busy busy busy

Wow, be careful what you wish for, for real. That week and a half that we were under house arrest with hand, foot, and mouth disease, all I could think about was going and doing. The past couple of weeks have been nuts.

Good stuff, thankfully. I'm not complaining. I just need a nap!

We visited with AA and H today while their Mom is doing some yoga training. We had a lovely time (and hey ME if you're getting to read this!). I definitely don't know how you moms with 4 or more kiddos do it, though. I am worn out.

We visited with the in-laws this weekend and had a great time then, too.

Let's see...what else? A couple of summer movies - Because of Winn Dixie (have any of y'all seen this? Jackson and I went to it and I cannot believe he was willing to sit through the whole thing. I'm sure it's a great book, but the movie was kind of depressing.) We also saw Wallace and Gromit (Jackson says "grummit") and the Case of the Wererabbit. Cute, funny, but I could not believe the adult humor (mainly sight gags) scattered throughout it. I've become quite the fuddy-duddy in my motherhood, apparently.

Oh and have y'all seen this blog: Steady Mom - I just found it and am really enjoying it. You might check it out - you know if you just don't have enough things to do online. ;)

Totally random - old post from a forum re Kira eating at 7 months

This really is totally random, but I stumbled across an old post of mine over on hotcouponworld and thought I should record it here for posterity. I forgot that I even wrote this! It was in answer to a question regarding how much babyfood to stockpile.

Anyway, from 7/13/07:

Both of my kids started solids at 4 months. My daughter is 7 months now. She eats 3 solid meals a day in addition to breastfeeding about 4 - 6 times a day. She usually has 1/2 jar of stage 1 or 2 fruit for breakfast, with rice cereal and yogurt. She has 1/2 jar of veggies with rice cereal and some finger food like avocado, cheerios broken in half, or gerber veggie puffs for lunch. Pretty much the same thing for dinner. So, like a jar and half to two jars a day, right now. I also try, as much as possible, to modify things the family is already eating for her. Our steamed veggies go into the food processor for her. If I'm doing something with frozen fruit for my son, same thing. She's eating bananas, avocados, peas w/out the skin, etc for finger foods.

I read a great tip in another thread. They suggested stockpiling more stage 2 and 3, because you can always blend them up if your baby is not quite ready for the thicker texture. I thought that was a great idea.

Also, somewhat on topic, I started both of my kids drinking out of a straw at around 4 or 5 months. The suck reflex is strong when they breastfeed, so it's really easy to teach this. My daughter has Down syndrome and she picked it up really quickly. Her speech therapist was amazed. Cup drinking is also easy to teach early. My son barely used sippy cups at all, which meant I never had to wean him from them.

I wish I could remember if she actually picked up and ate the "finger foods" - I think she did with the full fingered scoop-palm it into her mouth method, but I should probably check back in her ECI reports to see if that's true.

I'm going to search through the forum and see if there's anything else I said that I forgot!

Mayme - we're fine - thanks for checking!

Wow, we've been busy! My lovely friend Patty Buzzard Butt (yes that's her name - it pleases me to no end - no pun intended) was worried that I hadn't posted in awhile and called her lovely daughter, Kam, to check on me. I love friends! and the blogosphere! and friends in the blogosphere! So, Patty, we're fine - we've just been crazy busy.



Derek was best man in his friend, Brandon's wedding. I barely have any pictures, though. He was Best Man, so I was Momma Wrangling Two Tired Over-sugared Children. Here are a few pics from the rehearsal dinner:

Portrait of the Groom (by Jackson)

Portrait of Derek and Kira (by Jackson)

Portrait of me and Jackson's arm (by Kira with help from Daddy)

And a couple of pics of the kids on the wedding day. Jackson insisted on wearing "trousers and suspenders" to the ceremony. He spent the whole evening pointing them out to everyone. "Do you like my trousers? They're seersucker! And my suspenders are mint green!" He's snazzy, that one.
My sister visited last week and brought a dress for Kira. It just happened to match the mint green of Jackson's suspenders. I don't have a shot of her that isn't blurry - she was running all over the place! We bought little Stride Rite leather sandals for her to wear and even though they were outrageously expensive, I think they were worth it. They really support her little ankles well and she looked so cute!


The wedding colors were kind of an orange sherbet (sherbert, sorbet?) and mint green - the kids looked like they could have been in the wedding. The bride was GORGEOUS - I wish I had a picture. The wedding was lovely, outside and hot, but lovely.

We went to the zoo with Kam and Vin yesterday. It was a lot of fun, outside and hot, but fun. Again, no pictures. I'm hoping to steal some from Kam. Vin is officially a walker now and is SO cute. He thinks Jackson is just the coolest thing ever.

And speaking of hot - 100 humid nasty degrees up in here today. YUCK!

Pretend like it's still Wednesday

If you would

take a few moments to send some positive energy heading toward California for Michael, Lisa, and their kids. Thank you!

brown dogs, pink dogs, silly dogs...just dogs

Derek was watching old videos with the kids last night and I had to share this one. Jackson is 2 1/2 in this and Kira is 8 months. For about 6 months, anytime Derek pulled out the camera, Jackson would launch into his "I want dogs" conversation. He had been awake maybe 5 minutes here. Even though I obviously lived this, it still blows my mind to hear how he talked at 2 1/2.

Kira has a couple of cameos and I wish I could just scoop her tiny self out of the video and into my arms!

Please ignore the tired mama. Kira was still waking up 3-4 times a night at this point. It's kind of dark, so I hope you can see it!

overheard

"Congratulations Kira! You just won the second game of Candyland. You're Queen Gumball!"