Finally, it works!

Well, Blogger is finally letting me put pictures up! We have kind of laid low this week as William now has cold and is still not sleeping through the night. That would mean I am also not sleeping through the night. We have our 9 month doctor visit today and I am anxious to hear what the dr. has to say. I would like him to learn to put himself back to sleep without needing me in the night. But, I also would like to know that he isn't sick first. I would feel terrible if I had been letting him cry and it turns out he is sick! Today, we'll clear that up. I'm also looking forward to finding out how much he has grown in the last couple of months and ask some questions about his feedings and sleeping! I'll have a lot (I hope) to update later tonight. For now, I will just leave you with some pictures from this week!

John's cabinet project progress


Kelly's first Block of the Month project! It is so much fun to be back quilting.


William's walking project: still in progress


Yep, I am that weird. Here is my banged up knee. The top bruise is now bigger, but doesn't hurt as much.

My striped monster. The one who wakes me up in the middle of the night.



I know this is a little blurry, but I'm back to working on my photography...

Poopy Blogger

Well, I tried to upload some pictures last night with no success and now today it isn't working either. I guess I'll have to try again tonight! Sorry!

Tired. So tired.

Sometime over the course of the last two weeks, our beautiful baby boy has been transformed into a striped, beady eyed monster that arrives somewhere between 2 and 3 am. This monster is screaming and crying and oh so far away from my warm bed. That is right. William has stopped sleeping through the night. He had been consistently sleeping from 9pm until 7 am give of take an hour since he was roughly 9 weeks old. I thought the cycle was broken on Saturday night when he slept solid from 9pm through 7 am. But no. Last night he was up at 12, 2:30, 5:30, and 6:30. This was the worst night by far for sleep, but last week featured many wake up calls as well. The naps are also hit or miss during the daytime. This oasis of sleep is something I start planning and dreaming about as soon as he wakes up on a day like today. But, then, on a day like today, there weren't naps to be found. As far as I can tell, this could be for several reasons that should become clear as soon as he starts sleeping again:

1) He is teething. Evidence: fingers, hands, all objects are constantly in his mouth. More so than usual (which is a lot).

2) He is learning a new gross motor skill :standing/walking. Evidence: He is able to stand on his own with holding on to other objects for short periods of time UNLESS he realizes that he isn't hanging on to something. He is doing a lot of cruising and funny little handstands on the floor. He is no longer afraid when his push toy moves and delights in walking with it across the room to ram it into the bookcase, couch or unsuspecting parent.

3) He is going through a growth spurt. Evidence: some of his 12 month clothing appears to be too short. I'm not sure how well we are keeping up with his nuitritional needs as he is in constant motion during awake time throughout day. Even growing a teeny, tiny bit could require the gallons of extra milk he is now consuming during the wee hours of the night.

4) He is going through the jerk baby phase. Evidence: I think he giggled last night when I tripped into his room at 3am. Or maybe I just need a little more sleep.

Did you know John's car smokes? Neither did we.


Hiking yesterday. Near the end of the hike, I showed off my ungracefulness by doing a full face plant onto a rock bed. No blood, huge bruise on my knee. If you are lucky, I might take a picture to post here.


John and William read books while I ice my knee on the couch.


William does squats as part of his daily exercise routine.

The promised Lizapalooza picture

Shameless Babyness

These two are so cute - I can't resist posting some of them. I can't believe how much they have grown! Watch for the A-Dorable smiles! Coming soon...us at Lizapoolza. The first two are from earlier this month and the second three are from photos I received today!

This one is my favorite!

Nice Weekend

We had a great weekend! I started it out a little early by meeting Jennifer Hawn at the park on Friday for a picnic and some playing with the kiddos! Even though it was kind of on the warm side (90's), we had a fun time. It was great to get out and get some exercise and play with the kids with such great company. I think I could comfortably talk to Jenn for two weeks straight and not run out of things to talk about. Rereading that, it sounds like I talk a whole lot (although it's true). What I meant is she is a great friend to talk to about everything under the sun.

Charlotte and William packed up to do some walking (or watching their moms eat)

Charlotte on the swings. We are already working on sharing - you can see William behind Charlotte in the same swing. Aren't we great moms?

Charlotte and William swing! And Charlotte is hot and...

most of the time William was trying to either pull her hair or pull the adorable pink bow out of her hair. Ouch! No wonder she isn't smiling!


William's first time down the slide!


Jennifer and Charlotte play tic tac toe. I love Charlotte bow. I may be taking the blog to an all time low. Time to let this rhyme go. Although...

Saturday we got up and hunted around our subdivision garage sale for bargains. We found some great stuff! Some stuff we didn't even know we were looking for! We found: corner clamps, fort making kit, baby clothes, baby bibs, Halloween costumes, DVDs, a travel lap desk, a quilting hoop, and some old quilt squares. Lot of fun, although it was getting pretty warm out. After William's morning nap, we went to Boeing's Family Day. This is the first time I've ever gotten to see where John works the whole time he has worked for Boeing. We also got to have lunch in the steamy 92 degree heat (why did I wear jeans? I don't know!) and look at a lot of airplanes that start with letters like A, B, C, and F. I don't know where all the other letters in between went. Ask John. We don't have any pictures of this event because there were NO CAMERAS OR CELLPHONES ALLOWED. Someone told us they had a photo station set up for people to get a picture taken of the fam together. We couldn't find it though. I asked a few people working and freaked them all out. The most I could get from them was "No, photography is not allowed in any area..." "No, no cameras are allowed in any area...." etc. Most unhelpful.

Today, we did some relaxing and John did some work on our new TV cabinet. I didn't even get dressed today. Very nice. I'll leave you with one last picture from last week: our remote obsessed channel surfer.

Channel Surfing boy. Kind of hard to tell in this picture, but William has 2 remotes - 1 in each hand. He is crawling with one in each hand ("surfing")! Surfing is when William picks up something and slides it on the ground while he is crawling. He does this ALL the time with different toys/household objects. I think he likes it because then he can crawl really fast without picking up his hands.

Memo from William: I'm a big kid NOW

Yesterday we went to the Y in the early afternoon. William had been fed, changed and just woke up from a nap. Should have been a recipe for a great mood. But, I was a little nervous as last week he was crying and I had to be paged from the fitness center. So, I dropped him off and hurried away so I could hurry back (nothing makes me run faster than thinking about getting to pick him up when I'm done). When I came back to get him, he wasn't where I left him. The childwatch area is divided into two sections with an accordion door inbetween. One is for babies and the other is for older kids through age five. I left him in the baby section and when I came back, he was on the "Big Kid" side of the room. Apparently, William played for a few minutes with some toys and then crawled over to the bookcase that sits in the opening between the two rooms. He pulled himself up and whined/moaned while banging on the bookshelf. He refused to be distracted by toys, songs, the TV, or someone reading him books. When they finally put him on the "Big Kid" side, he got a huge smile on his face and crawled away to play. Which is what he was doing when I came to pick him up.

I get it. The message: I'm not a baby anymore! Let me play with the big kid stuff! The staff in the room told me the only restriction to being in that room is the kids need to wear shoes. So, I guess the next time we go, he'll have shoes on! (I'll still try and drop him off on the baby side. Even though I got the message loud and clear, it doesn't mean I want him to not be a baby anymore)


Some pictures up of William yesterday!

He actually climbed on this by himself. He was so proud of himself!

I can't believe he did it himself! Here he is starting to get mad because he can't get off...at least he still needs me for something :)


One of our new favorite past times: Waiting for Daddy to come home. William got SO excited when he sees John coming up the walk!


Kisses! The tricky part is getting in the house without William falling on his face to the concrete!

Another Big First

I wanted to make sure I got online tonight to share with you a huge milestone that occurred for William today. In the mail today, William received his first credit card application. Preapproved and everything! We didn't get to it tonight, but I'm sure we will carefully document this tomorrow. Seriously, who sends an eight month old a credit card application?

Anyhow, the other big news from the weekend I [think I] forgot to report is that tooth #8 has now broken through. We are almost half way done with teeth!

Over the weekend, we picked up a puzzle at a garage sale. William is only interested in taking OUT the pieces and carrying them around. Three at a time!

Behind him is another one of our finds: a Nemo riding toy!