Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Standing

At the same time Colin started crawling, he also started to pull himself up on things and stand up. I'm still amazed each time he does it. Of course, this results in some falls, so I try to only let him stand up in places where it is "safe" if he falls down.

"No big deal Mom, just chilling"
I just love this boy so much! Spending my days with him fills me with complete happiness. I am so blessed!

Monday, August 29, 2011

Birthday parties!

This weekend Colin was invited to two 1st birthday parties of his friends, Bronte and Liza Greer. I've been tossing around ideas in my head for Colin's 1st birthday for some time, and these parties gave me some great ideas and inspiration for his party. Of course he won't remember it, so this party is really for me! A chance to get together all our friends and plan a shin dig to celebrate surviving the first year of parenthood. I have all sorts of ideas of what I want to do for it, I'll have to hold myself back to not go over the top!
This is a water table, Colin seemed to really like it!

Too cute for words!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Gymboree

Now that Colin is crawling, I've been taking him to the open gym time at Gymboree. I love watching him play around and explore.


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Play time

I've created a play area in a corner of our room for Colin. He can entertain himself here for about 15-20 minutes, which is pretty nice. I don't have that many toys for him yet, with all the toys out there it is so hard to know what to get. He seems to really like this fisher price door I picked up. He can open and close that door and crawl through and there are lots of other nifty gadgets on there too.
He also seems to be just as happy chewing on a water bottle or his wipes case though. Go figure!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Night time routine

Here is a glimpse into a typical evening routine with Colin:

At 6:30pm,  Colin can be found in his high chair, getting ready to eat. I'll give him a snack to munch on while I fix his "main course". Tonight his snack was avocados and puffs. Once the main course is ready ( tonight it was homemade sweet potatoes), I feed him with a spoon. I don't dare let him feed himself off the spoon yet, as it will end up in an even bigger mess!

Once Colin is done with his dinner, he goes straight to the bath tub, because he needs it! Food is usually all over his face, tummy, arms and legs.
Mommy gets in the bathtub with Colin and gives him a good scrub down. Then I'll get out and let him play a bit on his own, with me sitting nex to the tub of course!

By now, it's about 7:15pm, Colin is now clean and we snuggle and play on my bed. I attempt to read him a book, but most of the time it just ends up in his mouth!

7:30pm- bottle time! Colin gets his last bottle of the day. Sometimes I'll feed it to him, sometimes he's a wiggle worm and won't stay in my lap anymore so I prop him up on the pillow and he feeds himself.
 I'm starting to miss those days when Colin would  lay sweetly in my arms while I fed him his bottle, those days seem to be gone :(  I especially miss when he'd doze on his last bottle and I'd hold him against me for several minutes just enjoying his sleeping body against my chest.

7:45pm- I take Colin upstairs to his room, put a fresh diaper on him, his pj's, lay him in his bed, pop the pacifier in his mouth, turn on his jungle music from his crib toy, give him one last good night kiss and out the door I go! I go downstairs and turn the monitor on, he'll coo to himself for about 10 minutes and then he's out for the night!

The early bed time is great, because it gives me a few hours to myself before I go to bed. However, it does limit my nighttime activities. When he was younger, it was much easier to go out to dinner and get back home at 8 or 9pm when he was going to bed at 10. I can manage an early dinner and feed Colin his dinner at the restaurant, but I prefer to just be home. Luckily another perk of living out at the lake is that if Dad or Gloria are home when Colin goes to bed and I do want to have a date with Evan or run some late night errands, I can just go and Dad is here in case Colin wakes up and needs anything. Not too bad!







Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Nap time

Right now Colin is napping and he's been napping just over 2 hours! This is the longest morning nap he's ever had. During this time I've been able to:
Make the bed
Shower, get dressed, put on my make up and blow dry my hair
Order a D Ring Shower curtain for the second bathroom in Ybor
Browse some baby blogs
Research getting some popsicle molds to make C some popsicles ( I've decided I'll wait till he's older and just buy some from the grocery store for now)
Make myself and Opa lunch
Call Ameriprise to activate the trading capabilities on Colin's brokerage account and buy some shares of EGI
Answer and write some emails
Take these pictures and write this post!

That doesn't look like the comfiest position but apparently it is!

I want Colin to wake up because as soon as he has his bottle followed by a little lunch we are going to check out the shops at the Groves in Wesley Chapel. Specifically Babies R Us so I can test out the convertible car seats, which we'll be switching to very soon! After that, I'm going to take Colin to open gym time at Gymborree. Now that Colin is crawling and pulling himself up on things, I think he's really going to enjoy open gym!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Water Baby


Colin is really starting to love the pool, as you can see! He was splashing, kicking his legs and even let me dunk him underwater for the first time without even a cry!
Could he be any cuter?

Give it to me!

Without fail, anytime we are out at a restaurant, this baby wants my glass and wants it now...doesn't matter what's in it. Here we are at a nice outside restaurant, listening to some live music and C grabs for my beer. I think he just likes the cold glass on his teeth. I was scared that I might get arrested for supplying to a minor  but he just got a drop or two and I had a few" he must be teething" comments that made me not worry. Ha!

After I reread this post, I had to add one more picture...it did sound so nice, oh yes we just hang out a restaurants, drink beer and listen to live music.
Well this is really what was going on:
Colin wasn't having it in the highchair, so I had to hold him the ENTIRE TIME on my hip, while trying to feed him his dinner to which his response was to throw his head back in protest and proceed to wiggle around until I let him hold the said beer glass.
Despite this, he did eventually finish his dinner, I got to drink 1 beer, and scarf down some appetizers while of course holding Colin on my hip and bouncing him up and down to keep him quiet so he wouldn't disturb the other patrons trying to enjoy their nice evening of food, beer and live music.
Ah, the life of  Lauren, wonderful but still lots of work. Wouldn't change a thing:) Ok yes, I would have changed it to C sitting in his high chair and had E with me to take turns!!

Dress up.

I loved dressing up my baby dolls when I was little. Now that I have my very own baby, things haven't changed much!

I have a lot of fun dressing Colin. I'm also very picky about what I put him in. I'm not a big fan of collars on him, nothing that has a sports theme ( with the exception of some gator gear), no cheesy biker  baby stuff, pastels over primary colors....and can I tell you a secret? I have a $5 dollar rule. I won't spend more than $5 on an item of clothing for C. Over the last 7 1/2 months , there has been a lot of spit up and poop that has come out of this boy, so I don't see much point in spending a lot of money on baby clothes. This will probably change as he gets older and ( hopefully) doesn't get as messy but we'll see....sidenot about 2 months ago, Colin pretty much stopped spitting up after each bottle...yay!! no longer have to include a burp cloth as part of my daily outfit!!

I know if we ever have a girl, I may have to raise my rule to $10, because let's face it, girls clothes are soo much cuter than boy clothes!
 Old Navy and the Children's Place have great sales that meet my little rule. Or consigment, oh consignment how I love thee.

Here is a shot of Colin today.
His onesie is Walmart
His shorts are Old Navy.
both were less than $5.




PS Case in point...see that drool on his shirt!!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Colin and Mommy

This is a shot of Colin and I at our play date this afternoon. I try to do one fun thing a day with Colin...usually it involves going to the Aquarium ( where we have gotten full value out of our membership!), the pool, a class at Gymborree, some time with Grandmary, a trip to the mall or playdates with various friends and their babies.

Next month, it's " swaptember" at the Lowry Park Zoo, so as members of the Aquarium we can go to the zoo all month. I can't wait to show Colin all the animals!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

It was bound to happen

This isColin fresh out of his bath tonight just moments before I picked up his naked booty, swung him on my hip and...
yup HE PEED ALL OVER ME. more specifically my hip, leg and foot.
 At least he didn't laugh, I actually had a moan out of him probably because he felt so bad! I won't learn my lesson though, leaving this baby naked for a few moments after bathtime is too hard to give up...I mean look at that tushy!

Just another reason

I'm happy to be living out at the lake.

Behold my very own wet bar bottle bar.

No, I'm not excited about the wine cooler. I love the
mini sink- perfect for rinsing out Colin's dishes, but wait I really don't have to do that many dishes because...I have this

Yes indeed my own mini dishwasher bottlewasher.

When my Dad redesigned the kitchen, this baby was installed to wash all the bar glasses. Well with all the drinking that goes on in this house, it was never hooked up until recently. I just might have to make sure all my future homes that will have my babies has one of these. I LOVE IT!! Not only does it nicely fit all of Colin's bottles, sippy cups, plates, spoons etc. I can also throw my dishes from the day in there too!
Speaking of bottles...here is Colin drinking his bottle on his own! What a smart baby!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Colin's Room






Here are a few shots of Colin's room. I didn't spend too much time decorating since
1) he won't remember it
2) we don't spend much waking time in here
3) I'd rather go all out when he's older and can give some input.

But here's what we ended up with...the Eli Elephant crib set from pottery barn was the accidental inspriration that turned his theme into light green and blue with jungle animals. The birth announcement I ordered off Esty, the crib is Walmart, the changing "table" aka desk turned changing table and chest was a craig's list find ( it was already painted that way we just touched up the green), the shelf was found in Dad's shed and painted the same green we used on the furniture, and the glider is also craigs list.
PS Hate this glider...it creaks everytime I try to rock on it ( which is rare but STILL). We've tried everything to fix the creaking with no success!

Dreaming...


These would be great stacked, with the amber between two pink ones. If only the price was for all three :)
 This would be a great birthday present...someone is turning 29 in a few days! Hint hint Evan...if you are even reading this between catching up on sleep and saving lives in the hospital!!

Everywhere I go...

Colin gets compliments.....all to the effect of what a cute, wonderful, beautiful baby boy I have. Between our trip to the mall and the grocery store today, I really can't count how many compliments he got, because there were so many and this happens every day!

I'm wondering...does EVERY baby get these compliments? Does Colin get excessive compliments compared to other babies....are all these people just baby crazy and think any baby is cute? Could Colin be the next Gerber baby if his Mom tried to enter him into baby contests? Or am I also just biased like every other Mom out there and think C is the most beautiful baby in the world ?

 This weekend our friend Ryan, who does photography as a hobby, is going to come over and take some shots of Colin. I'm hoping to get some sort of portfolio together..and who knows, maybe C is the next Gerber baby :)

Future Doctor Baby Model

7 months!

Today I was looking at C and thinking...you are so BIG! How did my little baby get so big so fast? This is what C is up to at 7 months...

Still loves to put EVERYTHING in his mouth, esp. my keys...yea, great!
Is so close to crawling. He gets up on his knees and hands and rocks back and forth but hasn't quite figured out how to move yet. I am enjoying these last moments of immobility!
Has 2 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth that have just started to pop through! Teething hasn't been too big of a deal...just a little baby orajel and tylenol at night time seems to do the trick.
Eats 3 solid food meals a day, not showing preferences yet. He is starting to want to feed himself. Watching his face when he tries a new food is HILARIOUS!
 He still drinks 4 bottles per day. like clock work.
Takes 2 good naps a day..1 hour to 1 1/2 hour esp if the nap is in his crib.
When he's not eating or sleeping, the boy is always smiling and such a HAPPY BABY! YAY!
Needs a hair cut...this is Daddy's dept. He has gotten several "look at that hair" comments. most recently from the deli guy in the grocery store this evening.
Still sits up like a champ and is very steady.
Weighs about 22 lbs- big boy!
Is not a big fan of the car seat right now. Can tolerate about a 15 minute drive before he's ready to get out and see what's going on.
Can click click with his tounge if I do it first.
Loves being outside.
Loves the kitty cats. Everytime he notices them he gets excited and starts to grab for them.
Still enjoys bouncing in his jumperoo.
I think his favorite place is still in his mama's arms. He loves to be held and luckily will let other people hold him with no problems.


I love you Colin, can't wait to see what the coming months bring!

Bed Time

Whether it is his nap or night time, when I lay Colin down in his crib, he gets EXCITED!  He starts giggling and kicking his legs.
It's like he's saying to me " yes Mom, I LOVE my bed and can't wait to go to sleep, thanks!"

Thank you God for giving me a baby that likes to sleep in his crib and will fall asleep on his own! I don't know if that's because from day 1 from the hospital I laid him down while he was awake or he's just a good sleeper...with babies you just never know!