5 Months

Happy Five Month Birthday (a few days late)!!!

Birthday:

1 Month:

2 Month:

3 Month:

4 Month:

5 Month:

This past month you started solid foods and you LOVE them! Your first taste of oatmeal really opened your eyes to a whole new world of culinary goodness!

You have become so much more of a happy, giggly baby in the past few weeks. I knew you would come into this phase eventually and we are ALL so glad you have finally arrived.

Napping is starting to be an easier endeavor and they are even getting a bit longer!

On Thanksgiving at Grammy and Grampy's house, you rolled over from your front to your back for the first time. Most babies get scared when they do that, but you were so pleased with yourself and gave us the best grin!

You scoot around on your back in a half circle as you make attempts to roll over from your back to your front. Not sure when that will ever happen, but my guess is that once you figure out that is the key to getting where you want to go, you will be unstoppable!

You had your first long car rides this month and were a champ about it. And you even outgrew your infant carrier so we had to upgrade to a convertible car seat.

We have been in Pennsylvania staying with Aunt K and Gram and Cousin W for about a week now and the Christmas tree is up. You love to sit under the tree and reach for the ornaments.

We love you, Little G, and are so excited to celebrate Christmas with you this month.

All of the love in the universe,

Mom and Dad

New additions to the nursery

So I never got around to updating you on our nursery and what it looks like now that it is really, REALLY finished.

It was finished for the most part when I wrote about it here, but I didn't want to show the finished product to you since it blatantly showed what we were going to name our son and he hadn't been born yet.

So anyway...what I originally showed to you that looked like this:

Now looks like this:

We really like those fun little woodland creatures...I wish I had it in me to have been more creative with their placement rather than just stick them up on the wall in the same arrangement suggested on the packaging...but who has the time, right?

Of course this fun bird did find its way to a perch over by the crib:

We also decided to break up the big sailboat mobile and put part of it over by the bookshelf and the other two pieces over his crib. I realize they aren't as exciting as a crib mobile, but considering babies can only have crib mobiles for a couple of months before abandoning them because they are sitting up, I figure these will at least be appreciated for a longer amount of time.

Lastly, there is this fun banner above Little G's closet. We know it is a bit ridiculous to have his name so prominantly displayed twice in such a small room...but I made the banner before we got the wooden letters, so even though Tim Gunn would definitely encourage us to edit...we put it up anyway.



I am particularly proud of the banner even with its raggedy edges and poor stiching as I made it from remnants from some pillow projects. In all...it cost me $1.49 because the only thing I had to purchase was the binding tape used as the string that holds it all together.

So that's Little G's crib...snicker snicker...

A year ago

A year ago today, on November 19, 2008, I showed up at my OB's office for what I thought was another opportunity for me to pee on a stick and have them confirm I was pregnant. Instead, because my HcG levels had been low, they...uh...for lack of nicer terminology...sent in the probe (sorry) and we got this picture of our some-day-to-be baby.

Smaller than a grain of rice.

I remember trying to imagine that in a year from then, my semi-grain of rice would be a four-month old baby. Never, did I ever imagine just how amazing, and beautiful, and big, and happy, and coo-y, and all-around lovely he would be.

I love him so much.

Solids

Little G had his four month pediatrician appointment last Monday and when we told the pediatrician that he was up to 8oz a serving of formula she immediately suggested we start him on solids...so that night he had is first serving of baby oatmeal...mmmmmmm...


First, we had to get his new, nylon bib on and get him in the high chair...as you can see, he was none too pleased...
Then daddy fed him his first spoonful and all the way up to when it was actually IN his mouth he was a very unhappy camper...
Until he realized it was food...

Looks like solids aren't such a bad thing after all, huh?

Waiting game

In case any of you are waiting on baited breath to see what we ended up doing with our master bedroom, know that the painting is finished, the furniture has been moved back into place, the accessories have all been purchased and put in place and the only thing we are waiting for are our window treatments.

Sadly, they aren't due until the end of the months...so you will just have to keep waiting.

Tragic, I know.

A picture a day...and other myths of having a baby.

I happen to know quite a few people who are currently pregnant and in that wonderful state of pre-baby bliss where you have no idea what is coming next no matter how much you think you might know.

I was there once...it was a great place to be, but I wouldn't trade my current place in life for the world.

Anyway...back to the point.

One of the things I promised myself I would do was take a picture of our little boy every day during his first year of life. Then I was going to put them all together in a photo-montage so you could see how he grew every day.

I was being realistic (or so I thought) by not requiring that the picture I took be in the exact same chair/pose/lighting/etc.

But let's REALLY be real here....somedays...a picture just ain't happening. In fact...some WEEKS a picture just ain't happening!!

God help my second child because I can't even get it together enough to have even purchased a baby book for my first child, not to mention fill it out and happily keep track of every milestone in matching pen with fun anecdotes and quotes.

I like to consider myself a pretty creative and together person...I have scrapbooked for years....but this having a kid thing REALLLLLLLY kills your free time.

So I quietly keep tabs on my pregnant friends and read the lovely things they have to say about their intentions of photo journaling their children's lives and I just keep my mouth shut...because dreams like that are what get women through pregnancy and who am I to stomp on anyone's dreams.

Bedtime hilarity

Every night when we put Little G to bed, we change him into his jammies and read him a story and then lay him in his crib, swaddle him and he drifts off to never-land.

We used to feed him a bottle right before bed as well, but these days, he doesn't need the bottle, so we have had to come up with other ways to keep him occupied while one of us reads a story to him. It might be bouncing him on our lap or rocking him back and forth or making faces at him on the changing table.

The past few nights it has been mommy giggling incessantly at daddy while he attempts to read one of MY favorite stories from when I was a kid. It is a book that my parent's sent away for that in 'Mad-Lib' style uses my name for the main character, my friend's names for the character's friends' names, my school name, my local mall name, my sister's name...etc, etc.

The biggest problem for my husband in reading it is that the name of the main character in the book's best friend is actually my name spelled backwards. I am not exactly sure if my parent's just couldn't come up with a name or if the book company did this for everyone...but my first name, is ALMOST a palindrome. Which means through much of the book, my slightly dyslexic husband had to decipher which name was which while reading an unfamiliar book upside down (so Little G can see the pictures). To complicate matters even further, towards the end of the book, the sad clown in the story is no longer sad and therefore needs a new name and my character gladly let's the clown share my name.

People...I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time...and let me tell you...Little G was fascinated by mommy's face turning red, her eyes rolling back in her head and her huge belly laughs and chuckles and wheezes while having his story read to him.

In OTHER bedtime hilarity news...as with most of the light switches in our 100 year old house, the light switch for Little G's bedroom is out in the hallway. My husband and I now HAVE to announce who had turned off Little G's light (which is thankfully on a dimmer) because for FOUR nights out of the last seven Little G woke up early because his light was on. The first three nights were because my husband would turn the light off and then I would also turn it off (which at that point was turning it back on). Last night, it was because we both thought the other one of us turned the light off.

Geniuses we are not...

Four months old

Little G turned 4 months old this past Sunday and my what a whirlwind it has been! You may have noticed there was no post for his 3 month birthday...and now...looking back, I can barely remember the time between two months and three months. I guess that's why we're supposed to be writing this stuff down, huh.


Let's see...in the past two months, you have gained four lbs...going from 14 something to 18.5. You have outgrown everything that you ever received as a gift except for the stuff from Miss. Christina since she got you stuff for all the way up to your 1st birthday.

You've gone from this:


To this:

You traveled to Pennsylvania on a plane and met your Zayde and cousin W for the first time.

You giggled for the first time and gave us many more consistent smiles.

You went through a non-napping phase that almost killed your mother.

You attended and graduated from the second of three classes in our new mommy/baby series.

You lost most of your hair in the 'Cradle Cap Eradication Day '09' event.

You took your first long car trip to Saratoga Springs, NY and proved that even the car can't make you nap.

You celebrated your first Halloween as the cutest pea-in-a-pod ever.

And you have gone from 5+ oz of formula 6 times a day to 8+ oz of formula 4 times a day.

Physically, you are able to blow raspberries if you really, REALLY try...although they are quite messy and may or may not include a ton of drool.

You drool...a lot.

You can hold your head up at a 45 degree angle if not more when on your belly doing tummy time...and speaking of tummy time...you will at least tolerate it now for up to 5 minutes.

You reach out and grab the things you want to grab and as soon as you get what ever it is in your hands you put it directly in your mouth.

You gurgle. You squeal.

Especially when the Yankees won the World Series!! (oh wait...that was your dad...)

You have a blood curdling scream that you aren't afraid to use.

You are so much more a little boy and so much less a baby even in just these two months.

Your dad and I love you very, very much and are so proud of all of your accomplishments.

Love,

Mom

Happy Halloween!!

This past weekend was Halloween (in case you have been hidden under a rock and didn't know). I had procured a pea-in-a-pod costume for free off our local mothers' list-serv, so a pea-in-a-pod is what Little G was. We originally planned on attending a party at a friend's house, in which case I was going to put black eye makeup on and go with Little G as the Black Eyed Peas...but we ended up going out of town for the weekend so my genius costume plan was thwarted.*

Poor kid didn't even get to show off his costume to anyone; these pics were taken in our dimly lit hotel room while my husband was in a meeting all day.

Oh well...at least I got to marvel how cute he was :)

*Since not a one of us could go to the party I told the hostess that we would be there, but that Little G was going as the Balloon Boy and we were going as his parents...which meant that Little G was off floating somewhere and we were out looking for him. Truthfully, I feel that was probably the most realistic costume at that party...but apparently others felt we were cheating.

Master Moods

Well, with the paint on the walls and trim, it is a bit easier to imagine the possibilites for the room as far as decor goes. It is difficult, because the big pieces need to stay...i.e. the blue quilt (wedding gift), the medium tan bed, the black dressers, nightstands and mirror...

So...to help figure it all out I created a mood board and I think I have got it pretty figured out.

I found a great cream/black ceiling fixture that I think will go great with the room and I really like the rattan room darkening shade paired with the airy white curtains. The picture of the window treatment was lifted from a picture at the bottom of this post over at Young House Love.

So now I am questioning myself on the table lamps. The hubs and I have two different bed side tables...a product of one of us (who shall remain nameless) who is obsessed with having everything as close to the walls of the room as possible deciding he needed a bed side table, but not one as big as mine...so they are the same exact style...but mine is about 20% bigger than his.

This means that if we were to get matching lamps, they would be lopsided in the room. To combat that, I figured it would work to have a smaller lamp on my table and a bigger one on his and that would even out the scale a little bit...but before I buy them, I want to make sure I'm not just crazy...

...so what do you think...should I go ahead with the mismatched lamp idea or not? And it is crazy of me to have such mid-century modern lamps in the room with other details that fall to the more classic side?

And what should we do with the great big expanse of wall to the right of my bed? It isn't above the bed, it is on a free wall...so how do you anchor it?

Lastly...our bed is up against the two windows (and that is where it will stay)...so do we put full window treatments on both windows or do we do half on each and try to frame out the bed? Would that look unfinished?

Oh how I wish I was more confident and could just TELL the husband what we are doing instead of feeling like I need to convince him.

Now that's a room of a different color...

I am not sure where I got it in my head that once we made it to three months, things would be easier...but they aren't. In fact, they are more difficult than ever.

Little G isn't napping well and he has by far the loudest, most piercing, scream on the planet...seriously...I have had other people comment on it, so I know it isn't just me.

Annnnnnnyway....compounding the stress around here is that the hubs and I have been painting our room...remember this?

Well now...after four weekends of hard work sanding all the trim, dusting off the radiator, painting primer on all the trim and the walls, painting three coats of trim color on the radiator, three coats on the trim and two coats on the walls....I am proud to say we are done* painting!!!

Which is the biggest and hardest part of the project.

Initially, way back when I thought I was going to have lots of time to blog I had gone to the Benjamin Moore website and uploaded a picture of our room and used their handy-dandy room preview feature to see what the color would look like.

But I never got around to posting it until now...so here is the preview from BenjaminMoore.com...

...and here is the big reveal!

The room is SOOOOOOOO much brighter and feels much bigger too. I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am that this part of the project is over.

Now we get to decorate. Weeeeeee

*So the painting actually isn't done-done...we still have to paint the doors and one windowsill that we have been repairing...but we can at least move back in since we have been living in the guest bedroom since sometime last September

Congrats to our FLOR Winner...

Many congratulations to commenter #5, HisBirdie (Ali). The winner of my very first bloggity blog give away and a 5x7 rug (12 tiles) from FLOR.




You will have to send us some pictures of what you do with your new FLOR!!

Congrats again and thanks to all who commented!

--Coastin anon

Now you can be FLOR'd

As you know from my various posts, I am a big fan of FLOR, the modular flooring tiling system that is easy on your budget, your time and the planet.

Now, I am excited to announce my very first ever bloggity blog giveaway....

dun-dee-dee-dun........

a 5x7 FLOR rug from their new fall collection!!

How exciting is that???

Here's how it works...comment (once only please) below on which of the following styles listed below you would like to win and include how you would use it in your home...i.e. would you customize it further? What colors would you choose?

The contest closes next Friday, September 25, 2009 and the winner, who will be randomly selected using the fascinating system over at random.org, will be announced on Monday, September 28, 2009.

Here are the rugs that are eligible for the giveaway:

All Square
All Bark No Bite
Arachnophobia (Martha Stewart collection)
Best of Both Wools
Fez
Pop Tartin
Squared Silly

Best of luck to you all!!

Coasting anon

Rearranging

We spent the better part of the afternoon the other weekend moving around our furniture in our room while the little guy napped. Of course, this is all part of The Great Master Bedroom Redo of '09.

Neither one of us wanted to move things around multiple times, so we took advantage of the Pottery Barn Room Designer Tool to help us map out the current furniture in our space. Since the pre-measured furniture they have in the tool was a bit different from ours, I used my trusty scale rule to measure out furniture that was the correct size.


So here is what we came up with:

If you go back to the original post, you can see that we basically just moved the bed and side tables 90 degrees to the left. The bed is blocking two windows now, but there is no choice, you either are off center and block one window, or you are centered and block two.

This has really opened up the room believe it or not. When you are in bed the room seems to go on forever and when you look at it from the entrydoor, the same effect takes place.

Our next task is to tape and paint...we are painting the trim a light vanilla color and the walls a light cream. We already know what the colors will look like because they are the exact colors that my Mother-in-Law has in her living room. Hopefully that will really help lighten up the space.