Leaf It Be

Jr. and I raked up leaves only to run through them and fall into them. We sometimes threw them around. Then we took a ride in the wagon.
It is fall.
That kid is super cute.
Oh and just so you know, he is now 18 months old. That is one year and six months. Time to think about potty training, advancing to cups and learning.

Weekend Getaway

Liesel called last week right in the middle of my most stressful week ever with a brilliant idea. No it wasn't the toaster that cooks hot dogs. She had an extra ticket to the Montana Grizzly game for me. At first I was very unsure if Jr. could handle going to a football game, and thought of 1000 excuses, but I bit the bullet and Liesel assured me that neither one of us would die in the process, so we went.

Jr. did great during the 1st half. He made friends all around us, high fiving strangers, wearing his new Griz hat, wearing Liesel's hat, yelling "football!" at the game. He also proved to be a happy tailgater. The 2nd half was not as charming, he had to be locked down in his ergo pack while I stood in the handicapped section and rocked him. He eventually nodded off just before the Griz won the game in a very tight ending.

Sadly we don't have any photos. I forgot my camera and Liesel took some with her dads camera, but we didn't get them, hopefully we will see them soon.

It was a great weekend and Missoula was beautiful. I love Missoula in the fall and visiting Liesel makes me want to move there and buy the house that is for sale across the street from her. It is near the airport and Jr. loves airplanes. . .

It was so nice to get out of the kitchen construction.

Update, we have two counter tops, one is messed up so has to be replaced. Tomorrow we get floors. Fridge should be coming soon. Our sink is not connected yet, not until the counter tops are finished, which apparently hit a snag late yesterday evening. Here are some photos.

You can see the floor sample on the floor.

Where are we?

Living at Grandpa Bill's (Papa) and Streganona's (Nona) while Daddy and Mikey and Walt tear out our old kitchen (done as of Friday) and install our new kitchen (may be done this Friday????).

Background, we were not able to get a new house, so my consolation prize is a new kitchen. No, it is not bigger, but it was supposed to maximize storage space and open up the door way to allow people in our living room to communicate with the people in the kitchen. I had a beautiful kitchen picked out that was basically a dream. Apparently there was a "miscommunication" AKA I expressly said I wanted and Mikey didn't listen and ordered the ugliest cabinets I have ever seen. The style is right, but the color is pure awful.

What I have.

What I wanted. I am livid. No, we can't stain them. Paint is an option. We are definitely getting some new furniture to try to blend our oak furniture with "natural maple" AKA vomit color cabinets. I feel like I am living in college again with mix and match crap furniture. They even look bad with our hardwood floors.

Junior had a kind of a tough time transitioning into living at Papa and Nonas. He is finally getting the knack of it. It has been wonderful spending so much time with them. I don't even want to move home. They are so awesome to let us stay with them and take such great care of us.

I don't know when we will be home. Maybe this weekend. Maybe. The bright side is that we are getting a new fridge out of the deal. Very excited about that.

Jr. misses his dad so much. He also misses home and is tired of spending his evenings at Home Depot.

Happy Birthday Libras!

Tomorrow (Thursday) is Liesel and Neil's birthday! It took 11 takes and then we gave up, but this is our best attempt at Happy Birthday Liesel and Happy Birthday Neil!



Fist bump.

Postcards from the Edges

We took four days to celebrate Eds and my birthday. We took off for Yellowstone and hit Grand Teton National Park before coming home.

Long story short. We had an amazing time. Here are some of my favorite photos.

I promise to write more soon. I have a job interview tomorrow and Ed is bogarting the good computer so it takes FOREVER to upload photos.

The baby no, little boy, was sleeping so we snuck out for a photo shoot.

It was pretty chilly and little man doesn't have any mittens, so we had to put socks on his hands to keep them warm.

Old Faithful. Or as Jr. calls it "HOT!"

It is hard to catch Jr. running unless he is RUNNING STRAIGHT TOWARD YOU! Look out!

Yellowstone fire. We luckily got through it to see a new corner of the park and get to the Tetons.

Our family in front of some hot pots. "Hot!"
You can't see it from this photo, but the Tetons were on fire too. Everywhere we went - fire.
This might be my most favorite photo of all time. He is everything to us. Everything.

Happy Uncle Day!

Last Bite of Summer

It has been in the mid to high 90s the last few days and you know what that calls for? Dairy Queen. Ed Jr. got his very own ice cream cone for the first time. Needless to say he loved it, I mean seriously loved it. He sat still for so long and burried his whole face in it.

Chatty Guy

I forgot to mention how the Eds did without me last weekend. Well, they did just fine.

Ed is a great daddy, he took Jr. on tons of adventures, got him to nap and even got him to sleep without tears. The only rough patch was on Sunday morning at 6AM when Jr. woke up to look for his momma. He apparently searched the whole house for me. His spirits were good and when I got home and picked him up from his grandma's house, he was pretty happy.

In some unrelated news, he is such a great talker. Enjoy some videos.

Mamma's Boy

Ed Jr. is a bonafide momma's boy. Momma is his #1 primary word and I am his #1 primary person. Which, I am not going to lie to you is so charming and so irritating at the same time.

He won't even entertain his father in the vicinity of his bedroom at bed time. Mamma and baby sanctuary.

So this leads me to the story of my first night away from my baby EVER! My friend from WAY back was getting married in Billings. At first my mom was going to go with us so Ed could attend the wedding with me, but was unable to go, so Ed volunteered to stay home with his baby for one night. And I was outta here.

Well, I took Cissie with me. I think she needed a little vacation too. We stopped in Bozeman and ate sushi (yum). I made Cissie eat raw fish for the first time. She did not love it, but was brave non-the-less. Then we busted ass to Billings to hit my favorite store before the wedding. Marcasa another word for awesome clothes and a killer sales rack. Then it was time for the wedding. I released Cissie into the wild that is Billings with the car while I attended Aaron's wedding. The ceremony and reception were in the old Billings Depot - so cool. Cissie joined in the fun later and we did our best to tear up the dance floor.

Thank goodness the Rainbow bar wouldn't let Cissie in, so I could turn in at a somewhat decent hour. And just as all of my childed friends predicted, I barely slept. No, it wasn't because I was away from my baby, I think it was a hot noisy hotel room and a talking in her sleep roommate. . . and maybe I missed my family just a little bit. I did have to wake up at 6 AM and pump. Ouch.

After two delicious lattes and everything bagels, we were done with Billings and on our way home. It was a spectacular drive home and we again stopped in Bozeman to eat and hit the old navy for Jr. clothes. I was SO SO SO TIRED by the time I got home, but Jr. was so excited to see me he just couldn't bring himself to nap. I had to close the door to his bedroom and lay on the floor while he trashed his room. Let me say this, a hangover is bad, but a hangover and an active baby is hell on earth. Here he is emptying veggie booty all over the floor. I had to stop taking photos and spring into action when he started stomping it into the carpet. EEEERRRRR.

Early to bed for the both of us, and Monday it was back to normal, except for the surprise and way too short visit from Nanny. He was happy to see her, but he was NOT going to let me out of his sight, you never know, I could sneak off again.

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FIL - I know you won't see this until for a few days, but welcome home. We love you and are SO glad you are doing well. XOXOXO

CHEERS!

For the first time in over 16 months Jr. slept through the night - for reals. The more I have thought and read about babies and sleep, I have determined that there are just some kids who sleep and some who don't. We had one that didn't.

Ed thought that with the long weekend we could take the opportunity to do some sleep training. We did it our own style, nothing out of a book. Our plan was simple. Jr. woke up every night between 11:30 - 12:30 and we would bring him to bed with us. He would then wake up every two hours or so to nurse. We were going to send Ed in to comfort and put him back to sleep in an attempt to eliminate the first night waking. We would deal with the second, third night waking at a later date. Much to our surprise, after Ed got him back to sleep the first time, there was no second or third night waking. He would sleep until 5 - 6 AM, at which time he was welcome to come to bed with us to go back to sleep until 7:30 - 8.

Oh, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. Friday night, he cried/screamed/called out Mommy Daddy for over an hour. Saturday night it was about 40 minutes. Sunday night was less than 20 minutes. Monday night was barely 5. Last night he cried at 1 and again at 3, but neither time Ed went in there and he cried for only about 2 minutes and put him self back to sleep. He got up at 6:20 AM and I brought him to bed with me and he slept until 8:20 AM!

I am still anti-Ferber. I really should have recorded him crying/screaming so that I can have anyone who recommends letting them cry it out listen to the sounds of a truly heartbroken baby. Ferberizing our kid was a total last resort. We have tried many gentle ways to get him to sleep, and we were back sliding. Plus it seems that around 18 months kids start sleeping better, so we were ready for the next step even though it was ugly. When I say that I am anti Ferber, I am not judging others' parenting values, I am talking about us.

I owe my great night sleep last night to Ed. He is a tremendous father who would go in to rock his very angry baby back to sleep even though he was exhausted. Thanks Ed.

I HOPE the trend continues. I hope Ed Jr. starts sleeping consistently through the night for his sake as well as ours.

He is currently smiling at me and throwing his cheerios across the room.