9 Months

9 months!! He'll be 1 in less than 3 months now- scary!! Nothing too exciting this month- he has stood alone a few times- getting longer each time, both front bottom teeth are coming in, I think he can say "go", a couple of sicknesses (and the whole not necessary ER trip), he is finally starting to like some texture with his food and is feeding himself puffs and some banana pieces. HHMMM I think that's about it! He got over his fear of the grass and is now happy to eplore the great outdoors- including dirt, sand, grass, leaves, and whatever else is gross and dirty in our yard!

I held him down to get a picture of his teeth coming in :)

They're in a lot more than this now and this was just a few days ago.

His ability to stand and grab has made Mike have to change how many plants he can grow on the plant table.

Wordless Wednesday

Just Another Monday

4months

Two weeks ago, very early Monday morning I woke up sick to my stomach. I spent the next few hours awake in the bathroom and the rest of the day trying to rest while taking care of two kids.

Last Monday Eli woke up early from his morning nap puking. He threw up for the next several hours. I sat on the couch holding him- either while he slept or with a towel to his face when he puked.

This morning I put Eli down for his nap, he woke up early yet again, I didn't think much of it and decided to give him a few minutes to see if he'd fall back asleep. I even thought to myself- hhmm wonder if he's getting sick. I didn't REALLY think he was, so when I finally went in the room I was quite surprised to see that his crib, blankets, and of course himself were all covered in puke!I spent the next few hours on the couch holding him while he slept or vomited into the towel. I'm really not one to call the doctor's office all the time, but he puked up some blood (just a bit) and I just wanted to be reassured that this was ok (it is). So I was kind of surprised when she started looking for a time to get him to be seen, and even more surprised when she said they thought he might be getting dehydrated since he was still getting sick so often and hadn't eaten or drank anything. She thought we should probably go to the ER to see if he needed an IV.

Even though I KNEW he was ok, just sick. The minute she told me ER I was seriously freaking out- imagining all the major serious probelms that maybe he was having. This was our first experience w/ this, Rowan was never even sick (besides a cold) until he was almost 18months, and now in the past 4-5 weeks Eli has thrown up (a lot) on 3 different days! So we went to the ER. Mike was in town so I drove in all by myself to get him, and occasionally reaching back to touch Eli and make sure he was still breathing (he was never having any breathing issues, just part of me freaking out). Of course w/in minutes of being at the hospital he was more alert than he had been all day, so I'm sure they thought we were crazy. I made a point of saying- a few times- that our doctor's office said we should come. The ER doc was really nice and watched him a little, and showed me how to push down on his nail to check for dehydration (that would 've been nice to know before..) he said if he was nursing(which he wouldn't do till we were there) then he would rather him just do that than give him any medicine so we were out pretty quick (well ER quick). So next time I think we'll just tell him we're going to the ER and see if he gets better, I'm thinking that's the trick.

Oh and as if I didn't have enough laundry to do from all the puking, when I first got Eli up and took off his pukey clothes, I walked with him to the bathroom to get a towel. I saw the basket of CLEAN clothes I had just taken out of the dryer, so I bent down to get a towel out of it and- what else- Eli puked ALL over the whole basket of clean clothes!! NICE!!

Shoes!

I've been wanting to make baby shoes FOREVER and finally got around to it. You can't see all the little mistakes in the pictures, but they are pretty cute. The pattern was a little confusing, but I think my next pair will be a lot easier to make. I really wish I had made these sooner and Eli could have had warm feet all winter- oh well! The next pair will be with cuter fabric, but I didn't want to waste it if I messed them up! So far they are staying on and he doesn't seem to mind them.

Oh My..

Somebody found my blog by googleing (googling?) 40 weeks belly (in quotes)- porn -nicole

I never would have guessed that!! I think that made my day!

Maybe I'm Not Quite Ready..

I've been so ready for winter to be over and now that it is finally ending I'm not sure if I can handle it. Today we went to the U of I for Eli to participate in a study ( a NON paying study!), then we went to Hessel for lunch and play. I wanted to walk some to so I told Rowan we would park on the oppposite side walk around the park once and then waqlk to the playground. So we only actually walked around 2 times, but I am SO tired. Sitting in the sun, pushing the stroller, pushing kids in swings, following Eli in the grass, taking stuff out of Eli's hands from the grass..... I'm really not looking forward to nice weather w/ TWO children!! I actually fell asleep on the living room floor after we got home! Hopefully they are both as exhausted as I am and will sleep awesomely and late tomorrow!!

I wanted a picture of them "posing" in front of the tree together, Eli crawled away, and Rowan, well he's 3! So instead they both decided to "climb" the tree.

For the 1st time in months- he just looked at the camera and smiled- a regular smile!!!

Eli loves to swing!

and Rowan loves to push him...

Babies, Babies, Babies

Yesterday I went w/ my mom, sister and Eli to visit my cousin and her new baby boy. He is adorable, and so tiny. Six pounds felt like nothing (well compared to my 20+lbs of squirmy 8month old!). I think he is the smallest baby I've ever held, and really couldn't get over how small he seemed. I'm pretty sure I could have held him all day and my arms wouldn't have hurt at all! :) She said I could share some pics, and everyone like looking at newborn babies- right? SO here he is- in his blog debut: Carson David

He slept most of the time, so I had to wait until he was on the changing table for a picture w/ his eyes open!

Eli was SO excited to meet his new baby cousin. I'm sure in a few years they'll love playing together! Notice how I'm holding Eli's arm- I'm pretty sure he wanted to show Carson's arm his new tooth!

Slacker

I feel like I'm totally slacking on this whole blog thing, it's not really what I want it to be anymore, so I've been losing interest. But I do like showing off the boys and sharing stuff with complete starngers (and family and people we know too..). I've also been a little lazy about commenting on other blogs (sorry) I do still read though.

Anyway, in recent news- Eli is getting his first tooth!!! I KNEW all that night waking wasn't for nothing! It's on the bottom in case you're interested. We've all been loving the nice weather, and will be crying tomorrow when it's cold again. Hopefully it'll be warm again very soon and we can burn the winter coats! Tomorrow Eli and I (and my sister and mom) are going to meet my cousin's new baby. He is a week old, and like all babies due in March aparently he had to come early too (ok so I guess I only know of one- sweet little Early Bird!) He was 4 weeks early and I'm pretty sure he'll be the smallest baby I've ever held at a little over 6lbs!! I won't even start on my whole "babies coming before -or on- their due date"thing.......:)

Does This Mean Spring?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Rowan to me

"Mommy, can I watch Bob the Builder? Cause Bob the Builder, Thomas the Train, Clifford, Super Why, Barney and Kathie Lee are all my favorites."

Yes that would be Kathie Lee Gifford, and surprisingly this does not come from me, somebody else in our house really likes her!

Book and Apron Giveaway

I'm starting to become obsessed with apron's and found this blog a while back (which is definetly encouraging my obsession). It is written by a group of women who all make absolutely GORGEOUS apron's, and some neat practicle ones too- like a towel apron to use when giving babies a bath! So they are having a giveaway and if you blog about it you get to enter twice!! SWEET!! So go check it out! Or not, whatever, give me a better chance to win! :)

Got Ink

Being Frugal

Today on Dr.Phil (a show I hate, and NEVER watch) they were talking w/ "the cheapest family in America" Oprah had a similar type show about living more simlpy and all that stuff. On Oprah she talked about a show last week w/ Suze Orman where she wanted everyone to do 3 things 1-Not spend any money in a day
2-Not use your credit cards for a week
3- Not eat out for a month

Now I know that we live a little differently than a lot of people, and I would definetly consider us cheap. I'd say poor (and you probably would too is you knew what we actually lived on- I mean HELLO a grad. student and a SAHM don't make big bucks!), but I don't really feel like we are poor. How we follow her "goals
1-We can go days w/o spending money- unless we need gas (we started limiting grocery trips a few weeks ago, which really cuts back on spending)
2- I don't even remember the last time we used a credit card, I HATE to use them, and only do if it is a true emergency and we really don't have the money, and then pay off as quickly as we can.
3- We just challenged ourselves to not eat out for 30days, we made it 22- but by choice, we went to an art thing and then kind of had a date night (w/ a baby).

I think even our no eating out challenge helped us avoid the habit of eating out. Too often we would be in town around a meal time and decide we should just eat out, spending money we shouldn't be. Now we are trying to plan better and take a lunch if we'll be out during that time.
We also avoid stores- we try to hardly ever go to Walmart or Target (no matter how much I want to go there) and even the dollar store, because that money really adds up quickly, and I don't even know what I have to show for those shopping trips! Last time I went to dollar tree I bought a bunch of picture frames- we have like 2 pictures up in our whole house- seriously why would I do that?

So now instead of just buying, we are saving for stuff we really want (and need). I don't use coupons at all, but everytime I see one of these talk shows where they get theri groceries half off w/ coupons I think maybe I should. Anyone use coupons? We do use (most of the time) our reusable bags at the grocery store, and at the grocery store we shop at (County Market on Philo) they give you 5cents(is there not a cent sign on a keyboard?) per bag- in cash- so we make like 20cents evertime we go grocery shopping- SWEET!!
When we do go out to eat we usually go to Culver's where we all get kids meals(most of the time) so it costs us about $15 and we all get dessert (don't forget to save the scoopie Points)! And if we have to venture to a real restaurant we usually all get water. I've really been getting in to making stuff from scratch, but I don't know how much it really saves us on groceries, it's just something I like to do.
I KNOW that if I actually planned out our meals for the week, I could make an even better grocery list and we wouldn't have so much food not being used- I actuall went through our pantry and made a list of everythjing, in an attempt to start using it all. My goal for Christams (and possibly bdays) is to give the boys all used presents, and to buy most of their clothes at thrift stores and garage sales this year.
Well I think I've rambled enough- anyone else, thoughts, tips on being "cheap"?