6 months of Sam

Sam turned 6 months old on October 17th.  I can't believe how fast time is flying by.  He is growing by leaps and bounds...and hitting so many milestones...it makes me so proud, but also so sentimental...I've been through this before:  the excitement for them to grow up -- but at the same time wanting them to stay as babies forever....you can't have the best of both worlds, my friend....

It has been awhile since I shared one of my monthly letters on my blog.  The last one I shared was one Sam was one month old.  I figured, with six months being a pretty monumental age, I'd share this one with my Internet friends...

Dear Sam,

You amaze me daily with your quick smiles, belly laughs, giggles, groans and silly noises.  You are growing in leaps and bounds, and although it makes me proud as your mama to know that I have helped nurture and support this growth, it also makes me sad because I wish I could keep you as my little baby forever.  I know that isn't possible, and that you must grow up -- so I hope that I can teach you to be a kindhearted, honest and good natured little man...

Just over the past few weeks you have decided that sitting is pretty cool.  You aren't incredibly steady sitting upright, but you WANT to be sitting like nothing else.  So, we work on stabilizing you more and more every day, and you work up your time limit a few minutes more every day...

Your 'vocabulary' is getting more and more extensive and every day I am hearing new syllables and sounds and combinations come out of your mouth.  They start out very softly -- as you test the new sounds on your lips -- and then once you hear yourself make these new noises, they grow in an accelerated crescendo until we are forced to turn and look at you and smile along with the big goofy grin you've got pasted across your face.  You are also becoming a big fan of raspberries and making spitty noises with your lips.  It is humorous when you are doing it with just spit, but mommy is getting sick of getting covered in food when you decide to do it right after a spoonful of food enters your mouth....

Speaking of food, my little boy -- you are quite the fan!  I am amazed at not only the selection of foods that you have gobbled down without a second thought, but also the amount of food you insist on eating at every meal!  So far, you have eaten (and enjoyed):  bananas, avocado, applesauce, zucchini, green beans, oatmeal cereal, rice cereal, and sweet potatoes.  We tried finger foods with you tonight and you ate them like you had been doing it all your life -- amazing me with your motor skills at such a young age!  You are also quickly grasping the concept of your sippy cup -- tonight you drank 1 oz out of it during dinner time.  It's no wonder that your little thighs are full of baby chunk that I love to squeeze!!!

Your are constantly rolling yourself from your back onto your belly -- and then grumbling and tummy surfing until someone comes to rescue you.  We're not quite sure what happened here -- since you had been rolling from your belly to your back since you were very little -- but it appears that you have forgotten how to roll that way now.  Either that, or you are lazy and just want us to do it for you!  :)  Your stomach has also become your preferred way to sleep and you usually roll right onto your belly as soon as we lay you down.

Speaking of sleep, you are still, for the most part, a very good sleeper.  You are still waking up once during the night -- and although we are going to break you of this habit pretty soon, I have to remind myself that lil Max was doing something similar at this age -- and we consider(ed) him a phenomenal sleeper (still do, for the most part).  You consistently sleep 11-12 hours at night and then usually take 2-3 naps which total around 3-4 hours during the day.  Someday I'll figure out how to consistently get your afternoon nap to coincide with your older brother's so that I can enjoy some mom time in the afternoon, but for now I enjoy it as mom and Sam time...

Sam, I could go on and on about how perfect you are -- but why beat a dead horse?  You are perfect to us because you are ours -- and we love you -- probably more than you will ever know.  I love stealing middle of the night snuggles with you while we are both groggy and sweaty and covered in moonlight.  I love the way that you nestle up to me and how you still have that sweet baby smell in your hair.  I love that you are obsessed with eating your feet and hands -- that you are figuring out that your feet and hands can make noises, can throw things, can pound things to make noise, can splash in the bathtub...I love watching the joy on your face when you realize that it was something YOU did that made that toy light up or play a song.   I love how your smile lights up your face -- starting in your eyes before it makes it to your lips.  I love that you are starting to protest when I leave the room (although I probably won't love this next month...).  I love your chubby little thighs and I love your chubby little neck -- both are perfect spots to tickle you on and make you squeal. 

I love you Sam -- always and forever.

Love, Mom

Pumpkin Peach 2010

This morning, on a beautiful fall day, after our morning family run, we went to the Pumpkin Peach.  Pumpkin peach, you say?  Well, pumpkin PATCH, actually -- but lil Max gets confused and calls it the pumpkin PEACH.

For the past 3 years, we've gone to Basse's .  They have a great selection of pumpkins and apples, and TONS of fun rides, a corn maze, a petting zoo, and FOOD. 

We've never done the corn maze before, but this year we decided to give it a try.

Lil Max led the way...

We blindy followed...

We definitely got lost...

But eventually we found our way!

We got to see some animals at the petting zoo...

We did the ritual pumpkin measuring picture (I'll have to dig up the one from last year...)

Sam wanted in on the action too...

Then we set to work picking out our pumpkins...

Sam was very excited about all the pumpkins!

He thought they were awesome!

Max picked out his orange shirt that morning just so he could match the pumpkins!

When we got home, Max and daddy carved his pumpkin.  They are going to carve one every night this week (we have pumpkins from our garden too...)

Spooky!!



Photo Ketchup part duex



The Johnny Jump Up is back!  And Sam seems to have as much fun in it as Max did!

Lil Max continues to want to be a big helper.  This is his idea of 'equal spacing' on the cookie sheet.  I guess we need to work on our spatial exercizes some more...

Sam is driving full speed ahead on the solids bandwagon.  He's had rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, bananas, homemade applesauce, zucchini from the garden, and sweet potatoes so far.  Everything has been devoured with a voracious appetite.  He also prefers his food very thick -- if you thin it down too much he complains.  He also has a tendency to grumble for his next spoonful before you've even removed the spoon from his mouth from the previous spoonful.  I swear this kid eats more than lil Max sometimes!!

With the weather being so beautiful and colors peaking -- a combination which is almost unheard of during fall in WI, we HAD to get outside and get a 'hike' in.  I say hike lightly because there is no 'hiking' involved with a 3 year old....Sam enjoyed his first time in the backpack carrier....


He had a bird's eye view from big Max's back, and he loved zoning out on the trees and leaves overhead...


Little Max came ready with his Thomas bucket to collect 'treasures'. We came home with some giant sized leaves, about 10 pinecones and TONS of acorns.  All treasures to a 3 year old boy.


You just KNOW it's a good hike, when someone falls asleep.....LOL

The light of his life.....

wasn't me...at least not tonight.

Sorry folks, no photos or videos tonight. Just a little story that I wanted to go down in blog history.

I remember having many *moments* when nursing little Max right before bedtime.  The special moments we shared in the quiet darkness...tiny pauses from suckling to smile while milk dribbles down a cheek, blowing raspberries (and milk everywhere) instead of drinking....tiny little coos while nuzzling into my neck when being burped...so many *moments* that you just can't capture on any camera, but you want to brand in your memory forever....

Tonight, I had one of those moments with Sam.  Big brother Max was already in bed in the next room, and he had a fresh diaper (with LuSa booty balm slathered on...LOVE that stuff!) and new jammies on.  The white noise maker and humidifier were on...the drapes were drawn.....I settled us into the rocker, arranged the boppy pillow and made sure the burp rag was within reaching distance, and then Sam went to town like a voracious little suckerfish that hadn't eaten in weeks (I kid you not).  All of a sudden, he popped off and turned his head to stare up at the ceiling fan in the middle of the room.  The fan wasn't on, but the light was -- very dimly.  He then proceeded to talk to the light for the next 5 mins....

mmmm....booooooo.........

**smile**

hmmmmmm......heeeeeeeyyyyyyy.....

**smile**

mmmmmm.....baaaaaaaaa........

**smile**

bbbbbaaaaaaahhhh......mmmmhmmmmmdaaaaaaa

**smile**

all in this soft little whisper voice.....so sweet.....so angelic.......



but, for crying out LOUD, he was talking to a LIGHT.......



So, 5 minutes of this babbling goes by....I didn't know if I should try to distract him and get him to look at me, or -- if I had been in a rush -- to get him to turn back towards me to finish nursing so I could get to one of the gazillion chores I needed to finish before going to bed.....

Instead I just watched him babble away....he'd flash his sweet smile in between his babbles....he was really working on getting the 'b' sound out...sometimes just blowing air between his little lips while he sounded it out to himself....and then he'd smile again at the light and start babbling all over again...

It's so easy to rush on to the next chore, or to hurry through these everyday tasks to get to the finish line (aka bed)....but I'm a mom of 2 now...so I ALREADY know just how much I'd miss moments like this...because the kids won't be nursing forever....there will come a time when they won't want to sit in my lap (or sit STILL in my lap)....and they certainly won't be babbling at ceiling fans much longer....

So, instead, I sat there and watched him...and drank in the moment.  I watched his little lips and how he tasted the 'b' sound on them for the first time, and figured out how to purse his lips just right to get his breath to flow through them.....I watched the little smiles light up his face......I watched him tell that ceiling fan all these wonderful stories and wondered to myself what he thought was up there that he was talking to.....and I smelled the sweet baby smell wafting up from his freshly washed head....and I was thankful for the moments I DO get to have with my kids....all the wonderful, simple, and plain moments....the ones that LIFE is made up of....

It really was a sweet moment....

too bad the smiles and babbles weren't for me....

maybe another night I'll get to be the light of his life....for that mini-moment in time, at least....

Random Videos part 1

Enjoy these random videos of our daily life.  Yes, I realize my voice is annoying...and my house is dirty....

but at least my kids are cute!  :) 

Sam playing in his exersaucer:

Max tries to feed Sam:

See? Life's pretty ordinary around here...we like to have fun, give hugs and play around!


(I have two more to add, but Blogger is taking too long to upload them, so I will try again tonight.  In the meantime, enjoy!)

5 months (a little late)

A little late with this post, but I figured better late than never!

Sam turned 5 months on Sept 17th (I told you I was late).  BUT, these pictures WERE actually taken back then...I just haven't shared them yet.

Yes, he is wearing leggings.  You got a problem with that? (At least it's not a dress, right?).

But just look at that smile!  You might think that I had to jump up and down and make silly noises to make him smile so sweetly.  But, the truth is -- this is just how Mr. Sam generally is.  A happy, smiley, easy to please little guy.  Have I said thank you God, lately?  THANK YOU.

Sam loves to smile, and he will just stare and stare at you until you make eye contact with him...at which point he squeals loudly and tries to give you open mouth kisses.  It's super cute.  He's also getting longer!  Look at how long he looks in this photo!

And with a sweet face like that..how am I ever going to say 'no'?

Sam has also hit a lot of milestones this month:

1.  Rolling from back to belly -- previously, he would just twist his body so far that he was almost there, but then he'd get lazy and flip over...  We have a video of this, but I am too lazy right now to download and edit it... sorry!

2.   Sitting -- we are very close to independent sitting -- right now he can sit unassisted for 10-15 seconds before toppling over or tri-poding.

3.  solid foods.  We tried solids with Max around 5 months, but he was just not interested.  Sam, on the other hand, has been obsessed with watching us eat -- down to imitating the way we chew our food.  We decided we'd give the old rice cereal a try, and if it didn't work we would revist it in a few more weeks.  To our surprise he POUNDED DOWN 3 TBS of food in his first feeding!  Since then he has tried apples and bananas. 

4.  As far as the other six month 'milestones' (according to the book), Sam is right on track in terms of vocalization, bearing weight on legs and standing (assisted), interested and particular about the toys he likes, and just overall (in my eyes) PERFECT.

Rock Climbing

Last weekend we decided to take Lil Max climbing at Adventure Rock.  Big Max wanted to go ahead and buy him his own climbing harness -- but sensible Mom talked him into renting one until we knew that Lil Max was going to be as avid of a climber as his Daddy (good thing).  :) 

First things first -- putting on the harness.  I think it's cool that they sell/make harnesses for kids as little as Max!

Then Daddy tested the integrity of the harness.  Safety first!  As you can tell, Lil Max thought this was fun! 

Next came the instruction -- try to explain to a 2.75 year old that they should climb UP the wall rather than swing around like a monkey on a rope....not EASY. 

The concept of straightening out his legs was somehow elusive as well.  He just kept tucking his feet under him like this...

Then he tried to be lazy.  Just pick me up, Dad -- he says.  Ok, that kinda is beside the point of CLIMBING, Max.....

In steps Mom.  Put your feet here...and here...I tried to explain.  He seemed to grasp it a little better...

Not bad for his first time -- look at it this way -- he's over 6 feet up on that wall.... that's 6 feet higher than I'd be willing to go....

Catch up (Ketchup)

Wow, it has been almost a MONTH since my last post.  CRAZY!  Time has just been flying by -- life is busy with two kids, lots of house projects and trying to make the most of the beautiful weather before we are stuck inside through the winter months.

Sam is almost 5 months old!  Max is nearing his 3 year birthday!

Here are a few photos off my phone -- I figured they are a good indication of what we've been up to lately.

Here is Sam, asleep in the middle of the living room floor.  Sam is such a sweet sweet boy.  He hardly ever complains, and if he does, it is super easy to calm him down or figure out what he wants/needs.  He also has the tendency to just fall asleep wherever he is when he's tired, which is kinda nice.  Max definitely wasn't like that -- Max was a great sleeper, but he definitely had his preferences on WHERE he wanted to sleep.  In this photo, lil Max told me he needed to use the potty -- and when that happens in our house, EVERYTHING gets dropped and we RUN to the potty.  Gotta take these requests seriously.  Sam must've been tired, because when we got back downstairs, this is what we found!  It was a short-lived nap, if I recall -- because big brother Max doesn't play too quietly....

Daddy left us for a week to travel to Europe for work (Germany and Denmark). So, I got a sense of what it would be like to do everything all on my own.  It wasn't horrible, but is definitely something I do NOT prefer -- it's nice to have someone helping out with bedtime, morning rush, etc.  By the end of the week, I think I had everything figured out: lunches packed at night, I showered before bed, the order for showering/baths and bedtime stories, etc.  I was exhausted. 

Sunday morning, we took a walk with our neighbors up to a newer coffee shop/pizzeria up the street from us for coffee and muffins.  Lil Max was very excited to eat his muffin, as you can tell from this photo.  The coffee shop is also right across the street from the railroad tracks.  We can HEAR the train from our house, but we can't see it.  We were treated to a train passing while we were sitting outside enjoying our breakfasts.  It scared the beejesus out of the boys.  Owen started crying and lil Max covered his ears and started shaking and saying "LOUD, MOM!".  It took a little while to recover.  :)

Science experiment #1.  I hope we have many MANY more science experiments like this in our house in the years to come.  This is something I can definitely get behind!  My parents brought over some caterpillars (what they thought were monarch caterpillars).  So, we put them in a jar with some milkweed and some twigs, read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and waited.  When the caterpillars built their cocoons (or RACCOONS as lil Max likes to say), we noticed that they were brown, and not jade green as monarchs generally are.  So, Mom dug out the insect field guide at work and correctly ID'd the little critters as Anise Swallowtails, rather than monarchs.  We've been waiting for them to break free as beautiful butterflies....but I can't tell if that will happen soon or if they overwinter...I need to do some more research, I guess.

Trip to MN.  Over Labor Day weekend, we made a trip to MN to visit with the McGrandparents and Uncle Fran, Aunt Denyce and cousin Lilly, along with some other of our close friends.  It was a fun trip.  We got into town a day earlier than usual and stayed in a hotel in downtown St. Paul so we could do a little sight seeing since lil Max is getting old enough to appreciate things now.  We decided to do the Science Museum of MN as our first real 'fieldtrip', and it was a SUCCESS!  A lot of the concepts were totally over lil Max's head, but there was a lot of button pushing to be done, and different things lit up -- so he was in heaven.   We decided NOT to bring the stroller along for the trip to save room in the trunk, so I carried Sam around in the Beco -- and it was AWESOME.  Seriously.  That carrier has already proven it's worth. 

Lil Max had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends.  He always gets a kick out of staying at the McGrandparent's house because they have big grassy fields to run around in, and fun new toys to play with.  This year, he was all about climbing up Uncle Fran's deer stand, helping McGrandpa with the wood for the fire, roasting marshmallows, and talking about staying away from the big, mean deer that comes out at night.  LOL.  Gotta love a 2 yr old's imagination!

Can you believe this is my old highchair?  Over 30 years old, and in this great of condition?!?  My mom redid the pads covering the chair (and made a matching bib while she was at it).  Sam was a happy camper sitting in it!  Then again...he almost always IS a happy camper....

Sam, asleep in the pack n play at my parent's house.  He took two 2-hr naps while we were there.  I almost didn't know what to do with myself!  'Free time' is such an obscure thing nowadays....it was a treat to be able to sit down and read a magazine cover to cover without interruption!

Lil Max and I are signed up for three Zoo Classes for this fall.  We call it our 'Mommy and Max' time where just the two of us get to hang out and have fun.  Our first class was the 'Zoo Train' class, and lil Max had a blast.  We got to do train art, several other art projects, and we made a train costume and decorated a train whistle.  We were worried that because it was raining that morning that we wouldn't be able to ride the train, but, just as we were getting ready to leave, we heard the train whistle!  Riding the train is definitely something I remember fondly from my childhood at the zoo -- and lil Max seems to enjoy it just as much as I did (do).

 

We've lived in our house 8+ years now, and one of the very first "projects" we identified when we moved in was that the extension needed to be remodeled.  It took 8 years, but we are now nearly finished.  5 years ago, Max took down the wood paneling they had put up for 'walls' and re-drywalled the entire room.  Then, we got the windows replaced and re-did the wood trim.  Finally, this year, we had the floors refinished and finally put up the wood baseboard.  The room looks 100% better.  I'll have to find a before picture for comparison.  Right now, the room is being used as my home office and a playroom.  It really adds a lot more usable space onto the house which is good because we really lack a true basement.  Plus, having a room for toys is just awesome -- it helps keep the clutter down in the rest of the house, and it is place where little Max can let his imagination go free.  I hope if/when we move that we can have a dedicated 'playroom' again.

Do you see that? Doesn't that just make your heart melt?  I've been taking the boys for more walks lately as the temperature has started cooling down, the mosquitoes have started dying off, and Sam is able to sit up in the stroller instead of being in his car seat.  One afternoon, I looked down, and lil Max had slipped his little hand around Sam's chubby little fingers.  Sam was sleeping, and Max was just in heaven.  He tilted his head back, looked up at me and said "I'm holding Sammer's hand.  I love my Sammy Sam."  I just about melted into a pool on the asphalt.  Instead, I looked back at him and said "You are such a good big brother.  I love you and so does Sam."  Since then, he insists on holding Sam's hand every time they are in the stroller together.  It is pretty darn cute.  It is even cuter when Sam tries to put Max's hand in his mouth (because that's where EVERYTHING goes at his age), and Max gets upset and tells Sam that 'you can't eat my hand, Sam....you're too little."  LOL.  Anyone in the market for a double stroller should consider a side-by-side.  Especially if your kids get along -- these two just LOVE sitting next to each other and enjoying each other's company.  It makes me feel that I must've done at least SOMETHING right so far....