Happy New Year

Well, the new year begins in less than three hours. Aaron asked me while we were out driving around this evening what my favorite part of the year had been. I think he knew the answer, but I obliged anyway...

"Becoming parents with you."

It was a wonderful year, and I look forward to what lies ahead. I don't know what is to come in 2015, but I know our great God never does the expected. He never leaves. He never changes. With Him, anything is possible.

Happy New Year, friends.

Love,
Whitney

about Graeme (nine months old?!)

Hi.

Graeme and I are both a little sick today, so I am taking advantage of our church's live stream, doing about five loads of laundry from our overflowing hampers, and catching up on the blog!

There's a lot to write and get up here, but first I have to catch up and do Graeme's nine month post. He turned nine months on the 23rd, but then we had quite a few busy days!

His little "Lambert" keeps getting smaller and smaller next to him...

Graeme did so much during his ninth month of life and seemed to transform into much more of a little boy than a baby.









...He started crawling two nights before he turned nine months. It was the perfect moment. Aaron and I were both sitting and watching him play upstairs in our loft. Out of nowhere, he just started crawling to get to something he wanted. We stared at each other with our jaws dropped and then went crazy with praising our little mover. It's only been a week, and he gets better at it each day. He's also pulling up a lot more and cruising a little bit. We did some major baby-proofing this past week. Bumpers on our coffee table and a gate at the top of the steps were the two major additions.

Those legs go on and on and on.

...He continues to sprout up. At his nine-month appointment, he was 31.5 inches long. This is 11 inches taller than when he was born. So he's grown more than an inch each month. His chart for height is quite interesting - seeing the line for the 99% and then Graeme's line going up past it at a pretty steep angle. She told us he's the average height of a 16-month-old! He is thankfully, very healthy and growing perfectly so far. His weight was in the 81% at 21 pounds, 10 ounces. We have the go ahead to introduce a lot of different foods and start transitioning him to relying more on solids and using cups. I can't believe we just have three-four more months of bottles and formula! Although our bank account won't miss buying formula. Ha!

He is a big fan of puffs. DEVOURS them.

You can sorta make out the top teeth this in this picture...

...This past month his top teeth finally popped through! They were a much worse experience for him, the poor kid. He's now the proud owner of four cute teeth. They really threw his night time sleep for a loop. We got in the bad habit of going in and comforting him, so then when his teeth were through and shouldn't have bothered him anymore, he was still waking up for middle of the night snuggles. As much as I love to snuggle him, we knew it wasn't good for him or us to keep this particular routine going. We went through one really bad night of him screaming for almost an hour from midnight to 1am. Aaron and I took turns going in to pat his back and tell him we loved him every 10 minutes. Finally, he fell asleep. The next night was better with only 30 minutes of not nearly as loud crying and us only going in there twice. And by the third night, he didn't wake up at all! Yay! He's had a couple more nights of waking up around midnight, but then it only takes him less than 10 minutes to get himself back to sleep. Crisis averted.























...I know I say this like every month, but it honestly keeps getting more fun. Graeme is starting to really show that he understands what we are saying and remembers how things work or where things are. He says "Da-da" all day long every day, and will also throw in the occasional "Pa-pa" for Penny. He also says "Ba-ba" which seems to either mean "bye-bye" or "bottle" on different occasions. He still loves to clap and will wave when he's in the mood. He loves peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek, and sneaking up behind someone to "get them." He knows all about lights and fans and knows that the remote works the fan in the living room. He tries to reach up and touch the lights whenever he goes under one at my parents' apartment building. He LOVES baths and thinks it's so funny to splash and get everyone soaking wet. His favorite book, or at least the one he knows the best right now is Goodnight Moon, and he knows right where it sits in his room. I could go on and on, but I won't. This kid makes any day better, seriously.

with 3 more sleeps till Christmas...

Christmas is in three days. We have done a little wrapping, but have the majority left to do. Needless to say, my guest room is quite a disaster area. 

I was going to get some wrapping done today, but Graeme decided to start crawling Sunday night (yay!!!). And for some reason we have been all like, "Why baby proof? He's not moving." So, today was quick-let's-make-the-house-safe-as-fast-as-I-can day. Thanks to my dad, we even got a gate installed at the top of the steps. 



Anyway.

We are excited about Graeme's first Christmas. As much as we said, "We won't go crazy!" on his gifts, we did. We shopped for him over the course of the last few months a little at a time. Everything is so cute for him at this age and it was easy to buy little things here and there. So when we finally put everything all together, it was quite a pile of gifts! Something about it being his very first Christmas just made us want to buy all the things. Ha! 

I have been giving so much thought to how I want Christmas to be for him as he grows up. And I have a feeling we will just figure out what works as he grows and as we pray for wisdom in parenting him. We will always love to buy him things because we love him and that's a way to show him that. However, I never want him to think Christmas is all about getting presents. I want to teach him to give gifts to others before he thinks of himself and to help people in need. And I want him to never forget why we celebrate Christmas:  because we received the best gift ever when Jesus was born.

I pray that we can teach Graeme that he isn't entitled to anything, but that the people who love him choose to give him gifts out of that love as a way to represent God's love. I pray he is selfless and would be willing to give up anything for a friend. I pray he will rise above the consumerism of the world and realize if he has Jesus that is all he really needs.

And most of all I pray that I will learn all of these things myself because if I don't live like that, he won't learn how to either!

We have so much. So much more than we need. I know I am constantly guilty of what the Berenstein Bears called "The Gimmies."

I am so thankful for what we've been given over the past few years as we've built our beautiful home, but I know sometimes I forget to be thankful.

I forget to give away.
I forget to hold things loosely and treat our possessions as things that are going to fade away.

I want to be willing to leave all we have at the drop of a hat if God called us to do that. I really do want to say that I could do that. (I'm not sure I could right now, if I'm being authentic.) But I pray God will work on my heart and help me get to that place.


Because the only thing I need...the only ONE I need...well, that's Jesus.

Mary and Joseph named him Jesus, "Emmanuel"--which means

"God has come to live with us."

Because, of course, he had.

-The Jesus Storybook Bible

finally...it's been awhile!

Hi.

It's been awhile.

After Graeme turned 8 months, the insanity of the holidays hit in full force. No matter how hard we try to keep our schedule simple, it seems almost impossible this time of year. There's just no way around the busy-ness. So, we make the very most of our time at home together. Tonight, Aaron is at a meeting, Graeme is asleep, and so I am taking advantage of the evening and trying to get a blog post up!





A lot has been going on around here. Let's see, I suppose I should go all the way back to Thanksgiving first! Graeme's first Thanksgiving was super fun and super tiring! We are fortunate to live near all of our immediate family, so we spent time with both families over the course of two days.

Two nights of being out past bedtime (6:30pm)...we really partied. 

His cute bib from his MiMi and Grandy

Family picture at GiGi's house

Aaron's younger (taller) brother got engaged a couple of days before Thanksgiving, so they had an engagement party on Thanksgiving night.
This photo is of the Bauer family (us, Andrew and Lauren, GiGi and Pop, Adam and Becca and Samuel and London).

Aaron and I ventured out for some Black Friday shopping, but we waited until the more reasonable hour of noon on Friday. Graeme hung out downtown, and we enjoyed a shopping/lunch date. Of course, a lot of what we bought was for Graeme, including this awesome orange vest.

Speaking of shopping, we have ONLY shopped for Graeme so far for Christmas. Yeah...we've got some catching up to do. It is so fun shopping for him, and he doesn't even care yet. I know it will just get better and better. 

Anyway.






What else has been going on?

We paid a visit to one of our very favorite families:  Bensen and Keyen and their lovely parents. We don't get to see them nearly as much as we'd like to, but we try to make visiting them as often as possible a priority. Graeme loves them and he really loved checking out their awesome Christmas village.

Graeme is cutting his top teeth. One of them is finally through. When he got his bottom teeth, Aaron and I were like, "Oh, this teething thing isn't so bad..." Yeah, well, we didn't know. The top teeth are apparently much worse! They don't seem to bother him too much during the day, but when it's time to sleep and he has nothing to distract him from the pain, that's when he's so pitiful and I feel awful for him. We have tried some gels and tablets, and I'm not sure how much they help. He usually just wants to be held. Poor little boy. Teething even kept him from enjoying Pullen Park.

Sad swinging

We have a lot going on at Journey this month too. This past Friday night we had our Christmas FX. Aaron got to put his acting skills to use. I don't see him act very much, and I didn't have the privilege of knowing him in his college theater years. He's a very talented actor and watching him was my favorite part of the night. But everyone else in our FX was awesome too! It was the first event I had been to at Journey in quite awhile since I usually skip out to stay with Graeme. I had so much fun! I miss being there for everything sometimes, but I know as Graeme gets older we will participate more and more.

Well, I will try to not wait so long before I post again! 

Last note:  Graeme started saying Da-Da yesterday! It's just about the cutest thing. He's also waving bye-bye now. Goodness, time is speeding away. I sure love that boy.

Graeme Grayson

what Graeme is up to at eight-months-old

Two things that are boggling my mind these days:

1. 2014 is over in less than 40 days.
2. I have an eight-month-old.

So many of my friends are pregnant right now and hearing about their pregnancies brings back many memories of my own pregnancy, that really seems like it was yesterday sometimes. It's hard to believe that Graeme has been in our arms for eight whole months now. We are speeding towards his first birthday. Goodness.

Graeme's eighth month brought more fun and learning and growing just like previous months have. When I look back at a picture from just one month ago, I can point out so many changes in him. 

One obvious change is that hair of his. The longer it grows, the flatter it becomes. No more fuzzy duck hair. And his face tends to gravitate more towards a little boy look than a baby look. 

What else?

• He's still not mobile, other than rolling and a tiny bit of creeping. I'm really not in a rush for him to be on the move. It's nice to leave him sitting and know he won't get too far if I need to run to the bathroom or whatever. He is lunging from a sitting position to his hands and knees a lot more, but then he just collapses to his tummy. He definitely finds a way to get to something he wants if it's not too far away from him. He does pretty well at pulling himself up and balancing in a standing position, but still needs a hand to catch him when he forgets that he's in charge of his own balance. 

  

  Figuring out a way to Penny's toys

• His fine motor skills have really blossomed this past month. He is fascinated with his hands and we will catch him watching them open and close and checking out how his fingers move. He is blindingly quick at reaching for things and is also working on feeding himself some food here and there like banana pieces or his Baby Mum Mums. Right before he turned eight months he clapped his hands for the first time. He loves clapping with us the past couple of days and I think he's pretty proud of himself.

  

  In the middle of clapping at Marbles Kids Museum yesterday.

• He still LOVES to eat, and I've yet to find a food he doesn't like so far. He's a big fan of corn and still loves his butternut squash. He and I have a new morning ritual of sharing a banana together. His menu these days consists of carrots, corn, peas, butternut squash, yellow squash, green beans, spinach, broccoli, sweet potatoes, mangoes, apples, pears, plums, bananas, blueberries, peaches, avocado, oatmeal, and his little rice cake things.

  

  Threatening to eat his high chair if I don't fix his food fast enough.

• He's still sleeping well, although teething throws us a weird night every once in awhile that has him awake in the middle of the night. He sleeps about 15 hours every day, three hours of napping and twelve hours at night. He loves his Lovie and will snuggle it all night long and during naps. We put two in his crib so that he has a better chance of reaching one at all times.

  

  Those Halo Sleep Sacks are amazing, by the way.

• He is growing taller by the day, it seems. He won't be officially measured again until his 9 month visit to the doctor, but I'm guessing he's over 30 inches now (he was 29 at six months). He is so tall, and we really don't know where he gets it from! For pants and onesie pajamas he is in 18-month size. Those legs go on and on and on. We ended up making the switch to a bigger rear-facing carseat already. The poor kid already touches the back of the seat with his toes. If he keeps growing like this, he'll be pretty cramped back there for the next 16 months that he has to face backwards!

  

  Riding in style.

• He loves to play with his toys, and even though everything still makes an immediate trip to his mouth, he is manipulating his toys more and studying them with his hands and eyes as well. He loves to close things, so one of his favorite toys currently is a pop-up animal toy. He can't open the animal doors by himself yet, but he closes each one over and over as we open them for him. He also loves to read books with us and turn the pages himself. His touch-and-feel books are some of his favorites right now.

  

  Books are a big deal around this house. 

He's been fun his whole life, but right now he is at a really fun age. His personality is darling and he is so stinking hilarious. He loves Mommy and Daddy and the rest of his family. He is definitely developing preferences for people that he knows well and is shy and a little scared of strangers. He adores Penny and thinks she's pretty funny. I could talk about him for many more paragraphs, but I think I've covered the bases for his eight month update.

This little boy melts our hearts daily and makes us beyond grateful that we get to parent him.

about taking a baby to Disney World

Well, we've been back home from Florida for six days now, and I'm just starting to feel settled back into normal. I don't know if it's because Disney is so other-worldly feeling or what...it's hard to come home from vacation anyway I guess.

Thankfully, we had Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday to relax too. Saturday, Graeme went to see his MiMi and Grandy for a few hours while Aaron and I put up the Christmas decorations. We love getting them up before Thanksgiving so we are free to enjoy our festive house for both upcoming holidays. And at our house, they come down as soon as Christmas Day is over, so earlier is better for us to get maximum enjoyment out of them. Sunday we did nothing except a little grocery shopping. Having Sunday off with Aaron home ALL day was especially rare and awesome. 

Well, assuming if you read my blog you most likely follow my Facebook and Instagram, I won't re-hash all of our vacation pictures again. You can find them, like I said, on those two sites.

But, I will post some thoughts on taking a baby on an airplane and to Disney World. Perhaps you could apply them to other vacations too. First, some things that made our trip nice and easy:


1. Baby Carrier:

 We chose to take our Baby Bjorn, although I'm sure whatever carrier you prefer would work just as well. The Baby Bjorn is nice for us because Graeme loves to face outward, but there was also the option to face him inward when he needed to sleep in it. The stroller couldn't come everywhere, and we used the carrier every day we were there. It's easy to strap on, and Aaron doesn't mind wearing it at all, which was also nice so we could trade off holding him. It's hands free as well, and that's always helpful.

2. Pouches of baby food, on-the-go bottles, and these million-dollar-idea spoons:

I love the person who invented these. They are awesome. There was no way I was taking homemade baby food to Disney World, so the pouches were great. They don't need to be refrigerated and they barely take up any room in a bag. The spoons just screw on a pouch and on-the-go feeding is a breeze. Since we aren't breastfeeding, we invested in on-the-go, ready-made bottles too. They also don't need to be refrigerated. You screw on a disposable nipple and they're ready. Everything Graeme ate from went in the trash when he was done except the little spoons that I just washed in the hotel room every night. Easy peasy.

3. These wipes:

No matter how hard we try to hook things with clips or those little toy rings, Graeme's toys and sippy cup and pacifier always seem to drop. I don't feel like I'm over-the-top insane about germs because honestly, they're everywhere and he's going to get exposed to stuff. But, I try to obviously keep him as clean and healthy as possible and these wipes were handy when a sink and soap weren't a lot of the time. They at least made me feel better about giving him something that he dropped but wanted back!

4. Something to snack on:

These are what we took, and they are often handy at home too. But, they were especially a life-saver several times on our trip. When we were eating in restaurants, waiting in lines, and on the plane ride home. Graeme isn't too good at eating them by himself yet, so I break off pieces and feed them to him. It keeps him happy for quite awhile normally!

Some other parting thoughts:

1. Obviously this isn't usually something you can control too much, but a flight at nap time was awesome. Not that the flight home wasn't good when he was awake, but a napping baby is clearly easier to take care of on a plane, ha!

2. We kept Graeme on his feeding schedule no problem, whereas naps and bedtime were a little more tricky. He's not used to falling asleep out and about for naps too much anymore. He did great though and never skipped a nap (even if he only took a short one!). It worked out well for us how we scheduled our trip:  We had a couple days being out and about, a couple of days that we were at the hotel for naps. A couple of late nights, and a couple nights with bedtime like normal. Graeme did great. Four nights away was just perfect for his age right now. It took him a couple days to get back on routine here at home, but it wasn't that bad. He had been used to a lot of snuggling, especially for naps, so he was a little distraught to be back in his crib at first. Anyway, I think we had a good compromise of making sure he got what he needed while still making sure we got to enjoy being out and about more than usual.

3. I know I've read and heard a lot that once you have kids, it's not really vacation when you take them on vacation. While I do agree that it's more work having another little tag-a-long with you, it is totally still vacation. I don't see taking care of Graeme as a chore whatsoever. Never. It is my joy to care for him. So, I loved doing it on vacation just as much as I do at home. Plus, I had constant help from Aaron (at home I'm on my own more), and who in their right mind can feel stressed at Disney World?!

4. "A baby can't enjoy Disney, won't remember Disney, will be a lot of work at Disney..." We heard all of that. Yes, we realize he won't remember it. We will, and I'm sure he will love looking at the pictures one day. He did enjoy it (minus the character meetings, ha!). He loved the lights and music and rides. He loved all of his time with his Daddy. I think he loved just being with us constantly. And he got a five-day break from his carseat! And, like I said up above, it is a little more work, but all you need is a little preparation beforehand and the right attitude.

We had a great time on our first family vacation and are itching to go back already! We kept saying, "Next time, just think how different he will be and how much more he will be able to do!"

Until next time, Disney World!

about Graeme's Halloween

The week before vacation always finds me distracted, especially now that Graeme is here and he requires like a billion things to leave the house for a week. I think, think we have everything we need for our adventure to Disney World next week. It's not at all packed yet, but it's in our home ready to be packed.

We decided to forego shipping a package, and we are going to check a bag that is filled with food and diapers and wipes. On the way home, it should be basically empty and can be used for souvenirs. Because, let's face it, we are going to have a hard time not buying Graeme something every day while we are there.

Anyway, I won't bore you with another post about Disney until we return when I plan to fill you in on how it all went. I highly doubt I will post a blog while we are gone unless I really get in the mood and want to fight my iPad to type one. No computers allowed on this trip. We are unplugging for the most part, but you can bet on pictures every day. My Instagram is here if you want to follow!


So, today, I want to document our little guy's first Halloween.

We are not too Halloween-y here. Pumpkins are as far as we go for decorations. We don't even usually carve them, but this year, my parents invited us down and carved one of our pumpkins for us.

Bat Signal on the front, Graeme's name on the back.

Over the past couple of months, I had glanced at Halloween costumes a few times, but there was never anything that jumped out at me "Graeme must dress up like this!" The baby girl costumes were always way cuter, of course.

My mom had given us the costume I wore for what was my second Halloween (I was only two days old for the first one!). So, I knew he had something for a costume anyway. We finally decided to save the $30 we would have spent on a new costume and go the sentimental route. What made it even better was that my mom had made it for me. Thankfully, it was totally gender neutral...

Graeme as a pea in a pod

Whitney as a pea in a pod

Note that seven-month Graeme is pretty much the same size as then twelve-month me. He's so tall! And he may look happy for those two pictures, but those were probably the only two smiles in the midst of the fussing for the five minutes he was in that costume. He was sick on Halloween, and was not impressed with dressing up for a photo shoot. If only you could hear the utter nonsense-crazy that Aaron and I were doing to get smiles out of him...


For the rest of the day, he wore his Halloween-themed onesie and a bib that his MiMi bought him.

If you can't tell due to his squirms, his shirt says "Batty about Mommy." The bat has a bowtie. I die.

He cooperated much better for this photo shoot on the morning of Halloween.

Journey did two Halloween Block Parties in two different neighborhoods that evening. Aaron had to be at one of them, and he was able to go to the one that was only five minutes away from our house. After Aaron left, the idea of having two hours before Graeme's bedtime and me being by myself with a fussy, tired, sick boy wasn't necessarily appealing. So, I bundled him up (it was pretty chilly on Halloween night) and we went to the block party for about an hour before it got dark and really cold. He loved it. There was a lot to look at, and he was warm and happy in the Baby Bjorn.

We left and went home before the block party got very busy. I put Graeme to bed after hanging a sign over the doorbell, "Please don't ring! Putting baby to bed. Will be down with candy soon!"

He went to sleep easily, and no tricksters rang our doorbell. At this point, it was after 7:30pm, dark, and pretty cold. I figured I missed most of the trick-or-treaters, but I had bought a little bag of candy. I took the baby monitor, a chair, and Penny outside (I still didn't want anyone knocking or ringing).

We sat out there for about 20 minutes, and we did get a handful of kids that came by. They all got a handful of candy because I wanted to get rid of it!

Me, blurry Penny, candy, and baby monitor. Quite the set-up.

It was a fun day (minus both of the boys not feeling too great). Next year, I have a feeling it will be a lot more fun since we will have a 19 month old. Crazy!


Well, I probably won't check back in here until after our trip. Have a great weekend and next week!

Bye for now.