Happy Four month Birthday!

Welp. I totally failed today when I was sitting on pinterest pinning away for Carson's 3rd birthday and I get a text from Chris "Happy 4month birthday little man"   Oh. oops. I looked at the calendar, yeah its the 20th. Four months ago I was in labor. Such a surreal thing to me, to realize at the time (2:44 PM) I was still only a mother of 1. I was still questioning how I could love him, like I love Carson. Only 2 short hours later, that all changed. I was so in love the moment I looked into his big blue eyes (they are currently green turning hazel)

Welcome to the world, welcome to the family, welcome to my heart....

This was the moment I fell in love...

So even though, you're growing up Oliver, and the days just fly by; and you have a mom that forgets your month-day (for that I am sorry!) You are so loved. So cherished. Your brother adores you, and daddy and I? Well we think you're a keeper for sure! 

You are currently: Sitting up assisted, about to start solids, getting a tooth! HUGE I weighed you today 17 lbs

Solid Food

So today is your 4 month birthday, I plan on offering you your first "meal" tonight at dinner. You have been so "ready" you watch us like a hungry little dingo during meal time. Because we totally sit you in a high chair now, you hated being excluded from family dinner. I went to the store today and bought two huge organic apples, a bag of organic baby carrots and an organic avocado. I am fairly certain I could feed you organic pre-made baby food for less money, but I want to know what is going into your little system and have more control over what you're getting. 

Why Organic? Mostly because I worry about the toxins and chemicals in foods. Now Chris will say it doesn't make a difference, but the price difference is just not enough to justify not going organic. Thank you Trader Joes! 

 Why Puree over BLW? When I introduced solids to Carson we did BLW (baby led Weaning) and well it wasn't the most balanced diet. Now I know, that was entirely my fault and we were eating crap, so he would eat crap. His first food was a french fry. Gross. Now we struggle with picky eater syndrome. This time I am introducing solids, earlier (if he enjoys them) and only introducing healthy foods. I'll let big brother show him what junk food is, not me. 

How long between new foods? I plan on waiting 2-3 days between new foods. But from now, until his pedi appt on 6/29 I am only going to give him Carrots, Apples, and Avocado. But only if he is enjoying it. If he melts down, or gets upset by the foods, we'll stop and wait a week. I fully recognize that this is the very earliest this should be happening and am fine waiting for him to be ready.


Here are some pictures of my adventure in baby food making, I am not using anything special at all. I have a blender and an Ice cube tray.  I'm lucky enough to have a very nice double boiler system as well.

I pealed the apples and steamed them until tender, I love the book "Top 100 baby purees" Its a great recourse and really teaches you how to make baby food and all the awesome health benefits 

Opened up my avocado after I pureed the apples and breastmilk, and threw those through the blender as well with about 4 oz of breastmilk to make it creamy.

Carrots in the steamer

Carrots was a major PITA, make sure you have enough water in the bottom boiler. I fucked up and almost caught my pan on fire, and had to start all over with the carrots because they smelled like a camp fire. EW.

Here are my pureed avocados, it was really hard to get them the right consistency and had to add the most breast milk to them to get them to a decent consistency.

"2nd" batch pureed carrots! Got it to a perfect consistency with only 2 oz breast milk 

I just put 1 oz of each into an ice cube tray (the great thing about an ice cube tray is that standard is exactly 1 oz) 

Once totally frozen I will pop them out into there own freezer bags and it pull out an OZ or 2 when he needs it. 

Wednesday Pinterest Love

I am absolutely in love with Pinterest. If you're not following me, you should. I spend an obscene amount of time pinning for the house we'll someday own. Pinterest is probably one of the only reasons I even want to buy again. I also just love bopping around and getting craft ideas for the boys. But this week I was thinking I should share some of my favorite pins with you.

This just makes me smile and hope we get an attic someday

Happy Fathers day to my dad, He's a great dad, but an even better Papa

I just freaking love this! 

I feel like this is especially true some days.

I pinned this for chris, he wants to build awesome adult sized play houses that are themed around our property someday

Blogging, whats it all about?

When I started blogging back in 2011, I never thought I would find myself surrounded by such an amazing group of women, and mothers. I started this blog back in May 2011 during our TTC process for Oliver. I can't believe when I started it we were fairly down about 8 failed cycle and the next cycle, we were finally pregnant with Oliver.

I also can't believe that last may we had 3 dogs. Going down from 3 to 1 was the best choice for us; and the dogs are doing wonderfully at my mom and dads property. Mom and dad however? not always loving having so many pets. Sorry folks!

But a year later (220 posts and 10,000+ page views) and I have found myself surrounded by amazing new friends. I never wanted to blog to get rich (cause lets face it, thats a 1 in a million shot) I am surely not blogging to get famous. It all started because I wanted and needed a community of people that "get" me.

I love blog hopping and linking up. I've never felt like blogging has taken anything from my family, I generally try to blog during nap time and at night. But what I have gained, was worth all the hours of blogging. Friendships. From across the US.

Thats what I hoped the get out of blogging, and thats what I got.

I'm starting to feel like a grown up...

Yeah I know I probably should have felt more like a grown up when I got married, and had two sweet boys. But man some things in my life have really made me feel like a true life ADULT; and its weird.

We now have friends that are divorced.

We've phased out a lot of our college furniture.

We do things like antiquing on weekends and not drinking

I have recently started friending friends of mine from high school, and the majority of them are married and also having kids.

We're actually budgeting and saving for a house.

All these things have kind of come together in the last couple weeks and I am realizing more and more that not only are we growing, so are our friends. We don't have many of the same friends we had in college/while we were dating because we moved on with our lives and "grew up"

I think its going to be time to say bye bye

To my pretty pink macbook. I am so sad that it seems to be going the way of the dodo bird in this house. It all started a few months ago, I was chasing carson and he tripped on my power cord and *bam* off the bed it fell. Smashed its power cord right into the computer and knocked it up (haha) just about 1/8 of an inch further in. I noticed that it didn't charge as easily and I had to push it in farther. But it worked.

A few weeks ago it wouldn't charge at all. I jumped on Amazon before the power died and ordered another cord (if you need a replacement cord buy from amazon SO much cheaper)  It worked! I was SO excited to have it back.  A week with out my computer? Fellow bloggers you know how important a computer is!

Queue up today.... My laptop is plugged in but the battery isn't charging. Its more expensive to have it fixed than it is to just buy a new desktop. Yes I fully admit this is a first world problem. I also fully admit that it is lame to complain about buying a new computer when there are starving children in the world. But today, in my world this is sad. I am currently backing up all my documents and photographs so that way, just in case the power cord gets shot too I won't lose all the memories I have saved onto here.

Steppin out saturday...

Yesterday we spent "fathers day" out antiquing. Its what the hubs wanted to do to celebrate his day. He also wanted to go to the brew store. So he earned his testicles back with that one. 

I didn't get a very good picture of my outfit on saturday, but it was HOT (well for us) 85* and we walked around a sleepy town gawking (and saying, we need better paying jobs) so we can move out there and buy antiques to decorate our house. Cause, seriously. Some of the pictures I got are amazing! I wanted to live in the salvaged furniture store. 

I also fell in love with a Pearl Ring at one antique store. But man, did they have little fingers back in the 40's. The owner of the shop said he couldn't tell me if it was real silver/real pearl so for $50 I passed in case it was costume. But now I regret it, I really loved it and should have bought it. But oh well, we're going to go back in July to the town with my in-laws (MIL and SIL) if its still there, I will buy it! I wish I would have at least taken a picture. I felt kind of funny at first of talking pics inside the antique stores. But I got over that fast, and took a ton of pictures at the salvage shop. 

But anyway, I stepped out on saturday and didn't look like a total slob. 

Carson: Shirt: Osh Kosh (it has trucks) Shorts: Gap (2T and getting to short) Shoes: Thrifted Keens 1.00

Me: Shirt: Eddie Bauer Shorts: Holister Shoes: New Balance sneakers tan and purple

Fathers Day

Its another obligatory holiday post, but I am actually really excited to write about it; because I can honestly say that Chris is the most amazing daddy to our boys.

Here are a solid 10 reasons he is an amazing dad

1) He Always listens to Carson while he speaks

2) He has never pushed the kids over on me when he wants to sleep

3) He is always present, even when Carson is having a fit that leaves us both wanting to run away yelling "We don't know that kid"

4) He always encourages me to do new things with the boys (Like taking Carson BY MYSELF at 9 months pregnant to a water park. Because he knew it was going to be our last time being able to do that)

5) He lets me sleep in

6) He watched both boys be born. Dude is squeemish and looked up my cooch both times, and cut the cord

7) He is open about how much he loves them and is not afraid to tell a single person "yeah thats my son, carrying a pink doll carseat"

8) He allows carson to be his own person (Pink doll carseat? of course, he's learning to nurture)

9) He takes the crying baby

10) He's their dad, not just a father, but a dad.



Link up your fathers day posts