My baby Andrew is EIGHT months old!

I'm 8 months old, how fun!

...And what a hambone he is! Now he'll look at you all coy, give you the biggest gummy grin, cock his head sideways, and then stick his tongue out at you while blowing bubbles. Melts.My.Heart. He's still obsessed with his brother who is now an integral part in getting any sort of picture of him looking AT the camera. "Eli stand behind me and act like a goofball, thanks!"...  I absolutely LOVE the look of adoration on Andrew's face when Eli is entertaining him. Overall Eli's very good with his baby brother but on occasion he'll do some A-holey things like throw a giant bouncy ball in his face and watch it bounce off the poor kid's forehead. But because he laughs, then the baby starts laughing so I guess I just need to back off and let them "play."

Monthly photoshoots are getting pretty fun

His well known ba-dunk-a-dunk. We're not sure where he gets it.  It ain't from mommy OR daddy and that's not a cloth diaper!

    He's starting to babble a lot these days. He's mimicking different sounds and if you follow me on instagram you saw the video I posted of Eli whining that the rug burn on his elbow hurt (after rough housing on a trampoline with his Uncle Stephan) and going "oowww....owwww..." over and over again in a whiny voice and Andrew in a dead pan voice also going "oowww...owwww." It was hilarious! He sounded like a cat meowing. Ha ha ha, and because it was said with such a flat affect, it came across as so condescending and adult-like which made it even funnier to me! I guess you had to be there.

  There is no well visit for turning 8 months so I'll give you his official weight and height next month after he has his doc appointment. For now I'll just tell you what I know:

nom nom nom!

Size: I'm mainly putting him in 9 and 12m clothes now. I'd rather them fit a little loose then too tight. People still tell me what a chunk he is but I think he's thinning out a bit. The rolls on the upper arms are working for him though because it makes him look ripped, ha ha. I think he's close to needing to be moved up to his next sized diapers since he's never been a soaker but now on occasion, I'll find his onesie wet on his belly. 

Likes: I think slyly reaching his hand ever so gently to touch my hair and then with ninja fierceness, yanking with all he's got is up on his top 2 favorite things. The second one being raking his talons finger nails across my face and chest. Its awesome. He also loves sucking on everything, eating his puffs and teething biscuits, and feeding himself with the mesh teether bag thingy with fruit in it, squeaking very loudly, bath time and swimming, being pushed in the swing and rocking with daddy.

Dislikes: His mesh food bag thingy when it goes empty, being gassy, cutting teeth (Yay we have a tooth and another one any second now!)

Feeding:Breast feeding is going strong. I restarted my period (both kids at 5 1/2 months) and thankfully haven't noticed a drop in milk supply. The cool thing about the second time around is that I could care less about what I pump out (I actually LOATHE pumping...and side note, is it "couldN'T care less or "could" care less?? That's always confused me. Because I really currently COULD care even LESS than I do now about it. But anyways...) and I don't let it stress me out that my kid isn't getting enough, because clearly he is. But that darn pump can really send us mommas down a dangerous path of self doubt. Curse you pump!!Wait,  I didn't mean that, I still love you and need you pump. I'm just hungry :(

So yes, feeding is going well and big boy foods are messy. He hasn't shown any signs of food allergies so I'm not really following the "wait-3-days-before-introducing-new-foods" rule. If it's mashable, (and a "real" food) he's getting a sample.

Sleeping: Hmm. This has been frustrating since the budding of a tooth a few weeks ago. His normal is to wake up happy and play by himself for a while before he stares directly at the monitor and bellows out to me to come get him. I swear it sounds like "maaaaaaa!" Now he'll wake up multiple times a night or mid nap crying which I know is not his normal. It sounds like his pain cry so I'm blaming the tooth that popped up already and the other one thats thisclose to popping through as well. Sigh. I'd like my good sleeper back though. Baby tylenol helps but I obviously don't want to give him that EVERY night just so he'll sleep. Eli would get a couple of teeth at a time and then have like a 3 month reprieve so hopefully once his second bottom tooth is in, he'll take after big bro and be back to normal for a few months. Fingers crossed!

Milestones:As mentioned a bajillion times already above, my little man has his first tooth! He's also been scooting quite a bit, but not actually crawling. He's mastered sitting up by himself so I can now skip the mound of pillows propped behind him. He's babbling a lot and starting to make legit sounds like "da da, ba ba, ma ma" and his favorite, "oooow."

Poor kid was grinding his bottom tooth into his upper gum and making it bleed :(

Can't end this post on a sad pic though so here are some other cute pics from our 8 month ritual photoshoot:

"You're so handsome"..."Who me??"

Couldn't cover up the guns with a onesie, no siree...

All the heart eyes!

There you have it!
Toodles,
Linds

We have another baseball player in the family!

   

I present to you, your future professional baseball players :)

   As you may have seen on my Facebook page the other day, Eli had his first T-ball practice. I want to say its for 3-6 year olds and oh my gosh, was it the ca-uuutest thing ever! Of course the whole process is worse than herding cats but to see one of my favorite childhood pastimes in miniature size was so flipping' great. All morning all Eli would talk about was when practice would be:

 Is it time to go yet mom?

 No babe, I said in 3 hours, its been 3 minutes.....

    And repeat 187,934 times. We finally get there and they have to line up for roll call and the coach gets to my child. "What's your name buddy?"...wait for it... "Me? I'm Bruce Wayne!" Face palm. I hear all the fathers around me look at each other for clarification, "Did he just say Bruce Wayne??! That's awesome! ha ha ha ha." I of course expected it since he's gone by his alter ego Bruce for months now, but it came as quite the surprise to the people who were meeting him for the first time. From then on, everybody called him Bruce. What impressed me most was that there was at least 30+ kids there and the sports director had all the kiddos names memorized after the first introduction! It especially touched me when he was announcing which team each one would be on and he said "Eli Scicluna, also known as Bruce...." So awesome. If my kid believes with every ounce of his being that he's Batman, who are we to argue?

   They then broke out into groups. There were those hitting off the tee and those fielding, and Eli had to double up at the tee with another little guy (who had just turned three and was quite shy.) Eli would finish up his turn and say "here you go little buddy, your turn" as he handed him the bat and helmet. He seemed so grown up in that moment. Then he'd take another turn hitting with the coach and have to go retrieve the ball and he'd yell "watch how fast I am! Did you see how fast I ran to get that ball?" Yep definitely still 3 1/2 years old. Ha ha ha.

Getting some help from the coach

My Babe Ruth calling his shot ;)

Look at that concentration. Home run for sure!

Great job Bruce!

   As you know, 3 year olds can be so infuriating unpredictable in their behavior and since softball was such a huge part of my childhood growing up, I reeeeally wanted Eli to play baseball. But what we want for our kiddos isn't always what they want so I've tried to prepare myself for the let down when Eli ended up showing zero interest in Baseball. But not the case at all! He LOVED it! He cooperated and did very well with instructions and it just goes to show that if you put kids in activities they want to do, not what we want, they will do well, whether its just having a lot of fun, or being truly good at it. Now here's hoping we have the same success with tennis but not soccer down the road.

   Heres to a fun year Dinos! (The team name the kiddos chose. If I had any input, I would have suggested the "tee birds" Ha ha ha.)

My boys :)

Stay tuned for some more t-ball news as they start to have more practices and **squeel** GAMES!

Over and out,

Linds

Starting a little handmade business

   Welp we did it. Steph and I put on our big girl panties and got out of our comfort zone by selling the stuff we make. The website, aka "our little shop" has been live for a month now and things are going pretty well. I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how much I've enjoyed starting this little adventure with my sister. We've had a few bumps along the way as we've ironed out a few kinks (all learning lessons) but it's been fun! We definitely would have never had the courage or know-how if it wasn't for my hubby pushing teaching us the ways of business along the way though. (So if you have a problem with pricing, blame him! Ha!) So far, the pace has been steady and we've done a LOT of custom requests which has kept me creatively challenged, all while keeping Steph busy working on products to list. That has taken so much pressure off me. If I had to make stuff for the shop, run the website/social media, package & ship products AND continue to find time to MAKE stuff, it would be impossible, not to mention draining as I struggled to stay afloat. Obviously our boys come first and foremost so to be able to split the responsibilities and sew when we're both able (nap times) has been awesome. I LOVE getting a text of the lastest product she just finished, and can't wait to show her mine. It has kept us motivated and encouraged.

   You want to know what's been truly the best part?? YOU, our customers. Random strangers buying from us and the repeat ones. I can't tell you how much that means to us. The shout outs on social media of you USING your handmade goods, MAKES our day and motivates us to make more and create more, so thank you! Also, a big thanks to those of you who have been brave good friends in giving us feedback on ways to improve the website. We really do appreciate it.

   So as a thank you, and because we want to celebrate what we cherish most, our #1 title, "mom" we are offering 15% off all products through Mother's Day with the coupon code "BESTMOM." This code will be good through the the 10th.

    If you haven't checked out "the shop" yet, I'm gonna pretend you just didn't know any better, ha ha. It's handmadebylinds.com. Check us out on Facebook and Instagram too (same name).

   Toodles!

   -Linds

p.s The other day Eli, *ahem* Bruce Wayne I mean (he's "officially" changed it, and even has his teachers calling him Bruce and introducing himself to complete strangers as Bruce. I kid you not,) came in from playing outside with a pine cone in his hand. I asked him what he was going to do with it and he said " sell it." Ha ha. You think he's hearing enough shop talk??? He's a pretty good salesman though. I almost PAID for a pine cone. Good thing he lost it before I had to cough up the change. #storyofhislife. #kidloseseverything.