(I'm still here)

Hi.

I'm back. What started off as an accidental break turned into an on-purpose break and I decided to take a month off of blogging. No real reason other than taking time to re-align priorities and get the new year started off well in other areas. 

I have missed writing and I am glad to be back, and I will post as often as I can. I can't believe we are already one month in to 2015, and I really can't believe that starting tomorrow we can say "Our son turns one next month."

Since I missed Graeme's 10-month update while on my hiatus, I will fill you in on what's new with him.

He's been changing daily ever since he was born, but I feel like the past month has held the most changes so far. He's seeming more and more like a toddler than he is a baby. This is exciting and fun, but also a little sad for Mommy and Daddy. We often reminisce about our once tiny little snuggly baby that continues to grow so, so fast.

DON'T BLINK.

Graeme is crawling, pulling up, cruising, and sometimes standing on his own now. He moves so fast and we are often sent into small panic attacks as we follow him around and save him from falls and tumbles. He went from not moving much at all to being all over the place within a few days. He just gets faster and faster and more daring every day.

He's a constant blur now...

He talks up a storm with his baby babble and also tries to copy a lot of words that we say. His favorite word right now is "baby," and he says it as clear as day. It's pretty much the cutest. He's changed his "Da-da" to sound more like "Daddy" and also spouts off Penny's name pretty well. His "Uh-oh" is more like "Uh-uh-oh." Again, the cutest. He can say "Bye-bye" and tries to say "Thank you" and "All gone." We've heard him say "beep beep" and "brush" because he likes to take his hairbrush and brush his Daddy's hair. I am really surprised at how much he's talking already.

With a face that cute, you can imagine his adorable voice.

He still loves books and has about 10 that are his favorites and are the ones he likes to read over and over. He knows which book you're talking about if it's one of his favorites and can pick it out of a stack. He loves to play with Penny and will find her pile of toys and try to bring her one. He thinks playing fetch with Penny is hi-lar-i-ous.

He hates getting his diaper changed and can barely be persuaded to lay still for it anymore. Getting dressed and undressed are also major inconveniences for him.

Shirts...who needs those?

The kid still loves to eat. He's had so many different foods now that I don't even know if I can list them all. I stopped making purees about a month ago and he is eating everything in small pieces. He does well with his four teeth and is great at picking food up off his tray. He loves yogurt, applesauce, cheese, waffles, ravioli, mashed potatoes, chicken, potstickers, spaghetti, pizza, Cheerios. I'm sure I've forgotten things, plus he's still eating a wide variety of fruits and veggies. If I had to pick a favorite for him, it would probably be yogurt. I'm pretty sure he would eat a whole giant container of it if I would let him.

Waffles? Good. Grapes? Good.

He got his first haircut on the day he turned 10 months. It was past time for one, and although I dreaded it, it was a great experience and I love his hair. He did well and only cried for a second here and there.

This was before he decided he wasn't too sure about this experience.

On a not-as-fun note, he also got his first stomach bug this month. It was horrible. He, thankfully, didn't seem phased by it much at all other than not having a big appetite for a few days. He played like normal and was pretty happy. He would cry while he threw up, but as soon as it was over, he was smiling again. It was more horrible for us. I absolutely hated watching him be sick. And then I caught it (and my parents did too). Somehow Aaron steered clear, and thank God, because it totally incapacitated me and he had to take care of everything for 24 hours. Thankfully, that is behind us.

Sleeping it off.

Well, let's talk about something more positive now. Ha.

I think that about wraps up the past month's milestones. We blinked and have a toddler, basically.

I promise I won't be MIA for an entire month this time.

Until next time, friends.

Bye-bye

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

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

a lot of random

Hi.

Here comes random....



--  This morning I made brownies and broccoli all before 9:00am. (The brownies are for dessert tonight because we have a friend coming over. The broccoli is for Graeme to try later this week.) Hello, Mom Life, I guess.

Speaking of Graeme's food, we moved on to green vegetables today. I picked green beans for his first food of this color of the rainbow, but I was a little skeptical about how he would like them. Or how he would like any green vegetable, for that matter. They are all kind of...blech...without butter and salt, in my opinion.

But, to my surprise, he loved the green beans like they were candy or something. Good grief. This leads me to these thoughts:

1.  What will he be like when he has actual candy?
2.  How does he like green beans but not sweet potatoes?
3.  I was really dissing the broccoli while I made it for him, but at the rate we're going with this, he will love it. Broccoli: 1. Me: 0.

Green bean face.

--  I was trying to think of some things that I missed posting about in the past month since we've been back from our trip. This month has flown by so fast. I had to go back through my pictures on my phone to even remember what has happened.

At the beginning of September, my little buddy Keyen turned three. This was almost impossible to believe.

Me and Keyen when he was tiny.

We went to his monkey-themed, adorable birthday party. Graeme was pretty fascinated by the balloons and the party in general.

Keyen, who has mostly kept his distance from Graeme since he met him (which is pretty amusing), even gave him a kiss while we were there. Very super sweet.

Bensen, on the other hand, can't ever seem to get enough of Graeme.

I absolutely love that Bensen and Keyen and their family are still (and will always be) part of our life. 




--  When we were at the beach in July, Graeme and I got on the elevator with these two older ladies one afternoon. Immediately, one of them started saying, "Oh my goodness! He looks just like George!" The other lady agreed and then they said it to me. I thought they meant some George they knew, but no, they said, "He looks just like Prince George!" When I responded, "Oh, thanks...I guess I don't know what Prince George looks like," they were flabbergasted. How had I not seen a recent picture of His Highness?! Anyway, they went on and on about it, and then when Graeme and I got off the elevator they said, "Bye, George!"

What do you think? I don't really see it, I guess. 

Obviously, mine is way cuter.





--  We decided on the Britax stroller and carseat before Graeme was born and were given both of them at one of our baby showers. I have been really happy with them so far, and now, I'm even more happy. Here's why:

I walked outside with Penny and Graeme last week, and when we got just a few houses down, I noticed the handlebar of the stroller felt weird. I looked down, and lo and behold, the foam was torn.

Enter over-dramatic freak out moment.

Obviously, glue was needed immediately. We turned around, and I went in for the super glue. The glue stuck the torn piece back down, but the tear was still there. And noticeable. To me, at least.

Now, I try not to be too crazy about stuff like this. I know it's just a stroller and it will get worn and torn for years to come. But, since it's such a nice stroller and it's fairly new, I emailed Britax just to see what they would say and do.

Well, what do you know, they are sending us a brand new stroller, no questions asked. I love them.

--  Penny got a bath and a haircut on Monday and she's so soft and fluffy. Graeme squeals when he sees her. He loves his puppy. The feeling is quite mutual between them.

"She's so fluffy I want to die!!"

--  Graeme, Penny, and I sat outside on one of the beautiful mornings we had this week. I put my phone in front of Graeme's face (which he now associates with, "Oh! I should smile!") He was being quite the little model for me. These pictures just about kill me with their cuteness...

Have a great weekend!

a quick update

Apparently Sundays are blog days as of late. I can't quite figure out how to get a blog post done in the middle of the week lately. By the end of the day when I know I have the time to sit down and write, my head is nowhere near ready to produce anything. Oh well.

It's June 1st today. I know I used to do those monthly updates on what was going to happen during the coming month. Then I had a baby and that hasn't happened. I will say June is packed full of so much! Birthdays, a wedding, Father's Day, our FOURTH anniversary, and more...there's a lot going on. We just spent over $30 to buy cards for all the things. You might think that's crazy. Alas, we are card people. I love picking out cards. Anyway, there are so many June things. Goodness.

I just finished the grocery list for the week. I shop at Target for groceries, which is strange I guess. I don't know why that started happening. I guess it's because I despise going to Walmart unless it's necessary. But I like going somewhere that has more than just groceries, because we usually need other stuff too. Anyway, I have been using Target's app called "Cartwheel." It's pretty exciting. It makes me like making a grocery list a little better. 

It's going to be a pretty crazy week around here, at least at the end of the week. My brother is getting married on SATURDAY. It's only six days away! If I really stop to think about it, and I know I will as the week goes on, it's hard to believe my "baby" brother is getting married. 

We have a lot of family coming in for the wedding and it will be everyone's first time meeting Graeme. It will be a long weekend for him, but I'm hoping he will not get too tired out from all of the festivities.

Aaron and I were talking through the wedding weekend because I am a bridesmaid, which leaves him on Graeme duty for the majority of the time. Then, once we talked through how Graeme was going to fit in to everything, we remembered about Penny. She obviously can't come to any of the wedding fun, and the poor dog can't be home all day long. Thankfully, we have wonderful friends that love Penny and agreed to keep her for us. We do love her so. Even when we almost accidentally forget about her.

I have been obsessing over the mailbox this week, and I have finally received all of the pictures I ordered, plus a canvas print of Graeme. I am having so much fun replacing pictures in the house with ones of our whole family and our adorable boy. Now, I am waiting on my sweet husband to bring the ladder inside to take down all of my window frames in the staircase to replace all of those pictures. He knows he can't put it off much longer. ;)

Well, that's what's going on with us these days.

And, oh yeah, Graeme is ten weeks old as of today. Ten weeks.

Wow.

I still can't stop staring at this kid after 10 weeks.

with no end in mind (just a lot of random)

So my being super prepared for Graeme has maybe backfired a tiny bit. I mean, I'm definitely glad to be prepared and wouldn't change it. But, you see, for instance, this afternoon, I have nothing to do. It was the same scenario yesterday afternoon.

I can't work at work (Journey) because I'm caught up to our curriculum. The next month they will release (May) will come out on Saturday. Thank goodness I will have that to keep me busy for awhile, assuming Graeme continues to stay where he is.

As you know, his room is ready and everything else to do with him is ready to go.

I cleaned the house on Monday and Tuesday, so that's done. Dinner is in the crock pot so that's done.

I did throw in some laundry this afternoon, so I felt semi-productive.

That leaves us here. I'm sitting on the couch with no real agenda for this blog in mind. So here's a bunch of random things...

1. Aaron and I had an appointment with the guy that does our taxes this morning. I may handle the budget and pay the bills, but taxes are simply flabbergasting to me. I have no idea how any of that works. But I went along and I helped Aaron gather some of the stuff we needed from the abyss that is our filing cabinet. At the end, the very nice tax man asked Aaron if he had any questions. Then he asked me if I had any. Blank stare. "Yeah...I don't even know how to ask a question here."
2. Last week Aaron and I had a dinner date with Renee and Derrick in downtown Raleigh. We arrived about ten minutes early, so we thought we'd "just go browse" the baby/children's clothing boutique across the street from the restaurant. Yeah right. It's a super cute store called Nuvonivo. It's a bit pricey, but the clearance items are reasonable. We walked out with a couple onesies and the softest baby blanket ever. The nice owner lady also gave us a bunch of coupons and a coloring page if I wanted a "comforting activity" in the coming days.
   
   It did pass some time this afternoon...
3. Aaron and I are on a kick of watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune at night these days. Did anyone see Wheel of Fortune last night? There was this lady, Kathy, who had apparently no clue how to play. She kept forgetting to spin before she called out a letter, she used a "Free Play" to say a consonant, and at one point she wanted to "Buy a 'B'." I think she just kept getting more and more flustered. We laughed so hard.
4. Last weekend we went to see two movies. I'm not sure we've ever seen two movies in the same weekend. On Friday night we saw The Lego Movie (at no charge to our bank account, thanks to our babysitting gig that day!). It was great. And now I wish I could afford Legos to build things. They are so expensive. On Saturday, Aaron wanted to go see Robocop at the IMAX. I wasn't too keen on it at first, but I actually liked it pretty well. Thanks to our IMAX PowerPasses, it's cheaper for us to see movies there then at a normal theater. We are getting in the movie dates while we can, I suppose! 
   
5. We've been leaving Penny out of her crate when we leave the house lately. Unless we're going to be gone more than five hours or so...then we still put her in there. So far, she's been great. Although it's been our experience in the past with her that she'll be so good for like a month and then we come home to a disaster (chewed up ink pen, hole in the wall, etc.) I'm just waiting for her to unleash her next plot. Hopefully, she won't. She's gone about two or three months now with a clean slate still. I'm pretty sure she sits in Aaron's desk chair the entire time we're gone somewhere. That's always where she is when we get back. We feel so bad locking her up anyway...look at her cuteness...
   
6. Growing up, I always had to have a cup of ice water when I went to bed. I used to call it "ice water with ice" when I was little, so that's what my parents would always call it. Sometime around middle school, my mom bought a set of Tupperware cups that became our "ice water cups." They were nothing too special, but they were colorful and had lids. I loved them. 
   
   When I got married and moved out, I was pretty devastated to leave the cups behind. But Aaron said we could get some. And life moved on. Eventually, I forgot about my beloved ice water cups, and became accustomed to just a regular, old drinking glass next to my bedside every night. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago... Aaron said one night, "Can I order something off Amazon that I want you to have before Graeme comes? It's nothing major, but I was thinking about it and want to get it for you." I said, "Sure, as long as it's not something crazy expensive." I really had no idea what it could be. When the package finally arrived after being delayed by the snow, I waited for Aaron to get home to open it. And what do you know, my sweet Aaron got me my own set of "ice water" Tupperware cups! I was completely surprised and excited and wouldn't have guessed that's what he was getting in a million years. Me and my cups are reunited at long last. Thanks, Aaron.

Well, friends, that's all I have for today I suppose. If you made it through all of my rambling, thanks. Have a great weekend!

a catch up post

It's time for a catch up post because I am waaay behind in pictures and things that have been going on. Here we go:




So, MISSION:FX happened on Friday, October 4th. That basically consumed the week leading up to it. A lot of our time was spent organizing prizes, candy, super hero masks, and food.

This picture does not begin to show the madness.

All of the hard work payed off, and MISSION:FX was SO awesome.

It was hard to say exactly, but we estimate that around 1,000 people showed up. We couldn't have pulled it off without our fearless lead team and the 200 amazing volunteers that showed up.

The weekend wasn't over after that, and my sweet husband was exhausted on Sunday night when he got home. I did my best to cheer him up with some Minnie loves Mickey pancakes. Yes, sometimes I can be clever. 

Thankfully, this past week was much calmer. We weren't even sure what to talk about at work.

This past week also brought the wonderful, cool, fall weather. It was time to pull out my Batman pajama pants.

The big negative this past week was the result of one of my arch nemesis:  bees. You may remember a certain post alluding to my hatred of bees here.

Anyway.

I was indoors at church in rainy weather minding my own business. There was a little kids' jean jacket that had been left in one of the classrooms. I innocently reached to grab it from where it was hanging when what should occur but a horrible stinging pain. 

I shook my hand and down fell a yellow jacket. As the bee venom spread in my hand and became quite unpleasant, I called Aaron in to kill the stupid bee that was somehow in the building (?!). I only cried for a minute (hey, I'm pregnant...and it really hurt!)

I have been stung many, many times in my life for some strange reason (hence my terror and utter avoidance of buzzing things). But this guy came out of nowhere. What were the chances?!

I wouldn't normally panic much, but of course I immediately freaked out for the baby. After typing in "stung by a bee while pregnant" on Google proved more fear-inducing than helpful, I put in a call to my OB.

She didn't answer so I left a message along the lines of "Hi, I'm Whitney Bauer. I'm pregnant and was just stung by a bee. Is this bad?"

I missed her call back, but she assured me that unless I was typically allergic to bee stings, all was well. 

That was good to know, and I just dealt with my hand hurting for the remainder of the day. Thankfully the next day it felt better.



The rest of last week was spent celebrating Aaron's birthday with presents, friends, and too much food. He had a great birthday, and now begins the 16ish days that he is five years older than I am. I like to rub that in a lot while I can.




Oh, one more thing. This:

is happening right outside our door every. day.

I will not be sad when these houses are built and we no longer live in a construction zone.



The end.