Technically, he’s 11 weeks (almost 3 months) now, but who’s counting? So our boy is growing like a beanstalk (because in my mind, beanstalks grow faster and bigger than weeds!!)
At his 2 month appointment, Dawson weighed 12.5lbs and was 24.25″ long. That put him in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. I know I shouldn’t compare my boys, but I don’t think of it as comparing in a bad way. Just noting their differences: Logan was consistently on the low end of the weight chart, and falling, for his entire first year. We had some issues getting the breastfeeding established early on, and he was a slow eater. So much so, that he would fall asleep while nursing every.single.time. in those early weeks. But not Baby Brother! This boy is a nursing machine, and only falls asleep if he’s just “comfort nursing”, which is not very often! Logan’s height has always been around the 50th percentile, where Dawson’s is consistently high – first around the 90th, and now 75th. At this rate, someday soon the baby brother will be taller than the big brother. Yikes.
Since I missed it when I posted his one-month update, I’ll include the milestones that Dawson is meeting or has met (chart borrowed from http://www.babycenter.com):
Vocalizes: gurgles and coos – YES!! Sooo cute!
Follows objects across field of vision – YES
Notices his hands – YES, he loves to suck on them! Holds head up for short periods – YES, make that for long periods!
Smiles, laughs – YES, but still not really laughing yet
Holds head at 45-degree angle – YES
Makes smoother movements – YES, and he can swipe at and kick at the toys hanging from his activity mat and his rocking chair
Holds head steady – YES
Can bear weight on legs – YES, he loves this!
Lifts head and shoulders when lying on tummy (mini-pushup) – YES, briefly
And now, a “photo-bomb”, if you will, of Dawson’s past month. Most of these were taken with my phone, which is why they are so grainy or blurry or otherwise poor quality. But that phone sure is handier than lugging around the big camera!
Rock on! (7 wks)
Early morning smiles (7 wks)
Playing with his brother (7 wks)
Fun with his activity mat! (7.5 wks)
Snug as a bug in a hooded puppy blanket (8 wks)
Cute little baby Aggie (8 wks)
Dinner Date with Miss Ava (8.5 wks)
Cute boys in ball caps (8.5 wks)
9 weeks old!
Such a big boy! (2 months)
Two Months Old!
Loving the monkey mobile! (2 months)
Big boy in a Big Boy Chair. (10 wks)
Logan's Doppleganger (10 wks)
Peaceful sleep (10 wks)
Sunday Morning Snuggling (11 wks)
Sweet snuggly baby (11 wks)
Don’t worry – there’s also tons of video cuteness! These show Dawson loving his toys- monkey mobile over his crib, and the musical activity mat that lights up and plays music when he kicks it. And finally, the toys hanging on his rocking chair.
Our first Valentine’s Day with two kids. Two kids who love each other so much, thankfully! Here are some of the pictures from our Valentine’s Day photoshoot, that were in the running to be on the Valentine’s cards we made for friends and family.
And, here’s the finished product…
Even my awesome James jumped in to help with the assembling of these, to try to get them in the mail in time!
We also made Valentine’s for all of Logan’s classmates. They turned out so cute, see?
Just this morning, Logan was looking at Dawson through the slats on his crib, and he so sweetly said, “He’s SO cute, Mommy! I wuff him SOOO much!”.
Logan has been doing pretty well in his role as big brother. Actually, as a big brother and being big-brotherly to Dawson, he’s awesome.
We brought Dawson in to wake up Logan one morning. Still half asleep, he immediately put his arm around his brother and said, "Take our picture, Mommy!"
Good morning, my little Sunshines!
Yeah, he’s a great brother. Other areas, however, have been kind of hit or miss lately. It could be just being three, or it could be a need for attention since the new baby came, or a combination of both. For a few weeks after Dawson was born, Logan was prone to throwing fits: talking back, whining, throwing himself on the floor, hitting/kicking me or James, screaming just for the sake of screaming, deliberately not following directions and doing the exact opposite of what he was told, and just being an all-around butt. Oops, we don’t say that word. I mean an all-around booger. Pill. Pistol. Brat. Whatever, you get the point.
So I started to develop this idea in my head, and eventually I made it come to fruition. A couple of my friends with 3-year-olds have asked about it and begun implementing it too, so I thought I’d put it out there for anyone else who may be interested. We made a “Happy Calendar” for Logan. He has been learning all about the days of the weeks and the months of the year, so I knew he could “get” the concept of a calendar. Here’s how it works: I print out a calendar for the month, and slip it into a picture frame. I have velcro’d a red and a green dry erase marker to the frame. For each day that Logan has a good day, he gets to draw a green smiley face on that day. If he has a bad day, he has to draw a red X on that day. At the end of the month, if he has fewer than 5 red X’s (~1 per week average), we will purchase and download a new eBook or one of the cheap (<$10) games onto his Leapster Explorer.
What defines a good or bad day? If he has a time out at school for any reason = bad day, red X. If he throws a colossal fit with hitting/kicking, or behaves badly enough to get a spanking at home = bad day, red X. Those are automatics. Otherwise, it’s just an “overall” that we determine at the end of the day. If he threw a fit for us in the morning, or made a bad choice that we had to fuss at him for (like not being quiet in church), but then was an angel the rest of the day, most likely he’d get a green smiley. If it was just over and over and over bad choices and bratty behavior, red X.
So here’s what his January calendar looked like (we didn’t start till the middle of the month, so for January, we said if he has less than 3 X’s he could get his prize):
We have Logan draw the smiley or the X. It drives the point home, but also helps him practice his writing/drawing.
See that first red X on the 19th? That day when I walked into his classroom to pick him up, he ran up to me and said, “Mommy, mommy! That’s, okay, I don’t want a new game.” HA! Little sour-grapes smarty pants! I knew he must have gotten in trouble for something so I asked him what he did. He got a time out for going outside the gate on the playground without a teacher – against the rules. So, he definitely gets the concept! Although, poor kid thought that even 1 red X would mean no prize. So we talked about it and I explained to him that everyone makes mistakes, and it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes. Just not all the time, and hopefully not the same mistake again. I also explained that a couple of red X’s on his calendar might still mean he could get a prize.
Then, as you can see, he was great for the next couple weeks! So great, that his teacher rewarded him for his hard work, and he was named Courtesy King again! We are so proud, and we let him know it!
But alas, a 3-year-old’s memory and emotions are just that – three years old. By the 29th, he had temporarily forgotten how a Courtesy King behaves. He just had an all-around cranky day, threw fits and kicked his friends’ toys. Red X that day. Hey, it happens, and I’m the first to tell you that the kid ain’t perfect! But he still needs to know that he’s expected to behave a certain way and be courteous and respectful to his friends.
We talked all about it, and made sure he understood that even though he got a red X that day, overall he had a really good month with only 2 X’s, so he could get a new game. He chose the Toy Story 3 eBook. Only, he hasn’t been able to play it yet, because he had Bible class Wednesday after school, and then Thursday (2/2), he had ANOTHER bad day at school, for which he got a red X. That meant no playing his Leapster game that day. (he still faces his regular consequences/removal of privileges when he has a time out at school, in addition to the red X. We feel it’s important to let him know that we are a united front with his teacher, so even though she disciplined him with a time out at the time of the offense, we still give him a consequence at home when he’s had a time out at school. Is that mean?).
Anyway, other than those couple of rough days, Logan has been awesome. He is as smart as ever, has an amazing memory, LOVES his baby brother more than anything, and is quite a little comedian. He loves to tell jokes, make up songs, and act silly and really loves to make us laugh by dancing his silly “booty dance” or any other crazy kind of dance. He has lofty goals, and tells us that when he grows up he wants to be a hunter, a firefighter, a spaceman and an astronaut (apparently this is the same thing), AND a drum player in a band (that’s how he says it. Not “drummer”). He’s extremely technilogically intuitive – he loves his Leapster game, the toddler games on our iphones, and James has even turned him on to a couple games on our old-school XBox and can figure them out in no time. Not that I’m all that thrilled about him being a video game junkie, but we try very hard to limit it to once or twice a week. As for our iphones, he must have grown a little bored with the toddler games, because now when he asks to play a game, he usually ends up punching numbers on the calculator, or filling up the memory with random photos he snaps with the camera. He’s becoming quite the little shutterbug, and loves taking pictures with our phones, his Leapster, and with the toy cameras he has at home and at school.
A couple of things that he’s been saying lately that make me smile are:
Singing/reciting the months: “January, February, March and April, Maine, June, July…”
Yesterday he was telling me the Bible story about “Daniel and the Lion’s Dent”. Speaking of Bible stories, he LOVES them! Last week he learned about the Good Samaritan. Then a couple days later, while he was eating a snack, he acted out the Good Samaritan story with his bunny crackers on the table: one bunny was laying down, hurt. Two other bunnies walked right past him without helping him. A third bunny then came along, and helped the injured bunny up, and carried him off to the “hos-spit-all” to get fixed up. 🙂 (There are just no words, right?)
He is still with the all-the-time-asking if we know something: “Mommy, do you know that sharks eat fish?”. “Daddy, do you know that leaves fall off the trees in autumn, and they grow again in spring?”. “Mommy, do you know that baby teeth fall out?”.
The other morning we walked out of the house to go to school and the moon was high in the sky. Logan gasped and said, “Hey! A crescent!”. (?? crescent? He’s THREE!)
He loves to “help” us when we’re cooking, or when Daddy is fixing something. He’s gotten really good at stirring, and he’s quite handy with a screwdriver these days. And he’s a huge help with the baby, and loves fetching diapers, blankets, binkies (pacifiers, for those of you who don’t live in our house and don’t automatically know what a binkie is!). And he loves trying to get Dawson to smile at him (which he is doing more and more these days!).
This one always tears at my heart a little bit – I think it’s because of the hint of surprise that’s always in his tone, and makes the Mommy Guilt come pouring out: “You’re being NICE to me!”. As if it’s so rare that we are nice to him. So we’ve started explaining that when one acts nicely, then usually the people around them act nicely. When he’s nice, we’re nice. When he’s being ugly, we have to stop being nice for a little bit until he stops being ugly. He gets it. But just sometimes he forgets.
And my all-time favorite: out of the blue the other day, Logan said “Mommy, you’re the best Mommy in the whole wide world!”. And another time he told his dad, “You’re my favorite Daddy!”
Overall, Logan is a really good boy, who just so happens to be three-and-a-half. And man, oh man, is that kid sweet. He’s my favorite Logan, for sure!
Dawson is already over one month old. *sniff, sniff*
I only have 7 weeks left before I officially have to go back to work, although now I’ve pretty much convinced myself to go back a couple weeks early, and just do part-time for those couple weeks. We’ll see.
So this month has been eventful, to say the least! There have been many visitors, and much visiting. We’ve seen grandparents a bunch of times, and we’ve also seen the doctor a bunch of times. Let’s talk about that for a bit:
Dawson had his well-baby checks at 1-week and 2-weeks old. At his 1-week check, he weighed 8lbs, 11oz, for a total post-birth weight loss of 13 ounces (he’d lost 8oz before we left the hospital). This was nothing to be concerned about, as it is perfectly normal for babies to lose up to 10% of their birthweight in the days following their birth. Generally, they should have gained all that back by their 2-week birthday. So the doc was not concerned, and just told us that at his 2-week check up, she hopes to see him in a gaining trend. Also at this appointment, he was 21.5″ long. Technically, this is three quarters of an inch shorter than his length at birth, but the doctor mentioned that the older he gets, the more difficult it will be to get an accurate length because he’s so squirmy and stuff. So, percentile-wise, he was in the 50th percentile for weight, and the 90th (!) percentile for height.
One Week Old
At his two-week appointment, Dawson weighed 9lbs, 4oz!! He’d gained 9 ounces in a week – WOW! Little pork chop! And he was 22″ long, so he’d gained a half an inch. That put him in the 75th percentile for weight, and the 90th for height again. Oh, this boy is gonna be TALL! At both appointments, the doctor was thoroughly pleased, and said he looks great! That would be the end of his well-checks until his 2-month birthday.
Two weeks old
BUT, the next week, we started hearing him coughing a dry cough occasionally, on a Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning, poor baby couldn’t breathe through his nose it was so stuffed up, and his cough had gone from dry- to gunky-sounding. Being more than a little paranoid about him getting RSV, we took him right in to the doctor. He was one day shy of his three-week birthday. No RSV, no fever, nothing more than a common cold virus, but still worrisome on a three-week old. And he was 10lbs, 4oz at that doctor visit! (1lb gain in 1 week – wow! I am a milk machine!!)
Three weeks old
So we sucked his nose out constantly and flushed it with saline occasionally for the next week. We kept a close eye on his breathing and breath sounds and monitored his temperature. As you can see, his temperament was not affected much at all, and he just rolled with his stuffy nose like the chill-baby that he is.
The next week, we’d started noticing him grunting and making just a lot of odd baby noises that we weren’t entirely sure were normal. Still worried that his virus may have moved into his lungs, I took him back to the doctor at 4 weeks old. His lungs were perfect, but lo and behold – the doctor informed me that his gunky cold had moved to his ear, and caused an ear infection. 😦 Poor baby! So she prescribed him an antibiotic, and thus ended our track record for 4 trips to the doctor in 4 weeks. He seems to be doing just as fine as ever, doesn’t really seem affected by the ear infection and hasn’t run a fever at all. I suspect if we had not taken him in to have his lungs checked, that ear infection would have caused him to spike a fever over the weekend, and then we would’ve been beside ourselves with panic and worry not knowing why, and had to rush him to the ER. So, thank goodness James urged me to take him in when he did! He was 10lbs, 8oz at that appointment.
One month old
As you can see, Dawson is in the throes of the Infant Acne, and has been for a couple of weeks. Hopefully within a couple of weeks it will clear up, although we know it’s normal and harmless. It just looks a little pathetic!
The doctor didn’t check his length at those last 2 appointments, but he’s definitely growing! He can’t fit into any of his newborn-sized clothes anymore, and is wearing mostly 0-3 month clothes. He is awake and alert a lot of the day now, usually in the afternoons. He still sleeps pretty much all morning, except when he wakes up to nurse. He loves to look at faces, especially his big brother’s! And I’ve seen him turn his head toward a voice when he hears it – usually mine or Daddy’s. Lately he’s been showing some super sweet smiles but I haven’t been able to get one on camera yet.
At night, he’s been doing really pretty great. He usually nurses for the last time between 9 and 10pm, and then we’ve been putting him down sometime shortly after. I learned within the first week, that Dawson loves to be snuggled up all warm and cozy, and that makes him sleep REALLY well! So he goes to bed in footed pj’s, and then swaddled in a swaddle blanket. If it’s a really cold night, we’ll put him in one of these swaddle blankets. On really cold nights, I also put a hat on his bald (and getting balder) little head and then wrap him loosely in a fuzzy warm blanket. Works like a charm and he usually sleeps until 4 or 5am. Then he gets up to nurse, and then goes back to sleep for most of the morning!
So far, he’s a very good and easy baby. We totally were not expecting this – Logan was a very easy baby, so I felt for sure we’d have a lot more challenges this time around. Dawson really only fusses if there’s something discernably wrong – dirty diaper, gas, hungry, etc. He definitely displays his strong preference to certain things: he loves to snuggle and be swaddled. And he loves to suckle, so he’s definitely as pacifier baby – much more so than Logan was. Dawson has been taking a pacifier pretty much since the hospital, whereas Logan didn’t really start taking it until after he was several weeks old. Dawson has only had a few bottles in his short little life, since nursing is going infinitely better than it had in the beginning with Logan. Logan didn’t care where he got his sustenance from – breast, bottle, milk, formula, warm, cold – didn’t matter, he would drink it. And we didn’t have to try different brands and types of bottles or nipples like so many of my friends have. Dawson took a bit of time to get the hang of drinking from the bottle, but he’s got it down now. His only issue is that he doesn’t seem to like his milk cold. Which is understandable, I suppose – I imagine it might give him brain freeze! But we’re still fortunate in that when the bottle has had a chance to get the chill off of it and come closer to room temp, he will gobble it down, so it doesn’t seem that he has any issue with the brand of bottles or nipples we’ve got.
That’s about it for the recap today. I haven’t had a chance to read up on milestones for this month and check off which ones he’s met yet, but maybe one of these days. I’m also working on making his birth announcements, right after I get thank you cards in the mail. Then there’s Valentine’s cards and crafts to be made, and the office/craft room to be cleaned and organized, and laundry and grocery shopping and exercising… oh and relishing these last 7 weeks at home with my boy… That’s a lot on my plate but I’ll make sure to squeeze in the blog updates too!
Dawson was four days old on a cold, rainy Christmas Eve, and we bundled him up and our family of four headed to the Children’s Mass at church. First, I had to snap a photo of my boys in their Christmas Best:
Wow, four days old? Even I can't believe how young he is - he just looks SO big and mature!
Logan had a rough time remembering his church manners and being quiet and respectful. However, he seemed to have redeemed himself afterwards, when Daddy and I explained to him that he should think about who he needed to apologize to for the bad choices he made during Mass, and that we didn’t think Santa Claus would want to come to our house because he didn’t behave during church. Immediately, he launched into prayer, and said:
“Dear God and Jesus,
Please take away my bad choices and please forgive me…
…and help me get presents.
Amen”
It must have worked, because by the time we woke up Christmas morning, this is what we saw:
Santa came! (nice - a string of lights burned out just in time for the big day!)
Santa came!
Incidentally, Mr. Logan is an early riser 364 days out of the year, and is usually up between 6:30 and 7:00am, if not earlier. On Christmas morning, he didn’t roll out of bed until after 8:00! And when he did, I was in Dawson’s room nursing him, and I heard Logan get up and open his door, and he was muttering “It’s daytime… it’s daytime…”. You see, we always tell him not to come to our room if he wakes up and it’s still nighttime – he should close his eyes and go back to sleep until it’s daytime. So on Christmas morning, he apparently forgot all about the Christmas part, and was just excited about the daytime part. So he ran down the hall and jumped into bed with Daddy and together they watched some Nick Jr or Disney Channel or something.
About 20 minutes later, Dawson and I were just finishing up, and I heard Logan gasp and say, “SANTA’S HERE!! Santa’s here!!”. And he came running down the hall and stopped to tell me that it’s Christmas and Santa came. I guess it took a while for him to shake the cobwebs from him brain and remember that it was a much-anticipated, special day. So we followed him to the living room where he gasped and ooh’d and aah’d and just had the best time checking stuff out.
And now, the photos can tell the rest of the story:
And he brought Logan a "fast train that goes by itself!", just like he asked for!
Oh yes, Dawson got stocking stuffers too! (That's Ocho. The octopus. He was a fave when Logan was a baby, but Logan's quit working, so Santa brought a brand new one for Dawson!)
He was mostly unphased by the stocking stuffers
And the tree presents too
New Leap Frog videos from Grandpa Jack and Grandma Kim - yay!
That Santa really pulled through - he brought a police robot too!
"Heey! A B-I-B-L-E!!" Seriously. He said this as soon as he opened it, and no one told him what it was (he can spell it because of the Sunday School song, we sing it all the time). He's clever, that one.
Spelling puzzles
Mommy's Boyz
The giraffe next to Dawson was from my mom, who came over in the afternoon with my brother. Apparently this is the only picture I took while they were here. 😦
Sleepy boy. Fell asleep watching a movie, before 8pm (no nap and lots of excitement will do that to ya!)
Sleepy Daddy. And Latty. (Dawson and I had actually fallen asleep on the chair in the other room, and when we awoke, this is how we found all the other boys!)
Next day: Christmas, Round 2. Grandma and Grandpa J came to stay for a couple of days.
Still unphased at the festivities
"Cars Number Two PJ's!!!"
And some camo slippers. Camo is his favorite color.
And, the festivities continued into the week, when Aunt Val and Kinley and Christopher came over (Uncle Tommy had to work… Boo!)
Aunt Val loves her nephews! (She's got another one coming in March - her brother's first kid!)
Gift Exchange
Whoa. These two are really starting to look alike!
So, it was hectic, and frantic and frazzled, but Christmas was a smashing success for everyone! We remarked more than once how glad we were that Dawson decided to come on his own when he did. Otherwise we would have been induced on December 22, and wouldn’t have been home from the hospital until Christmas Eve – then we would have seen some real frazzled-ness!
After months and months of swollen feet, lower back pain and several weeks of contractions, DAWSON JOHN joined our family at exactly 11:31 on Tuesday December 20, 2011!! He is huge, and beautiful and perfect. How huge?
Nine pounds, eight ounces. Twenty-two and a quarter inches long.
Huge.
Thank God for great anesthesiologists and even better epidurals. Delivery was a piece of cake, I seriously did not feel a thing more than a tiny bit of pressure in my belly. In fact, as soon as he was delivered, I was watching the nurse weigh him, and I could see that the scale said “8.1”. I said aloud “Oh, 8 pounds, one ounce, the same size Logan was!!”
James said, “Uh, babe. That says nine pounds, eight-point-one ounces”. Whoa.
By the next day, I was feeling a little like I’d been run over by a Mack truck, so I guess the whole birthing-a-huge-ass-baby thing was not as much of a piece of cake for my body as my brain thought it was at the time.
Anyway, he is beautiful, and perfect, and so so sweet and snuggly. I just can’t even tell you, so just see for yourself:
Look how strong!! One day old, and holding his head up like that!
This baby boy loves to snuggle, and this Mommy love, love, LOVES that!
On Wednesday, our great friend Kathy, who was keeping Logan for us while we were in the hospital, brought him up to meet his baby brother. Oh my goodness, he was SO very excited and proud as proud could be!
We are 2 weeks and 1 day away from our due date for Thing 2. (Who, I’m happy to say, DOES have a name now! See what I mean? READY!)
Oh, but I’m not gonna tell you his name. Not yet. It’s a surprise. At least until you scrutinize the attached photos…
Anyway, there was a whole bucket list of things to do to get ready for this dude, and miraculously, they are nearly all done. Thanks to my awesome husband, who rocks. And they were done before this past weekend, which was dedicated solely to Logan and Family.
Saturday, Daddy and Logan took a tour of a Cement Factory! Logan loves factories (like his Dad) and has been learning all about cement and cement trucks lately so when James had the opportunity to tour a plant, he brought Logan along. From what I hear, they had a blast! Later that day we all met up for lunch with my mom and Aunt Romy. Then home for naps and we planned to head out to the Christmas Stroll on the town square, but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to do it. We were too tired and it was too darned cold and rainy!
Sunday after church, we came home and ate Daddy’s homemade breakfast tacos (aka: Egg Tacos – Logan’s favorite!). After naps, we had a surprise for Logan. We went on a family outing, but didn’t tell him where we were going. He got very excited when we arrived at the parking lot of the Cedar Park Center, which is where we watch the Texas Stars hockey games. So he thought we were going to see a hockey game, and of course got very concerned because Uncle Skynny wasn’t with us (that’s our hockey-watching pal).
We went inside and found our seats, and that’s when he figured it out: there was no ice. There was no jumbo-tron screen. There was no Mighty Fine blimp up near the ceiling. There was no Zamboni. And there wasn’t a “Time Out Box”, which is how Logan refers to the penalty box. Heeeyyyy…. This wasn’t a hockey game!! There was a stage with pictures of a few of his favorite characters:
It's Yo Gabba Gabba!
Yo Gabba Gabba!! We had a dancy dance party right there in our seats while we watched YGG live, and LOVED it! And for the past 3 days has been saying “I sure did love that Yo Gabba Gabba. I want to go back again when they start again!”
Cool, huh? After that, we had to go grocery shopping. Since we were on that side of town, we headed to the huge grocery store that we don’t normally go there. To our pleasant surprise, a certain Man With A Beard had stopped by for a short visit, and Logan got to meet him.
I guess it's still the beginning of the season. Santa's looking a little lean this year, but there's still time for him to plump up!
Much to our surprise, and chagrin, Logan asked Santa Claus for a horse. And just to be clear, when I asked him later what kind of horse he wanted, he wagged his finger in my face and said quite matter-of-factly, “NOT a rocking horse. A REAL horse.”
Le sigh.
So…. that list of things we accomplished just in time for baby…
There’s the baby’s room. Crib set up, guest bed and furniture stowed away (don’t worry, there’s still plenty of room and places to sleep if you ever want to visit!!):
I put this Bible verse on the wall, right above the rocking chair where I will nurse him. I cut the letters from adhesive vinyl on my Cricut, then stuck them to the wall myself, without measuring or even using a line to make them straight because I’m impatient and just wanted it done. It’s a little hard to read in this picture but the caption tells you what it says.
"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him" 1 Samuel 1:27
There’s the (mostly) clean house, thanks to my awesome birthday present that James got me: a housekeeper for a year! Woot! (eh. no pics of that just yet, since it’s an off week for the housekeeper = not so much clean right now!)
There’s the hospital packing:
There’s some DIY art projects I did that (one of them) finally got hung. I needed some art to fill a big space on this GIANT wall in our front living room. I opted for the cheap route: 12×12 canvases (packs of 7 on sale buy 1 get one half off, or something = ~$20 for 2 packs), with coordinating scrapbook paper mod-podged onto them, then hung in a grid. All told <$25 (because I scored a crap-load of scrapbook paper at a resale shop for $.10 a sheet). I love the way it turned out! (I have a couple more sets of prints that need to be hung in our bedroom, one of which I made, and one of which I ordered from the interwebz. But I’m not pushing it… it will get done when it gets done!)
And finally, there’s the Christmas decorating:
Santa's Workshop Village
Advent Garland
Entryway mirror, with some random garland and bow stuck up there, mostly as a joke but I actually liked the way it looked so I kept it there!
Fireplace (I'm missing my annual poinsettias, but I'll get them this week, hopefully).
I am quite proud of myself for our stockings. Bought them cheap at Michaels. Found some cheap 18″x21″ swatches of holiday fabric at the WalMart, and ironed some Heat and Bond Ultra onto them. Then I cut the letters out of them using my Cricut (what a pain in that patootie, let me tell you!), and then ironed them onto the stockings. I felt they lacked a little something to make them “pop”, so I added some Stickles (aka: glitter glue) by outlining each letter with it in a corresponding color. Again, I’m really pleased that they turned out looking pretty nice!
And there’s Zerbet the Elf. He’s our Elf on the Shelf. Man, this is such a cool new tradition we just started and Logan LOVES it! He gets such a kick out of seeing where Zerbet has ended up each morning upon his return from the North Pole (where he flies to each night while Logan is sleeping, and gives Santa the report on what a good, or not so good, boy Logan has been that day). It’s usually someplace kinda silly!
Zerbet the Elf, just hanging around, gaining a new perspective...
That’s about it. Still left to do: finish up making and purchasing a few gifts. Wrap all the gifts. Make (some of) our annual Christmas goodies (namely, Texas Trash!). Birth this baby so I can order the Christmas cards/birth announcements already.
Huh. Seems my mid-pregnancy-psycho-freak-outs were completely irrational and unnecessary. We actually CAN get all this crap done. Sorry about that, babe…
Speaking of birthing the baby. There’s a bit of progress on that front. At my 36-week appointment 2 weeks ago, I was a fingertip dilated and 50% effaced. At my 37-week appt last week, still a fingertip, but 75% effaced. I’ve been having painless contractions semi-regularly for several weeks, which started becoming more intense and a bit painful 2 days ago. They’re only averaging about 13-15 minutes apart, conservatively, so it doesn’t really mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. They’re not really getting closer or more painful so it’s not really anything to get too excited over just yet. I figure, if I can walk, talk and sleep through these contractions, which I can, they’re not really that big a deal. However, with Logan I never had one bit of progress before 40 weeks, and never had one single contraction until after the initial dose of Pitocin was given in the delivery room. So this is all new and different and confusing and can be panic-inducing if we don’t keep our reality checks in line.
I have my 38-wk appointment tomorrow, and I’m sort of secretly hoping that the doctor will say I’m miraculously 5cm dilated and shuttle me on over to the hospital to have a baby within the hour. But probably not. And that will be ok. Whenever it happens, it happens. You all will be (among) the first to know. After the grandparents, family and close friends. And Facebook-land. 😉
Thanksgiving at the farm again this year. Lots of food, family and fun times were had! Here’s some pictures:
Sunrise on the Farm
Silly cousins ready for feasting
A Family Feast
A little after-dinner off-roading
Whoops.
What's the damage, Chris?
Meh. Who needs a tow truck, when you have "nuscles" like these?
Sunset on the farm. So thankful for a beautiful day.
And the next day, so thankful for lots of rain and giant mud puddles!!
That pretty much sums it up!!
Oh, there may or may not have been a harrowing trip into “town” at 10pm to visit the Walmart which opened at 10 for Black Friday. Which we figured couldn’t possibly be too busy – it’s the country, after all! We may or may not have been wrong. What a madhouse. It was fun, but something we’ve decided we don’t need to do ever again!
Huh. Well it seems that Halloween sailed right on by, and Thanksgiving snuck up on me. It’s as if I’ve had my head stuck in a hole in the ground for the past month, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t…
Halloween was fun this year! Logan wanted to be a “Robot. With Buttons”. This made my heart soar because guess what it meant?
It meant that I got to MAKE his costume again! Probably for the last time in his life, because next year he will no doubt want to be a super hero or rescue hero or transformer or ninja or whatever it is that four-year-olds love to be. And I’ll have a 9 month old baby and an even busier schedule and even less time, and spending $20 on a ready-made costume will be too much for me to say no to… And then after that he’ll be old enough to know that Mom’s Homemade Halloween Costume is not cool. Not cool at all.
So, without further ado, I give you….
LO-BOT 2000
So, it was really pretty simple to make this costume. We took a couple boxes and duct taped them together, cut out a hole in the top and round holes in the side for his arms. Painted them grey with a small can of paint I got at the Habitat Re-Store. James drilled holes in the front of the box for the red lights around the perimeter. I had the red lights in my stash of craft/decorating stuff – they’re battery operated! The “buttons” are little square plastic thingies with colored foam squares glued to them – I got the square thingies at the Habitat Re-Store, as well as that beige dial thing. That’s actually a timer for lights/household appliances, circa 1970-something (I think). You know, the things your grandparents used to make the different lights come on inside the house to let prospective burglars think that someone was home, even if they weren’t? Oh, wait. Was that just my Grandma that did that?
Anyway, the red and silver circle is an LED tap-light, that I grabbed for a whole $1 bill at the Dollar Tree. And those two vertical plastic things in the middle? Why, those are glow sticks, of course (also $1 from Dollar Tree). And finally, the arms and legs are cut dryer vents. All in all, I think I spent less than $15 to make this costume.
Since I shot these photos with the flash, it’s hard to tell that the red lights, tap light and glow sticks are illuminated, but trust me… they were. And it was darn cool, if I do say so myself! I was pretty proud of it. Cheesy? Yes, most definitely. But that’s how homemade robot costumes are supposed to be, so I think I nailed it. Again, if I do say so myself!
So the Friday before Halloween, we went to a little street party on the square in our town. Several shops were open for trick-or-treaters, there was live music, food and just walking around checking out the costumes. We met our friends there, and LoBot got to hang out with his buddy Batman.
And, not to be outdone by the LoBot 2000, Baby Brother/Thing 2 was sporting a costume of his own…
Halloween night, Logan came home from school with a slight temperature. He said he felt fine and was acting fine, so we let him go trick or treating anyway. We strolled the neighborhood with our friends and their Baby Ava (sweet, cute little pumpkin that she is!). In less than an hour, and maybe 6 houses in, LoBot began to malfunction and eventually shut down. He was done, to the point of telling us that he “has enough candy” and just wanted to go home…
So we did, and lo and behold, that pesky fever had risen to over 101. Sad face. So we stayed home together the next day and he was good as gold by Wednesday morning.
It didn’t last too awful long because then two weeks later, he came down with the Croup, which had him down with 102+ fevers for four days! Ugh, poor, poor boy hadn’t been that sick in quite some time. But again, he got over it and is good as new now. Help me pray that he stays that way, won’t you?
Woohoo – look at me, getting all caught up and everything!
I just love, love, LOVE Fall, y’all! Especially today, because we FINALLY got some fall-ish weather, that seems like it might actually stick around and not resort back to the hell-ish 90+ degrees that seems to keep happening around here. (knock on wood!). Plus, Fall is just the start of all things fun for kids and families and memory-making. Starting with Halloween preparation.
On Sunday we hit up our local Pumpkin Patch for our annual pictures and this year we even picked out a pumpkin to take home and carve up.
Photo op:
Punkin hunt:
Dis one's too small
Dis one is too big
Dis one is perfect!
Jack-o-Lantern time!
Ready to carve!
Turns out, Logan was not so much a fan of the "gooey junk" inside the pumpkin. Ever the neat freak, he didn't want to get his hands dirty. But he was happy to pull the eyes out after I cut them!
Jack-o-Lantern meets his new home on the front porch
We even toasted the pumpkin seeds – mmmm-mmm! Reminded me of when I was a kid. I love me some toasted pumpkin seeds, and I love Fall.
When Three Became Four 
