A year in review- 2014

I think it's safe to say that this has been our busiest year so far.  A new baby, Josh leaving the Air Force and moving from Missouri to Ohio.  For 2015, I'm really hoping for things to settle down and fall into place.

JANUARY
We found out we were having a baby boy and were so excited!  I kind of figured we were though, just based on how the pregnancy was going.

FEBRUARY
In February, I was already 20 weeks pregnant and half way done.  Josh told me that he put in for a separation from the Air Force.  (They were asking for volunteers with a bonus and if they didn't get enough, they would kick people out without a bonus) We were also offered a bigger house for our growing family.  Going from a 2 bed, 1 bath to a 3 bed, 2 bath.  And it was just a few houses down.  If Josh's separation went though, we would be gone before Oliver was born, but if it didn't go though, we would need that house. 

MARCH
My sister came to visit and we started moving to our new house.  I loved that house, wish we could find one like that around here. Then my parents came to visit a few days after my sister left and it was nice to have a few extra hands to get settled in. We also took her to the zoo for the second time.

 

 

APRIL
Josh's sister came to visit during her spring break. We finally got word that Josh's separation was approved and we would be moving back to Ohio shortly, after we finished unpacking our house...  My midwife didn't want me traveling after 34 weeks, so Penelope and I got ready to move and leave Josh to finish things up in Missouri. We celebrated Easter.

 

 

MAY
We celebrated our 5th anniversary and had a big going away party.  My mom flew out to Missouri and us three girls (and Reaver) drove back to Ohio with our truck loaded to the max.  Josh flew his good friend Christian to Missouri to help him pack the rest of the house and the two of them (and a loopy cat) drove a 28 foot trailer, hauling a Jeep, back to Ohio.  Josh's oldest sister had a baby boy.

 

 

 

 

JUNE
The most exciting month of all!  Josh's youngest sister graduated from high school.  AND Oliver was born!

JULY
We celebrated Independence day, which was also Josh's first day as a civilian.  The kids also went to their first Cleveland Indians game.  It was a great game and Penelope loved it! She also started swim lessons. Then we ventured to North Carolina for a family vacation at the beach. I turned 25 and Josh turned 26.

 

 

AUGUST
We were soaking up the last days of summer.  My sister moved to Columbus and Josh started his first semester of school.

 

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER
Uneventful, except for the County Fair.  Josh's middle sister moved to Montana, so we celebrated her son, Rylan's, birthday early.

OCTOBER
We picked pumpkins and Penelope got to paint hers. She also loved playing in the leaves.  October 18th was her second birthday!  She has a kitty cat party where family and friends attended. For Halloween, she was a turkey and Oliver was a chicken.  She loved collecting candy.  We started looking at houses, also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOVEMBER

Another low-key month.  Oliver was now 5 months old and finally hitting some milestones.  Family came over for Thanksgiving dinner. We made an offer on a house that was accepted.

DECEMBER
Oliver is already half a year old!  We all had a lit of fun getting ready for Christmas by shopping and wrapping presents.  It was so much fun to see Penelope really rip open the presents this year. Oliver had his 6 month check up on the 31st. He is in the 97th percentile for his height! (and 80 something for weight)  He got shots so was fussy the rest of the day, which made for a stressful New Year's Eve. We have been contently battling with the seller and lenders to get this house, and it's still pretty much up in the air.

 

In 2015, I'm hoping we finally get our own house! My mom will retire at some point in 2015 and then I will get a job because she's almost the only person I would trust to watch both kids for eight hours a day.  Lots of unknown coming, but we are taking it one day at a time.

Six months old

Half a year!  Are you kidding me!?  I can't believe it.  The last few months he has really been soaking up his title of "baby."  But this last month, he has really been changing.

He is now rolling over and sitting up.  He can say Dada and the other night, he actually reached for me when I went to pick him up.  He plays with toys more and interacts with people and laughs more.  And he is no longer "legally blind" since he's hit the six-month mark.

He is still breastfed, which is quite honestly, a chore sometimes.  It makes night feedings great though.  He hates to be covered and since we are staying with my parents, I'm always sneaking off to other rooms to feed him and leaving Penelope with someone else to watch her.  I've tried locking us all in her room, but she is such a distraction and so loud that he doesn't usually eat well with her around.  If we go to church, or dinner, I bring a bottle with me but he still doesn't really seem to know what to do with it.  He has a hard time getting it in his mouth the right way and a lot of times, he just chews on the nipple.  I can usually fight him to get down 3 ounces.

His sleeping is pretty awful.  He takes short naps during the day when his sister isn't running around.  It seems like at night he doesn't sleep for more than two hours.  Lately at least.  Last night, I didn't get him laid down until midnight and he woke up 40 minutes later. After a short feeding he fell back asleep and woke up probably an hour later screaming.  That's how the last three nights have been.   Usually, he wakes up and falls asleep while eating.  But the last few nights when he wakes up, he is tired so he fusses and doesn't want to eat.  Last night, I'm sure he was up every hour between midnight and 6 am.  At 6:30, I was so tired and frustrated, So I took him upstairs to my mom who had 20 minutes until she left for work.  She didn't have any luck either.  I did get him back to sleep at 7:30 and he woke at 8:10.  I fed him and we both went back to sleep for two hours.  Two glorious hours.  Penelope is also sleeping less and less and waking up at night too.  Last night my sister heard her wake at 2 am and put her in bed with my parents, where she slept until 8. I don't know what's wrong with Oliver though.  He doesn't seem to be teething, although he did cut two teeth recently.  When he wakes up for the day, he is happy.  He isn't sick or anything.  My family has asked me a few times if I think he is colic, but I don't think so.  I just have two kids who have always been bad sleepers and I can't figure out why they don't want me to sleep. But it's hard to stay mad at them.

Oliver has had baby food a few times.  Probably 3 jars of sweet potatoes, 1 jar of green beans and 1 of squash. I only give him baby food after he has a good feeding and a lot of times during the day he doesn't eat for very long until 5pm. 

He is already 20 pounds.  Penelope didn't weigh that until she was nearly 1.  But he was also born over 9 pounds, and a boy.  He is wearing 6-9, 6-12 and 9 month clothes right now. 

Our goal for next month is to sleep more!  And also more tummy time to work on crawling.

Merry Christmas everyone!

5 months old

 

I cannot believe that Oliver is really 5 months old already!  Nearly half a year!  The time really is going by fast.  I wish I had more to update about him.  It doesn't seem like much has changed since last month.  And this past month went by very quickly.  He still doesn't like being on his belly, so he is not very motivated to roll over from back to belly.

 

Penelope can always make him laugh and smile.  He loves watching her play and run around the room.  They went Trick or Treating a few weeks ago.  Penelope was a turkey and Oliver was a chicken.  They went two different days and Oliver was great hanging out in the stroller and napping most of the time.

 

 

He is quickly growing out of his 3-6 month clothes and I'll move him up just as soon as I get enough stocked up.  I ordered him a few things from Target and Old Navy that should be here soon.  Shopping online is so much easier than going out with two children!

 

He always tries to grab my food if he is sitting on my lap during dinner.  So I bought a jar of sweet potatoes to see how he liked it.  It was quite the mess, but he gobbled it up.  It was only about 1/3 of the jar.  Of course I had a white shirt on him and that is now stained.  He kept grabbing the jar and rubbing his hands all over the tray.  He hasn't really taken a bottle for a few weeks now and that makes me kind of nervous.  Maybe he just doesn't like the nipple on the bottle anymore, but I've tried two different ones.  It could just be the fact that he only has a bottle a few times a month and he gets confused.

 

We have been house hunting a lot and found a fixer-upper down the street from my parents.  If it all works out, I'll start a new blog just for that.  It would be so exciting to renovate a house! I really can't think of any more updates.  We have been staying in the house and out of the cold.  Until we run out of food and have to go to the grocery store.  It hopefully going to warm up this weekend though!

 

 

Well, Oliver is in his jumper, screaming because he is tired and Penelope is saying, "Don't worry, Oli, don't worry!"  So I better go!

 

 

Weight: 19.5 pounds
Height: not sure
Size Clothes:  3-6 months
Size Diapers: 3

Sleeping Habits: Still wakes up multiple times a night 

Eating Habits: Every 3 hours for 30-40 minutes.



Penelope's Second Birthday!

While both kiddos are napping, I better get a head start on her birthday post.

We all woke up early.  The main reason was because her birthday party started at 1 and she needed a nap before then.  (Her usual nap is about 12:30-2 or so.)

I woke up at 7 am and put Oliver in the living room swing to continue sleeping.  My sister and dad then headed to the bakery for birthday cupcakes.  I woke Penelope up at 7:30.  This girl wakes up fast.  As soon as you open her door she wakes up and stands up.  I always tell her to slow down because her body isn't always ready to get going as quick as she is. 

It really felt like Christmas morning because we were all so excited and it was still dark outside, haha.  Then we made a donut tower and sang happy birthday.  After that, is was time to open gifts from Mommy and Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa and Manda. She had fun playing with her new toys while we finished getting ready for her party.

 

So, onto the party details.  Her theme was pink and orange kitty cats.  My sister made her cupcake cake.  Orange frosting with pink cake. 

 

 

I made cat ear headbands with felt.  I did end up sticking my finger directly in hot glue and giving myself a pretty big blister.  But I thought it would be a cute alternative to party hats.  I only made ten, and mostly the kids wore them.  I also had glass milk bottles with raspberry lemonade.  I was going to do milk, since it is a kitty cat party, but they would get warm sitting out and not everyone likes milk.

 

I loved the backdrop I created.  The twisted crepe paper was simple and easy.  I hung yarn balls from the ceiling.  I took six foam balls and wrapped them in yarn and hot glued the end.  I cut the stings at different lengths.  They are actually still hanging up because no one has bothered to take them down. 

 

 

For food, I prepared tuna salad sandwiches, goldfish crackers...

 

...cheese cubes and cake batter puppy chow that was actually "kitty" chow.  The kitty chow was sooo sweet.  I kept going back and forth if I should make a new batch or if it was really supposed to be so sweet.  I ended up just leaving it, even though not much was eaten.

 

I made a fish banner out of yarn and construction paper and then used the fish as thank you cards after.  I had a kitty stamp and we stamped people's hands, like it was an official event.

 

 

 

 

 

After her party, my sister insisted on going to the pumpkin patch, even though it was only about 43 degrees outside.  We didn't stay long because we realized what a bad idea it was and no one was happy with the windy weather.  On the way home, Penelope was singing, "Happy birthday to you."  It was adorable. 

 

She had such a fun and busy day, and as expected, went right to bed.  I'm sure she wishes everyday was all about her.