Liam’s Big Big Boy Bed

This is where Liam is sleeping tonight….

We had this mattress upstairs since Christmas when my brother was in for him to sleep on one night. Liam LOVED the mattress, we didn’t feel like storing it so Liam ended up with with a big big bed.

The kiddo is turning into a teenager in the sense that he loves him some sleep. He napped just as well today as he has in his toddler bed and went to bed tonight just as easy too. He loves having some more room and even more room for blankets. Since I took the picture we put his little side railing on, we just hadn’t gotten to it when I took the picture right when we got it all set up.

Liam was excited to lay with DeeDee for a rest and Lucy was excited to roll away from him.

Last night we had a family first, we went out to eat as a family of four for the first time. Liam and Lucy were so good! We were so lucky to have a great first dinner out.

 

Happy 4 Months Lucy

Dear Lucy,

      Today you are four months old! One quarter of your first year, poof, has already gone by. This month you have changed a lot, in many different ways. In all reality this month has been pretty rough. You decided sleep was something you didn’t want to do and fuss was something you wanted to do a lot of. Your new nickname this month was Drama Mama.  Here’s to hoping you turn a corner this month!

     You are now rolling all.the.time! Honestly as I am lowering you to the ground you are already in the rolling process. You started doing this two days after you turned three months old. You have gotten SO strong on your belly and try so hard to crawl. You just want to play with Liam so bad. If you have any kind of support behind your feet you do crawl. Last night I had my leg behind you just enough for you to push up (hips off the ground) and shoot yourself forward.

     Earlier this week I put you in the infamous doorway jumper and you loved it! Your brother was known to be a wild man in the doorway jumper but girl, he had nothing on you at this age! You were jumping like he was a month into using it your first time. You were spinning, jumping, and smiling the entire time.  I am so glad we found something you like that can entertain you for a few minutes.

    You love the exersaucer, your black and white blocks, and Freddie the Firefly. Your fingers are in your mouth all.day.long! Poor girl you can soak through a bib in 30 minutes! You also love to chew on your bibs and Freddie’s wings. When sitting you are always grabbing for your toes and try to “tripod sit” by yourself; hence why Dada is holding your arm in your monthly rocking chair picture, you wouldn’t stop trying to grab your piggy's!

    You are on no set eating schedule, you are the ultimate “grazer” and have 3-4 ounces here and there though out the entire day; totally 28-30 ounces per day.  In the last week we let you try cereal for the first time, a little early but that’s okay. You loved it! You downed a whole little bowl like you’d been eating it for months. Hopefully soon we will move onto some fruits and veggies!

    You basically take a short 15 minute nap in the morning and then a two hour nap in the afternoon but that is it as far as naps go. You go up for a bath around 7 then a bottle at 7:15 and usually in bed (your own bed!) by 7:30. Around 8:30 you usually start crying and we give you a little more to eat and you are asleep until 11. I feed you at 11 and most nights again at 3 and then you wake between 5 and 7. The biggest news this month is that you are now in your crib at night, still napping downstairs in your swing. You are still swaddled for your long nap and night time, Still only like your paci when you are sleeping, you never want it while awake. You LOVE bath time but also love to jump in the infant tub, you use the other side as a spring board to push off of; makes bath time a hard one man job and such a mess however you think it is quite funny!!

   You are wearing a size 2 diaper, mostly 3-6 or 6 month clothes but you have room to grow into the 6 months ones. You weight 15 pounds! (Your appointment is on Friday so I will have more stats then)

I feel like the two month and four month pictures should be swapped but I guess its because the two month picture is closer making you look a lot bigger then you actually were then.

Snow Day!

You guys it finally snowed! We got a dusting of snow last week and every time we went outside Liam would yell “SNOOOOW SNOOOOW” and want to play. Well last night we got about 7 inches so he finally had something substantial to play in. Alex picked up a sled from his parents house and we got Liam bundled up to go out sledding.

To say he loved it would be an understatement. He was so excited to be out in the snow! Finally!

Going down for the first time!!

All by himself. Is that smile big enough?!

Liam Lately

Liam at 27 months:

You are so sweet and kind hearted. You say “thank you Mama” for every little thing and say please whenever you ask me for something. When Lucy was learning to roll over you would stand by me and cheer “Go DeeDee Go DeeDee”. When Dada comes home from work you run and jump and yell “Dada home Dada home” and then say “Ooooh HEEEeeeey Dada” when he comes in. You also day “bye bye Dada” when he leaves in the morning. At bedtime you say “Ni Ni cars, Ni Ni trucks, Ni Ni Mama, Ni Ni Dada, Ni Ni DeeDee” (clearly we are on the backburner to cars and trucks).

You love your little sister more than words. She is your “DeeDee” and you love to show her and teach her all you know. You get her her paci if she is crying and try to soothe her by showing her all your toys. Whenever you hear her whimper you come running to find me and say “Oh no Mama DeeDee”. You often find her her toys and lay them by her (even when she is sleeping) and will bring me a bottle and day “Mama iz DeeDee’s Baba”

You love to associate what things belong to who or who likes what (very fun game at the grocery store)

For example whenever you see Gatorade you say Dada (because he wears the big G logo on his shirts everyday to work. Pots/Pans/Vacuums are Mama (LOL…isn’t it great to be me). Chocolate, coffee, cookies, pizza, and hamburgers (on his flashcards) are Dada; broccoli is Mama. He loves to point out Mama’s shoes, Dada’s boots, whose car is whose, ect. When I ask him if DeeDee can play with one of his toys he will run and get her one of her toys and say “No iz DeeDee’s” and give her something to play with. 

You are insanely smart when it comes to working electronics (you are your fathers child for sure). Like at two years old you’ve taught me to play games. It is simply mind blowing to see how you know how to work both the iphone and tablet. You unlock it, scroll through the screens, find the game you want to do, open it up and then choose a game within a game to play, go back out to the games main page and select a new one (like with your flash cards) or exit the game to find a new one entirely. Your flash card games have taught you so many new words! When you are going through your flashcards you fly through them so far but once in a while you stay on one word and repeat it multiple times then move on as if you had to hear it a few times before you learned it then moved on to the next. It is amazing to watch you learn.

You are a great sleeper (7:30-7:30) and finally a great napper (1-2:30 in your room). You wear a size 2T, size shoe and size 5 diaper (absolutely no interest in going on the potty but I still keep asking and you still keeps saying “NO”…just waiting for you to take the lead). You still have a paci and I could care less, I know you won’t take it to the prom, if you need it to sleep so be it. One thing I have learned is that you will do something in your own time and it will be very easy. You LOVE to stuggle under blankets and be cozy. You sleep every night like such a big boy on your pillow and under two blankets and snuggle another blanket in your arms. I wake up to you saying “Mama, Mama, Mama, Dada, DeeDee” every morning over the monitor.

You love doing projects and coloring! You often times will run to your chalkboard draw a picture very fast and then announce who or what it is. You like to draw Dada (picture in the middle).

You LOVE to do puzzles! You can blow through your Melissa and Doug ABC puzzle in minutes and repeat all the letters, you recognize many letters now too and can spell car (shocking HA).

You also love to read both me to you and you to me; you call books “stories” which I think is adorable. “Story again Mama” is often heard in our house. You love to read me Brown Bear Brown Bear and any of your first words books.

You are a big helper in the kitchen and enjoy cooking. We got you a Melissa and Doug cutting set for Christmas and you love to cut up vegetables for all of us to eat.

You still love blocks and stacking everything you can imagine! You also love your Legos and building things. You are so good at it!

Cars are still your #1 (although all of them are “das mas” aka it’s mine). Your imaginary play with your cars it so cute. You have a whole game in your head that you play with them and we just love to sit back and watch you. You also love to go through all your cars/trucks and tell us what they are (ice cream car, truck, candy truck, race car, ect). You also like to tell us which colors each car is (geeeen car is your favorite to say). You told us  your favorite color was orange.

Your favorite show is Caillou (or as you call him Go-Tee), really it is the ONLY thing you watch right now. Oh goodness Mama needs a break from Caillou! This had by far been your longest phase of liking a specific show. You are very sensitive when it comes to people getting hurt (physically or emotionally) while watching a show or movie. In the beginning of Cars when they all crash you get very upset and in a few episodes of Caillou when Caillou falls you get upset and say “Ooooh No Go-Tee…”.

You are still a picky eater and don’t try new things but, for the most part, you eat a lot of very  healthy foods. You like pancakes, french toast, oatmeal cereal squares, cinnamon life cereal, yogurt melts, strawberries, bananas, oranges, blueberries, apples, grapes, french fries, grilled cheese, and then of course the junk (cookies, candy canes, and cupcakes). 

 

You have developed some odd fears the past few months…snakes and ghosts?! We have no idea where they came from. When ever you see a shadow you yell GHOST! or hear a noise (usually a cat) in another room you yell GHOST! The snakes fear was short living, mostly around Christmas, when you thought everything long and skinny (tree lights) were snakes and feared them. Worked to our advantage to keep you out of things by saying there was snakes in there (that horrible I know).

Oatmeal!

I have had so many friends contact me for the oatmeal recipe that I have been eating so I thought I’d just post it on here.

Basic Steel Cut Oats (makes three portions)

1 cup organic steel cut oats

3 cups water

1 Tablespoon organic pure cane sugar

1 teaspoon organic cinnamon

3 Tablespoon chia seeds (I got mine in the organic bulk section at Wegmans but any health food store or whole foods would carry them)

splash of vanilla

Combine the oats, water, sugar and cinnamon in a small pot, bring to a boil then turn down to a simmer and cover. Stir every few minutes until done, around 20 minutes or so. The steel cut oats remain a little “chewy” and do not get mushy like regular old fashion or quick cooking oats. Once done stir in the vanilla, and chia seeds. I put mine in small mason jars and store in the fridge.

In the morning I microwave for about one minute thirty seconds (totally depends on your microwave) then I mix it up and added about a quarter cup of almond milk. Then add in any extras you want. Today I did dried cranberries and almond butter (I get the Woodstock brand which is great, Justin’s is awesome too just hard for me to find) on top.

The basic recipe is 260 calories per serving; with my extras my entire breakfast was 330.

Ways to preserve memories

So I have been trying to have this conversation with Alex for the last week but let’s be honest most men could care less about your plan of action for scrapbooking so I am using the internet to ask all of you what your thoughts are on this. I love the format of Project Life BUT I am not committing myself to doing a photo/journaling every day. I like the idea of using the Project Life format to do a monthly recap and big event recap but I am not sure if I want to do it the traditional way with printing off pictures and hand written journaling or digital.

In all honestly digital would be so much easier because my pictures have a hard time making it off my computer! but doing it digital cost a pretty penny at the end of the year to have your book printed (trust me I just did it with 2011..that goodness for a groupon). So would you …

A. Do it the old fashion way and print off pictures into a project life album knowing that it will be harder to keep up with but you will save money and have a place to put all the little extras you want to keep (this is the one thing that is kind of swaying me)

or

B. Do a digital version to save time, keep up, but pay more for it and not have a place to keep extras?

Here is my 2011 year in photos book that I did on mixbook, it shipped today and I can’t wait to see it!

| Learn About Mixbook Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Thoughts on Thursday

I feel like I have been struggling all week to keep my head above water, you know those days … well it seems it has just been one after another this week. No sleep, cranky kids, short naps … rinse and repeat. I am so ready for the weekend!

Liam decided to give his new Hess truck a washing earlier this week, then thought it would be funny to wear the towel on his head.

Liam showing DeeDee and Dada how to play some of his games. I swear the cold he had last week has turned him into a little couch potato. He likes to sit with his “blank” (blanket) and play his games and eat snacks…at least they are educational games and usually whole grain snacks or fruit. This is his sticker page from on of his favorite games he plays.

Ooooh I am going to take this so brother can’t get it …. remember a week ago when I said Lucy wasn’t rolling well I guess she wanted to prove me wrong (can’t imagine were she gets this stubborn/determined attitude from-that’d be me) and is now a machine! Seriously you put the girl down and 2.2 seconds later she is on her belly trying to crawl. The scary part she can move in circles and if she pushes off the floor hard enough she launches herself forward to what she wants…

I attempted some pictures of the kiddos together today and oh my goodness my heart just exploded! Half way through our little photo session Liam looks at Lucy and says “ooooh no DeeDee” then jumps down, grabs her burp cloth and ever so gently daps off some drool on her lips…so stinking sweet that boy is. He is becoming so aware of her and if she is fussing and crying he frantically tries to soothe her by showing her all his cars, trucks, and airplanes…then normally says “' oh no DeeDee bap” and runs to get her a paci.

 

I have been busting my rear lately with running (I signed up for my first 5k in April with a few friends!!), Bob Harper inside out dvds (for strength training), and insanity (which, oh my word, is literally insane- they say it is the hardest workout you can get on DVD and I don’t doubt it!). Here is my progress from 39 weeks, 1 week, and three months postpartum – 31 pounds later….and the little chunka munk 7 pounds (at least) heavier!

I have switched up my daily oatmeal to steel cut oats and I am loving it. This is my new staple of oats, cinnamon,  dried cranberries, chia seeds and almond butter – so good!

I saw this recipe for stuffed cabbage casserole on pinterest last week and just had to make it! Seriously it was so good! I made it vegetarian and substituted the 1 pound of ground meat for a bag of morning star “meat crumbles”. I also left out the cheese just to save a few calories.

 

This morning Liam and I had a tea party, he made us “car tea” hahaha boys.

Thank goodness these baby things have straps, she is a wild women anymore.