Week in Review

I know my blogs have been boring lately, but sometimes, life is just same-old.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.

This week:

• Meredith and Russell have started wrestling.  Meredith just laughs and laughs…that is, until it gets a little too rough.  I don’t really know how to referee this.
• I’ve played “single mom” 3 days (Jason had a work function one evening and our church’s men’s retreat this weekend.)
• Meredith had her first mac-n-cheese and peas meal and loved it!
• Russell started to review the letter “C.” (We are re-learning certain letters he’s having trouble identifying.)

• Russell is loving “Lady and the Tramp.”  This is a nice change from all-CARS, all the time!
• I had a meeting about Russell’s speech therapy.  Pending an evaluation, we are thinking of exiting him when he turns 3.  That’s when he’d have to “graduate” to a new program and new therapist, so it would be a good breaking point.
• Meredith is standing on her own sometimes – no holding onto anything!
• We ate and played at Chick-Fil-A (love that place!)

Today, we went to the gym and are going to a first birthday party this afternoon!  And doing anything else to keep our minds off of Daddy being gone – we’ll be happy to see him tomorrow!

Assortment

January is a month of getting back into routines, of cozy houses, of family time.  January has never been my favorite – a bit of a letdown after the holidays, and coldcoldcold…but we’ve been trying to make it fun by:

Reviewing our letters

We have a magnet set that we play with on a cookie sheet.  I print off pages from homeschool websites; the pages have white circles where you are supposed to put the magnets, which helps teach one-to-one correspondence.  Russell really enjoys “playing magnets.”

We also sometimes break out the Leapfrog alphabet set.  I make him tell me the name of each letter before he picks it up and puts it in.

Hosting “birthday parties”

I bought Russell a set of pretend cookies at Target for $2.  He has had a blast with them.  He tells me it’s his birthday, asks me to sing happy birthday to him, gives me a certain amount of cookies (“here, Mommy, have three cookies” – and he’s been giving me the right amount!), tells me they need to cook, that they’re too hot and need to cool off…he can spend 30 minutes just playing with these cookies!

Having Bathtub Fun

Meredith still just loves bath time.  We’ve been bathing the kids together for a while now and it’s a fun family activity.  She gets so excited when she hears the water running, and crawls into the bathroom to stand and watch Jason fill up the tub (while Russell does what we call his “naked baby run” around the house).

That’s just a bit of what we’ve been up to lately!

Pinned and Netted

I seriously don’t know what people did before the Internet.  (I mean, okay, I was alive, but I wasn’t at the point of finding a job or decorating a house or entertaining children.)  I love Pinterest (probably a little too much) and recently found some uses for a few of my pins.

Russell made this snowflake painting for a devotional our family did.  The theme was “He has made us white as snow.”  And decorating with candy conversation hearts was another Pinterest idea!

Another Pinterest idea: learning/reviewing alphabet letters by using them as Matchbox car parking spaces.  I knew this was right up Russell’s alley, and he loved it!  (And this is the weird face I got when I asked him to smile!  This kid cracks me up!)

This is from the Internet in general, not Pinterest: I was looking up free printables to find a couple new decorations for our house, and happened upon two great ones.  The first is now hanging in our kitchen.  The second is on our mantle – perfect for Valentine’s Day coming up.

So that’s a little peek into our “pinned and netted” home!

9 months

3/4 of the way to Sissy’s birthday!  What?!

(see the two bottom teeth?)

Weight: 16 lbs 2 oz – 10th percentile

Height: 28 in – 50th percentile

Head: 17 in – 50th percentile

She is “slender” as the doctor said.  He said he isn’t worried because Jason and I are too.  However, I’m trying to feed her more.  But she will only eat the amount she wants to eat and when she’s done, she lets you know.

Speaking of eating:

• Meredith eats 1 jar of baby food (or oatmeal) for breakfast plus however much table food she will take; 1 jar for lunch and table food; and 1-2 jars for dinner plus table food.  We also try to make sure she has a sippy cup of water during all meals.  She generally would rather eat table food than baby food, but I feel like the baby food is a better way for me to gauge her calories, so I make her eat that too.
• Table foods she has had so far include: pasta, peas, corn, lima beans, squash, tomatoes, bananas, mangos, Cheerios, avocado, muffins, blueberries, strawberries, bread, shredded cheese.  I’m always trying to think of new things to add!  She has a great pincer grasp but has to resort to “raking” the mushy stuff that is hard to pick up.
• Meredith is nursing 4x/day, around 7 am, 11 am, 3:30 pm, and 7 pm.

• Meredith wears size 6-9 month and 9 month clothes. 
• Her shoe size is technically a 2, but I bought her a pair of 3s so she won’t outgrow them too quickly.
• Still takes 2 naps a day, the first from about 9:30-10:30 and the second from 1-3 or so.
• Her first 2 teeth came in around Christmas, one right after the other – the bottom middle ones.
• She is definitely Mommy’s girl.  She would much rather be with me than anyone.  This is good and bad.  It’s definitely causing some separation anxiety.
• As I’ve mentioned, she is pulling up EVERYWHERE.  No cruising yet.  She lets go of things to try and stand on her own, but falls quickly.  Crawling as fast as anything!
• As far as reading goes, she will only sit still for her favorite books.  If  you try and read anything else, she’s gone.  Favorites are That’s Not My Fairy, The Secret Life of Fairies, Ten Little Ladybugs, a Precious Moments book called Hugs Are Special, and a few books about babies.  It’s looking like the one Pops brought yesterday called On the Farm might get added to the list!

This girl is so precious to us!

The Big 9-0

That’s right, 90!  My grandmother’s birthday was on Friday, and we celebrated in a big way on Saturday.  Some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins flew/drove into town and were here for much of the day Saturday.  In the afternoon, there was a drop-in party for Grandmother’s friends and family from 2-4 pm.  We made it for the latter part of that, after the kids’ naps.

I don’t think Russell and Meredith had ever met my cousin Brian before (who lives in Baltimore and also Florida, with his wife).  Brian was playing with his nephew Tyler and Meredith got in on it (and may have tried to take a few toys from Tyler…oh dear…)

Uncle Jon came in town!

Grandmother with Diana and Kelly:

Our little family went home for a bit to get the kids fed and for us to change into our nice clothes.  We had dinner reservations at Grandmother’s country club.  (It was the same room that my bridesmaid’s luncheon was held in.)  We left the kids at home with our favorite babysitter – great decision!  I’m sure they had more fun watching CARS, and we definitely had a more relaxing evening.

The whole group – we were missing a few family members, so it didn’t feel quite right, but we all had a great time:

The birthday girl with her ice cream cake – she had just turned a candle upside-down so it said 60 instead of 90

So glad we could celebrate such a special person!

Wordless Wednesday

Nice Weekend

We had a nice, low-key weekend that involved Paw Paw and Kacki, a double date with my college roommate and her husband, shopping and a photo session(for me), woodworking (for Jason), of course church…all around fun!

I managed to get a few photos today.  Happy Sunday!

I might be crazy.

In addition to this blog and this blog, for January, I am doing this blog.  I just needed a little push to challenge myself photographically/artistically.  Just mentioning it here so everyone knows why this blog might be a little less active in January.  Or not.  We’ll see!

Russell’s Sayings

Just for my memories, just to document some of the funny things Russell regularly says, just because:

1) “Mommy, mommy, mommy (or Daddy)!  I don’t know what I think.”  (there never seems to be a reason for him to say this – maybe in his mind there is!)

2) “Go faster!” (when we’re in the car, riding in his stroller, etc)

3) “One {mommy/daddy/Meredith/cup/Puff/what-have-you}, sitting all alone.” (this is a phrase from a book we have.)

4)  “Last time.” “ Just one more time.” (when asking for another turn at anything.)

5) “Meredith, no ma’am!” (when M is encroaching on his toys.)

I’ll think of more later, I’m sure!

Little Miss I-Pull-Up-On-Everything

Since Meredith already pulls up on everything she can reach, I put the legs on this learning table.  She loves it!  I’m quite sure she’ll be walking before she’s a year old.  I can’t decide if that’s good or bad!