’t wrap my mind around this concept…How can he be 8 wks old but not 2 months old? Aren’t there 4 wks in a month? His 2 month well visit is next week on the 2nd which makes sense (since he was born July 2nd) but I was all excited to do his 2 month “photo shoot” today and give his stats because its another week down, but my smart momma told me I was supposed to do it NEXT week. Huh? But he’s 8 wks :/ Then my smart sister said, “yeah, some months have 5 wks in them so you can’t go by that.” I finally got it. So my friends, the stats come next week after his doc visit. So it’s going to be weird for me to say “he’s 8wks!” today and then say “he’s 2 months!” next week. Does this seem odd to anyone else or am I just an idiot?

We’re confused

Yours truly,

Miss Discombobulated

I’m a happy baby…

 

I seriously have it bad for this kid. He’s so fun and still keeps me laughing all the time!
So Eli and I have been loving our stroller rides in the evening. We get out, get some fresh air, and I get a little exercise. I just love our neighborhood and checking out all the gorgeous houses and the weather has been perfect for our walks. If daddy joins us, we usually end up at the chicken dip or Dairy queen for dessert so we LOVE it when daddy comes :)

THIS view makes me rubber neck…good thing they’re mine and its allowed, I’m a lucky girl ;)





        Well helloooo handsome!

Nighty night all
-Linds

Yummy…

Today I was so looking forward to getting out of the house and running errands because one, Eli and I were cooped up all day yesterday and I have a tendency to go stir crazy, and two, I ran out of my Seattle’s Best Iced Vanilla coffee drinks *Waah!*. The darn rain had other plans for me though and kept us house bound, grrr. I’m so much more inspired to go shopping when the sun is shining and I don’t have to lug my chunker of a son AND his carrier in the pouring rain. Lucky for me, I have said chunker, aka “bait” because this little gem got my sister out of her house, in her JAMMIES to come visit us, and I managed to talk her into stopping at Dunkin for a “drinky drink” on the way. My morning just got way better :D
Thanks Auntie Stephie! You truly are the BEST!

“bait”

-Linds

My baby is SEVEN weeks old!

…and he is HUGE! He’s so long. Sometimes I look at him and he reminds me of a toddler.
A few of his favorite things…..
  ….he likes to play
(And this is the shenanigans we get into when Eli is left to the devices of Mommy and Auntie Stephie. Poor kid.)






… to drape across your shoulders (it instantly calms him if he’s crying)


…pass gas. If you’ve been over to meet Eli, he has undoubtedly tooted in your lap.

• fall asleep on your chest
• go for stroller rides
• smile
• talk (did you SEE the video?!? I still watch it at least 5x a day)
• stare into momma’s eyes

We got his birth certificate in the mail. I love to read the part that says “mother” and see my name under it :)
Well that is all for now. Night night
-Linds

Where’s Eli?

Oh, There he is. :)

My camo baby. Needs to work on his sniper pose a bit though. That bumper in the air could pose a problem.

-Linds

Eli says “hi!” on video :D

So I told you all a while back that Eli has already said a few words including “hi”, “yeah” and “no”—all with witnesses and in appropriate context (totally serious). Well today he was being all cute like usual so I grabbed the camera  so you could see what I see on a daily basis. Some days I swear my heart will burst with all the love inside for this kid. He knows JUST how to pull at my heart strings (I figured my readers are all mommies for the most part so you understand). At the end of this video he says “hi”. I was so proud!

I seriously keep watching this video over and over again…
Sorry if I’ve given YOU a time waster too (Steph).
-Linds

Who doesn’t LOVE a naked baby?!

A little belly time

He is so cute on his changing table with all the faces he makes

 

Hi Punkin!

  Super baby!

Well Aaron had to go out of town for the night last night and I told him since we didn’t have to worry about waking daddy that I was going to let Eli cry out his midnight feeding to see if he could go longer. I wonder if Eli heard me because it turns out he CAN go longer, in fact he slept 7 straight hours and skipped right past his midnight feeding. Woo hoo! Here’s to hoping he does it again tonight and maybe sleeps even longer :)

Night night

-Linds

Craft day with Auntie Stephie…

Today Eli and I went over to Auntie Stephie’s house for a craft day. A friend of ours just had a baby boy and so we wanted to make her a gift. We decided on doing a carseat tent/canopy/cover—whatever you wanna call it because I absolutely LOVE mine. I love how it keeps the sun off of him and out of his eyes, keeps him dry in the rain and keeps strangers at bay. Come wintertime, it’ll keep the cold drafts out. What more could you ask for? :) It definitely beats throwing a blanket over the carseat and having it fall off every 2 seconds. The other day I went into my doc appointment when it was sunny and came out to a downpour and was so thankful that even though I was drenched, Eli stayed dry due to his carseat cover. Anyway, enough about its greatness, here are some pictures of the finished product.

The outside view

The inside view with Eli thrilled to be participating

 

My favorite part! We added a vinyl window for quick peeks without having to expose baby to the elements by lifting the whole thing.

**Now, here I was sure I was brilliant because I was thinking how perfect mine would be if it had a little window instead of me picking up the whole cover to take a peek. So one day I’m brainstorming ways on HOW to sew the vinyl in there and it came to me, so we tried it and it worked perfectly! I have never seen anything like this before (the window I mean, not the cover. I’ve seen a ton of different versions of these). So out of curiosity I searched etsy.com for different versions of these tonight, CONVINCED I would not see a window placed on any of them (because I’m the brilliant one, remember?) and low and behold I found the exact same idea on one sellers cover. My bubble burst :/ I couldn’t believe it. Well great minds think alike right? Craziness.

Can you see my hysterical child in there? Poor kid. I assure you, no children were harmed in the making of this cover.

Anyways, I hope she likes it.

Thanks Auntie Stephie for entertaining us all day, (even though the little stinker refused to nap and therefore made craft time a little more difficult.) We had fun :)

-Linds

Makes me laugh every time…

Well on the eve of his 6 wk celebration of life he slept 6 straight hours! woo hoo! Still getting up usually once during the night if I put him to bed between 7:30-8:00pm. I have 2 more weeks to meet my goal of him sleeping through the night, although I’m not exactly sure what that’ll look like…meaning will I expect him to go down at 7:30pm and not get up until 6am which is his morning feeding time?? It sounds insane but my girlfriend Jac’s beautiful baby boy goes down at 6:30 pm (I guess that’s the time he hits his “wall”) and doesn’t get up until 7:30am!!!! I’m pretty sure he’s been doing that since the 8wk mark, so we shall see (He’s a Babywise baby…see previous post from a couple of weeks ago if you’re wondering what I mean by that). I won’t be able to sleep through the night uninterrupted though until my boobs adjust to that gap. I’ll definitely have to get up and pump once or twice for a while.
You can do it baby boy!
Now on to a diaper review, ha ha…
So thanks to my wonderful shower thrown by my sister and Jac, I have oodles of different types of diapers that should last me the first 6 months of Eli’s life (no joke). So far we’ve tried the huggies “naturals” which are just “so so”. We had a lot of leaks with those. I do believe he was wearing one of those both times mommy and daddy got peed on. Then came the Pampers swaddlers. LOVE.THEM. Not only are they soft and have a line that shows up to let you know the diaper is wet, it has a sweet baby scent to it! SOLD. I mourned the last diaper used **tear**. Now I have to wait until he moves up the “2” size diapers to see my beloved pampers again. Lately we are using “Luvs”. I opened the package all excited, hoping they would smell like my swaddlers but sadly they didn’t. In fact they are plastic-y :( Definitely not a love at first site experience. But, I’m happy to report it DOES have redeeming qualities. First off, we’ve had major Eli blow-outs (the kind where the poop shoots out to the sides and leaves the area near his pooper clean. It’s a phenomenon I’ll never understand) and still no leaks at all! The other thing that has sold me is that even though its plastic-y and absolutely NOT cuddly soft like my pampers, I just LOVE to hear the crinkle of his diaper when he wiggles. *sigh*. We will keep the Luvs around for a while :) I have a few target brand packages but I’ve heard they leak so I’ve saved them for last and I’m contemplating trading them in for Luvs or pampers, we will see. Anybody out there just absolutely love them?
Ok, that’s all for now. Nighty night.
-Linds

My baby is SIX weeks old!

Nothin’ like a squeaky clean baby :)  

Eli and I ventured out today to help a friend from work celebrate her son’s 3rd birthday. I remember doing lunch with the girls from work so we could meet him as a newborn baby and now he’s 3! Gosh how time flies.

This was Eli’s first party invite. So cute. He was such a good boy and it was so nice to catch up with the girls at work and get back in the loop. Can’t say that I miss work yet. He, he. I miss seeing certain people/docs but other than that, I love being home with my widdle guy.

Happy birthday Blake!
-Linds

Eli’s hugs are addicting…

People just keep coming back for more and more. Can you guess who Eli’s best customers are??
Nighty night
-Linds

Baby smiles are the best :D

I just LOVE me some baby smiles. I’ve noticed, especially today, that Eli is starting to smile in response to me talking to him. Before, of course, when they are so young and little ,they practically look cross eyed let alone are unable to look at you and focus on your face. Today I was changing his diaper and talking really animated to him and smiling really big and he did this coo thing and this HUGE smile that just about melted my heart. Gosh I hate that I don’t have a camera for those moments! He did that TWICE today and it was unrelated to gas, I swear. Made. My.Day.

So for a week or two now, Eli has been able to lift his head while lying on his belly, and turn it to the opposite side. It’s sooooo cute to watch him do it. He grunts and groans and bobbles his head until he takes a breather and rests halfway through with his mouth and nose buried in the bed (making me panic a little the first time he did it) and then finishes the job—not without a few toots along the way due to all the exertion:) Ha ha. I love that kid. I practically want to jump for joy and clap when he’s done! But alas, I refrain, because he IS supposed to be napping and I don’t want to disturb him and wake him up fully. But I DO walk away beaming and absolutely in LOVE with the kid.

So I’m really working on consistency with Eli and his nap times. We’re doing really well with the feed, awake then nap routine and I’m trying to keep his first am feeding at 6am. This week we’ve started to put him to bed between 7:30-8:00pm and he’s gone right down with no fussing at all. It’s nice to have a few hours at nighttime to ourselves to unwind. He still gets up a few times during the night to eat though, usually around midnight and again around 3ish. I’m not sure if it’s hunger that wakes him or his gas because I’ll hear him grunting and then passing gas or leaving me a blow out and then he cries and is fully awake. Grrr. After the 6am feeding, he’ll stay up and talk with grandma a bit (remember she comes every morning at 6am to let me get a few more hours of sleep, then leaves for work at 9am), then goes down for a short nap and I’ll feed him at 9:30 and he goes down for his big nap between 10-11 and will nap for 3hrs. Love it! We’re getting there. Hoping he’ll sleep through the night here soon. We will see.

Sorry no pics today. We had a pretty uneventful day. Auntie Stephie will be over tomorrow so standby…she’s as bad as the paparazzi with that camera ;)

Just woke up from my nap..

Hello world.

Eli’s official!

Today Eli got his own piece of mail addressed to him. It was his social security card. Is it weird that when my hubby handed me the piece of paper and pointed out that it was addressed to him that I wanted to cry? It’s JUST a social security card and I was getting emotional. He’s official now :)

Yesterday Auntie Stephie came over and once Eli gets all tanked up, you can literally do anything to him and he’s still a happy camper. So once he finished his dinner we had a little photo shoot. You got to see some of the shots in yesterday’s post. I love to scroll through all his photos on a daily basis just to see how much he changes. Here’s another fav of mine:

 I like to think he’s practicing his Elvis, not getting annoyed with momma and Auntie Stephie’s antics.

-Linds

My baby is FIVE weeks old!

  Just your daily dose of Eli. I’m assuming you needed your “fix” if you’ve come here.  Wouldn’t want you to get the shakes ;)
-Linds

I’ve become very practical in my old age…

So I told you yesterday we went to visit daddy at his work. Well lo’ and behold my little one needs a diaper change and that place is not outfitted with a diaper changing table so we um, used daddy’s desk :/ I didn’t feel like bringing in the diaper bag and definitely didn’t feel like running out to the car to get the changing pad so I improvised and took Eli’s car seat tent off his carseat and laid that on Aaron’s desk. I have been meaning to make a really light weight changing pad to stick in my new over-sized purse since I always keep a spare diaper and wipes in there and was reeeeeally annoyed when I didn’t have it today when I needed it. So grandmom Shay came over to visit with Eli last night and I used that opportunity to have some craft time for me and finally made exactly what I envisioned in my head (LOVE it when that happens!)
Here’s my new little beauty:
 So it has enough room for a diaper (i happened to have 2 strapped in now since they’re little), wipes case and changing pad. I’m excited because it’s all really compact and light!
Let me show you how it works:

So the top is a wipe-able PUL material and the pretty outside is just regular quilting fabric. This, obviously is it open and ready to be used. It has no padding, but then again my plan was to use it on a soft surface such as a couch, and not risk getting any stains on other people’s belongings (that’s how you keep friends—being considerate like that :p)


So then I would just fold it up in a certain order, like you’ll see so it stays compact. First fold over each side until you have 3 equal parts…





continue to fold right side over one more time…





And then fold over left side onto center. If you can see in the picture, there is a strap that I sewed on (one, so that I don’t lose it, and two, so that it’s easy to work with)


 
A better view of the straps sewn in place…





Then fold the bottom up towards the top. Now it’s ready to have the wipes case and diapers placed on top and velcroed together. Voila!



I mentioned above that I got a new over-sized purse. I was so sick and tired of baby stuff falling out of my smaller purse. I wanted a bag that was veeeeery roomy but light-weight to start (that’s the problem, once you get into over-sized bags, they start to weigh a ton even before you put your junk into it!) and ideally divided for a “me” section and an “Eli” section and I totally found EXACTLY what I was looking for at Kohls..on clearance! Ow ow!
Here she is:


 Above you can see that it’s divided into 2 sections, with the divider being a zippered pouch where she is nestled in her new home :) So, one side has my junk in it, and the other side has Eli’s. Totally happy momma right now :D
That is all.
-Linds