My Facebook Decision

I have recently decided to deactivate my facebook account.  I’ve been thinking of doing it for a while, over a month now, and finally decided to do it this week.  There are so many reasons for my decision, but it boils down to one thing.  Facebook is destructive.

The first and foremost reason I left is that I feel that I’m being called to get off the social media site.  It’s something that has been on my brain for a while and I think there’s a reason for that.  I really feel like God is telling me to get back to the basics of relationships and friendships.  To spend more QUALITY time with my friends and family when I’m with them instead of looking at my phone.  I feel like I’m being told that as of right now, facebook is an “idol” to me.  It’s incredibly addictive and I spend more time finding out what is going on in the lives of people that I never see than in God’s word.  About a year ago, our Sunday School class agreed to get off facebook for one week and during that week, I honestly wondered why I was on facebook in the first place.  There are so many reasons that facebook is destructive.  Let me list the ones that led to my decision (by the way, I am not judging anyone that has done any of the below things.  The reason they are on my list is because at some point or another, I HAVE DONE THEM):

• It creates a “fake” perfect life - I truly believe that facebook creates a picture perfect life of every person or family and let’s be honest, none of us are perfect.  Our spouses aren’t perfect.  Our kids aren’t perfect.  Our lives….NOT perfect.  But we sure do like to let people think it’s perfect don’t we?  Putting up pictures of flowers our husbands/boyfriends sent us or those pictures of that growing belly from pregnancy or putting up pictures of that brand new BMW that you just got or even the status’ of how our children are completing milestones well ahead of schedule.  These things show up in ALL of your friends newsfeed.  Including the friend that has no husband or boyfriend to send her flowers.  The friend that can’t physically get pregnant to take those belly shots.  The friend that has to work nonstop and still can’t afford a BMW.  And the friend who’s children have a developmental disorder.  It can be damaging to these people, even though you don’t intend for it to be.
• It creates gossip - How many times has someone said to you “Did you see what she posted on facebook? How crazy!”. It creates an outlet for gossip that wouldn’t be there if you weren’t on facebook. Chances are, people may stop coming to you to talk about what someone posted on facebook if they know that you’re not on facebook. Of course, you’ll probably still have those people that will come tell you because you’re not on facebook, but overall, I think being off the website would decrease this occurrence.
• Things can be taken the wrong way when written instead of spoken - Whether someone comments on your status or writes on your wall, it’s hard to tell if someone is kidding or not through text on a website.  You may go insane analyzing if they were joking or if they were serious.  It causes people to get defensive and can even result in estranged or even broken friendships.  Unfortunately, I have seen this happen.
• It belittles the true meaning of friendship - How many of you have friends that think that by writing on your wall once a month that they’re keeping up with the “friendship”?  I have a ton.  And honestly, I am one too.  If I were off facebook, then I would be forced to keep up with my friends the good ole fashioned way, by talking to them.

So what does this mean for the blog?  Good news, I won’t be getting rid of that.  If anything, it may make me blog even more since I won’t have facebook as an outlet anymore.  I don’t have any of the above issues when it comes to blogging and I think it’s a safe outlet to have my friends that I don’t see often keep up with our family.  Unfortunately, I just don’t have the free time to call and talk to my friends that live out of state as much as I want to (no time for anything with a child!) so I think that by blogging, they can still keep up with us.

As for how long this hiatus will last.  No telling.  It may even be permanent.  In fact I’m honestly planning for it to be permanent, but we’ll see what the future holds.  The good thing about facebook is that I can deactivate my account and leave it deactivated for years and when I come back, it should be right where I left it.  Downside - I’m going to have to learn people’s birthdays :(

Carter - Eight Months

Diapers

Literally just started wearing 3’s a week ago. 

Clothes

We are finally wearing 6 month clothes (though most of his shorts are still 3 months)!  I’ve even packed up all his 3 month stuff (minus the shorts mentioned above) and have gotten it ready to give to Tiffany, one of my best friends who had a baby boy in May.  He’s been “lending” all of his clothes, one stage at a time, to Harper Lobdell.  And can I just talk for a second about how much I love my baby’s fat??  I mean, he’s now in the 25th percentile in weight (see below) but he somehow manages to have the CHUNKIEST thighs, knees and feet.  I often talk about how  much I love his “knee fat”.  And the dimples in his thighs…LOVE IT!

Nursing

Well, I finally did it.  I said bye bye to nursing.  Literally this past weekend…and I am pretty sure my  milk is still in the process of drying up.  I made it 8 months folks.  I’m proud of that!  My original goal was only 6 months and I made that.  My second goal was 1 year and even though I wish I could have made it that long, I just couldn’t handle pumping at work anymore.  It was a HUGE inconvenience.  Mainly when I was working out at client offices and had to go to the bathroom multiple times a day and sit on a toilet for 15 minutes.  It’s just not feasible.  I truly feel that if I were a stay at home mom, I would have continued breastfeeding.  Carter and I never had any issues with it at all and I thoroughly enjoyed nursing him, however since I worked, I only got to nurse him once a day (twice when he was younger).

Solids

Carter is now on Stage 2 solid foods.  This means that instead of the 2 1/2 oz. of food that comes with Stage 1 foods, he now gets 3 1/2 oz. of food.  There are also so many more options of food with Stage 2.  New ones we’ve added are Hawaiian Mangos, Mixed Berries, Garden Vegetables, Turkey and Rice, Macaroni and Cheese, Sweet Potatoes and Corn, I could go on forever.  I’ve noticed that Stage 2 is a lot of combinations of two different foods and Carter LOVES that.

Sleep

Most of the month, Justin was in town, so Carter has gotten used to waking up late since daddy goes in to work late.  Many times, Justin has had to wake Carter up at 9am, but mostly, the past couple of months Carter has been waking up between 8:15-8:45am.  Justin has now kicked up his traveling again and unfortunately for Carter, that means he has to wake up at 7:30am again so that I can take him to my mother-in-law’s house before I go to work. 

Also, on the sleep front, since Carter started being able to pull up on the bumpers in his crib, we’ve stopped using sleep sacks at night because I’m afraid that he’ll trip over the material and fall.  He now just sleeps in footie pajamas at night.  For the time being, we still use the sleep sacks during naptime because he’s not in the crib unattended like he is at night.  We are always looking at the monitor during the day but at night we’re asleep and if he woke up and tripped and hit his head I would never forgive myself!  We also lowered the crib as low as it can go now that he can pull up.  And this morning, on his 8 month birthday, I came into his room to get him up for the day and the kid was standing up in his crib.  STANDING UP.

Overall, he still sleeps around 11-12 hours at night.  Usually he’s in bed by 7:30ish, but lately we’ve been pushing it back to around 8pm.  We’ve noticed that sometimes when we put him down later, he wakes up later (this is helpful on days that he goes to MDO - if he wakes up later, he’s happier longer at MDO).  However this isn’t always the case.  There’s several days that I’ve put him down around 8pm and he still wakes up around 7:15/7:30.  I’m going to experiment with it some more in his 9th month and see if I can find a pattern.  Naps are about 1 1/2 hours a piece (he takes two a day), but can sometimes be 2 1/2 hours long depending on how tired he is.

Waketime

No major changes to the waketimes this month. His favorite things to do during waketime are still watching Baby Einstein DVD’s and taking strolls around the neighborhood or just sitting outside.  Now that he crawls a lot, you can usually put him on the floor in our living room and he’ll crawl around and play with toys on his own for up to an hour before he gets fussy and wants to do something else.  But also, now that he can crawl around like crazy, he doesn’t like watching the Baby Einstein in the bouncy seat anymore.  He prefers to just sit in the floor like a big boy!  See for yourself:

Mother’s Day Out

Carter started going to MDO at our church this month.  His first day was August 23rd but Justin and I went to a “meet and greet” with the teachers on the 21st.  He did well on his first day.  You can read more about it here.  I was so worried about the nap he’d take at MDO.  I honestly wasn’t expecting him to take one because he’s not used to sleeping with other people in the room with him.  Shockingly, he did sleep, but it was only for 30 minutes.  I’m still impressed though.  I’m sure that as he gets used to MDO, he’ll learn to sleep through anything!

Statistics

Carter didn’t have an 8 month appointment.  He won’t have another doctor appointment until he’s 9 months old.  At 8 months, Carter weighs 18.3 pounds, which puts him in the 25th percentile. He is around 27.5 inches long (extremely hard to measure a squirmy baby) which puts him around the 50th percentile for height.

Abilities

Oh my oh my.  As soon as Carter turned 7 months old, it was like he turned on the developmental ability switch.  Here’s what he can do now and this is the order in which he did everything:

• Sit up from a laying down position
• Army crawls from one end of the room to the other (see video of this here)
• Pulls up on the bumpers on the crib to his knees
• Clapped for the first time on August 6th - but unfortunately hasn’t done it since then
• After learning to army crawl and mastering that skill, he started crawling on all fours on August 14th.  The first time he did it was when dad was in the shower and I had Carter playing in the bathroom while I was getting ready for work.  Gizmo came in the bathroom and sat down and Carter crawled to her.  Man….my kid is in love with that dog.  Just like his daddy.
• He can also push up from a sitting position to where he’s standing while bending over.  I know that’s hard to imagine based on the way I worded it.  This is better:

• In this “baby downward dog” as I like to call it, he is now taking steps.  Oh yes.  Steps.  He’ll put his hands on the ground and stand up like he is in the picture above (with his hands still on the ground) and he’ll take up to 3 steps like that.  I think he gets this from watching Gizmo walk on four legs.  Regardless, mark my words-this kid will be walking before he’s one year old!
• Stand up while holding onto something (the crib, the side of the bathtub, the couch, etc.)

Carter’s overall mood was rough towards the middle of his 8th month.  I’ve read that once they start learning new things, this can affect their mood.  It’s like sensory overload to them.  He had the same thing happen to him during week 27 of his life.  He was extremely fussy for a week and then all of a sudden, he was able to get on all fours and rock back and forth.  So I imagine that his fussiness in the middle of this month had to do with the huge list of abilities above that he started doing.  Of course, it could be teething related (see below-though I really don’t think he’s teething).  Also, I was starting to get afraid that Carter is slightly “shy” and doesn’t like big crowds of people or when people he doesn’t know get in his face because he started getting fussy when people he didn’t know were holding him. But he hasn’t gotten like that the past week or so and he met a bunch of new people at MDO, so I really think the fussiness was because of all the new stuff he learned.  Parenting side note - I think this is the WORST part about parenting so far.  Not knowing what’s wrong because they can’t talk.  I can fix it if I just knew what was wrong!!!  Regardless, he was much better by the end of this month and wasn’t near as fussy.

Teeth

No new teeth yet.  Still only has the bottom two central incisors.  I was thinking he’d get his top incisors by now, but no such luck.  Like I mentioned above, towards the middle of the eighth month, Carter started getting really fussy.  He was constantly drooling, hands in the mouth all the time (though I don’t know that I can blame teething on that because that kid ALWAYS has his hands in his mouth), he started waking up earlier each morning than usual and his overall mood just significantly decreased.  Carter never showed signs of teething when he got the first two teeth so between that and the fact that I don’t see any visible signs of teething (nor do I feel anything in his mouth), I was hesitant to say he’s teething.  But I don’t really know what else would cause these symptoms other than teething. 

Likes

• Thunderstorms!!  Carter’s best sleep happens when Thor is knocking on his window!  It’s so weird.  There was a really bad series of thunderstorms in Birmingham right after he turned 7 months old and it was LOUD and CONSTANT thunder and lightning.  It lasted from about 1am all the way to 8am.  And little man didn’t budge all night.  I was shocked.  But that wasn’t the only time he’s done it.  He’s slept through several thunderstorms in his short little lifetime.
• Crawling anywhere and everywhere and the past couple of days, he frequently crawls towards me.  If I leave a room, he follows me.  I love it.
• TV remotes and cell phones.  He’ll play with the “toy” phones and remotes you can buy at a baby store, but he can TOTALLY tell the difference.  He prefers the real thing.  He also really likes to watch his Baby Einstein on one of our I-Pads.  Carter may be just as “techy” as his dad.  My in-laws were joking around the other day saying that Carter would be the first ever baby to bring his I-Pad to Mother’s Day Out!!
• Still loving golf cart rides and he now likes to grab the steering wheel.  And we’ve also started walking/jogging in the BOB jogging stroller (the most expensive stroller on the market that I managed to get for $8 at a church garage sale - SCORE!).
• Being outside in general.  I’ve started putting a blanket in the grass in the front or backyard and letting him sit out there and play with toys (supervised of course)
• Loves Gizmo more and more every day.  She’s the first thing he looks for when he gets up from a nap or nighttime sleep
• Pulling up in the crib.  He tries so hard, but we’ve made it a little harder on him by lowering the crib mattress to the lowest level
• Being thrown in the air
• Peek-A-Boo
• Puffs….oooooohhhhh do we love puffs.  It calms a fussy baby QUICK.
• Balloons - something we discovered while at the twins’ birthday party this month.  Not so much a fan of when they pop right next to his face though.
• Standing up on the music mat.  It has become his FAVORITE floor toy all of a sudden.
• The lion that is attached to his carseat that makes noise.  He’s always played with this but for some reason in the past month, he is obsessed with it.  We have two of them and the second one is upstairs in his room on the changing table and he plays with it while we change his diaper (it’s the only thing that will keep him still during the process).

Dislikes

• He used to really hate being strapped in the carseat, but I haven’t seen him cry while we do this in a LONG time.  He just plays with his little lion that is attached to the carseat while we strap him in. 
• He also used to despise the period between bathtime and bedtime where we’d change his diaper and put PJ’s on.  He doesn’t really hate it anymore.  On a rare occasion, he’ll still cry, but for the most part, he just stares at Gizmo while I’m changing him or start sucking his thumb.  Also, during this particular diaper change is when he feels the need to crawl.  I’ll take the towel from the bath off of him and that’s his cue to roll over onto all fours and crawl to the dog or remote or anything within reach to play with.  I keep having to pull him back to put his diaper and PJ’s on and that’s when he cries.
• Getting bored if he’s been doing one activity for too long.
• Apparently he doesn’t like having pictures taken.  We went to my sister’s studio on August 4th to have his 7 month pictures taken.  She got some great shots, but Carter was F-U-S-S-Y!!!!  He was totally content when you picked him up, but when he was put down to take pictures, he wailed.  As if he doesn’t get enough traits from his daddy, hatred of professional picture taking may be another one to add to the list.

The Weekend

I feel like it should be Friday and it’s Sunday.  That’s how busy my weekend has been…and I even had Friday off!  So on Friday, Justin ran 18 miles in the morning and then babysat the twins for a couple of hours in the afternoon while his sister (the twins mom) had a hair appointment.  When he was done, he came back home and when Carter woke up, we headed to the pool.  He loves the pool!!!  He is just so amazed at everything he sees and just looks around silently for a super long time.

On Saturday I drove to Fairhope, AL to go to the wedding of some family friends of mine.  I got to see MY twins, Lindsey and Lauren.  They are my best friends going on about 18 years now.  I unfortunately didn’t get any pictures though.  The plan was for my husband to take Carter to my mom’s house Saturday night because he had to catch a flight to Washington for work early Sunday morning and I wouldn’t have been back from Fairhope yet.  It’s a good thing he stayed with her.  Justin called me when I was at the wedding reception and he said that he had thrown up several times.  As it turns out, he’s pretty darn sick.  Not sure what he has, but he threw up constantly all night, he’s had the chills and he has a 102 degree fever right now.  I’m literally putting Lysol on everything in the house to make sure that myself and Carter don’t get sick.  The last thing we need is a house full of this funk!

On Sunday, Tiffany sent me some pictures that she took from Trevor’s 30th birthday part that was last weekend. 

Carter was showing off his mad crawling on all four skills

He’s on the move!!

Not easy to get a good picture of kids at the same time.  It was either pictures of Harper looking down or my son with his mouth open.  We’ll go with this one I guess.  In these pictures, Carter is almost 8 months old and Harper is almost 3 months old.

Tiff - I’m gonna need you to set your camera to where that date doesn’t show up!

And here’s the new trick we learned over the weekend:

It’s downward dog - baby style!  He seriously does this all the time.  At one point this weekend, he even had his hands on the ground instead of on the piano and took two steps in this downward dog position.  CRAZY!

Love the crap out of him.

They are never too far apart from eachother!

Oh and one more picture.  Justin kept Carter during the day a couple of days last week.  Now, Carter LOVES his Baby Einstein DVD’s as I’ve mentioned before.  We usually buckle him into the bouncy seat to watch them, but lately he’s been trying his hardest to get out of the seat.  Now that he can crawl all over the room and get into things he shouldn’t be getting into, it’s really hard to get him to watch it in the seat.  He usually prefers to just sit in the floor on a blanket.  Well, Justin attempted to put him in the bouncy seat to watch a DVD while he ate lunch in the living room.  When he was done eating, he went to go check on Carter.  This is what he saw:

God love him.  We started the baby proofing process, but it is certainly a process.   We’re kind of trying to see what he gets into first and then we get the baby proofing items for it.  We didn’t want to baby proof anything he hasn’t tried to get into.  So far we’ve only covered up the edges of the fireplace in case he falls.  If he fell on that, he may need stiches since it’s a brick fireplace, which is why it was the first thing we did.  He hasn’t attempted to get to any plugs yet, but I’m sure that’s coming. 

Please say a prayer that not only does my husband get better, but that Carter and I don’t catch whatever he has.  I hope everyone had an excellent weekend!!

#20 - CHECK!

Number 20 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to start Carter in the Mother’s Day Out program at St. Mark UMC, where Justin and I go to church.  On Tuesday of this week, he got to meet his teachers at the meet and greet.  He has Ms. Lisa and Ms. Lee Ann.  They don’t go to our church so I don’t know them personally, but they seem really great!  Carter is already familiar with the room he’ll be in because it’s the same room he goes to when he goes to the nursery while Justin and I are at Sunday School or the Hillside service on Sundays. 

I was so nervous about him going because he’s not used to being around other babies (my MIL keeps him during the day while I’m at work).  He’s also not used to napping while other babies are in the room making noise.  Carter is a very observant child and if he hears people talking or sees other people during naptime, he won’t sleep.  So I was also worried about his napping.

His first day was yesterday and Justin took him and picked him up because I was in an all day seminar at work and couldn’t leave.  He goes to MDO two days a week from 9am-1pm and I plan to take him in the mornings and my MIL will pick him up in the afternoons.  Unfortunately, yesterday I couldn’t do either, so Justin did both.  Call him Mr. Mom!

Justin said he was great when he got there.  He even put him down to play with the twins and none of them even noticed when Justin and Jen left the room.  When Justin went back to pick him up at noon (today was just until noon to help get the babies adjusted) he was in the exersaucer playing and gave the BIGGEST smile when he saw his daddy.  Justin said that the teachers said he did really well.  He slept, but only for about 30 minutes (Justin and I are honestly surprised he slept that much).  He ate the best of all the babies, but still didn’t eat all of his bottle.  He got a little fussy before naptime but they were able to calm him down by rocking him and then that’s when he took his 30 minute nap.

There are a lot of rules with the program and one of them is that each child needs to have a lunchbox and a bag (not a diaper bag because they’re too big and won’t fit in the cubbies).  Apparently my MIL knew this already before we did and got sweet boy a little “back to school” present:

How sweet is she?!?!  But it’s still crazy to think that my 8 month old has a lunch box.  Wow.  I’m so excited for Carter to be in this class though.  Right now there are 5 babies in there.  Two of them are the twins, Carter’s cousins Cynthia and Celia, and two other girls that aren’t church members.  Yes, he’s the only boy :)  I think it will be great for him to learn how to share and how to treat others and he’ll learn social skills from such a young age.  I’m also excited for all he gets to do too!  They take them to the gym to play and they get to go outside and they have story time and creative art time.  I know he’s going to love it!

**I BEGGED my husband to take a picture of him on his first day but he’s a dude.  Dudes don’t take pictures apparently :)

Wordless Wednesday

He Loves His Daddy So

 

#14 and Lydia’s Birthday Party

I have finally completed number 14 of my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days.  It was an item from the old list that was created back in 2009 so I’m glad to have finally  marked it off…plus it was something I was REALLY wanting to do! 

Number 14 was to help serve breakfast to the homeless with some of the women of my church.  Numerous women and men from our church go downtown to serve food to the homeless every Friday.  My mother-in-law (who I swear is Mother Teresa reincarnated) goes almost every Friday and I decided to go with her yesterday.  There was over 100 men and women that were served that day and I was baffled at how positive so many of them were.  These people have next to nothing and yet had such a great attitude! 

I met one woman that Debbie knew really well and when Debbie introduced me to her she said “Oh you’re Carter’s momma!”.  Apparently Debbie talks about Carter a lot ;)  What really got me was that Debbie later told me that this woman actually came to our church to witness Carter’s baptism.  I had no idea!!!  It kind of made me tear up a bit.  So sweet of her to do that!

On to Lydia’s birthday party….

Lydia turned 4 years old on July 25th.  The past two years, she has shared a birthday party with this sweet little girl named Libba.  Can we just talk about how much I LOVE the name Libba (short for Elizabeth)!?!?!  Anyway, it was an all girls party and was at All Fired Up in Tuscaloosa.  They make their own pottery.  Such a cute idea for kids.  Here’s some pictures:

Me and my sweet little niece.  She’s 4 years old now.  Such a big girl!!

My mom and Lydia

My nephew, Anderson, picking out the colors for him to paint his pottery.

Naturally, this sweet princess chose a wand.

Anderson, also in true form, chose a lizard.

LOVE their cake!!

Princesses on their throne!

After the party my mom and I went back to Lindsey and Jeff’s house.  They moved recently and I’ve been so busy with Carter and work that I hadn’t seen it yet, so it was past time for me to go see it.  While we were there, we watched sweet girl open her birthday presents and then we had to drive back to Birmingham so I could see my own little boy for a bit before we laid him down for his second nap. 

I didn’t take Carter because I didn’t want to worry about putting him down for a nap since his nap time was right in the middle of the party, so he stayed home with daddy.  If you live in Birmingham, you probably heard the INSANE thunder this morning.  Carter slept through the whole thing.  It hit our house so hard that the walls shook and one of our pictures hanging on the walls fell off.  He’s always slept through thunderstorms but I think he was even more tired than normal because he didn’t go to bed last night until 8:45 and he’s usually down for the night by 7:30pm.  I had to wake him up at 8:45 this morning so that I could at least see him before I left to head to Tuscaloosa.  When I went into his room, he didn’t budge.  Usually the door opening tends to wake him up, but he didn’t move a muscle.  I went back downstairs and got my camera and got several pictures of him, flash on, before he finally woke up.

Sweet sweet baby :)

I’m really starting to think he’s teething.  Carter never showed any signs of teething (other than some slight fussiness at night) with the first two teeth he got so I don’t really have anything to compare it to.  In the past two weeks he has all of sudden started sucking his thumb again, he’s drooling like crazy, getting much fussier much faster than usual and he’s sleeping WAY more.  For example, we put him down for his second nap today at 3:45pm and at that point, he’d only been awake for 4 1/2 hours today.  All the signs point to teething so maybe he is.  I have no idea.  Just in case he is, we’ve been using orajel but only during his fussiest times when he is sucking on his hands really badly.  We’re also giving him Tylenol.  I hope he feels better soon.  He starts Mother’s Day Out next week!!

The Johnny Jumper

I’ve been trying to do better with blogging lately.  I’ve definitely let her slip :)  I know that when Carter’s older, I’m going to want to remember all the little things he did when he was an infant and want to see pictures, so I really have been trying to do better about taking pictures of him, but I honestly just don’t always have time.  I think I’ve been doing a better job in the last couple of weeks though.  So, back to the point of the post….the Johnny Jumper.

I don’t think that is what this exact jumper is called, but it’s the only name I think people recognize.  We bought one of these bad boys a while ago and tried it out but Carter was NOT having it.  I never tried it again until tonight.  Justin, Carter and I went to celebrate our friend Trevor’s 30th birthday at his parents house tonight and he was starting to get fussy around 7:30 since that is his usual bedtime so we brought him home.  Side note - he was totally fine as soon as we got home and played for an hour cackling and giggling the whole time.  He didn’t finally go to bed until 8:45.  It sucks when kids act up when others are around and then they’re angel babies when no one is around.  I feel like that’s been Carter’s MO lately.  I digress.

So anyway, when we got home we put him in his PJ’s and I told Justin to hang up the jumper in the doorway because I wanted to see if Carter really hated it or if that was just a one time reaction.  We had been talking about the jumper at Trevor’s party (the girls were-not the boys) and I honestly forgot we had it so I wanted to give it another go.  Carter played in it for about 10 minutes until I took him out because at that point it was an hour past his bedtime.  But he loved it!!  He bounced up and down and played with the toys on the jumper and, as he always does, started at the Giz as she walked circles around him. 

LOVE this picture!!!  Seriously, I hope those eyes never change color!

 

At the party, I finally got to see Harper (Tiffany and Trevor’s baby) again.  I feel like I haven’t seen him in forever.  He’ll be 3 months old in about a week and a half.  Sweet boy was just hanging out, being passed from person to person.  I really miss when Carter was at that stage.  Don’t get me wrong, I love where Carter’s at right now.  Other than the weird fussy “funk” he’s been in the past week or so, this stage is probably one of my favorites.  He’s crawling all over the place, starting to pull up, his personality is becoming more and more evident and he laughs very frequently. It’s a pretty fun stage.  But I definitely miss where Harper is now.   The stage where you don’t really have to entertain him, just hold him and walk around with him.  The stage where they still fall asleep any and everywhere.  And I’m sure some babies Carter’s age still do these things, but Carter definitely does not.  He used to, but  not anymore.  Carter is extremely observant and loves to look at the things around him, which prevents sleeping anywhere other than in the carseat while driving or in his crib.

Say a prayer for Harper’s momma Tiff next week.  She goes back to work on Tuesday from maternity leave and is a little upset because she was originally told that she wouldn’t have to go back until the day after labor day but they changed the date on her and told her a couple of days ago.  I can’t imagine how upsetting it is to find out you only have a few more days with your baby and you had no idea.  Luckily, Harper is staying with her mom or Trevor’s mom during the time that they’re at work, so he’ll be surrounded by family!

Moving On Up - Literally

Carter is in the middle of his 8th month of life and has learned something new!!!   Behold…

My little boy is beginning to pull up on things.  At 71/2 months old, he is now pulling up.  I just can’t believe it!!  He absolutely loves that mobile in his crib and he got to where he was using the bumpers to pull up to reach it.  Due to this, we had to lower the crib mattress to its lowest level so that even if he did pull up, he couldn’t reach the top of the crib.  He was also standing on the front of the crib and biting the side.  Now that he’s at the lowest level, he can’t reach the top.  However, I do see crib bite guards in our future.

This might be one of my favorite pictures of him right now!  He is just so innocent and sweet (most of the time at least).  And I’m REALLY hoping those little eyes stay that color blue forever!

He’s an expert at sitting up now.  These days he doesn’t fall asleep on me when I nurse him before bed anymore.  I’ll put him in the crib (laying down) and he ends up sitting up and playing for a little bit before finally going to bed.  He also sleeps in footie pajamas at night now.  Since he is able to stand up, I didn’t want him sleeping in the sleep sacks because he could trip over the material and bonk his head on the slats and then we’d all be up in the middle of the night. 

So what will he do next?  I would say crawling on all fours but he figured that out this week too.  He’s been crawling for a while, but it’s mostly been a “scooting” or “army crawl” to get across a room.  The other day, Justin was in the shower and I was holding Carter and I put him down on the bathroom floor.  Gizmo came in the bathroom too (family bathroom time apparently) and she sat in front of the shower door.  As soon as Carter saw her, he crawled on all fours to get to her.  Debbie said that he’s been doing it at her house too (my MIL that keeps him during the day). 

All that leaves is standing up and walking.  Well, Carter has been standing up with support from us since he was two months old.  Yes, I have a super baby.  I guess the next thing is for him to stand up while holding onto something, like the couch, and walking supported that way.  Or standing up with no support at all.  We’ll see what comes first!

The Twins Turn One

Cynthia and Celia are my nieces (Justin’s sisters girls) and they turned one year old on Tuesday.  Jennifer planned their birthday party for last Saturday at their house.  I got the best part on video…the cake eating!!

And here’s some pictures from the day:

Carter was saying “Nana, I love you, but I’m gonna need that bottle ASAP”

Yummy cakes!!

Celia with Papa Gordon and Uncle Justin

Jen put pictures throughout the house of the girls

Cynthia taking a few steps

Opening their gift from Nana and Papa

Celia was tired of opening gifts and decided to come play with Carter

The school dresses we got the girls.  Carter and the twins start Mother’s Day Out next week.

Celia just follows Carter around basically ;)

Love her sweet face!!

The Gault Family

Going to town on that cake!

Celia didn’t start out as messy as Cynthia, but she eventually got there!  Both girl had to have a bath immediately following this meal.

“House Divided” Engagement Party

This weekend, myself along with my friend Shelly hosted an engagement shower for our friends Carina and Justin that are getting married next summer.  Technically our husbands hosted with us and they did cook/run errands for us so they should get an honorable mention.

Anyway, being that football season is so close and that Carina and Yarbrough are huge football fans, even though they root for rivals of each other, we decided that a “House Divided” shower was appropriate.  I was so proud of the invitations I made for the event.  I don’t have a picture but the poem I made up for them said:

Justin and Carina are saying “I Do”

Let’s celebrate their engagement

And football season too!

Justin for the Tigers,

Carina for the Tide

Let’s help decorate their home

With some southern football pride!

Loved it!!  Anyway, we had such a great time with all of our friends.  Everyone dressed up in their team colors and brought gifts for the “house divided” couple.  Here’s a few pictures:

We went all out on the House Divided theme!!

The bride and groom

This is Ashley and Brad.  They’re another house divided that is getting married in December 2012.

We had so much fun at their party and I can’t wait until the wedding!

….and ROLL TIDE :)