Nora's Nursery

Before Nora was born, we got the nursery ready by adding a fresh coat of gray paint to the walls and getting the furniture out of the basement.  I also bought a new gray rocking chair, since we sold ours a few years ago.  Other than that, we just left the room a kind of blank slate because I wanted to do a gender-specific theme after baby was born.

After she arrived, I decided on a hot pink / navy blue / gray theme, and I'm really happy with how it turned out!!

Nora LOVES looking at the picture above her changing table.  The minute we lay her down, she looks up at it and smiles and coos.  It's the cutest thing.

Christmas Decorations

With baby scheduled to be born on December 4, I knew we needed to get our Christmas decorations up early or not at all.  This year I found a tree at Hobby Lobby for the boys to put in their room, and it was a big hit!  It was the first thing we got out, and they had so much fun decorating it

Side note: this was the same night the boys watched Home Alone for the first time.  They thought it was an absolute riot!  When I got out the tree decorations and they saw the strings of beads I bought, they proceeded to "booby trap" our house all night a la Kevin McCallister.  So funny.

I found a few ornament-making kits with my Christmas stuff that I had picked up on clearance last year.  The boys spent over an hour on two separate occasions diligently making new ornaments for their tree.  Not a bad $3 clearance investment!!

We got our big tree up:

At the end it was a big debate who was going to put the star on top.  We decided Charlie would be best since he's the lightest...

 But he couldn't squeeze the clamp hard enough to get it on there, so we switched to plan B:

 Turns out Jack was too heavy and it was awkward, so plan C it was...

I laughed so hard watching this all go down.  It's the little things in life....

I'm happy to say we got the whole house decorated and most of our presents wrapped before baby arrived!!

Pinterest

Several months ago my friend Rebecca introduced me to Pinterest.com.  For those who are unfamiliar, it's a site where you can bookmark and organize ideas that you see on the internet.  It saves the picture as well as a link back to the original source so you can refer back to it later.  You can also "follow" your friends and see what things they're "pinning" and save those for yourself as well.  I have accumulated a ton of fun decorating ideas, kid activities, recipes and LOTS of do-it-yourself projects that someday I'd like to try.  Of course the site isn't useful if you don't implement any of the ideas, SO....here are a few of the projects I've done that I found on pinterest:

Pumpkins - This was a fun/easy new take on pumpkin decorating.  I used round stickers (garage sale price stickers I had leftover) and stuck them on the pumpkin, spray painted the whole thing black and then removed the stickers.  Fun!

Wreath - I bought a large cardboard letter from Joann Fabrics, covered it in moss (moss sheets adhered using my hot glue gun) and hung it on my front door with a big ribbon.  Love it for the fall!

Yarn letters - Again cardboard letters, but these were from Hobby Lobby.  I covered each letter in yarn to hang on Charlie's wall.  He loves to look up at all the colors as I change his diaper.

 And my favorite project - belts for Jack!  My friend Rebecca (thanks Reeb!!) saw THIS tutorial on a blog that she reads and saved it to pinterest.  When I saw it I was excited because I have literally been searching at every store I go to for a fabric belt for Jack to hold his pants up (he's between sizes).  I can only find leather belts for toddler boys and that's too fancy for my t-shirt-and-tennies-wearing boy.  Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try during nap time yesterday and voila!  Two new fabric belts!!  Piece of cake!  And they attach with velcro so Jack should be able to handle it on his own when we start making more progress with potty training.

 I had to include this picture because I thought it was funny.  I asked Jack to lift his shirt so I could take a picture of his belt..

Big Boy Room!

Well, Jack has officially moved into his new big boy room.  We've been decorating it and talking it up for several weeks now and he has been getting very excited.  As I mentioned we decorated the room in choo choos and he loves it.  Here are some pictures:

The framed area is painted with magnetic paint to hang his artwork.  I'm waiting for my magnets to arrive before hanging a few more of his masterpieces.

The only things we're missing are a mirror above the dresser and possibly a rug, neither of which are urgent.


A few weeks ago I decided to try nap time in the new bed & room, but Jack was too excited about his new-found freedom.  I laid in bed with him and he kept getting up and down from the bed, first to give Maggie a kiss, then to close the door, then to open the door, etc.  After a few minutes I gave up and put him back in his crib in the old room.

With the long holiday weekend I decided we were moving him for good starting Friday and there would be no turning back.  We turned the lock on his door to the outside and we've been locking the door behind us as we leave.  The transition is going pretty well.  Here's a summary of our nights/naps so far:

Friday night (1st night): Jack cried for several minutes and then talked to himself for awhile (longer than usual), but eventually fell asleep.  I always check on him every night before I go to bed, but I was really nervous this time - what if he was laying just inside the door?  I couldn't not check on him though, so I went in.  The sweet little guy was sprawled out on his bed zonked out.  He woke up about 6:00 Saturday morning and was just talking and calling our names.  We went in and he was still in his bed - I don't think he got out of it at all since we walked out of the room.  We were very proud, but of course not counting our chickens before they hatch (luckily!).

Saturday afternoon (1st nap):  I put him down and left the room, locking the door behind me.  He must have immediately gotten out of bed and pretty quickly was knocking on the door saying "Mama!  Mama!"  He was mad for a few minutes, then just went about playing.  I could hear him on the monitor talking and playing, and I was just imagining the mess he was making!  After 45 minutes or so I could hear his drawers all opening and closing.  THEN we heard a big crash and he started crying.  We RAN in there and his dresser had toppled over!  Yikes!  He was fine but was very scared.  I guess he had tried to climb up the drawers.  We had bracketed the bookshelf to the wall but hadn't thought about the dresser since it was low and wide - lesson learned.  That could have been a lot worse.  So after we got him calmed down I held him and rocked him until he fell asleep and put him back in bed.  He took about a 2 hour nap (not terrible compared to his normal 3-3.5 hours).  Here's a picture of the wreckage (minus the dresser, which of course we right-sized):

Saturday night: He followed us to the door when we left and yelled for a minute or two, but then it was pretty much the same as the first night - he talked for a little while but eventually fell asleep in his bed.  That morning we left him in there talking for about 10 minutes and then he got down and started knocking on his door to be freed.

Sunday nap:  He fell asleep on the way home from running errands so I thought I was home free (he normally transfers from car to bed with no problem).  Of course, when I put him in bed, he was suddenly wide awake.  After laying with him for about 5 minutes with him becoming increasingly more awake, I gave up.  We went back out and played for awhile, then put him down again at 1:00.  This was similar to Saturday's naptime (aside from the fallen dresser since it is now safely bracketed to the wall).  He played for about 45 minutes before finally getting upset.  He cried for a good 10 minutes and I finally went in there to find him sitting on his bed.  I held him and rocked him to sleep again (I realize this is not a good trend we're starting, but I'm hoping it's just the transition).

Sunday night: As I mentioned in my previous post, there were fireworks galore, so we rocked him to sleep.  He woke up once but went quickly back to sleep and slept until about 6:20am.

Monday nap: Rocked him again (I know, I know) and he slept for 2 hours and woke up very fussy, so I went in and patted his back for literally 2 minutes and he zonked back out for another 1.5 hours.  Now THAT was a good nap!

Monday night: This was the 4th of July, so we rocked him yet again to get him through the fireworks.  He didn't get to bed until after 9:00 (8:00 is normal) and he slept until 8:00am!!  A record as of late!  He actually woke up at 6:30 and again at 7:30, both times talking for a couple minutes then falling back asleep.  He has proved that my biggest fear (that he wouldn't go back to sleep after first awakening with the freedom to roam in his room) was without warrant.  I underestimated my little guy!

Tuesday nap: I rocked him for a few minutes, but then laid him down awake.  He cried for awhile and tried to get out of his room, but eventually (after 10-12 minutes) climbed back up into his bed and went to sleep.  Slept for almost 3 hours.

SO, long story short, while we've hit a few bumps in the road, all in all, I think our transition is going pretty well.  There is no turning back now because I've already washed all the sheets and cleaned out Sparky's new room.  One of these days I'll start getting out all the infant stuff now that I have some space to put it all!

Feeling Better

The little guy is starting to feel better after almost a week of his 3rd antibiotic (Augmentin this time). He's still not back to his normal self - not quite as smiley and happy - but he has made vast improvements. He's sleeping great, but not eating quite as much as usual. AND his poor little tush is red as can be again. Darn diaper rash! Still smiling, just not as constantly as normal:
Some other updates:
We went to Race for the Cure last Saturday, and Jack was a real trooper. It was VERY hot and humid, but the little guy just hung out in his stroller drinking his sippy cup of water and munching on Cheerios and Chex while we walked the 5K (which takes forever when there are 70,000 people). Towards the end, he got a little worn out, so we laid his stroller seat back and he zonked out. He was an angel baby.

Our family pre-race:
Lades (Julie, Chrissy, Reghan and Darrin):
Mr. Energizer Bunny:
Cool in his shades (for about 30 seconds):
Miss Maggie Neu:
Miss Addison:
Jack passed out at the end of the race:

Jack has learned how to throw mini temper tantrums. I know I won't be saying this for long, but right now they're pretty cute. He desperately wants to play with the TV, DVD player and satellite box and when we tell him no, he's not a happy guy. He throws his body back and/or rubs his face on the carpet. Here he demonstrates option 2:
Swimming at Grandma & Grandpa Lang's house:

Jack and I are preparing for his first flight this Thursday (well, I'm preparing; I'm not sure he's fully understanding what I've been telling him). He and I are going to visit my sister and Greg in Rochester, NY for the weekend. I'm a little nervous about the solo travel with him (Jason is staying here to hold down the fort), but I'm sure we'll survive. I've been getting lots of tips (thanks Al!) for traveling with a baby and have been making lists galore to make sure I don't forget anything. We'll see how it goes!

Here are some fun (& messy!!) eating pictures:
This is Jack's favorite expression these days - we're guessing he likes feeling his bottom (and only) teeth, but it's too funny:
Another play date with Addi. Are these two not the cutest things??? (Thanks for the pictures, Mel!)

And some non-Jack updates:
Maggie has been shedding like crazy, which, when combined with my neglect for housework, has resulted in a very fuzzy house. SO, this weekend we got her shaved, which is a first. Much to my surprise, she really doesn't look much different. It was the right choice for sure!
Also, I FINALLY got the big wall in our living room decorated, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Observe: