April 7, 2015 by Stephanie

Easter Bloopers

We had a great weekend with family celebrating Jesus.

But with the greatness, there were some tears and nap avoidance.

All this gave us some pretty awesome bloopers.

Get ready for the blooper photo dump: Easter edition!

It’s hard to get a 7 month old to look at you. He has better things to do with his time. This was also his first time in grass/moss. (I actually really love this picture even though he won’t look at the camera.)

For real. Clearly, he is too busy for me.

I love how every boy around this age is wearing this outfit because this is pretty much the only outfit that can be found for baby boys. Boy clothing selection stinks as far as variety. I swear there is only one rack in most stores for little boys where as there are WHOLE sections for little girls. Boys want to be stylish too!

Ava, my five year old niece, just wanted to make funny faces and awkward poses all day.

She gives herself direction. She does not like our (the adults) creative process.

This is probably one of my favorite shots of her from the day. She was upset with me because I would not eat the flowers with her.

We spent a good 20-30 minutes taking pictures of her tricks.

Tricks and funny faces, obviously Aunt Stephanie.

So in my mom wisdom, I attempted to get George to take a nap before we did cousin pictures. Well George said that was a horrible idea and refused a nap ALL day. He runs this ship. So of course he was a crankerpot once we tried to do pictures with his cousin.

Presley (the dog) just wants to be a part of the pictures too!

Ava thought that flapping his arms would help.

It did not.

Not only did we have George as a mess because of Nap Resistance, but Ava also couldn’t remember to look at the camera and smile.

It was too much to try to smile and hold G-man.

Here she is trying to help him stand by pulling his arm, lovingly of course.

We tried distracting George with an egg, but you can’t fool him. He just made it fly.

This is by far my favorite outtake. George was clearly a mess from being tired and hating his bare feet on the grass. And Ava was trying desperately not to be touched by George’s slobber. AHHH the slobber!

Lesson learned from the day: do pictures as soon as we can with these two. They were done with our agenda after 5 minutes.

Ava is a great cousin to George, and I love capturing their relationship and how much they are growing.

I don’t have many pictures of George and I, so of course trying for more pictures once we got home was a good idea right? George thinks I am crazy.

We do have a couple good pictures from the day. A teacher once told me that if you can capture one solid shot out of a roll (back when rolls of film were a thing), then you did a good job. I think I managed a few good ones that I will share soon, but I will cherish some of these gems as well. Success is in the eye of the beholder.

How was your Easter? Do you have picture fails? How would you get kids to cooperate for pictures?

April 6, 2015 by Stephanie

Forever Royal

Today is the opening day for the Royals.

image via

Who is excited?

ME!

I think all of Kansas City has been counting down to this day since Game 7 ended in October.

Last season was such a whirlwind season for us Royals fans. I wrote about it here, here, here, and here. Obviously I love my Royals and my hometown. (I may have teared up a bit rereading those posts.)

Last year was the first year I have not been to a game at Kauffman, so I am excited that we are now only a quick 2 hours away. I already have several trips planned to see my boys in blue! I CANNOT wait for the game at the K!

So here is to another fun filled season with America’s team!

I also am looking forward to taking our good luck charm to his first game. I am still convinced that this little slugger’s birth was what pushed us into the World Series…jk (only kind of). We have lots of baseball goodness planned for George in the upcoming months!

All is right now that baseball is back!

Let’s Go Royals!

Are you as happy as I am to have baseball back? Does your team play today? Are you Forever Royal? (If not, you should be!)

April 1, 2015 by Stephanie

Fit for Me 13/52

What I did last week:

Thursday-30 minutes on a bike.

Saturday-1 hour of BodyPump.

Sunday-30 minutes walk/run with the dogs. They haven’t done a run in a long time, so it was nice to see what they can do. Hopefully we will be able to do more of these with the weather turning around and Tom getting out of the academy soon.

Monday-20 minute ab workout. Watching all the abs on Dancing With the Stars really pushed me to get my act together.

Tuesday-30 minutes walk/run with the dogs. Grace started protesting, so it was like running with resistance bands on my arms.

Impressed by:

Getting five workouts in.

Struggled with:

There is just a lot of stuff going on right now.

Did I meet my goal from last week?

I did get back on a schedule! 5 out of 7 days is pretty good! It will be messed up again this weekend with family festivities, but I want to continue doing what I can and finding time for it.

What is my goal for next week?

I got a pedometer this weekend. I can’t justify spending 100 bucks on the Fitbit to do essentially that. This one I can hook into my computer too, and track just as easily so it was much better financially. But anyway…I didn’t realize how much I don’t move at work, so my goal is to get at least 10,000 steps in every day. I have been 3-2 thousand steps below that so far since I started wearing it on Sunday.

Fitness Thoughts:

I feel much more inclined to work out when the weather is nice. The workout can still be inside, but there is just something about warmer weather that kicks me into gear. I love it! It is so nice to go for walks again and not have to be bundled up with so many layers.

313537f24fb6d69c3f884b8c9dfe497c image via

Do you workout more with nice weather? Do you have a Fitbit? Or are you old school with a pedometer like me?

March 30, 2015 by Stephanie

All the Barf

When you start introducing solid foods to your kids, you worry about allergies and their reaction to it.

Well we had our first negative reaction to solids last night, at least we think. George did not respond well to the broccoli and cauliflower we had for dinner. We had thought they were good foods because they basically have little handles for him, but apparently everything else about them George was not a fan.

I woke up to George crying at about 1am. I figured he had just lost his pacy so I went in there to go searching for it. He has a glow in the dark pacy just for these occasions so I can find it without my glasses in the middle of the night. (He has a tendency to throw the pacy out of the crib so the glow in the dark quality is a must.)

Well I wasn’t able to find it, and I felt under his neck to see if he had rolled on top of it. Instead of finding a pacy, I stuck my hand in baby goo. I thought that George had just spit up some as he sometimes does so I turned on the light to find a burp cloth, but to my dismay I saw George swimming in green baby barf.

Seriously, it was like the scene out of Pitch Perfect where they all had fallen in the vomit. Thinking about the picture of it, I honestly don’t know where the bed of barf came from in his tiny body. So. Much. Of. It.

I woke up Tom because this was clearly a two-person clean up job. Tom stripped the baby and took him for a bath because it was all over George, and baby wipes just weren’t up for that challenge. I took the clothes and sheets and ran them under the sink to get the major chunks out.

Fortunately, we double up the sheets and mattress pads on George’s crib just for occasions like this. I was able to strip off a layer and have a clean sheet waiting for us. This was awesome that I didn’t have to try to wrangle a clean mattress pad and sheet on the crib mattress at 1:30 am. For other parents out there, if you don’t do this trick, I highly recommend the double sheet method! Now I can just worry about laundry tonight when I am much more awake.

We finally got him all cleaned up around 1:30, and George was just happy as a clam. He was so excited to have his parents up and thought it was play time. He was just giggling and laughing away. He had no fever and no diarrhea so there wasn’t much more we could do at this point. As soon as we laid him back in his crib, he was fast asleep again.

I, however, was paranoid for the next hour basically getting up every five minutes to make sure he wasn’t drowning in puke.

I probably fell asleep around 3am only to hear George coughing again.

You got it. He had thrown up again.

Luckily this time, he managed to keep it contained to just his onsie and just a little on the sheet. Wipes to the rescue this time! I changed him again though just so he didn’t have cold wet clothes to sleep in. I cuddled him up-wright on my chest in the rocker for about 30 minutes to make sure he was ok. Back to the crib, again fast asleep, around 3:30.

He threw up again after I nursed him this morning at 5:30, and it is the saddest thing to watch. Then he did it once at the babysitter, so now we are home trying to get Pedialite to stay down for him.

Needless to say, we will not be giving him broccoli or cauliflower again anytime soon.

Tom’s reaction to the barf: “Well George, that may not be the most someone in our family has puked, but it is surely the most per square oz. That was just all the barf.”

Crosby got up with us to make sure everything was ok. He sat patiently watching his boy get taken care of. He was such a caring big brother.

This was Tom’s conversation about Grace once we got back in bed.

Tom-“Oh I am sorry Grace. Don’t let us bother you.”

Me-“Did she even get up?”

Tom-“No…Well yes she did when you let them outside while I was washing George. Then her diva self just crawled back under the covers. And now she is hogging the bed like she can’t be bothered…. Come to think of it, we should have let the dogs clean that up.”

Me-“Eww gross. That’s all we need is all of them barfing.”

Tom-“Well at least the dogs clean it up.”

Me-“I guess. Anyway, can you please turn her because I surely do not need to sleep with Gracie butt in my face after all that.”

The conversations that happen in the wee hours of the morning…

The doctor has us monitoring George for now. They are worried about dehydration right now since he hasn’t kept anything down. So we’ll see how this afternoon goes with the prescribed Pedialite. Since he has been throwing up everything, they aren’t convinced that it was the broccoli and cauliflower. It may be a GI bug that he just needs to work out of his system. This is the first time he has been fully sick, so I am in full mom freak out mode knowing there isn’t much I can do besides watch to make sure he has wet diapers. Although besides the throwing up he is not acting sick.

I wish I felt like this when I was sick…

Now he is mocking me congratulating myself yesterday for his naps by protesting them vigorously today.

George this is a sick day, not a snow day. We must rest!

I feel like we have truly been inducted to the Parent Club now since we have been doused in baby barf. Ahh the glamorous life of parenthood.

March 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-7 months

Weight: 15 lbs and 15 oz. He is in the 11th percentile for weight. His height is 25.75 inches, which is also the 11th percentile. His head circumference is 44.5, and is in the 80th percentile. He doesn’t look disproportionate, but his head is huge.

Health: He had an ear infection this month. He didn’t really seem any different or fussy, but we found it at his 6 month appointment. He just got the all clear yesterday! He had a really runny nose around that time too, but it hasn’t seem to bother him too much.

Diet: He is only nursing one time a day now. I said goodbye to the pump before our trip this last week. I don’t know how long I will breastfeed him for his morning feed, but it probably wont be much longer. He was still at 50% breastmilk until this past Monday. I am glad that I took the entire month to wean him off because it has meant I have had very minimal pain. I have had no engorgement by only cutting out a few minutes out every couple days. (It has been great wearing real bras and dresses this week since I didn’t have the pump attached to me at all!) This kid and food though. If you didn’t see on Instagram, he throws absolute fits when there is food around and he isn’t eating. We cannot eat in front of him and leave him out. It’s both funny and obnoxious at the same time. He will scream when we get to the end of a bottle or bowl of food. He knows that when we put an his SnapBib that it is time to eat and he starts grabbing at everything and whining until we have the food in front of him. So at least he has a good appetite. He has tried a lot of new things this month: bananas, cantaloupe, kiwi, apple, mango, pizza crust, ice cream, eggs, oatmeal, crackers, and tomatoes. He didn’t like the cantaloupe because it was too slippery, and he couldn’t keep it still. He liked it if I held it for him. The tomato however he did not like at all, but there are some adults that don’t like tomatoes so that wasn’t too surprising. He eats solid food three times a day: oatmeal for breakfast, veggie for lunch, veggie or fruit for dinner. He does purees a lot through the week, but he is getting better at holding the spoon on his own. He can’t figure out the dipping part so as soon as it is gone off the spoon he will drop it on the floor unless I am quick enough to catch it. We do a lot more exploring of solid solid food on the weekends, but he does have real oatmeal (not the baby stuff) every morning now. He prefers the purees because he knows he gets the food faster. He gets really frustrated if he sees the food in front of him and can’t figure out how to get it to his mouth. Plus I think he may just expect us to put it in his mouth still at this point. It is really fun watching him explore food. It is also making me rethink what we eat too so we ensure that he is eating healthy from the get go.

Clothes: We are mostly in 3-6 month clothes, but there are some 3 month and 6 month items he is in. He is still a size 2 diaper. He can fit into size 2 and 3 shoes depending on the brand.

Sleeping: This is still a work in progress for us. It seems like he changes every day. We are trying to get into a routine but again he can’t decide when to be awake and when to be asleep. We have found the key to getting him to take naps. We have to take one with him. Not ideal, but on the weekends we take full advantage of sleeping more through the day. He is doing better sleeping when we put him down at 7:30pm. For the past week he has stayed asleep until we wake him up for his 10pm feeding. Our problem now is that he either wakes up every couple hours during the night or will be up around 3am for the day. Either we have to feed him again or we bring him to bed with us to finish out the night. However, last night he slept through the entire night on his own for the first time in months! The night before he was up every 2 hours, so I will take any full night we can get. We do the same things each night, so I am not really sure why his behavior is so unpredictable. Also, we are able to have him sleep on his belly at home now, but that means he rolls in the crib. A couple nights ago I found him with his arm through the bars playing with the baby monitor cord.

Likes: Oogaa teethers! He actually likes a lot of his toys. One of his other favorites is a small blue stuffed elephant with bungee legs. He is grabbing things a lot better now so he actually turns wheels and shakes things. He is mesmerized by my hairdryer. He loves his feet. George loves seeing his dad come home. He also loves the two little girls that go to the same babysitter. He just giggles and smiles at them when we get there every day. So cute! He also likes pens. He holds them really well when he isn’t trying to eat them. He drew on paper for the first time this weekend.

Dislikes: Socks. He will pull them off as soon as I put them on. Ending a feeding session. He HATES when I try to wipe his face clean. He will throw back his head and yell in a rage at the wipe touching his face.

Milestones: He has rolled over from his back to his stomach just one time. He can hold a bottle on his own. He sits up really nicely. However, he wants to stand more than sit most of the time. In fact just yesterday, he was sitting on my lap facing me and he pulled himself up to a standing position by pulling on my jacket. He has no inclination to crawl but this kid wants to stand on his own! He also took his first big road trip to NC this past weekend. He met many new friends, and he was the best little wedding date.

Quirks: He is talking a lot more. I feel like everyday he has a new squeal. If he is sleep cranky, George will pull my hand to cover his face and put his hand over mine. He does this a lot in the car when I put his pacy back in. He just grabs my hand and holds it over his face. It looks like I am trying to smother him, but I swear it is his soothing mechanism. (and that I am not smothering him)

We parents are: doing ok. We have 3 more weeks until the Academy is over so we are going to be happy about that. I do feel a sense of freedom not having to pump anymore. I have sooooo much more time in my evenings now that I am not pumping at night or cleaning the bajillion pump parts. I have actually gotten to watch some of my TV shows live! It has completely changed our nights. Tom and I sat on the couch together last night (on a weeknight) for the first time in ages. This is a game changer.

The dogs are: tearing up our couch, but that is a story for another day. They are so sweet with George. I have found Crosby laying in front of the crib a couple times. My emotions couldn’t handle that sweetness. George thinks they are the funniest creatures. He just laughs and laughs at them. I just love watching them interact.

George’s personality is definitely coming out more and more. He is such a sweet sweet boy. Most of the time he is all smiles. It is so fun to watch him learn and grown every day. It is so hard to believe though that he is closer to being 1 than he is to being 0. Crazy!