Graeme is 20 months old!

Even when time seems to drag pregnancy-wise, the time it takes Graeme to turn another month older flies by.

On Monday he turned 20 months old and somehow we are just four months away from his second birthday. I feel like I JUST planned his first birthday party! And I feel like he will turn two before I can even blink.

At his birthday party!

Our little (but very tall) Graeme Grayson is as adorable as ever and has grown so much, so fast. Yes, he is still tall for his age, and we are still at a loss where his height comes from! I'm thinking one day he will even out, but who knows...maybe he will tower over us by the time he's in middle school! He's been wearing 2T clothes for a few months now and certain things he wears are 3T to be long enough for him.

If this is our future...we are clueless.

His speech and vocabulary blow my mind every day. I recently found a video of him saying "Batman" when he was only ten or eleven months old, and that was not his first word. It's hard to remember a time when he wasn't talking. He hasn't stopped since he started and seems to add at least one new word every day. He says or tries to say anything we ask him to and speaks in little sentences a lot of the time. His memory is amazing as well and he will randomly bring up something that happened a couple of weeks ago.

For example, one day he and I were sitting outside watching cars and trucks drive by. A truck drove out of the neighborhood and when it hit a bump, a hard hat fell out of the back. Well, this was very intriguing to Graeme. Over and over he said, "Red truck drop hat!" We talked about whether the truck would come back to get it when after a few minutes a car stopped next to it. A boy got out of the car and took the hat. This was even more interesting to Graeme. "Boy took hat!" And then we wondered whether or not he would give it back to the red truck. Even now, weeks later, he will sometimes bring up the red truck, hard hat, and boy.

I would just love to see inside his little brain sometimes.

What do you think about, little one?

Sometime in the last month he suddenly went from saying "Dada" to "Daddy" (except it sounds more like "Dah-ee"). So very cute. He has a similar way of pronouncing Penny ("Peh-ee"). I am still "Mama." One of my favorite new things he says is "Hi, Buddy (Buh-ee)!" I say "Hi, Buddy," to him all of the time, and one day he said it back to me. And now he says it to me a lot. Every once in awhile he will say it to me before I say it to him. I so wish I could get it on video. I love that we are buddies.

What else? 

He has all four one year molars in and accounted for and is working on the two canines on the bottom currently (the top ones are in). Teething is never too bad with him although it does cause some very early morning wake ups...5:00am is never fun to see.

We tried potty training for one day, but decided to hold off as he was becoming a bit scared of even sitting on the potty. He gets the concept, but now I am at a point where it sounds like way too much work for the ninth month of pregnancy. Oh well. Diapers for everyone for a bit longer!

And little diaper butts are adorable.

We've learned that he is not a fan of change. At all. (He may get this from me...and by "may," I mean he totally does.) I made him something to hang on the wall above his crib. He hysterically refused to get in bed until we took it down. And then he was scared to go to bed for a few nights afterwards. Goodness. A week later I converted his highchair to a booster seat thinking a "big boy chair" would be exciting. He cried and cried big, sad tears and wouldn't let me pry him off of me to sit in it until it was back to "normal."

He did not appreciate the cuteness at all.

I figure neither of these things are at all worth fighting him about right now. Eventually, he will not be terrified of hanging yarn above his bed or a big boy booster seat. What a funny, interesting boy he is.

Anyway.

Graeme is pure joy and I am so excited to see him become a big brother sometime in the next few weeks. Even if he has a hard time adjusting, it will only be for a season, and eventually he will not remember a time without having a sister. 

We, on the other hand, are definitely cherishing all of the time we have and have had with only him around. I am so thankful for the 20-21 months we have had with just him. He has set the bar pretty high as far as being an absolutely amazing kid!

We love you, Graeme!

Maisy Kate's Nursery

A few weeks ago, I was looking back to my blogs during my pregnancy with Graeme and saw that his room was done and ready by the time I was 30 weeks pregnant. Ha! I was definitely very on top of things! Here I am this time around just a few weeks later. I'm 34 weeks pregnant, and the extra few weeks it took to get a nursery done are definitely because it's much more time-consuming this time around when there's an adorable toddler to look after. He's not really into interior decorating, and really, who could blame him?

Anyway, Maisy's room is ready for her whenever she decides to come in the next few weeks. There was never any doubt that she would have princess things in her room, but it took me quite awhile to settle on a color scheme. Her room is (mostly) pink, gray, and gold, and believe me, I never thought I would want much gold in my house. In her room, it works and I love it. So, here it is:

Room sign from Etsy.

Gold pillows, curtain rod, curtain, and pull-back are from Target (along with about 75% of things in her room). The pink pillow in the middle was a lucky clearance find at Pier 1!

The white hope chest under the window was my great-grandmother's! My mom passed it on to Maisy and painted it white for her (with Aaron's help). It's around 100 years old and very special!

Giant, very soft, and adorable stuffed bear was a gift from Gigi and Pop. And the nightlight was a gift from Mimi and Grandy.

Corner shelf from Target. And the mirror is from At Home. The tiny canvas next to Cinderella was the very first thing we bought for her room. And the tiara is what I wore on our wedding day.

The wooden sign is from Target. The bookshelf is from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. She has an autographed photo of Snow White (signed by a real Disney Princess!) courtesy of our friend Julie. And our friend Liz painted/drew that amazing watercolor picture!

After making Graeme give up his reading chair, he decided (and we agree) that it is the best place to read. It's staying in Maisy's room, but he asks to read in "Maisy's chair" every night. The pillow is from HomeGoods. The blanket was purchased on clearance at the Disney Store by us long ago and just so happens to perfectly match and be a Cinderella blanket. For the win. The end table was handed down from Graeme's room (also from Target).

I got the urge to be crafty and made this based on an idea I saw on Etsy. It was ridiculously difficult. Gluing hearts in straight lines is no joke. 

The castle print is from At Home. We wanted a white dresser that could be a changing table for a time. It took awhile to find one that would work. But, we love the one we finally ordered. It's a Delta dresser from Walmart. The hamper is from Babies R Us, and Mimi had the brilliant idea to sew a pink button on it.

The carriage lamp is from Pottery Barn Kids, and the Cinderella quote is from Etsy (frame from Target, and if I haven't labeled something, you can probably assume it's from Target. Ha.)

The ribbon mobile was my other craft project. It was much easier than the canvas! But ribbon isn't cheap...I learned that!

Aaron's parents bought this for me before we even had Graeme. I didn't have anywhere to put it for a long time, and was holding on to it in hopes of using it in our little girl's room one day. It's a beautiful Thomas Kinkade print.

If you go back a few posts, you can read all about how we obtained this crib. Painting it white was Aaron's "craft project" for Maisy. 

One of our favorite local stores, Nuvonivo, had this adorable blanket.

Cute little friends for Maisy to cuddle were gifts at her shower. And her pink Lovie matches her brother's blue one.

The crib sheet and gray mesh bumper are from Target.

This was my crib skirt from my nursery when I was a baby. My grandma made it and my mom saved it all these years. I am so excited to use it for Maisy.

There you have it! We had so much fun decorating a baby girl's nursery this time. Seriously now, if we decide to have any more kids, they're going to have to start sharing rooms. My idea tank is empty. We will just have a house of superheroes and princesses.

my time change cheat plan

Normally, my "blog days" are Wednesdays. Aaron and I meet my parents at Starbucks, and they take Graeme with them. And we have a coffee date before work.

However, today is Thursday as we sit in the Starbucks. I had my last day of "work" last Wednesday. It never really felt like work to me because I loved doing it. And I still plan on doing a lot of the things I did at Journey as a volunteer.

My mom might lose it if I kept Graeme (and eventually Maisy) with me every day now that I'm not working, so the plan is for him to spend Thursdays with Mimi and Grandy. This will allow me to have a day to get housework, laundry, shopping, and other things done that are easier to do when I don't have a toddler tagalong. It works out for all.

And Aaron and I still get our weekly morning coffee date, which we love and look forward to. Right now, I am writing this and he is reading. So we aren't talking much or anything. But just sitting here with each other is a really perfect date sometimes.



Anyway.



Our due date is less than two months away now! We are getting excited about our baby shower in a couple of weeks. Maisy's room is coming together and my goal is to have pretty much everything in order for her arrival by the time Thanksgiving gets here. I want to be able to focus on enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas with Graeme, as it will be the last time when he is our only little one!




Aaron and I were able to sneak away last weekend for a last getaway before we have two children. It happened to fall on the weekend that I had scheduled Graeme's flu shot AND the time change. He stayed with my parents, and I apologized for leaving them with two "inconveniences." Ha. There's not much I could do about the flu shot. He needs it and it takes two seconds and then he's fine anyway. But, I did try to help out with the time change.

I'm sure you've heard that when you have kids, young ones especially, the "extra hour" we get in the fall is a big joke. Example being:  Graeme goes to bed at 7:00pm and sleeps until 6:00-6:30am. So, when the clock shifts back an hour in the middle of the night, his little internal clock does not. And he therefore wakes up at 5:00am. If you're thinking, Just put him to bed an hour later that night and then he'll sleep an hour later in the morning, you would be mistaken. At least for my child. Typically, the later he goes to bed, the earlier he wakes up.

I realized this dilemma last year and decided to try to beat the system. And it worked. So I did the same thing this year. And it worked again.

It requires a bit of planning and adjusting the week before, but I think it's worth it. It makes the hour time change much easier on Graeme and doesn't have us (or my parents this year!) waking up an hour earlier on Sunday. If you are curious for next year, here's what I do:

This works for us because Graeme is on a (fairly) consistent schedule. I'm sure you could make it work for your child even if they weren't necessarily on a schedule too!

The Saturday a week before the time change is when I started. I shifted everything 15 minutes ahead, starting with breakfast. That meant 15 minutes later for all meals. 15 minutes later for nap time. And 15 minutes later for bedtime. I did this exact same schedule for Saturday AND Sunday.

On Monday, I shifted everything 15 more minutes. This meant it was 30 minutes later than what his normal schedule was. We did this for two days as well, Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, his "wake up for the day" time was starting to catch on, and he slept in until 7:00am.

On Wednesday, we did another 15 minutes shift, putting us 45 minutes later than a normal day. This is when the day started to seem really long! He was adjusting fine, but a 7:45 bedtime just seemed really late to us! Another two days of this (Wednesday and Thursday).

By Friday morning, we had reached the beginning of "Phase 4," the final 15 minutes that put us an entire hour later. This meant he slept in until 7:30am. He ate lunch at noon. He went down for a nap at 1:00pm. He ate dinner at 6:00pm. And bedtime wasn't until 8:00pm. My parents took the torch and finished off the time change plan on Saturday using this same schedule.

Therefore, by Saturday night, he was an entire hour ahead of time. If that even makes sense. Ha. And when time fell back an hour that night, he fell right back to normal. I texted my mom on Sunday morning, "DID IT WORK?!" And I was happy to receive, "He slept until 6:30!" back from her. Back to normal. And no trouble at all from then on.



So, if I seem entirely crazy to some of you, you may be right. I try not to be "schedule nazi" too much, but yeah...I am pretty reliant on our nice routine we have going for us most days! There's a time to flexible, and a time to want sleep, right? Right?!