Andrew turns one! Part 1

Photo cred: My super awesome cousin Julie Larame

Oh those thighs get me every time! I have to remind myself to look at the rest of the picture. Ha ha.

Julie Larame photography

   A special shout out goes to my baby daddy for donating those luscious curls to the gene pool. Muuuuuah! Now how great would this hair be on a little GIRL? Juuuuust throwin' that out there honey. If you got bored, you know, something to think about...

   So this guy! My "love bug", Aaron's "hamster", and Eli's "louie" (who knows...) just turned ONE! How did a whole year of awesomeness go by so fast?? And WHY does it go so fast?!?! Thank GOD for social media where I was able to post a gajillion pics ad-nauseum so that I can waste hours of my life reliving those precious memories. Love it! He is the most cuddly and affectionate baby, which fills my love tank to the brim every day. Actually he's pretty possessive when it comes to his competition Eli wanting to cuddle with his momma, and I have to remind my littlest guy that big brother had me first as he attempts to push Eli off my lap and crawl into my arms himself, ha ha. You wanna see a happy baby go from smiles and giggles to whiny and aggressive, watch my 4 year old crawl into my lap! Jeeze louise! It's so funny though, and thankfully Eli's a good sport about it. (I secretly enjoy being fought over though, ha! Shhhh. It'll be our little secret.)

  I can't help but go down memory lane at this milestone so I warn you I'm about to inundate you with some photos from the past year:

This was our hospital baby photoshoot with Bella Baby photography

Meeting the "GP's" for the first time

Being loved on from the start :)

Proud Auntie

So widdle!

I loved those handmade baby harem pants on him, ha ha.

I had this pic as my phone wallpaper for the longest time. That half smirk :)

I wanted to remember/document every little baby detail

His hair though! None of it fell out at the 3 month mark as I was expecting

Peace!

Aaaah! There's just too many that I love!

The way to a woman's heart is to love her children 

All the heart eyes!

Get some sleep daddy...

Kisses

Nom nom nom!

This accurately depicts their brotherly love perfectly.

He has loved being in a carrier from the start (the Sollywrap style in the beginning) and still continues to enjoy it now although I mainly only use my soft structured carrier since he's getting heavy. I've passed on my beloved Solly wrap to Andrew's future wife Piper who was just born this past week so she too can experience the awesomeness that is the Sollywrap.

Peek-a-boo!

and lastly my cool cat.

Well I think thats not nearly enough pictures for now. I'll post his stats tomorrow after our well visit. 

For now, na night. *sniffle*.

-Emotional momma

My baby Andrew is ELEVEN months old!

Hello big guy!

    And the count down till the first birthday starts now! Waaaah! I'm not ready! It has come so fast, I feel like someone is sitting on the remote control of my life and the fast forward button is stuck. Slow. Down!

    Pretty soon he's going to be off and running and we'll be entering the new stage of life, toddlerhood. At least when he's tucked into the nook of my arm nursing, he looks like my little baby still, with his little feet, and chunky thigh rolls. Sigh. I'll hold onto that for as long as possible.

The start of "monkey face",  a face grandma taught both my kids as babies

   Our one year well visit is next month so here's what I know:

Size: He's been in 12m-18m clothing lately. The stride rite shoes I bought last christmas for a killer deal, the ones I thought looked HUGE and would never fit him, actually DO fit him now. I get people once again telling me he looks tall for his age (I got that all the time with Eli too) but I'm pretty sure he's right on target for length. He definitely looks fuller at this age than my string bean Eli did.

Mommy's so funny

Likes:Eating! Being held, exploring his environment, his blankie, cheerios, bath time, seeing what big brother is up to and seeing how he can interrupt play along, squealing really loud, saying "oooowww, oooooww" and "ba ba ba ba" over and over again, and being worn in his carrier.

Such a happy go lucky kiddo

Dislikes: running out of food, and long car rides. Diaper changes aren't too fun at this point either.

He's a dare devil just like his brother and daddy. Shortly after this photo, the chair tipped over and he fell forward laughing

Feeding:Eating is a non issue. The kid loves to eat and he's taken to any form of container for his water. He does straws, my glass cup, Liam's sippy cups, bottles, you name it. He loves drinking water. He eats 3 big meals a day and as many snacks as I'll let him. When I'm off at work, he still gets pumped breast milk in a bottle. Nursing is going strong, but sometimes he lets me know he's just not interested in feeding at the moment. So depending on the day, we probably only nurse about 4, maybe 5 times a day at this point.

Now he can climb in and out safely. He's got this move down.

Sleeping: Sleeping is going pretty well now. He's past that phase of waking up around midnight, thank God, and now just gets up around 4-5am to eat and back to bed until about 7:30-8am. This is an improvement because he was wanting to start his day around 5:30-6:30 last month which was brutal. Its been nice with him sleeping in. As long as I'm not expected to get up earlier than 7am, I can handle it. He only does the one nap now around 11ish. I'm trying to get him to go down around noon now that Eli starts school tomorrow and I was able to switch him to the afternoon class that goes 12-2:30. This momma wants some time to herself to get stuff done!

"Look ma, I'm about to do no hands!"

Milestones: He's now walking regularly along furniture and even venturing across gaps in furniture. He'll take the brown chair pictured above and use it as a walker all along the hardwood, ha ha.He's an old pro at pulling himself into the standing position. The other day he stood solo for a few seconds before he realized what he was doing and plopped himself onto his butt. He'll sit on our  floors and with the heel of one foot, spin himself around 360 degrees. Over and over he can do this. Its hilarious! He's gained one tooth this past month for a total of 4 uppers and 2 lowers.

Playing with his puzzle.

That's all for now!
-Linds

My baby Andrew is TEN months old!

     Well I officially need to get my butt in gear and start planning his first birthday party. Sheesh. These things sure sneak up on you! My super talented cousin Julie will be doing his first birthday photos at the end of this month and I have a theme planned which I hope will turn out as fun as I picture it in my head.

   This kid is so awesome. I realize I'm a broken record but I can't help it. This is my stage. I love everything about the baby stage so I'm soaking it all in. I'm totally smitten and here's why:

Look at all those new toofers! 

Hi honey :)

Thanks daddy for giving me my sweet curls!

Need I say more? Words wouldn't cover it anyways. I'll cut to the chase, here's his update:

Size:He's thinning out a bit but still feels heavy to hold. He's right on target with clothing and I finally went up to size 4 diapers. He's starting to look so grown up in his outfits, but then I throw a sleeper on him for bedtime and he's my baby again.

Likes: Food is still at the top of this kid's list. What's nice is I can plop him in his high chair with finger foods and he's happy as a lark and then I can get stuff done! He's also BIG into exploring now. He's a lean mean crawling machine so he's off checking out every nook and cranny in my house. The silver lining? I'm keeping my floor swept and clean way more now than I ever have before, and he's helping me find long lost earrings, bobby pins, hair ties, cheerios from when Eli was a baby.... He also loves water (tub/water-table/pool), crawling frantically away from me laughing when I yell "no! don't put that in your mouth!" and shoving said prohibited object and entire wrist in. Sigh. He also seems to like music. He starts swaying to the beat and then waving his arms. All that dancing in the womb to Enrique Iglesias' "Bailando" seems have gotten him off to a good start :)

Dislikes: Diaper changes, sitting still to get dressed, long car rides, and running out of food.

Feeding: He is officially eating anything and everything. Nothing seems to be off limits at this time. If I give him cut up finger foods, he'll show preference but if I blend mixtures/meals, he'll eat it all. The other day I cut up some plum which he was happily gobbling up and I decided to cut up some avocado and threw it on his tray with it. Well! That just pissed him off! He made it very clear he was upset that he now had to navigate the land minds (avocado bits) to get to his beloved plum pieces and he kept throwing the stink eye in my direction. (The nerve! I'm the lady that feeds you!) His fine tuned pincher grasp came in handy for this task. Then he stops whining about it and I look over to see him picking up the avocado pieces (yay!) only to throw them one by one to the floor. Punk. But if I mash the avocado up with some banana, he'll eat it all. And the portion sizes! Man alive! I now feed a family of 4! I have no idea where he puts all that food. He's an old pro with the sippy cup now. I remember having to buy a few different kinds until Eli took to one, so I started out with the one Eli preferred and this kid likes it as well. I'm still nursing him but he now goes much longer stretches in between feeds since he's doing 3 meals a day and snacks. Surprisingly, I haven't really noticed any decrease in my supply. Score!

Yummers

Sleeping: Nothing really new to report here. He did sleep from 7pm straight to 7am the other night randomly (scared the crap out of me, naturally) but his normal is still to get up between 4-5am for a feeding and then go back to sleep until about 6:30-7am. He's now pretty much down to one nap a day around 11am and will do a 2-3hr nap at that time.

Milestones: He's adding more teeth to his collection. He now has 3 uppers and 2 lowers. (Having the 2 front teeth in makes him look so grown up!) He waves bye bye consistently, pulls himself up and walks along furniture, and he's gone from beginner crawler to expert. He calls for his brother by saying "eeeeee--iii" (Totally adorable!)

And that's it for this month. (Signing) "Aaaalll done!"

-Linds

My baby Andrew in NINE months old!

I'm just crazy about this boy!

Flexing that sweet tender for all the ladies out there.

   Andrew, aka "Mr. Sticky fingers", "drool bird", "sir" "hamster" and "you're SO ca-UUTE!" has had a lot going on this past month. We joke that he will never learn his real name due to his many nick names. He's gonna start talking and people will ask him his name and he'll respond with "you're so cute!" Ha ha ha. At the very least he ought to make a lot of friends that way:) Anyways, lots to report this month!

   I think Eli will agree that Mr. Sticky fingers is becoming a lot of fun lately. He's very interactive, will actually "play" with him and giggles/belly laughs all the time! He likes to grab something out of your hands (or in cousin Liam's case, grab his binkie out of his mouth) and then laughs like crazy when you act surprised.  I happen to think this is a great skill to have seeing as how he has an older brother who currently likes to steal stuff out of his hands. Watch out Eli, he's getting good! You'll soon be getting a dose of your own medicine. Muuaaaah ha ha ha (<-- evil cackle.)

Blankie pics are now taken on HIS terms, ha ha

   We had our well visit this month so I have updates on his height and weight. Before he was actually weighed, my prediction was that he'd be around 19lbs, so lets see what he really does weigh.

Size: I've cleared out his drawers of 6-9m clothing and stocked it with 9-18m stuff. He's mainly in 12m clothes for the most part but he is too long for rompers in that size so I have him in 18m ones for that. He weighed in at 18lbs 12oz (so close!) and 27 1/2 inches long. His current diapers are getting small so I'll need to go up a size (still haven't done that yet, and we've been paying for it with recent poopsplosions, doh!)

Likes:Food! Eating! Eating food! I'm not sure I can even emphasize this enough. He gets those arms a flappin' when he sees me coming with food and I'm glad he's strapped in because I'm waiting for him to take off! He also loves taking baths/playing with water, especially now that he's graduated to the big tub and gets to splash around with his big bro, which is my next thing to mention that he loves: his brother! I have a hard time keeping his attention if Eli is in the room because he'll contort his body in order to watch Eli's every move. He still loves being rocked (but not by me), being held, swinging in a swing, and remotes.

Sitting with his big brother who turns FOUR tomorrow!

Graduated to the big tub

Dislikes: he's just now starting to turn away from me when I change his diaper, (ugh that's the worst!) running out of food, and being in his carseat around nap time (unlike Eli who to this day will pass out in a car ride if he's tired, this kid fights it tooth and nail and lets all passengers know he's not happy about it.)

Feeding:Breast milk is still his primary food source but I've been way better about giving him big boy foods. He could and does eat his weight in cut up blueberries and I decided to let him try my hard boiled egg (yolk) the other day and he devoured it! He squawks the entire time it takes me to break off a piece and stick it in his mouth until the entire thing is gone. He loves steamed broccoli, and apples. Now I'll throw whatever I've made the rest of the family for dinner into his baby bullet and pulse it a few times and he eats what we eat. I haven't seen any signs of food allergies so I continue to give him what I think is baby friendly foods, (oatmeal, fruits, veggies, pasta etc) I just introduced a sippy cup with some water in it and he seems to like it. 

Drinking his water by himself

Sleeping: Although he's very much like Eli in a lot of ways, sleeping is not one of them. Eli was sleeping consistently 12hrs through the night by this age. On a good night, Andrew will go down at 7pm and wake up for a feeding at around 4am and then go back to sleep for a few more ours. But lately he's been getting up around 12-1am for a feeding and again for his 4am one. Steph had mentioned reading somewhere that babies tend to not sleep so well during milestone achievements, so I can't tell if it's that or if he's truly hungry at those times. The other major difference between the two is that he typically does a big (3hr) morning nap and then won't nap the rest of the day. And the really big exciting news,  drum roll please.....he's now sleeping in the same room as Eli in the crib there, and he's out of our room! Happy dance! No more tip toeing around the room at night and in the morning, afraid we'll wake him. We'd held off on making the transition for so long because he wasn't sleeping solidly through the night and we didn't want him to wake Eli up too. Well that's a laugh because that kind is a SOUND sleeper! We could put Andrew crying hysterically IN the bed next to Eli and he would't even notice! I'm not even kidding. When he's out, he. is. out. I'm happy to report it's going well. Phew!

He seems to like his new sleeping arrangements

Milestones: Well we have gone from one bottom tooth last month to another bottom tooth AND an upper tooth this month! And out of nowhere he's fully mobile. He's crawling and scooting everywhere! One day he was rocking back and forth on all fours and then sat himself upright and seemed to be pleased with that accomplishment so he does it all the time now. Sometimes I think he gets in the crawling position just so he can sit himself back up, ha ha. Ever since he's been mobile he's been super chill too I've noticed. He contentedly explores and plays with toys on his own or tries to follow his brother around. Whereas before this newfound mobility, if I set him down on the floor to play and walked out of view for any reason, he'd throw a bird. He's also starting to stand holding onto stuff unattended and pulling himself up into a standing position. It's all happening so fast! One day he's just a bump on a log, then the next moment he's nowhere near where you last left him! Sigh.

My view, aaaaalll day, erryday now of a runaway baby! 

Here he is showing off by standing on his own

Happy 9 months on the outside bud!

And that's all she wrote,

-Linds

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.