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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Babies Don't Keep

I was looking at my babies tonight and getting all misty-eyed thinking about how time is flying.



Craft will be six months old next week, and I can't figure out how that happened.  Before I know it, Lilly will be starting another year at preschool...I need a pause button.

These babies are so sweet, y'all.  I will never forget the sweet sound of C's uncontrollable belly laughs at his silly big sister Lilly and Lilly's silly giggles right back at him.  I am not saying that these two angels are perfect all of the time, but tonight they sure were close. 



Dan has been working his tail off lately.  We are so appreciative of all that he does for us, but we sure do miss him, and he misses us too.  He asked me to send him a picture of each of the kids tonight before they went to bed because he's still at work, so of course I took (and sent) ten million.



Between Craft falling asleep in my arms, which never happens, and Lills singing "Tomorrow" and "Baby Mine" and "You Are My Sunshine" to me in the sweetest little voice before bed, they probably could have ganged up on me and asked for a pony and there would have been no way to say "no."  Don't tell them I said that, though.  

Things are well here, just busier than ever, which explains the lack of blog activity as of late.  I have been feeling less than creative when it comes to posting and have just been focusing on my sweet little family.  I don't feel guilty about it one bit, although C may one day realize that I blogged far more when I only had one baby to take care of and be less than amused. ;-)

Hope you've had a great week!


Monday, July 28, 2014

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! And a random poll.

How is it already Monday again?  I never know where the weekends go.  Thanks to all of you who checked on me last week.  Knock on wood, I think my house is FINALLY healthy again!  I am not quite back to 100% yet but I'm getting there and I'll take it because last week was a rough one for sure.

Our weekend was a good one!  It was filled with lots of family time, a date for Mommy & Daddy, a shopping excursion, lots of play time, and a play date and dinner with the family of Lilly's favorite friend from school.  Because posts are better with pictures, here are a random few from the past few days.

Lills decided that Layla needed a makeover, and for maybe the first time ever Layla was feeling cooperative.  Bless that dog.

Showing off her pretty jewels.

Poor Layla!

C sitting up like a big boy (with a little help from the Boppy to cushion his roll backwards shortly after this photo was taken!)

Daddy's twinsie for reals

His father's child.  Daddy llloovvveees Cheetos!
And now, the random part of this post: I have been feeling claustrophobic towards all of the stuff in our house.  There, I said it!  It feels good to get that off of my chest, HA.  Now that we have a sense of what C likes and what he doesn't like and what we'll need and won't use ever again, it's time for some purging.  With that said, I have some maternity clothes to get rid of as well as some baby stuff and quite a lot of baby clothes as well (probably all girl clothes for now - Lilly had such an obscene amount of clothing that most of her clothes were only worn once or twice, so I've been considering doing a huge online yard sale of sorts but don't feel like messing with eBay or dealing with a consignment store just yet).  Does anyone who follows this blog have any interest in something like that?  I was thinking of creating a separate Instagram account and selling there, but of course am open to ideas and suggestions.  Maternity clothes would be size M and L and baby girl clothes would be newborn up to 2T, various seasons.  And then random baby stuff.  Holler at me in the comments or via e-mail and let me know what you think.

Finally, the part you've all been waiting for: the giveaway winner!  Congratulations to Carrie for winning the $20 shop credit to The Posh Plum!  I urge all of you to check this shop out NOW because it is amazing - in fact, I am headed there myself shortly to look at some accessories for Craft for his upcoming 6-month (!!!!!) photo shoot.  Thanks to Bridget for hooking us up!  Carrie, I'll send Bridget your e-mail so that you guys can be in touch about your credit.

That's all of the randomness I have for now.  Hope your week is off to a great start! 


Wednesday, July 23, 2014

I'm alive...barely

A plague has taken over my house, y'all, and it is the WORST. It is hard being a mama in general, but it is even harder when you feel like you got run over by a truck. Luckily, when I'm feeling icky there are a few cuuuuuute faces around here to cheer me up. 





I'm off to bed, but wanted to check in to remind everyone to enter my giveaway!  Hopefully we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming shortly...unless my head explodes off of my body first from all of the pressure. :-)





Thursday, July 17, 2014

Blogiversary and GIVEAWAY!

Hello, friends.  Happy Thursday!  It's almost Friday, and that is exciting.  AND.  Ya know what I realized?  This week (Saturday, to be precise) marks my three year blogiversary.  I know, it's hard to believe that three years ago I started this blog with the news that Lillian Grace Baum was cookin' in mama's oven.  Time flies when you're having fun, right?  In honor of the Baum Squad's birthday, I thought it would be the perfect time for another review and giveaway.  Y'all don't mind, right?  :-)

Friends, let's talk about one of my favorite Etsy shops: The Posh Plum.  The Posh Plum sells baby and toddler accessories.  The two we've tried are the hair bow:





and the hat:





Bow ties are also sold in the shop, which I have yet to try but am dying to.  Accessories for a certain upcoming "6 months old" photo shoot, anyone?!

ANYWAY, down to serious business.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much we love our Posh Plum accessories.  Not only are they adorable, but the quality is fantastic - they are so durable.  As you can see by the series of bow photos above, Lills is not normally easy on her accessories but these have stood the test of time.  The bows are the perfect size - not too big and not too small. And the HATS, y'all.  SO. CUTE.  I can't even talk about it.  So well-made, and reversible.  I thought I was going to have to bribe fight Lillian and force her to wear a hat all summer, but we are now the proud owners of two Posh Plum hats and Lills loves them both so much that most of the time she refuses to go outside without them.  In fact, when the pink one came in the mail, we had one of our largest 2-year-old tantrums to date when I wouldn't wear Lilly wear her new hat to bed.  Fine by me that she's obsessed, because aside from being functional and protecting L's sweet little fair-skinned face from the sun, they are also adorable beyond words.






The icing on the cake?  Bridgett, who is the woman behind all things Posh Plum, is quite possibly the sweetest person you will ever work with (and seriously adorable).  She takes customer service to a whole new level!  Not only does she turn these hats around pretty quickly, but she is very responsive and so easy to work with.  You'll definitely want to follow The Posh Plum on Instagram, too, because she has flash sales that are amazing!

Because Bridgett is the sweetest, she has agreed to give one of my lucky readers a $20 shop credit.  She's added some new hats recently that are to die for, and it has taken every ounce of willpower in my body not to buy yet another one (I can just see my husband rolling his eyes!).  So, hop on down to the rafflecopter below and enter today!  Contest closes in one week.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That's all for tonight - thanks to Bridgett for her generosity with this giveaway!  Regardless of whether or not you win, do yourself a favor and be sure to check out The Posh Plum.  You can thank me later!




Monday, July 14, 2014

BEST BUBBLES EVER!

Howdy, y'all!  It's your long lost friend Sarah here, dropping in to say hello and tell you about all of the fun that the Baum squad had on Saturday.

On Saturday morning while C was napping, Lillian seemed to be going a little stir crazy.  We had a store credit to Learning Express, so I decided to let Lills pick out a toy or two.  I have a serious love/hate relationship with this store: I love it because it is SO cute and has both normal toys as well as a lot of unique toys that you wouldn't find at the large toy store chains.  I hate it because I want to buy everything in there.  Lilly was in heaven, and we settled on a Melissa & Doug cutting wooden play food set as well as a Melissa & Doug baby doll feeding set for Baby Grace.  I was pretty proud of us for spending the exact amount of our store credit (actually we got a penny back, you're welcome Dan) so I was trying to hurry both of us out the door before we could do any more damage when I saw a cute little display outside.  They had set up a huge bucket full of homemade bubbles and wrote the recipe on the outside, and then they had huge bubble wands for the kids to play with (another reason I love that place - they always have fun interactive displays for the kids!!!).  That technique worked on the Baums because mama snapped a pic of the recipe and marched back inside and bought one of the wands.  I may or  may not also be going back for even more wands on my lunch break one day this week so that more than one person can play bubbles.  Sorry not sorry, Dan.

Anyway, the BEST BUBBLES EVER recipe is as follows:

12 cups water
3 cups liquid soap
3/4 cup light corn syrup

Easiest ever!  I will disclaim here that the type of soap you use definitely matters.  Dan made bubbles before using the above recipe and used Mrs. Meyers dish soap, which is what we use here.  I didn't know he'd used the exact same recipe but had a feeling that the type of soap was what was causing the bubbles to not be quite as awesome, so I stopped and grabbed a big thing of Dawn and the bubbles were the best ever.  I also cut the recipe in half because it made a ton of bubbles.  Either way, it was really easy and everyone enjoyed the fun.  Lilly had a blast, Craft was cackling at L and the bubbles and Layla was chasing and trying to eat them.  We'll definitely be making the BEST BUBBLES EVER to play with again!  I should probably apologize for my horrible photography skills, but Lills was so cute playing in the bubbles that I didn't even think about the shade cramping my photo style.  SBI!








Having a blast watching big sister!
I can't leave without giving you a hint of things to come on the blog this week. Stay tuned, because you definitely won't want to miss this post!


Happy Monday, friends!






Thursday, July 10, 2014

Craft: 5 Months Old

So, I am technically 5 days late on this post - sorry, baby boy.  We were in the mountains for our big 4th of July adventure and I just lost track of time.  Where have the past five months gone?  I don't even know.  Time is flying, and you are growing and changing so quickly.  I am not sure why, maybe it's because I have two babies now, but I feel like your "firsts" are coming so quickly and I am never ready.  Stop growing so fast!

Weight/Length:  We are all well aware by now that I have no idea.  I would guess that weight is somewhere between 19-20 lbs, and you seem longer to me because you are starting to look like you are thinning out, but I'm terrible at guessing so I won't go there.

Sleep:  This month we have been all over the place on sleeping - the only thing that has been consistent is an 8pm bedtime.  Just after Craft's four-month birthday (which also happened to correspond with my return to work), he decided that sleeping through the night was for losers.  At first he was up once or twice a night and was genuinely acting hungry, so I assumed it was a growth spurt and fed him when he cried.  This was a win/win because everyone was back to bed in 10 minutes or less - the doctor agreed with this decision at C's 4-month check-up and said that as long as he was actually hungry and eating when he woke up, that it was fine and just a phase.  I am not sure what changed but things got worse as the month progressed.  I kept waiting for the phase to end and it is seemingly neverending!  I think partially it is because we went on two trips this past month, and in an effort to not wake up the entire house during the middle of the night wake-ups I continued to just feed Craft if he woke up crying.  Somewhere along the way, I think that we must have created some bad habits!  This week, I have been letting C fuss a little if he wakes during the middle of the night instead of going in immediately to feed him.  If he gets to the point where he's too worked up and I know he won't calm down, I'll go ahead and feed him (which has only happened once this week), but other wise I let him fuss on and off until he puts himself back to sleep.  I am fired, but I think it might be paying off (hopefully I'm not speaking too soon by sharing that we have seen drastic improvement this week), so fingers crossed we're on our way back to "through the night."  If only I could baby minds, this process would be a lot easier.  :-) 

In terms of a "routine," Craft still doesn't really have one and I have been debating recently whether to try to force it (wake up at 8 and eat, 9 am solids, 10am nap, 12pm bottle, 1pm solids, 2pm nap, etc.) - he's just so good at going with the flow right now that I'm kind of afraid to mess with it.  Craft goes to bed at 8pm and 99% of the time has no problem putting himself to sleep (it's staying asleep that's the problem!).  He typically gets up for the day somewhere between 7:30 - 8:00 am.  He is still only awake for two hours at a time.  Naps are a little more consistent - his morning nap is normally only 45 minutes or 1 hour and his afternoon nap is typically at least 1.5 hours, a lot of times longer.  C also typically takes a 30-minute cat nap in the evening depending on how long the afternoon nap was.  We are still working on getting him to sleep through naps without waking up after sleep cycles, but we're getting there and he is improving by the day.  

I also should note that we transitioned Craft out of his sleep sack this month!  After the whole "breaking out of the swaddle" debacle, we decided to try the woombie upon recommendation of quite a few folks.  The woombie worked for about a week, until he started rolling over in it.  I just did not feel comfortable with him rolling over while trapped in that thing, so we decided to get rid of it.  I prepared for the worst and we went straight to the sleep sack, but it was actually very easy - much easier than transitioning Lilly out, in fact.  It really only took less than 10 minutes of crying one night and he was fine.  That, at least, was much easier than anticipated!

Feeding:  Craft nurses or has a bottle of breast milk every 4 hours during the day.  In fact, sometimes he tries to go longer than that but I force feed at 4 hours in an attempt to tank him up during and hopefully help at night in the process.  He also is currently getting one solid meal each day - at dinner - which typically consists of oatmeal mixed with breast milk and some sort of fruit or vegetable.  We've been making baby food at night this week, and as we introduce a bigger variety of foods I may add another meal (breakfast) over the next few weeks.  Here's what he's tried so far: avocado (not a fan); banana (loves); sweet potato (loves); butternut squash (he's had it several times this week and is still on the fence but has liked it better each day); oatmeal (likes).  Up next on the agenda: apples; peaches; p.e.a. (pea + apple + edamame); zucchini + apple + carrot.

Firsts This Month:  First trip to the mountains!  First bike ride.  First hike.  First solids.  First time sleeping in a sleep sack.  I'm sure I'm forgetting so many, I need to start writing them down!

Developments:  Craft's hand-eye coordination is getting better and better - he's very purposeful with his hands these days and of course puts everything straight in his mouth.  C is doing remarkably well with solids and is really good at eating from a spoon.  He's getting stronger than ever - he bounces in all of his bouncy contraptions (the jumperoo is a favorite), prefers "standing" (with our help of course) to sitting, and is starting to attempt to sit unassisted some (he doesn't quite have the hang of it yet - he still slouches over but holds his head up really well, but he'll get it before long I'm sure).


Likes:  Morning time and bath time are Craft's two favorite times of day.  Snuggling (especially in the middle of the night lately, oy!).  Eating. Music. Dancing. Laughing. Rolling over. Singing. Talking. Tummy time. Layla. Lilly. Fans. Sitting up. Jumperoo. Door jumper. Going outside. Walks. Bike rides. Being carried in the Ergo. Swimming in the pool.  Being naked (just like big sister). Kicking his legs. Exploring his vocal cords. Belly laughs. 

Dislikes:  Still such a happy boy, even when he's tired!  Craft's main dislikes are being cold, being hungry, when he's ready to nap or when he's gassy.

What I'm Thankful For:  That session is almost over for Dan!  And for two happy, healthy babies.  

What I'm Looking Forward To:  Improved sleep for all - hopefully sooner than later!  :-)

Next Pediatrician Appointment:  Sometime in August - the 6th, I think.

That's all for tonight, friends.  I'll leave you with of C's 5-month photos from my iPhone - too tired and lazy to upload the ones from the "real" camera tonight.  I'm also too lazy to make photo collages out of them so I'm just going to insert the pictures below (sorry inot sorry that I did a terrible job of narrowing down).  The photos are really funny, though, and showcase what a funny little personality Craft is developing - such a little ham!



















Craft: I didn't think it was possible for my heart to be any more full, little man, but you came into our lives and made yourself right at home and we are so grateful for you.  You are so happy and sweet - you're such a generally good baby and it's impossible not to smile when you're around.  You are mama's favorite boy, Daddy's little wingman and Big Sister Lilly's favorite play toy/dress-up doll.  We love you so much, sweet boy - now stop growing so quickly!





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