Homecoming Week

Orin and I have had a busy time so far at my parent's house. We left Wednesday morning around 8:00 and decided to stop by my mom's work on our way through. The ladies oohed and aahed over the babe. Then dad met us for lunch at Jimmy Johns. After supper at church, mom and I went shopping. I found Ryan a few things, and I got a sweater for family pictures coming up in October. Then we went to Target and got a bunch of random things. Grandma bought Orin some sippy cups, socks, and new shoes! They are actually the first pair he has had that actually stay on his feet.

Thursday, my grandma and I spent the morning picking apples at the local apple orchard. We brought home 2.5 5 gallon buckets full of apples for $15. We got a good deal because they were windfalls on the ground, but they weren't bruised or damaged. Then we spent the rest of the day canning applesauce. We ran out of time to get one bucket done, so we left that for later.

I got to see Becky because she was in town for a wedding. We met at Fazoli's, and she got to meet Orin for the first time. She gave him a Cubbies outfit- She's from Illinois. Ryan said we should burn it. haha! It was so good to see you Becky Jean!

Thursday night was spent at the homecoming parade and coronation. I was on picture duty while mom was on Orin duty. It worked out well, and I got lots of good pics for Molls.

On Friday, Grandma and I spent the morning making the rest of the applesauce. We ended up with 14 pints and 5 quarts of sauce. It was quite the process, but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Grandma has a peeler, corer, and slicer so we only spent a few seconds on each apple getting it ready to cook. That made the process much faster! We threw the apples in a pot with a little water and cooked them until they were mushy. Because we didn't feel like stirring for several hours (to get chunky applesauce), we threw the mushy apples in the food processor and made smooth sauce. It sped up the process significantly!! I loved listening to the jars pop while seeing all our hard work sitting on the counter in jars ready to by stored away for winter. What a great feeling!

Friday night, I took Orin to the football game. He did okay, but he's just at a tough age to sit still. He wants to go, go, go! But we made it till halftime when the homecoming court paraded out to be introduced. I took a few pictures, and then we were out of there.

Ryan surprised us by showing up for the weekend. I had just put Orin to bed, and then Ry said to get him up because he was within 10 minutes of the house. We really enjoyed seeing him and loved being able to spend time with him when originally we thought we wouldn't see him all week.

Saturday, we all went to Molls volleyball tournament. They aren't that great of a team, but it was good to be able to see a few games. That night, we had Gramps in for pizza while we watched the Hawks crush Penn St. I only cheer on the Hawks when they aren't playing State. Both teams won yesterday, so it was a good day!

We have big plans for the rest of the week. My mom is off tomorrow and Wednesday to spend some time with her little man. And I have plans to can pears. We were given two huge boxes of pears, so I hope they turn out. I'll keep you posted!

I'll leave you with some pictures from the weekend's events:

7 Months

Baby Boy, you are 7 months old today!! You are growing before our eyes, but we’ve really enjoyed seeing your little personality develop and watching your mind figure things out and take it all in.

Here is what you are up to at 7 months old:

• You weigh around 18 pounds.
• You wear 6-9 month clothes and 12 month PJs.
• You wear size 3 diapers.
• Just this week, you switched to a Graco MyRide 65 Convertible Carseat.
• You thoroughly enjoy watching Praise Baby videos.
• Your mode of transportation is rolling, rolling everywhere!
• Mommy spent time baby proofing the house over the weekend. (Mostly just putting in outlet covers)
• You love your daddy! As soon as he walks in the door, you are full of smiles and giggles and you only have eyes for him. Daddy just eats this up, as he should after a long hard day’s work providing for his family!
• You have started going to church nursery, and you are super good for the nursery workers. We take you in right before the sermon so that you can still enjoy the opening worship music. You also spend time in nursery every Sunday night while we go to Bible Study.
• You like to wake up early from your afternoon nap almost every day. Mom leaves you in there until the time you should be waking up.
• You gag and throw up when mommy feeds you squash. Not every time, but it has happened twice now. Must be the texture??
• You enjoy eating multi-grain cereal. It is really the only food that I don’t have to force into your mouth.
• You love stroller rides. You are quiet as a mouse as you take it all in.
• Your hair is getting more and more out of control every day…and we LOVE it!
• You are sitting on your own with only a few tumbles here and there.
• You have eaten: Rice, Oatmeal, and Multi-Grain cereal, Squash, Green Beans, Banana, Peaches, Applesauce, Avocado, and Carrots
• You spend most of your day smiling- You are such a happy little guy!
• You are such a little cuddle bug…Mama loves it!!
• You like when we read you books. You are constantly grabbing at the pages and trying to chew on the corners.
• You like to lay on the floor with mama laying right next to you. We look over at each other and just giggle and laugh.
• You have brought so much joy into our lives. We always say we could never give you too many kisses! Daddy and Mommy just love you to pieces, Little Man!

Ramblings for the Week

Here is a lot of rambling about a variety of things that have happened lately in our household:

First of all, Orin has been doing remarkably better with taking his bottle. Several days have gone by without having to throw any leftover milk away from his bottles. I approach every feeding with a much happier attitude and no longer dread the 45 minute process. It now takes him less than 30 minutes to drink a 6 ounce bottle, and he drinks most feedings while lying in my arms. There is an occasional feeding where he has to lay flat on the floor to finish the last ounce, but that only happens maybe once a day. He still does not have his pacifier, and there are many days where he does not get any cereal or baby food. I don’t want his bottle feedings to deteriorate to the point that they were at just a few weeks ago. However, there are some days that he does get one meal of solids, either cereal after his morning bottle or one cube of baby food after one of his other feedings. That maybe happens two or three times a week.

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I also made slight changes to his schedule because he wasn’t sleeping full naps and it seemed that he was ready for nighttime sleep earlier than 9:00. So here is his improved schedule:

7:30- 6 oz bottle/cereal
9:30-11:30- Nap
11:30- 6 oz bottle/baby food
1:30-4:00- Nap
4:00- 6 oz bottle/baby food
7:00-8:00- Catnap
8:00- 6 oz bottle
8:30- Bedtime

He will be 7 months old tomorrow…I can hardly believe it!! He is getting so big and changing more and more everyday!

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I have been quite the Ebayer as of late, and Orin has hit the jackpot! I bought him his 12-18 month wardrobe, a Halloween costume, winter coat, a pair of tennis shoes, and a new hat.




I first fell in love with this hat on Bless Our Nest. She had gotten the hat on a Gymboree sale and it was no longer available in the store. So I started Ebaying, found it, and won the bid. Now Orin has a winter hat that doesn’t quite match his red coat, but it is cute none the less.

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This weekend has been city wide garage sales in our town. Orin was quite the trooper as I drug him along to several sales. Auntie Kim also let him take a few of his naps at her house on Thursday and Friday, even though she had a big sale of her own. That made mama’s bargain hunting a lot easier!! Thanks Kim!

I think I went to more than 30 garage sales, and although I didn’t find a few things on my list (bike seat for Orin and a sewing machine), I feel good about what I found and I even did a little bargaining of my own. I thought about taking pictures of my loot, but it ended up being way more stuff than I wanted to take pictures of. But here is what I found:

Highchair- $1 (This is the old style highchair like our parents had as kids-my mother-in-law asked me to look for highchairs and booster seats to keep at her house)

3 Booster Seats- Supposed to be $13, but bargained and got them for $11 (Two of them will go to my MIL’s house)

Pack n’ Play- Supposed to be $20, bargained and paid $15 (Again, for my MIL’s house)

New Paper Shredder still in the box- $10

18 month- 3T clothes for Orin- $25

3 Shirts for me- $6

Tons of Kids Books- Some were a quarter and some where a dollar (not sure about the total)

New Peek-a-Boo Balls still in the package- $2

Girls Clothes- Okay, this was risky. But I’m really hoping for a girl someday, and Kim had really nice girl clothes on her sale, so I splurged and bought a few outfits that may or may not ever be used. $9

4 Picture Frames- $1.50 These are for a decorating idea someday.

3 old-style wooden puzzles- 75¢

TV Stand- Supposed to be $20, but got it for $15 Ryan happened to be with me at this sale over his lunch break, and we went to look at the kitchen table and chairs with matching hutch. They were very nice, but not our style, but we did find a TV stand that was perfect for our huge old-style TV and that would require very little dusting compared to the current stand. So we bargained, brought it home, and then took our old stand to Kim’s sale. We sold it for $15 so we didn’t even lose money on this purchase. I still get excited when I look at the new stand. It’s nothing fancy, but we definitely upgraded!

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Ryan and I spent many hours yesterday (like 4) canning tomatoes into juice. Ryan’s family grew up canning tomatoes into soup to use in chili and spaghetti sauce. So I had bought 54 pounds of tomatoes at farmer’s market (for $27) and we chose Saturday to do the first step in canning. We had to cook, mash, boil, strain, and boil some more before finally being able to put the juice into jars. We will turn the juice into soup on another day.

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On Wednesday, Orin and I will be headed to my parent’s house for a week. We have big plans while we are there. My sister is on the homecoming court so we will be going to the parade and the football game. Also, we will be going with my grandma to the apple orchard to pick apples to make into sauce. I have never done it before, but I thought it would be kind of fun to try. I also need to find myself an outfit for family pictures, so a little shopping is in order. And the reason I am staying a whole week—I want to catch a few of Molly’s volleyball games. It should be a fun and crazy week, and I’m excited to visit. But I think they are even more excited to see the munchkin! Poor daddy will be without his boy for a week. He's already missing us!

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Lastly, I will leave you with a picture of my little man and my big man. They spent some quality time watching the Vikings (my team) crush the Lions (Ryan’s team). Like father, like son if you ever saw it! They are my favorite!

Sippy Cup Beginnings

Look who has been trying out the sippy cup lately.--

He has done really well with figuring it out.--

He sure knows how to whip that cup around with his strong grip!--

Look at me sit up with no hands!!--

Where'd my cup of water go?--

Swinging, Swinging

Swinging, swinging,
I love swinging.

Bye oh bye up,
bye oh bye down.
Bye oh bye feet,
way off the ground.

Swinging, swinging,
I love swinging.

Bye oh bye high,
bye oh bye low.
Bye oh bye faster,
look at me go.

Swinging, swinging,
I love swinging.

Praise Baby Time

Baby Boy is doing so well sitting up by himself. I hardly ever use the boppy pillow with him, unless I'm not right there to catch him if he does happen to fall. So every once in a while when Mom needs a little break, the boppy gets used as well as our Praise Baby movies.

As you can see from the pictures, Orin is mesmerized by the TV! He loves to sit there and watch the 30 minute videos. Sometimes I use them to help him practice sitting, and other times he jumps in his jumperoo while watching a video. He doesn't get to watch one everyday, but when he does, he sure enjoys them!

What are you looking at mom?

Labor Day Weekend

Grandma and Papa came to visit Sunday and Monday of our three day weekend. We were very excited to see them again, since we last saw them the middle of July when we stayed at their house for a week. As you can see, the grandkids loved spending time with their grandma and papa, almost as much as the grandparents enjoyed loving on their grandkids.

Pacifier and Eating

I have one happy baby boy who is getting better and better at eating all of his bottles.

About a week ago, we decided to take away his pacifier for naps and nighttime sleeping. Orin was establishing bad habits of waking up prematurely (like around 5 or 6 am and about an hour earlier for naps) and crying. Because I did not want him awake quite yet, I would run in and give him his pacifier. Now for his morning and afternoon naps, that wasn’t as big of a deal. But 5 or 6 in the morning does not suit me well, and running in there a couple times each morning really was not working for this mom. So, I took away the pacifier starting during his nap times for the day. He did super…way better than expected. He laid there and talked himself to sleep. And since then, he doesn’t take a pacifier for any sleeping. If he cries at all, it is for less than 5 minutes and then he is out like a light. However, I do still carry a pacifier with us if we are out and about in public or in the car. In case of a crabby time or if he needs to sleep in the car, it is easier to just give him the pacifier.

Anyways, so the same day I took away the pacifier, I noticed that he was eating tremendously better. It was like a light switch. Just the day before, he fought and refused the bottle, and then the next day he switched to drinking almost all of it while lying in my arms. I couldn’t believe it. But it never clicked in my head until about 3 or 4 days later that it probably was related to taking away the pacifier. Something about his sucking quota and how he was satisfied with sucking on the pacifier, so he didn’t need more of the sucking stimulation from the bottle after his tummy was a little full. Sounds crazy, but I’m convinced that there is some relation.

So, now we have a babe who eats extremely well considering where he was at just a week ago in the eating department. He takes all of his bottles every day. Sometimes, he still has to lie on the ground to take the last ounce, but he will lay in my arms for the first 5 ounces. It’s amazing! I’m still cutting back on the solids. He usually gets one meal of baby food a day. Sometimes that’s cereal and sometimes that’s baby food. Yesterday and today he got two cubes of vegetables for supper and nothing for breakfast or lunch. We’ll work our way up to that, I think.

Who knew…having a pacifier for naps and nighttime (even though he would spit it out after he was asleep) somehow was/is connected to taking full feedings and eating the recommended number of ounces in a day.

I’m just thankful that he has made it this far. I just pray that it continues to get better and better!

King Orin's Under the Chair

"Help! Help!" cried Orin when the sun went down.

"I scooted under the chair, and I can't get out!"

"Oh, who knows what to do?"

"I do!" said Mama with the camera in tow, and then she took his pic.

(Based on the book, King Bidgood's in the Bathtub)

My Two Men

I'm so blessed to have these two men in my life! I couldn't possibly love them more. My heart is so full of love for my guys it could burst! I really enjoy watching them interact together as father and son laughing and playing. It is such a special moment for a mommy and a wife to witness.

Little Man has a daddy who loves him and adores him more than he will ever know. And what really makes this Mama overflow with joy is when she catches her boys in action full of play and giggles.

6 Month Pictures

I wanted updated 6 month pictures of the little guy for our living room wall. So we went to Grandpa's farm and took lots of pictures. They are no where near professional quality, but I think they turned out pretty good. I wanted more of the "antique" look this time around.