baby

Dear Hunter @ 6 Months

December 7, 2017

Dear Hunter,

Half a year with you!!

I still can’t believe that 6 months has already sped by.

You make every day so wonderful.

I’m in awe of your bubbly personality. You hardly fuss as you are just content with with held, being on the floor, playing with toys, or with Autumn. Plus, you make everyone really happy with your smiles and giggles. Your smiles are like yawns, they are contagious.

You have mastered sitting up. It’s amazing to see you sitting up and looking around, taking the world in. You really like to watch Autumn and the dogs. Besides just being able to balance you are able to be on your back or belly and twist and turn to pop yourself up to sit up. Sometimes you pause while doing it, and you look so suave as you are sprawled out on your side, minus the come hither look. ha!

You are so close to crawling too. that it is just a matter of days. You spin and roll around on the floor, meandering around as you wiggle this way and that, but you are really going to take off very soon.

There has been so much progress this month from you sitting up well, almost crawling, getting better and better (and more eager) at eating food, and finally having a few weeks not being sick from that awful cough… amazing, wonderful, bliss…

I can’t even begin to imagine what the next month holds, besides getting to celebrate your first Christmas, but I can’t wait for it.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Hunter @ 3 Months

September 7, 2017

Dear Hunter,

It already seems like you have always been a part of our family. And yet its only been 3 months. I couldn’t imagine our family without you now.

You are such a great baby. You are so happy and smiley. The only real time when you get upset is when you are very hungry or tired and are struggling to relax to go to sleep, but in either case, those crying spells are short.

You have rolled over a few times to avoid doing tummy time. It’s not your favorite thing to do, so you were quite sure that you needed to get out of it so getting yourself to roll over was your mission. Even then, you didn’t fuss too much about and just figured out how to shorten it. Besides rolling over from your stomach to your back, you and rolled over from your back to your front a few times by twisting your body around, getting on your side, and giving a good flop. And then of course you are on your belly! Ha!

You have just discovered your hand and how awesome it is jammed into your mouth, or how great my hand is in there. I’m thinking that you will be teething before we know it. Stop growing up so fast!!

Autumn loves you so much, and loves to show her affection to you, but I apologize as she is really rough. But I think you will be able to pay her back for those loving hand and leg squeezes when you get older. I want her that pretty soon you ar going to be as big as her. It is hilarious to us how different you guys are in size. One day the little brother will be the bigger protector.

Two big things have happened this month! Your first trip to Disney and your first hurricane. Thankfully, the trip to Disney was a lot more fun than the prep for Hurricane Irma. You did fantastic through both experiences. Our little rockstar!!

I’m not happy going back to work and leaving you at daycare. You have done a great job so far and the teachers love you, which is great, but reality really hard to hear. I want to be spending my day with you, and your loud mouth sister, not stuck in an office. But there is a trade off for everything so at least you are doing well at daycare.

We just take things one day at a time savoring things with you and your sister from feedings to baths together. I am looking forward that the next month has ahead for us, but of course I don’t want it to come either as time just keeps speeding by.

I love you.

Love,

Mom

Dear Hunter @ 2 months

August 8, 2017

Dear Hunter,

Ah, my sweet little man. I love you so much. You are just such a joy to everyone in our family. Even the dogs enjoy a little snuggle with you.

I have really been cherishing my time home with you. Spending every day with you is so wonderful. I get so bummed out when I noticed it’s 3 in the afternoon. How did the day speed by so quickly?!? I hate how days are just gone in an instant.

At least my days with you are filled with cuddles. I love getting to hold you while you nurse or while you take a quick nap.

You are a great sleeper, unlike your sister, but we won’t rub it in her face. You are only getting up once a night now. It is wonderful. And you even do a pretty decent job of fall asleep on your own. You fuss a bit but generally just fall sleep, at least for a quick nap.

I haven’t taken too many naps since you are such a good sleeper, but every now and then I take one and you are generally on my chest or in my arms. So perfect.

We can’t believe how much you and your sister look alike, but are still so different. You are my chunky monkey! At this age you have about 5+ pounds than she was at the same age. It’s nuts to me that she was in newborn clothes for 3 months and you are going to quickly grow out of the 0-3 months stuff, probably before you are you 3 months old.

You nurse really well, which makes everything much easier than

The best developments this month are your smiles and coos. You smile so much when we talk to you or give you light tickles. The coos come every now and then and they crack me up as they have such personality behind them. You put some gusto behind them.

I am looking forward to seeing everything you learn next month. And seeing much more chunky my chunk monkey can get. ha!

Love,

Mommy

Introducing… Hunter Blaze

June 8, 2017

Hunter Blaze arrived on June 6th at 9.42am.

He weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and measured 20 inches long.

Hearing we have a boy was a big wonderful surprise. We are absolutely thrilled that he is part of our family.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Dear Autumn @ 16 months

March 20, 2015

Dear Autumn,

It’s Thursday night and I am currently on a flight to Seattle to visit Aunt Emily. You are staying with Daddy and visiting G-ma, Uncle Chase, Aunt Heather, and your cousins. I am missing you already. This will be the longest that we have been apart. I know you are in excellent hands as your Dad is downright amazing, but it was hard for me to say good bye. I already can’t wait to see you Tuesday morning when you wake up with your wild bed head. Oh, that hair is out of control!

You are such a happy, smiley sweetheart. You have your moments when you get really frustrated at us but for the most part you are a happy girl who likes to be involved with things. While it can often be hard to juggle, you like to be in the kitchen with me. Your favorite activity is to crack eggs, so you really like it when I make quiche. You quickly whack your way through a dozen eggs. At the end you give me a big smile as you are proud of your completed task.

We are making slow progress on you walking, but I’ll take it. I basically bribe you to stand and take a few steps with stickers. You love your stickers! I have been finding them on my clothes and around the house recently. Seeing them on the sink when I brush my teeth at night just makes for a happy reminder of the great day you had.

You are working hard on communicating with us. You are taking to say names of classmates at daycare and you are a parrot trying to repeat after me when I say something. Your teacher gives us updates on how you can say ‘dos’ and ‘tres’. But you really let everyone know you can (loudly) say ‘Hola’. The newest thing is that you say ‘Ow!’ to just about everything from Kemper knocking into you to us giving you a hug. Everything is ‘Ow!!!’ Thankfully, you just as enthusiastically say ‘Yay!’ and ‘Wow!’

We struggled to find a milk that wouldn’t upset your stomach or your bum for a bit. Cow’s milk upset your stomach so we moved on to Almond milk. Things were going well for about a week until you developed such a horrible, horrible diaper rash. I felt so bad for you. It broke my heart all over again at every diaper change. We moved on to a combination of goats milk and coconut milk. Thankfully things have been going well with that. Even if you make us broke with that $18 a gallon goats milk! But we’ll get anything for you!

Your personality is shining so brightly now. You test your limits by playing around with us, even biting us to get a rise out of us. Thankfully, you don’t do that often! You are adventurous, but cautious as you are timid to walk yet. I love to hear your ramblings in the mornings when you wake up. I know that in the coming months your ramblings will be more and more developed. So much fun.

I love each and every day with you my Autumn.

Love,

Mommy

Life with a Baby: Baby Favorites @ 10 months

October 16, 2014

What a packed month we have had!!

We went to Raleigh over Price’s birthday weekend. At that point I realized that flying with a 6 month old is very different than a 10 month old. Oy!!

And in that time Autumn’s crawling speed has increased 10 fold. We really have to make sure all the baby gates are securely closed as she is really quick at going from one end of the room to another. Plus she has been quite proud in showing that she can easily make her way up the first 3 steps with little effort. Oh boy, we are in trouble!!!

The only thing that slowed her down a bit was a recent cold and her first ear infection. Awww poor babe. As usual, she starts out stuffy and then one day her nose is a completely faucet and then she is on the rebound. But this cold also brought along with it the added ear infection so that was extra stinky for Autumn.

Anyway, here is a little round up of things that have been favorites of ours this past month!

Baby Favorites @ 10 months

Silly Hats Barney

While Autumn LOVES her Owl, she is pretty smitten with her singing and dancing Barney toy too. I picked this up at a consignment sale for $5 and, considering how much we have used it, the toy has been a great deal. Every day we take it off the bookcase (so the dog can’t eat it!) and she immediately starts to wiggle. She is ready to dance and clap along with Barney as he sings his songs related to the portion of the hats (farmer, firefighter, bus driver) he has rotated to face forward.

BRICA Super Scoop Bath Toy Organizer

We give Autumn a bath just about every night but what that really means is that I get to say ‘tushy down!!!!!’ about 100 times in 10-15 minutes. Since discovering that she can easily pull herself up from the sides of the tub, she finds it pretty fun to do just that. So I have a heartattack just about every time she does it as there have been a few times when she has slipped and thankfully? gone back (instead of smacking her pretty little face on the edge of the tub). I yank her up again and she blinks back the water that was just all over her back and looks at me like ‘chill, won’t you?’ So, the new solution is lot of toys to keep her entertained in the tub so she doesn’t feel the need to stand up. But where do you keep all those toys?? In this bad boy!! It’s great as it allows you to scoop the toys up and keep them out of the way by hooking on the wall. Awesome!!

Braun Forehead Thermometer

It was easier when Autumn was younger to take her temperature in her armpit or rectally but now it’s much harder as she resists staying still, so this thermometer has been so helpful as it only takes a swipe across her forehead and then done! I highly suggest this to all parents to have in their first aid supplies.

Large Crayola Washable Crayons, 8

Okay, sometimes she still tries to eat them but at least it’s fun to sit with her and doodle with her while she wings them about. It’s just nice to sit without noise and draw with her. She does fast sharp lines and swooshes and then I elaborate them with more doodles, stars, and flowers & leaves. I just look forward to when she really gets into doodling.

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Check out more Baby Favorites:

@ 9 months

@ 7 months @ 8 months

@ 5 months @ 6 months

@ 3 months @ 4 months

@ 1 month @ 2 months

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I’ll do a favorites post every month/stage as Autumn grows, changes, and develops.

What are some of your favorite things for 10 month olds?

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Post contains affiliate links

Life with a Baby: Baby Favorites @ 9 months

September 9, 2014

I don’t think Autumn ever sits still now. Well, she does sit still in the grass or on my lap when we are outside at night watching birds fly around as the sun sets, but that’s about it. She enjoys being outside as much as possible, and when she is inside and want to go out she lets you know. Her actions are very deliberate, she knows what she likes and dislikes, and she really lets you know about it either way.

These are some of the things that she really likes, and lets you know it!

Baby Favorites @ 9 months

Jellycat® Woodland Babe Cream Owl

My best friend’s mom got this owl for Autumn when she was a few weeks old. We always keptit in her crib and now it is her favorite thing. She sleeps with it every night, and in the morning often won’t let go of it until she has her bottle downstairs. When I put her in her crib she grabs tight to it and holds its body or wings. Sometimes she will stroke the eyebrow fluff as she falls asleep. It’s just adorable!

Since it basically is her best friend we bought an extra just incase our (jerkface) dog manages to get it and destroy it. We couldn’t risk not having one around for her, she just loves her owl too much.

Munchkin The Medicator

This was one of those things that Price put on the Amazon list and I didn’t get the point of it since Autumn’s medicines comes with droppers- it’s not like we lost them… yet. But once we used it I was a fan. She would often spit out medicine we would give her, no matter if it was cherry flavored Motrin or her 2x daily iron dose. So now we have this, which is similar to the nipple on her bottle so she will take it more easily, compared to getting medicine dropped. And we can mix breast milk or water with it so the tastes are diluted too.

Too Cute!

We don’t really watch many cartoons or kids programing with Autumn. We occasionally put some on but she is on the move and doesn’t pay attention to it and there is only so much Peppa Pig I can listen do while she crawls around the kitchen with a spoon in her hand. But if we put on Too Cute! she is in awe of it. She will at least sit for a few minutes to check out the animals. Sometimes she even claps around to show how much she loves it. It’s too cute! ha!

Regalo Easy Step Walk Thru Gate

For our little girl, who is always on the move now, these baby gates are key to having her be safe. We have one located at the bottom of the stairs on our first floor and one that cuts Autumn off from the main living area to tiny hallway that leads to our first floor bathroom and to stairs to our basement. As well, we now keep the dog’s food and water bowl there to help prevent her from eating the dog food or play with Kemper’s water bowl.

Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Click’n Learn Remote

Basically, Autumn wants whatever we have. If we are holding the remote, then she wants it. And, obviously, she will play around with it and the channels will change and before we know it we are watching our town’s loop of public ads or some spanish version of QVC. So we now have this toy remote that we can trick her with so she feels like she has what we have and we can still watch the news or other important things like… Extra!

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Check out more Baby Favorites:

@ 8 months

@ 7 months

@ 6 months

@ 5 months

@ 4 months

@ 3 months

@ 2 months

@ 1 month

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I’ll do a favorites post every month/stage as Autumn grows, changes, and develops.

What are some of your favorite things for 6 month olds?

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Post contains affiliate links

The Hub

August 27, 2014

Whenever we visit Maine we go to an island(ish thing) that is called The Hub. I don’t know if it’s officially called that or it’s something that locals call it or just something Price’s family calls it (Elaine… some insight?).

The last time I was there we picked mussels, but this time we just hung out and took some pictures. It was just a nice mellow time allowing us to walk around, check out the seaweed, find teeny penny sized crabs in the tidal pools, and take pictures. Some of the best ones were the ones with Autumn sitting on the rock where Price’s grandmother would spend time sitting as she watched all the grandkids. We think she was pretty stoked to hang out on ‘Olive’s Rock’.

Kemper was so excited to explore with Price. He was probably dying to get off leash and we were tempted to do it had we had more time than before going back home for dinner. We just figured that he would end up climbing up/down the boulders and getting stuck, so then Price would have to save him. ha!

Honey, don’t eat the sand.

See you next year Maine.

38 weeks in/38 weeks out

August 11, 2014

Autumn cooked for 38 weeks, and she has been hatched for 38 weeks.

In both cases time sped by. There were moments when I’ve watched the clock tick in both cases but overall I really can’t believe how fast it has sped by. Warped Speed tricks.

Autumn is stunning, happy, smart, and leaves are hearts full. Being a mom is the craziest thing ever but it’s the absolute best.

looking forward to the next 38 weeks and for everything that brings along with it.

**photo from tonight, after grocery shopping**

‘Round Here

July 14, 2014

Here’s a long post. And I don’t even know where to begin.

Actually, I’ll start with the crappy, sad stuff to get that out of the way and then get to the fun, good stuff.

Our rabbit Jack died on Friday.

I was pumping (what else is new?!) and Price was getting our camping gear all gathered up. He ran down to the finished basement/den/whatever you want to call it to get the stuff and came back up a minute later. As soon as he sat down next to me and said ‘Nic’ I knew one of the rabbits died. Ugh, it totally sucked all the energy out of the night. Plenty of waterworks later we figured it would just be best to bury him asap and Price dug a hole in our little yard and we said out good byes to Jack. We are going to put a big pot full of flowers over his little gravesite.

He was such a good rabbit. Super friendly to us and to Bunny, who truthfully is a royal grump, and is exactly why we got him. She was such a pain in the ass and seemed miserable that I wanted her to cheer up with a friend. Well, it turns out that she is just horrible but they fell in love. Or whatever. He was so mellow that the just went with the flow with her, and us. As long has he had plenty of food he was just so happy. We called him a cow because of his black and brown spots on his white super soft fur, as well as the fact that he could hoover anything in sight… including books! But he really loved raisins, bananas, carrots, cilantro, parsley, and tomatoes.

I’m super sad now that he is gone but I really regret that I didn’t spend the same amount of time with them pre-baby vs post-baby. Ugh, and don’t even get me started on my decline in blogging about them- horrible :-(. But it is what it is and I did the best that I could so now I can beat myself up over it or just think back about the fun times we had playing around (even in the snow!) with our handsome model bun. Even Kemper loved getting to know them, and eat their hay (& poop too).

So it’s just us with horrible, yet super cute, Bunny. I just hope that she enjoys the single life again. wahh 🙁

After Friday night sucking so very much because of Jack’s passing, we stopped crying, regrouped, and decided to continue on with our plans of going camping on Saturday morning. We planned on going to Pillsbury State Park in New Hampshire but long story short we ended up going to a camp ground in Maine. It was such a nice escape, a lot of work with Autumn and Kemper for just 1 night, but a nice escape, especially since I would have just moped around about Jack.

We had a great time together roasting hot dogs over the fire, swimming in the pool, taking Autumn on walks, making Reese’s Cup S’mores, watching bats catch bugs at dusk, and sit by the fire in the light of the supermoon. It seems that Autumn liked the whole experience too so I’m hoping her love of camping/glamping grows as she gets old, and stops trying to eat the grass/sticks/rocks… why child? why?!!?

I got a Fitbit on June 28th. Since then I’ve become an addict to hitting all my goals. So far it’s tracked over 250 miles- I just got a badge for that today 🙂 It has been keeping me motivated at getting off my butt and walking the dog all around. I’ve noticed a change in him too. Now that we’ve been doing 4+ miles a day he is WIPED OUT. Because he doesn’t have all this extra energy bubbling up at the surface he has been much more well behaved.

I was super sore this morning (I figure it’s combo from camping, needing to do some serious stretching) so I didn’t walk him for our normal 20-30 minute walk. Since I’m about 1.5 miles off at this point, I’m not sure if I’ll hit my 10,000 step/5 mile goal for today since I’m need a pedicure and I’m hell bent on getting one tonight. And while I would be super bummed not to fit a goal I figure it would balance out as I got 16,833 steps (6.82 miles) on Saturday and 15,342 steps (6.2 miles) on Sunday. << yeah, prob why I’m a little sore!

Autumn waved yesterday for the first time. She did it in the mirror to herself which was the cutest. But when she lit up and waved at Price I became a gooey mess and cried. Oh damn, she is just so lovely.

Our little miss didn’t sleep that well while we were camping (Saturday night) but we figured it wouldn’t go well anyway, so no big. It probably was the combination of change in routine, new place, different noises, and general baby stuffs. Well, she went down fairly easily last night, and I woke up rested this morning. Which brings me to this funny (for me) convo Price and I had on the way to daycare this morning…

ME: “You know, I can’t believe she slept through the night.”

PRICE: “She didn’t.”

ME: “What?”

PRICE: “I got up with her!”

ME: “Oh, how many times?”

PRICE: “Like 3 times.”

ME: “Sorry, you should get me up.”

PRICE: “Oh I tried…”

AND I WIN!!!!

Price took these photos of little miss Autumn over the Fourth of July weekend. I just love them so much!

Life with a Baby: Baby Favorites @ 6 months

June 17, 2014

Oh boy, another month has sped on by!

This past month has been so much fun. We’ve watched Autumn take some big changes in what she likes and can do. She is a champ when it comes to eating the Baby Led Weaning way. Yum steak! And she is 90% with sitting up. She does really well for a while and then just will flop on over. ha! She has been doing well with her swimming class as she gets to enjoy ‘swimming’ after the rubber ducks in the pool. So much fun to see her in action!

I’m looking forward to the busy month ahead but until then check out our current 6 months favorite things!

Baby Favorites @ 6 months

Carlson Labs Super Daily D3 for Baby

Okay so these are more a favorite of mine because Autumn doesn’t know she gets them. But that is what I like so much about them. When we were first directed to get Autumn a extra special daily dose of Vitamin D, we just grabbed the cherry flavored dropper topped bottle. But then I started to wonder why my newborn was getting artificial flavoring and artificial coloring… so I did some homework and found these.

The drops take their sweet time coming out of the bottle but that’s the thing, you only need a drop. A bottle should last about a year which is soooo much longer than the cherry flavored goop we first grabbed. I think we calculated we would need like 8 bottles of that for the year, which would basically work to be 8x the cost too!

Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo

This jumper thing is the best thing going on in our house right now. Autumn is finally big enough for it so she has been having a blast bouncing around in it and smacking the daylights out of the stuff within reach. She genuinely loves this thing as she can bounce around in it and smash all around at the things. And of course, the music! Price can now whistle the whole ditty as we’ve heard it over and over and over again. Sure, we could turn the music off but she loves it and seeing her smile is just the best.

WubbaNub Giraffe

I can’t even remember how the conversation started (what else is new?!?) but my coworker was telling me how she gave a WubaNub as a gift and how it was such a hit because of 1) it’s cuteness 2) how the baby can easily grab it to retrieve it and insert the pacifier part back into its mouth hole to stop the mouth hole’s high pitched noises 3) easier to find/not lose. Sure, it’s sure cute but what sold me what the not loosing part. I think we’ve owned 15 pacifiers these past 6 months, I know of 6 & I swear the dog did not destroy the other 9. Aside from the general saving them from the abis properties, I’ve become a major fan in how it’s SO much easier to find in her crib in the middle of the night since it’s the pacifier is the magical thing that generally stops the mouth hole noises.

Swim Diapers

We have Autumn in swim class at a local university because we want her to be comfortable and safe in the water. Proper understanding of how to act in and around water is very important to us so we wanted to start her young. These swim diapers are great since she is so small for her age we can’t actually use those disposable swim diapers as they start at Size 3 and Autumn is still Size 1! They work for babies 9-15 pounds which is great because the disposable ones start at 16 lbs. Just because she is small doesn’t mean she shouldn’t enjoy getting to splash around in the pool with us! Besides the size of them, we really like that they are not disposable, making them more environmentally friendly.

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Check out more Baby Favorites:

@ 5 months

@ 4 months

@ 3 months

@ 2 months

@ 1 month

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I’ll do a favorites post every month/stage as Autumn grows, changes, and develops.

What are some of your favorite things for 6 month olds?

____________________

Post contains affiliate links

Happy Father’s Day!!!

June 15, 2014

Well, today is Price’s first Father’s Day.

Last year we announced that I was pregnant on Father’s Day with this cute photo.

Oh, what an amazing year it has been!

Today Autumn had swim class and Pricer took her in the water this time. Pricer had a killer crippling headache so I let him rest for a few hours by taking Autumn out for a long walk. Almost 2 hrs! She got more fresh air later as well when we all went for a walk after a steak dinner. Such a nice day.

I hope all the rest of the dads out there had a lovely day as well.