september summary

sorry for my blogging absence! Its been a busy fall and I have a hard time finding the energy to go through pictures and update my blog! But here is a wrap up of September!

Lorens had a tragic fall right around Labor day when he started taking his first steps. He was standing and playing in his carseat (under his dad's supervision...) and took a nosedive into our sidebar. Below is what resulted... A goose egg and a dark welt. It looks worse than it was. It never bled but scabbed and is still healing over a month later. It kind of blends in with the rest of his bumps and bruises now... I have a very active child...

I rediscovered my hotsling wrap that I bought before I had Lo. I had all the best intentions of using it when he was a baby, but I thought it was very uncomfortable, hard to get Lorens into, and he seemed just as uncomfortable as I was. So I ditched it and bought a Moby wrap. Love, love, love this wrap. It is super comfortable, easy to wear (once you figure out how to wrap it), and would put Lo to sleep instantly. I also used our babybjorn carrier a lot as Lo got a little older. It was nice for Josh to wear too. However, now that I carry Lo on my hip everywhere, I decided to try the hotsling again in this position. I'm so glad I did! We love it. I now use this more than my other carriers.
This is me and lo on our way to the Eastown street festival...very artsy and eclectic with bands playing...it seemed like they had a really great turnout this year...it was packed all day long!
I went to a big mom2mom resale event when I was in Virginia this summer and got some really great deals on toys and things for Lorens, so I decided to check out if west michigan had any...yes it does! They have a great mom2mom sale 4 times a year. I think it cost me $3 to get in, but it was so worth it! I ended up spending $50 and got 20 pieces of clothing/outfits, shoes, hat/mittens, books, and a carseat (just for our second car)! What a great deal!
We have had a lot of fun introducing Lolo to all kinds of different foods. We started giving him corn at 9 months, and he LOVED it on the cob. this corn is straight from our garden (the BEST corn we've ever had! and he sucked that thing clean.)
Making my own baby food continues to go really well. We made a TON of food in early September and we are still going strong with it in November. I've also made my own brown rice cereal with lentils and different beans in it. It's a little tricky to get the consistency right, and I think I need more work on it... but I enjoy doing it! The introduction of rice and corn for us was life altering as we can now feed Lorens rice and corn chex cereal. its so wonderful being able to reach into a bag of cereal and give this kid a snack. (we are doing a different food introduction scheudule based on allergy avoidance and a healthy gut). Oats dont come for another 3 months, so we haven't been able to give him the typical cheerios or puffs...(although i'm pretty sure he has had them during nursery...hmm)

We had a pretty sad turnout in our garden this summer as far as tomatoes go. All our romas were mealy, our better boys got eaten by slugs, and our cherry tomatoes never got very red. sad. I had big plans of canning a bunch of our tomatoes this year...try try again next summer! We tried something new this year and bought a half bushel of peaches and made 12 jars of peach jam as well as a ton of frozen cut up peaches for pies and stuff. This jam is so good and definitely worth all the trouble!

I admit, I never thought I'd become this domestic after having a baby. Before Lorens, we pretty much only cooked in the summer when there was good produce, we were lucky if we swept our floors, thought my grandmother was the only person who could can things, and went grocery shopping spur of the moment before we cooked dinner. horrible.

I actually meal plan now. and cook dinner 4 times a week. and want new cookware for christmas. i got a steam cleaner vacuum for my birthday which i adore and use once a week now. how did i become (no offense) such a mom in under a year?

I'm planning on 2 more posts - Lorens's birthday celebration and halloween! but Josh just informed me that I'm only allowed one post per day, so I'm hoping to post again this week!

~mb

oh pictures!

A few weeks ago, we went on vacation to Virginia to visit my family and the Chesapeake Bay to visit Josh's family. Here are a few pictures from our week on the Bay!

(what a doll baby)

Lorens had fun getting tickled by his cousin Cade, playing in a tent outside, and swimming...



We spent a few days in Virginia with MorMor and Grandaddy and my cousins...Lo loved all the attention! And it was wonderful to see MorMor looking and feeling better. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for her. Keep praying that the next rounds of chemo go well.


Since then, we said goodbye to our good friends Jon and Chaeli and their son Brennen. We will miss them so much, but we are excited for their new lives in Texas! Lo was teaching B how to play the piano. Brennen always has this look on his face I think. Very puzzled...

A few random pictures of Lorens...
Jon and Chaeli returned our bassinet and Lorens figured out how to climb into it, but couldn't get back out. :)
He loves to make faces on our glass door at Josh

Another one of his favorite things to do...
teething! These top two teeth are taking forever!

Our summer...so far...

I tried to take a bit of a break from the blogging world this summer - concentrate on taking care of my family and myself! We have had a mix of a busy/fun/relaxing summer!

Lorens is growing like a WEED. At 9 months he is 16 lbs 15 oz (still a pipsqueak!) but is 29 in. long in the 75th percentile...hmmm...could be that he has a tall, skinny dad. About 1 month ago, in the span of 4 days he started to crawl, sleep through the night, say mama, and pull himself up on furniture. A couple wks ago he learned to wave, say dada/baba, and walk along furniture. Last week he learned to climb out of his crib (followed by hopefully learning a very valueable lesson to NOT climb out of the crib), climb up our entire flight of stairs, and can completely stand by himself and lower himself to the floor without falling. phew! he is on the go and wearing me out! This video is lo waving for the first time on our vacation to the chesapeake bay with josh's family. How adorable is he?

We've spent ALOT of time this summer making our own baby food. We have loved being able to go to the farmer's market every week to buy organic, local fruits and veggies to make for lo. He is a fantastic eater. His favorite foods are kale, collard greens, squash, avacado, and blueberries. He also is in love with these sweet potato fries I made for him. We are being really careful with his food introduction, so he still has many more months before he gets any sort of wheat/gluten - so its forced me to become creative on what kinds of finger foods I can give him. most fruits were too sliipery for him to pick up on his own, but the sweet potato fries worked awesome! he learned how to feed himself on them. :) We finally have a good system for making our food - its been a fun challenge for me, and now that I have an extra freezer (thanks to my mom and dad) we now have a freezer full of food! Josh and I constantly joke that our friends and acquaintances must think that we are crazy people for the way we take care of our child. (feeding, diapering, medical care) It's work obviously, and not for everyone...but in the end I know that we are just doing things the best we know how. Now if only Josh and I could take care of ourselves this carefully... :)

Josh has been spending quite a bit of time outside with his other baby this summer...his garden! And oh my, is it ever a garden! He's growing a few different herbs, corn, squash, zucchini, green beans, 3 different kinds of tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, cantalope, lettuce, cucumber, peppers, and onions. Most things are growing great so far - we've already picked a bunch of lettuce, squash, peppers, beans, cucumbers, and herbs! still waiting on the rest to mature...but its really a beautiful garden. I'm also working on getting a permanent clothesline put up back there. Josh has a makeshift one up, that I have yet to really use. I just have to get over my stupid fear of bees that are back there. stupid bees ruin everything. ..

Well, not everything. Lo and I have had many adventures going to the park - we make the 5 minute trek over to Reed's Lake a couple times per week and have lunch and play and take walks...this has been tons of fun for both of us. I have gotten some good use out of my jogging stroller this summer as well! It's definitely much harder running/walking with a stroller...burning more calories though right? :)

I hope your summer is as enjoyable as ours has been so far! picture update to come!!!

~mb

dear baby,

you are 7.5 months old going on 7.5 years old! We can't believe how much you've grown! It was like yesterday that I gave birth and you were just a teeny baby in my arms. I look at myself holding you now, and I'm holding this bright-eyed, bouncy, squirmy, wriggly, KID! The cliche is true...it just gets better and better. You are so much fun and the light of our lives. All that to say, you must know that your momma and daddy think you are crazy. You definitely have one BiG personality, and are the quirkiest baby. You have been kicking and squirming (and jumping i believe) since you were 20 gestation weeks old. You were standing and bearing weight at 2 weeks old and started jumping soon after. Jumping is still your favorite thing to do. Your calf muscles are huge. In fact they may be the only big thing about you...you are still very much a little pip-squeak, but you pack a lot of punch.

You are NOT a cuddler! oh no. As much as I struggle with you to hold you down and get a hug or a cuddle out of you, you are just way more interested in everything going on around you. You have always been super alert and don't want to miss a thing. You never stop. Even while falling asleep, I can still feel your little hands going and going untill you finally pass out. When I'm feeding you, you never just lay quietly and eat. You wriggle and squirm the entire time. You used to wind up your free arm as far back as it would go, and let it fly like a slingshot and smack me wherever it would land. I have battlewounds all over my arms and chest from your grabby fingers. You need to be constantly grabbing and playing with something.

Ok, this is weird, but your new thing is finding your way into my armpit and grabbing my skin and twisting it. You do this everytime...the things I let you do... In fact, I'd say one of your talents is being able to pull skin up off anywhere on your dad's and my bodies (even the neck) and twisting it. How do you do it? Your other weird thing is that you don't like anyone to touch your hands. You pull them away whenever anyone tries to hold them. Forget trying to teach you how to clap. That's a losing battle. You WILL let me hold them when we sing "itsy bitsy spider" though. What is it about this song that you love? You know it so well that the instant I grab your hands and start to sing it, you become still, watch me sing, let me do the hand motions with you, and then somehow you KNOW to stand up everytime the sun comes out...without fail.

All I know is that I am in trouble. What am I going to do with you when you become mobile? How will I harness all this energy?

You are so happy all the time! We have people come up to us all the time to tell us how happy and smiley you are. You have a smile for almost anyone willing to make a funny face at you. Your laugh is the best. It cracks me up. You think I am super funny for some reason...even when I don't do anything to make you laugh. (I give you the hiccups when I actually try to make you laugh because I can get you laughing so hard). When I come home from work and you haven't seen me all day, the moment you see me, you give me a huge belly laugh. It's the highlight of my day. Your dad wishes he had that kind of power over you. what can I say? :)

Other things you like are: to spit and blow bubbles, play with tags, shake your hands and grunt when you want something, play with your fufu (pacifier), throw your fufu, and play with your daddy's chest hair.

We haven't begun to feed you solid food yet, but I know you are chomping (literally) at the bit to have us start. Your momma and daddy have learned a lot about nutrition from a wonderful, wholistic, naturalpathic doctor. We really wanted to wait until you started to get your first tooth, but that toofy is taking too long! So we are going to give you your first foods this week! We really want you to get wholesome nutrition and to avoid any allergies, so we're committed to making all of your food homemade and as organic as possible. And we're going to feed you only fruits and vegetables for the next few months untill your body is ready and capable of handling meats/dairy/gluten. We hope to set up these same food values in you as you grow up.

We've also been cloth diapering you since you were about 1 month old. I was a bit shaky on this at first - as you chose me to be the person you peed on everytime, but your daddy and I have totally gotten the hang of it, and are so glad we chose to do this with you! I am happy we made this choice with every single diaper change. Plus, you'll be happy to know that you have never had a single diaper rash...which I whole heartedly tribute to your cloth diapers. I don't even mind the huge butt they give you. Besides, it kindof helps to hold up your pants for the time being.

Sleeping is our long ongoing battle with you. You have never been a great nighttime sleeper. You have been waking up a couple times per night to eat for months now. I'm pretty tired. I am thankful that your daddy helps me every night by bringing you to me and then taking you back to your crib when you're done eating...thankfully you fall right back asleep. We're pretty sure you aren't doing this out of habit but are just a little tiny thing, and need the extra calories at night to get you through. You have always had trouble with spitting up a bunch of your food during the day, so you don't always get all the calories you need while you are awake. I'm secretly hoping that starting solids will help you sleep better. But, wise advise I've been given over and over is, "this too shall pass", and even though I'm sometimes a bear at 3:00am, I look at you with such love, and am willing to do anything for you.

This past year has been the most amazing, most challenging, most incredible year of my life. It's hard to put into words everything I feel and think and know and love about you. Your daddy and I lovingly call you "crazy", but in fact we're the crazy ones, we're crazy in love with you...with everything from your funny little quirks to your blonde, fuzzy, chicky hair. You are now and will always be our 'little lolo'...

love,
momma and daddy

Sometimes Lorens laughs at Michele because he thinks she is funny.




Sometimes Lorens laughs at Michele out of courtesy.


-jb

sitting up

this is a long video, but so cute! Lo is learning to sit up and he's almost got it!!! he thinks falling over and me catching him is hilarious.




~mb

Paris's best...

street singer? you be the judge... :)




notice he sings an extra second for me as i put my money in the cup...


kills me evertime.
~mb

fini

ok...I've lost interest in my "parts" post. I realized I just don't have enough time to do that many posts... So here goes the part I really wanted to get to. At the beginning of April, Josh and I were reminiscing about being in Paris a year ago. I wanted to do a little post about it because I don't think I posted much about it when we came back. The reason why I didn't was because of the morning sickness. There were quite a few smells and things that made me really nauseous in Paris and just looking at our pictures when we came back would remind me of the things that made me sick....so I just couldn't do it. (I still have a pair of shoes that I wore everywear wrapped up in a plastic bag because just looking at them would make me want to puke...haha). Josh and I just recently opened up a bottle of wine (1 of a few that we brought back with us) and went through all of our pictures for the first time. It was so much fun. We literally fit in every possible thing we could in the 2 wks we were there. Here are a few pictures of a couple of the places we visited...
This is in Montmarte (my favorite part of Paris) where Sacre Coure and Moulin Rouge are located...
















































from the top of sacre coure...












josh at Notre Dame













us being silly at the eiffel tower...


































the tower at night when it's all lit up...gorgeous! everyone cheers as soon as the sparkles come :)












the coolest cemetary ever...pere lachaise...we did the touristy jim morrison thing there












the louvre...












and since we were expecting little lo...we bought a 6 mo. onesie for him to wear one year later :)












A highlight of our trip was that we were there when the olympic torch runner ran through Paris...the runner and whole parade and exactly 1 million police cars with the european sirens went right by us after we came out of our 6 hour HIKE through the Louvre. It was pretty awesome! We can't wait to go back someday.

~mb

one year ago... part 1...

Lately I have been thinking about what Josh and I were doing a year ago... Here's a few of my reflections (in parts...)

1. We found out we were expecting our first baby at the end of last Feb! At this point last year, we were almost 3 months along and were trying to figure out how we should tell our loved ones. My mom already knew - I told her when I was about 6 weeks along with the gift of a pacifier, to which she jumped up and down giggling/crying...saying "I'm gonna be a MorMor!?" over and over...(it means grandma in Danish). Then Josh and I had a really scary experience - I came close to miscarrying our baby, but by some miracle our precious gift survived, and my pregnancy was fine from there. When we told the rest of my family our news at Easter, I said "So I have some news, and I'll give you 10 guesses what it is." Ben said, "You're pregnant." And I said "Yup!" Ben said "Congratulations!" This is basically the reaction that I expected out of him. But when I looked at Kirsten, expecting her to be jumping up and down for joy, she was just kind of sitting there staring at us like she didn't get it. I said, "Kirsten! I'm having a baby!" (my mom echoing me...) (Insert Chandler saying "wait for it...") She just kind of sat there for a second and then finally said, "wait...what?!" then the screaming started.

After we told them, we were trying to decide how we should tell Josh's family. We live all spread out in different states so we wanted to do something more fun than the boring phone call to all of them separately. So, conveniently (or maybe inconveniently?!) we had planned our long awaited trip to Paris, France for the first week of April. We decided to tell them all by postcard and writing in French that we were pregnant. Matt and Mere got the postcard first and apparently went a little nuts trying to figure out the french phrase I wrote (J'attends l'enfant). None of them knew if the other already knew, which was the funny part. It also turned out that the rest of the family didn't even need to translate the card. Dan and Nancy were in Fl and Nancy ended up guessing we were pregnant while talking on the phone to Mere...she must have had a sixth sense or something... Nancy called Julie to ask if she read the postcard and Julie said "yeah, i got it." Then nothing. Nancy asked her if she got the French phrase and Julie said, No, she just thought I was having fun finally getting to use my french. haha. We had many cute voicemails waiting on our phones when we returned from our trip. It was fun getting to hear everyone laugh and recount about how they found out.

more to come...
~mb

eleventy billion hours

okay, you're right Alex Trebec, that isn't even a number...but, it does mean that Lory has been sleeping awesome lately. Eleven uninterrupted hours on Thursday night!!!! Plus, a week of mostly 3 hour naps once a day. Maybe its just a fluke, but this gives me hope! I now know that he is capable of getting more sleep without eating. Its been a rough road with his reflux...not gaining weight, switching to more frequent feedings...regressing with sleep...but since starting medicine and our new routine a month ago, we are starting to get back on track...and we are loving our super happy baby. I know that things will probably change tomorrow...once you get on a good routine, something ususally changes...but for now we will savor this!
~mb

Lorens and Punky

Our cat is crazy. I was really nervous to keep her around with a baby coming. She hasn't had a fabulous track record with small children...older children/teenagers/adults/old people/us. :) Which is why we decided to wait until Lorens can defend himself to really introduce the two of them. We've done a decent job of keeping them away from each other so far. Punky has done better than we initially thought. She's just been really curious about the kicking feet under the blankets and the jerky hand movements. Before she tries to investigate further we usually swoop in and take him away or make her run away. Basically though, I have little to no love left for this cat. You could say I hate her. All I ever do is yell at her through clenched teeth. You would too if you had a cat who was constantly torturing you for attention. Her latest game she plays is "tag." She hides under our tables and waits as you walk by...lets you get to the other side of the room... and then bursts out, runs towards you at full-speed, and then jumps up and swats your legs. It happens so fast that all you hear is galloping and then you get swapped from behind. It makes me scream every time. It's funny the first couple times, then it just gets IRRITATING. The only reason we still have her is because Josh still loves her. He gets a little sad everytime I mention getting rid of her. I'm slowly wearing him down though I think. So, I was watching all our lo lo videos this past week and came across this gem. Before you watch...I give a disclaimer. My house is very messy in the video. Normally I can't function with the messiness, but for those who think my house is always clean because you only come over when we have company...this is real life with a little baby. Actually, this is from a couple months ago when we were in the process of disassembling a bunch of our baby stuff that we didn't need up anymore, so it was all over our living room. Which gave someone in our family the perfect place to hide and stalk lo lo. It just took us a while to figure this out. We think its pretty funny...and if you know our cat you probably will too.




Anyone want a cat? haha.
~mb

Inspired...

I love to decorate. I've been told by numerous people that I should be an interior decorator. It's flattering, but I would be no good going to someone else's house and decorating it for them...it would probably turn out just like mine. My style totally reflects my personality, my passions, my sentiments... Usually when decorating a room, I'm the type who has one object that I start with, and build the room around it...a lamp, a picture, a pillow, etc... I decorate with gusto. Lots of bold colors, patterns, I don't like matchy-matchy. It takes me forever to completely finish a room. We like to create our own paintings to personalize a room and make it "ours". I rearrange and add touches here and there untill I can sit in the middle and decide its "done" its "me" its "us". So all this to say I've been completely uninspired to decorate our bedroom. Last year at this time, I got sick of the red walls and decided to repaint it a light/sunny yellow color. We put up a couple wardrobes, and hung a few pictures, but we keep saying...it's just not us.
Saturday night, I came home from a "girls night out", and walked into our bedroom to find the most beautiful comforter on our bed. My husband is the greatest.
Here's our old comforter...(shabby chic)

Here's our new comforter...i love it! You can't tell from the picture really, but there are birds and flowers stitched in a different fabric on the orange branches. I'm already inspired to finish our bedroom...

And, whats a post without some pictures of little lo lo?
We got to visit the Ackermans and their new baby Brennan a few weeks ago. What an adorable little baby boy! Jon and Chaeli will be great parents.


~mb

fun after bath time

Not too sure what I'm supposed to do here...cry because I'm cold, or laugh at the silly people making faces at me...


laugh!
and laugh...

and laugh...

and laugh some more...

Lo is just too cute when he giggles.

mb

first booboo

I think I will stick to cutting nails that are my own for awhile...this is Josh's job now :)

mb

Lorens Rolled Over!

Other than all the smiles and laughing, I guess the most exciting milestone we've reached is that the boy is rolling over! Usually I give him tummy time on my lap, and I just sat there dumbfounded last thursday when he flipped over. I got his third roll-over on video. Note to self...do not talk while recording next time...
mb

growing up!

Lorens had his 2 month check-up yesterday, and I realized how much he is growing up! Here is what he is doing now...
*smiling and cooing and "laughing" all the time - we love to make him smile
*sticks his tongue in and out when we wiggle ours at him...thanks dad for teaching him this! :)
*sucks his hands and thumbs
*loves to stare at hanging toys in front of his face
*smiles and squirms when we play patty cake
*loves to stare at the Mary Englebreit border I have in the laundry room where he gets changed
*he is a good sleeper! He takes 2-3 naps in the day and sleeps 5-7 hours in a row at night.
*ever since he was born, he continues to be on the small side. At 11 weeks old he is weighing in at 9 lbs. 11 oz. His head is pretty little too. So, he is pretty low on the growth chart. He is long though!!! 23 and 1/4 inches! The Dr. wasn't worried because he is so long...proves he is growing i guess!
*he definitely knows who his momma and daddy are. sometimes I have trouble getting other people to hold him because he will end up wailing once he realizes I'm not holding him anymore.

He also got his first vaccinations yesterday...soooo sad! I was absolutely dreading this. He let out the longest, loudest scream I've ever heard, all the while looking at me, wondering why I was letting this happen to him. Someone should have been videotaping my face because I realized when the nurse looked at me that my face was twisted in horror like I was the one getting the shots. Lory made it through though. He stopped crying as soon as the nurse handed him to me. I think I was the one who needed a pat on the back and an "I was a brave patient" sticker on my way out. :)

Also whats going well...cloth diapering! I had a lot of people ask me in the beginning if this was going well, and I had no update because the diapers would just fall off the poor kid's butt. A non-existent butt is just not conducive to a cloth diapering regiment. But now that it has filled out a bit, we've been able to embark. For awhile we were doing about half regular diapers and half cloth diapers, but now we're in cloth diapers all the time at home. Its going really well and its not as hard as I thought it might be. I'm actually not grossed out by any of it, and I think its kind of fun in a weird way. Josh has actually been more gung ho about it then me...he is a cloth diapering pro. I'm glad we were able to stick with it - it sure is saving us a lot of money, and I'm glad we're doing something smart for the environment.

And for something funny... since we have had Lorens, we haven't been able to go see any movies (which we love to do), and so what do you do when you have a newborn in the middle of a blizzardy (horrible) Michigan winter? You borrow 2 seasons of Veronica Mars and watch over 40 epidsodes in 3 weeks. We became slightly addicted to "pop culture's savviest, sassiest, kick-assiest teenage detective show". :)

OK...Here are a couple pictures that we snapped of cutie little Lorens over Christmas...

this is us doing laundry together...Lory isn't too thrilled...
this is me and Lory playing Tiger with Cade, Lorens' cousin...
Lory watching Mr. Cow in his bassinet...he loves him some Mr. Cow...
a cute picture that Josh snapped of me and Lory at my parents house...
don't my parents look so natural holding the screaming baby? hahahaha

~mb