Knock knock

Tam: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Tam: Tamlin! (commences giggling)
(And I wonder where he's learned this new trick)

Tam: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Tam: Tamlin (more giggles)

Me: Knock knock
Tam: Tamlin! (yet more giggles, I guess this is hilarious)

Brian: Knock knock...now you say who's there... knock knock
Tam: Who's there?
Brian: Orange
Tam: (laughs)

Tam: Knock knock
Brian: Who's there?
Tam: Orange! (Rolls on the floor with laughter now)

Yes, Tamlin is trying to master the art of the knock knock joke. For now, about 50% of the time he answers the door with "Tamlin!", which he thinks is hysterical. The other 45% of the time, he answers with the name of some random object that he has just noticed in the room, which is equally funny. The last 5% of the time, he answers with "orange", which is the joke that Brian was trying to teach him once he started attempting knock knock jokes. It's a hoot! The more we laugh at these silly jokes, the more he wants to tell us them!

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas eve and I am warmly ensconced in a blanket at my mother's house in Ohio. The boys are soundly asleep upstairs. Are they dreaming of sugarplums? Probably not since neither know what that is...more likely dreaming of cars and milk. I just CAN NOT WAIT until morning and seeing Tam's eyes all aglow when he sees the tree lit and surrounded by a plethora of presents for him and the family.

This last week before Christmas has been frantic, and it is hard for me to believe that it is finally December 24th. What have we done?

Well, I have finished all the Christmas shopping between Thanksgiving and December 22. This year I did nearly all of it online and used many additional coupons/sales to score great deals. I'm very proud of the money I have saved this year while shopping for additional people (new brother-in-law, new niece, new son!) I whipped up 3 different types of cookies with Tamlin's help. I finished grading my final exams and submitted their final grades (which took forever since I had a final on the last day of the week.) I finished several sewing projects for the kids, including a bowtie, stuffed animal, and doll clothes. I collected and read Tam a new Christmas book each night for the entire month of December. (He loved finding a new book each evening). I drove to Ohio in 7 hours with two wee ones in the car and didn't go insane. I loved my family all year long and...I still love my family :-)

And Brian? He's been busy too. Lots of work since this is the busy season with all the shoppers around the restaurant. Then, he's been singing quite a bit. We both participated in the Medieval feast at our church by singing in the choir. Additionally, Brian sang a solo both nights as part of the dinner entertainment. It was fun for all of us to dress up for this during the winter season. He's also been singing with his Victorian group. I bundled up Tam and Jude and we heard him while he was performing a strolling gig among local shops. I love listening to my husbands voice...and it just makes me smile widely when he's singing favorite Christmas carols. Earlier in the month, he got out the Christmas village decorations and set it all up, along with the train running through the tiny houses. Tamlin LOVED this and that daddy let him drive the train too. Brian also wrapped a ton of the gifts this year while I was grading finals. I love that he helped out with this task. Busy, busy.

What about the kids?
Tamlin has been a rambunctious 3 year old. He has tried to help us with every task we attempt to do, from washing dishes to choosing Christmas gifts to stirring batter for cookies. He's made Christmas tags with glue and glitter. He's decorated cookies with sprinkles and m&ms. He's wished everyone Merry Christmas. He can't wait to open presents. He's playing relatively nicely with Jude...or at least trade's him toys when Jude has something he wants. He's been walking around, reading, and sleeping with the Toys-r-us catalog for weeks (he loves looking at all the cars). He got to meet Santa and tell him what he wants. And he traveled wonderfully in the car on our journey east to see the family.

Jude's been pretty good too. Now that he is on a low-lactose formula and eating more solids, he is often sleeping better at night...though still a bit gassy. Since he is getting more sleep, he's happier during the day. He's been mastering sitting up and lunging out to reach toys placed nearby, including big brother Tamlin's cars. He's been busy jumping like a mad-man in his jumperoo. He also got to visit Santa and sit on his lap. No tears! Just a general staring at the jolly man in red with a white beard. And Jude also did awesomely on the trip to see the family...barely any crying!

So, like I mentioned at the top of post, it is Christmas eve...
We went to the early family service at church. Brian sang two duets for the congregation and would sing harmony with me on the hymns. Jude is becoming our little musician since he was "singing" along with the music two with happy squeals and sounds of delight. I love the service of readings and carols both because I love hearing the Christmas story, but I also love singing the favorite holiday hymns... You know, the ones that aren't played on the radio ad nauseum all month. Tamlin's been playing with cars and telling everyone Merry Christmas still. However, he did know it was baby Jesus's birthday when asked at church tonight. It makes me feel good that he realizes the it isn't totally a commercial holiday. Most of the day, Tamlin has been talking about Santa and tracking Santa's journey off and on all day on NORAD on the computer. Now it is nearly 11:30pm and I'm home watching sapping Christmas movies and staring off at the lights on the Christmas tree. Brian, mom, and Dale are back at church for the 11:00pm service. When they get home, we grown-ups will celebrate and open our gifts in the wee hours of Christmas morning. Then, hugs all around, while we head upstairs to listen for jingle bells to note Santa's arrival for the little ones.

Well, I better get out my kerchief and ready myself for the upcoming winter nap :-)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Latest achievements

Jude is now nearly 7 months old; what has he been up to?

• He is now sitting up unassisted, though very hunched over to try to maintain his balance.
• He's grabbing at puffs and successful of getting into mouth about 50%. Most times he can rake them into his hands, gets the hand to the mouth, but can't quite figure out how to let go once there.
  
• He is wicked good at gumming gramcrackers
• He is sometimes making "Mamama" sounds
• More often his is making "Bababa" sounds as his means of communication
  
• Lots of raspberries
• He's still very good at squealing with delight
• Sometime he "Sings" along when we are singing hymns at church. Very cute
  
• He's holding a bottle by himself while laying on his back.
  

And Tam. . . he's been doing great too!

• He has been helping with making cookies with me in the kitchen
  
• He's helping Brian with making pancakes. Tam's really good at mixing them up in the bowl.
  
• The latest trick is turning on/off light switches around the house.
  
• He's beginning to do more and more imaginative play with tow trucks and cars.
  
• He's loving Sunday School and playing with other kids
  
• Tam's even talking about things that have happen during the day that have actually happened. Though to get any sensible response from him, I need to ask him quite quickly after it has happened or else it is forgotten.
  
• Oh, and he has been mastering Wii games. A current favorite is bowling, which he is actually pretty good at.
  

The moon

It's the Christmas season and Brian is, once again, singing with the Victorian Caroling Group. Looking at our schedules, I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it to too many of his gigs. So, I chose to haul the kiddos out to one of his strolling gigs through a nearby shopping strip. The weather was chilly enough that everyone bundled up, noses got a little pink, but it wasn't terribly bone-chillingly cold. I strapped Jude into the hiking carrier and swung him up on my back. Tam danced around near my side as we went store to store hearing daddy sing songs and checking out the holiday decorations. Most of the shops had free drinks or treats for strollers; many folk loved to talk to friendly Tam and make sure he got something sweet to eat. Tam's favorite store, by far, was the donut shop! Not because we got a few cookies there (which were great) but that they had a huge display of toy cars around the little cafe. Of course, we kept going back to see the cars. And, we got to hear Christmas carols!

The gig ran a little late into the evening, so the moon was well above us as we drove homeward with a couple of sleepy kids. It was a clear night, so the full moon was bright and shining above us. Tam looked out of his window and exclaimed "there's the moon, mama!", "It's up in the sky!", "It's white!". Yes, Captain Obvious, all of that describes the moon.

Then a few moments later, and a few turns down the road...
Tamlin, "The moon is following us." This seemed to amaze him.

A few moments later as we turned down our street...
Tamlin, "Yoo-hoo, Moon?". Because of the turn, Tam couldn't see the moon out the window any more. He was calling to it to make sure it was still above us.

When we got home, and out of the car...
Tamlin, "There's the moon!"

Just before he crawled into bed.
Sleepily, Tam profoundly states, " The moon watch Tam while I'm sleeping, mama. okay?"
Yes, my little man, the moon will watch over you while you're sleeping.

Tamlin's new trick

Tam has grown a bit lately and he can now reach the light switches around the house. He loves turning the lights on and off now.

He calls it a trick.

He likes to turn them off at inopportune times...like in the middle of changing Jude's diaper or while we're walking up the stairs or any other time when our hands are otherwise occupied.

The boys' 1st movie

I did it...
I was finally brave enough to venture to the movie theater with both the boys to see a movie that I thought we all would enjoy. What prompted this? Well, I saw that my favorite furry monsters, the Muppets, were releasing a new movie. I heart the Muppets. I loved the early movies of theirs and thought this would also be a hit. I checked out the reviews and saw nothing that I would object letting my little ones watch.

I then checked to see when there was a local showing of The Muppets at a matanae time that wasn't during Tam's nap time. (This is no small feat). I stumbled onto a local theater that provides mom showings of movies. This means that once a week around 10am, they show a kids movie with the lights only dimmed and the sound not as loud. Mom's are encouraged to come to this showing and wee ones running around is expected to occur. Excellent. I packed the diaper bag, bundled up the kiddos, dropped Brian and work, and headed out on the new adventure.

How did it go? Here's a hint... we started the movie with about 2 dozen people in our theater room and we ended with about 8 (3 of these were us). Tamlin did pretty good for trying to sit still and pay attention to a 2 hour movie. He sat in his booster seat and ate his popcorn for about half of the movie. Then, he got squirrelly and had to get up and talk / play / dance with the other kids in the room. Jude watched the movie from my lap for a bit, then conked out (it was his early nap time.)

When asked afterwards if he liked the movie adventure, Tamlin said "Oh yeah" . . . but he really couldn't tell you much about it except there was a frog in it.
Cute.

Shoppin = done / Crafts to do

Black Friday...Lots of sales for the kick off of the Christmas shopping season. This year with dealing with 2 small kids, I totally opted to the majority of my shopping on-line instead of at brick and mortar stores. This saved me a ton of headaches and tantrums (Tam's and mine). At this point I am pretty sure that I am 85% done.

Now I just have to wait for them to arrive on my doorstep then wrap them.

Oh...and I still have all the crafts I want to do to finish...sometime between now and Christmas eve.

Happy Shopping!

Hypothetically Speaking

It a couple of quiet moments during our decorating the house for Christmas excitement, Brian and I shared the following conversation ...

Me: If it ever came down to it, I would replace our awesome pre-lit with white LCD lights Christmas tree with a cool pink tree.

Brian: What?!

Me: You know, one of those aluminum colored trees, in pink.

Brian: What?! Really, Pink?!

Me: Yeah...Kinda retro

Brian: Could we compromise with a purple tree? A dark purple tree?

Me: Maybe. What about red, bright Christmas red?

Me: Ooohhh...Silver. What about a silver tree?

Brian: I could live with silver

Me: There we go, are next artificial tree will be a silver tree. Awesome.

Brian: Aren't you glad we discussed this now for future reference! Good to know we have at least one more hypothetical decision made!

I'm totally excited for this silver tree that we may someday own in the future :-)

Mom & Tam moments

Tam and I had a couple of sweet moments today...

I have just dusted off the ol' sewing machine and started stitching some up-coming Christmas gifts. My first attempt was a partial fail because 50% into the project I ran out of black thread AND realized I didn't have a black zipper.

I went on to project #2. After Jude goes to sleep, Tam and I have about an hour before he gets into bed. While he was racing cars, I began the project and succeeded in cutting out all of the fabric. Then, over walks Tamlin.

"Help you, momma?"
I think about it...can a 3 year old sew?... sure! Why not?
I gathered him up on my lap in front of the machine. He loved watching the needle go up and down...then I let him hit the back-sewing button. He found a new love.
Then, I let him actually feed the fabric through the machine.
Ecstatic!
And he loved helping momma :-)

In the end, someone is getting some itty-bitty doll clothes that are partially sewn by a 3 year old!

Moment #2: Early in the day, I had measured Tam's head for a new monster hat that I making for Christmas. He's helping with the details like eye number and teeth and horns.

This evening before bed, Tam grabs the tape measure and had to "measure" me too.

And then measure his cars, as well :-)

Made my heart sing

Tamlin's birthday thoughts

Tamlin's turned 3 years old! Wow. He has gotten so big so fast and I scarce can believe he's already three. This is a great age where he has his own opinions and observations and is not afraid to share them with anyone who will listen.

We had a birthday party for our little man on the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was mostly a celebration where his friends can come over, chat, play, and eat cake and home-made chili. The guest roster included friends from my school, kid friends he often plays with, and my sister and her new family. I tried hard to keep it simple with a four step plan or gathering / dancing, gifts, lunch, playing, cake.

Of course, Tamlin wanted a car theme, again. He got to help pick out the birthday cake (with a race car topper). I decorated with balloons, streamers, and car decorations. I hung a set of streamers at the entryway at the bottom of the stairs so Tam saw these immediately when he came down on his birthday morning. This elicited an excited "Wooowwww!" from him that warmed my heart.

All the toys were hits. His cousin Ciearra "helped" quite a bit with the actual opening of the gifts, but he didn't seem to mind. Tamlin loved running around and interacting with everyone.
I think maybe his geotrax train from Nana and Papa might have been his favorite toy :-)

The cake was great. It was totally worth the money to pay the store to make and decorate the cake in such a fantastic fashion. Tam thought it was AWESOME. He did a great job at trying to keep his fingers out of the frosting until after we had sung him the birthday song, but I could see this was definitely a hard thing for a newly 3 year old to do. I made sure to have the number candle for him, since I had always wanted these when I was little. The cake had a ton of blue frosting which resulted in many little blue mouths and tongues. Extremely silly.

Overall, the party went well and everyone seem to have a great time. Afterwards, I made sure that Tamlin helped with writing the thank you cards to everyone. He "wrote" thank you with pen and stamped all over them. Good boy.

Christmas decorating

On the day after Thanksgiving, we continued our tradition of breaking out the Christmas decorations and putting up the ol' tree. I had Brian haul up the 4 big boxes of Christmas gear and out two trees (don't worry only one is a full size tree). Tamlin helped with everything. "I'm a good helper, daddy!" he frequently exclaimed. We took pictures of Tam helping put the tree together and some of the first ornaments being placed...but we quickly realized that the camera was missing its memory card :-( An easy remedy and still plenty of decorations to go...plus Jude woke up from a quick nap and was able to "help" too.

I love decorating the tree: unwrapping the ornaments one by one and remembering the reason or memories behind each one. It is really special to me that all of ornaments (except the colored balls) were purchased with care or given as gifts. Sometimes they're for big events like a glass castle for our first Christmas in our own house, and sometimes they are silly like our puffy bird that looks like it is going to explode that just makes me laugh, and sometimes they are just "us" like our moose family ornaments. A few ornaments are remnants of my childhood like glittered pine cones that I made or my personalized brass ornaments. All of them just seem to make the tree look awesome...as you just want to stare and stare to see it all! Brian thinks we have so many ornaments that we need to get a rotating tree stand so that we can decorate the tree in 360.

Since Jude is just starting to sit up, we made sure to put all the safe ornaments near the bottom so that he could check them out up close. He was really fascinated with the lights, and loved kicking the low branches with his feet.

We finished the tree with our moose tree-skirt and set up Tam's train to go around the base. Awesome.
The other little tree goes in our family room and I let Tam decorate it completely with its own little ornaments. The rest of the decorations were placed with care around the house, which made everything festive. Lastly, we hung up the stockings. Mom came through for us and whipped up Jude's stocking early, so we had it to hang. She had made all of our stockings in previous years too. The downside is that we lacked a stocking hook to put Jude's with ours on the fireplace mantle. The problem was solved by hooking the stocking on Jude's jumperoo! He checked it out and loved it :-)

This year is the first year that Tamlin really "gets" Christmas in all of its glory...Santa, presents, Merry Christmas, Baby Jesus's birthday...the whole shebang. I absolutely cannot wait until the holiday gets here to share our the wonder and happiness with my entire family!

Guess how big the boys are!

It's time for everyone's favorite game of Guess How Big the Boys Are!

Both Tamlin and Jude were taken to the doctor on Friday, escorted by daddy. Tamlin was in for his 3 year appointment and flu-nasal spray. Jude was in for his 6month appointment and a cornocopia of vaccinations.


We don't take measurements of them at home so its been awhile since Tam's weight and height had been recorded. I noticed that he had put on a growth spurt since August since his pants were all a little shorter. Guesses for a little man?



My guess: 37" tall and 37 lbs.



Now Jude was in 2 months ago, but has been undergoing cell division at a rapid pace. He's a solid guy and doesn't show any sides of slowing down anytime soon. He was 25" and nearly 18lbs at 4 months. Now I know that he has grown longer in length becaus his feet are busting out of any of the 6month footed sleepers. Ditto for any shirts fitting around his chubby little baby gut.
Any guesses for his current size?

My guess: 27"long and 20lbs.

Talk amongst yourselves today and I'll fill you all in tomorrow with the correct data :-)

Quite a day...

Yestaurday was quite the day here...
We are all gearing up for the weekend and Tamlin celebrating his 3rd birthday. This means we have all been cleaning and wrapping gifts and getting generally excited in our household. This is the first time Tam has a clue that birthdays are cool (hence the excitement).

Around the time spent getting birthday ready, I've been working on staying ahead in my classes for school. Its rough some days when I'm working late into the wee hours of the morning grading, writing exams, or finishing lectures. It has been even more rough on those nights when Jude's awake due to reflux problems or wanting to eat. He has been settling into the pattern of waking at 11ish, 2ish and 4ish of late...with the 11ish really only an awakening to get the binky back into his mouth. Have you ever tried holding the baby while trying to type on the computer? It certainly takes coordination.

Well, because of the chaos, I pulled a late night on Wednesday with computer work (getting a test written) and sewing (for a b-day gift). This was ok, because Thursday I knew I was spending the day at the botanical garden with my botany class and didn't have to be overly coherent. Then, Thursday went fine...until the end of the day. I reached into my jeans pocket, and no jump drive. No jump drive in the coat either. This would be the jump drive that had my exam on it that I had written the previous evening/morning. Couldn't find it...still can't find it. Have chalked it up as a loss. Good thing I backed the stick up in August.

However, this meant that last night I was up all night re-writing the thing to give the kiddos this morning. Ugh. Tired. I crawled into bed in the wee hour of the morning, around 5am.

The good...Jude was sleeping the entire evening!

BUT

Jude woke up, I kid you not, at 5:05am. He wanted snuggled and fed. Ugh.

In the end: Yeah = Jude nearly slept through the night and we are hoping that this is the start of a new trend. Boo = Lost stick and data.

Chocolate Pomegranate cookies

I made chocolate pomegranate cookies this week. I LOVE pomegranates...very, very, much love that tart-juicy fruit. When one of the mom-blogs (MADE) I follow posted this awesome recipe, I knew I just had to try it. It probably help that she posted amazing mouth-watering photos too.

Well, I may not be the best foodie photographer, but the cookies turned out yummy anyways.

I enlisted Tam's help with making the cookies while Jude was taking his first morning nap. Tam really enjoys helping in the kitchen whenever Brian or I let him. He pulled his little chair right over to the mixer and helped with emptying every ingredient into the machine. He is also a pro at mixing dry ingredients by hand...with only a little spillage of chocolate powder over the sides of the bowl.

This was Tam's first taste of pomegranates. He wasn't sure about them with the first bite. But after helping to make the cookies, and seeing them getting mixed into the chocolate, he very quickly polished off the remaining seeds. (Exclaiming that he loved them all the while).

The cookies turned out pretty darn good. I loved the double chocolate base (cocoa powder AND chocolate chips, both were dark chocolate flavor) and I loved the little bursts of tartness from the pomegranate seeds. If I had any critique of the recipe, it would be that the cookies were a bit cakey for me...and it makes me wonder how these little fleshy seeds would be in an oatmeal-based cookie.

Tamlin and Brian thought the cookies were great. I'm surprised that any of the 3 dozen cookies lasted more than 3 days!

Wordless Wednesday - Brotherly Love

Watching Big Brother's antics...

Jude's new tricks

Hard to believe my littlest one is nearly...Nearly!...6 months old! I hold him in my arms and have already forgotten how small he once was. My heart still mellows out while I hold him close to me. I treasure the small moments of the day when I can just hold him, and love him, and just be his mom...Don't grow up too fast, my little Jude :-)

Awww...

What has the little Jude been up to?

• He's still in the screeching phase of communicating.
• He Loves being naked and squeals and giggles with delight when being changed into jammies at night.
• He has graduated to taking baths in the big tub, but either laying on his back or sitting in the baby bath seat. Often times, these baths are taken in tandem with big brother Tamlin.
• He has discovered his feet, and that they fit into his mouth. This has come about during his fun naked times :-)
• He has begun sitting up on his own for longer stretches...'round 20seconds at a time. I think he could sit longer, but he gets distracted by sounds, TV, or Tam and this tips him over.
• He has become really good a mini-push ups...but has NO desire to roll over in either direction.
• His reflux is still with him. We've just upped his dosage and he still has gurgling issues at night especially.
• He has begun to eat a bit more solids...at least one feeding a day, and more often two servings.
  
• He's chewing on EVERYTHING, and of course drooling like a mad man. This just means lots of wet shirts and keeping the binky attached at all times.
• He has discovered Tam's trucks, and that they fit in his little hands and into his mouth. Tam is not happy with this.

What a busy little guy!

New seat for Jude

Jude got to try out a new prospective on the world this past weekend. He's finally sitting up well enough to go into our larger back-back hiking carrier.

I LOVED using this carrier with Tamlin, because it puts all the little one's weight on the hips rather than pulling down on the shoulders. I knew that it would be great way to carry Jude and have our hands free to play with Tamlin.

I just really hoped that Jude liked the high view as much as Tam did at that age.

Oh. Yeah.

Jude loved it if the squeals were any indication. I placed him in the seat on the floor for a few photos before we all headed out the door on a quick walk to the nearby playground.

At first, Jude had to check out all the straps around him...and taste them out for flavor. He kicked his feet around a bit. Then twisted around to try to see everything...

Then, on our actual walk, Jude did great up there...only pulled my hair once and never got fussy :-) Tamlin loved that I was able to climb over the playground and not have to stay on the ground near Jude in the stroller (like usual).

Of course I had to dig out a photo of Tam in the carrier from way back when. Here he is at 5.5 months in late April 2009.

Wordless Wednesday - Preview

Countless leaves
40+ photos
20 minutes of free time
2 Boys
1 Beautiful Fall Day (Maybe the last of the season)
AND
Hopefully at least one photo of boys with both
A)Looking at the camera and B)Looking happy

Teaser for Christmas gifts :-)

Pump, pump it up!

Here I am at the 5.5 month mark of Jude's life and I am still breast feeding the little tyke. I've almost made it to my goal of 6 months.

One of the benefits of having Jude in May was that I had 3 months of time with him before returning to work for the fall school year. This meant I have 3 months of feeding him from the boobie, on demand, around the clock, no bottle, and more than a few sleepless nights. This was great! We had a bit of a rough time at the start with a painful latch and then my overabundant supply and hormone havoc, but by August, we had a peaceful routine together.

Then came the "Return to Work" about 10 weeks ago.

This meant that 4 days a week I'm gone from home from about 7:30am until about 5pm. On these days, Brian gives Jude a bottle of milk and I try to get a couple of pump sessions done while in my office at work. Then, I play catch up with Jude contact time on the other 3 days a week.

This had lead to several "funny" moments in my pumping adventures.

To begin with, I'm lucky because my office is complete with 4 real walls and a door that locks. However, I need to remember to LOCK my door at times. Yep, while pumping away during the weekend, a fellow faculty member (not a biologist) came up to my nearly completely shut door. He knocked and barged right in before I could tell him not too. He took one look at me hooked up to a machine, turned bright red, said excuse me, and left. I never did learn why he had stopped by the office. And then there is our janitor who has a key to the offices and who never seems to visit at the same time each day. There have been several occasions where, I have started pumping, and then heard him in the hall knocking on my neighbor's doors. This meant that I had to quickly halt spewing milk, shove the boob away, and allow him to empty my garbage without flashing a bit of extra flesh.

And these a are just two funnies. Pumping is never a 100% guarantee. Some days I relax and chug out tons, other days not much at all. Sometimes I pump and then I get home an hour later and Jude's famished and screaming. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy and hear voices in the sound of the pumping mechanism. Granted this last one is usually during the 10pm pump session.

So, where am I now?

I smell like milk. I smell like milk alot . I swear I sweat milk at night. I wonder if others around me notice the sweet milk odor I'm emanating. I look around to see if other small babies, young puppies, cute kittens are following me having been lured by milk smell and hope of being fed. My shirts still don't fit quite right, though Brian has admitted to enjoying the "busting-out" look. I am sometimes more than a bit too tired to pump at night 'round 10:30pm.
Jude's more hungry 'cause he's a growing boy. And this past week he has been waking at least 2x a night (2 and 5am) to eat. Ugh. And other nights waking at 11pm, 3, 5am. Double ugh.

Jude's growing more distracted while eating, which means he's turning his head at any sound (brother, daddy, tv, whatever). This meant longer feeds and more than a few pinches to me). Jude's been eating food, but hasn't slacked on milk at all...some days it seems like he is just an eating machine. Other days Jude's reflux is bad and he is only eating because the sucking helps his pain...then he upchucks most of the milk. Poor little dude.

I still holding out to hit the 6month mark with the breastfeeding, but we'll see.

My sister's been married for two weeks...

Wishing Shelly and her new family the best of luck with the future :-)







We had fun with the wedding... especially our cute little Tamlin who loved dancing!

Jude's new sounds

Jude's latest vocalization are hilarious...he has been imitating a screech owl.

"AAAAAAAKKKK"
"EEEEEEEEEKKKKK"
"AAAAAAHHHH"
"OOOHHHHKKKK"

And he is Delighting in the sounds! He ususually has a huge goofy grin on his face as he is screeching. If he really gets going, he even starts laughing at himself.

Tam comments..."Jude's singing, mama"

Last Sunday, we all headed to church for 8:30 service. Tam spends the first hour in the nursery playing, Brian helps lead the singing, I hold Jude and listen to the service. Usually, Jude falls asleep mid-sermon.

This week, he was wide awake. He sat on my lap grinning like a maniac at our preacher through out her sermon. Even at a few points, he commented on her words by cooing. She melted and couldn't help grinning back at baby Jude. Good thing it wasn't a fire & Brimstone lecture this week.

Jude continued his antics by howling and screeching happily during the hymns. Our pastor commented at the end of service that we had our own little "amen" section this week with wee little Jude. I really appreciate it that the few other members that attend this early service don't mind a bit that we have a baby in there with us :-)

Wordless Wednesday - 5 1/2 months

Jude is 5.5 months old!

Halloween 2011

We had a great Halloween as a family of four!

Tamlin was old enough this year to understand so many new ideas that are with this holiday. We let him watch some "scary" movies, such as Coraline, Casper the friendly ghost, and Hocus Pocus. Tam held his own and wasn't too freaked out by any of these :-) We also talked about costumes and dressing up and pretending to be something else. He's just starting to get into imaginative play, so this was a great time to talk about it all. And, Brian had fun jumping out at him from behind doors to holler "Boo" at make Tamlin jump. Tam LOVES this. He still likes to be scared a little bit, as long as it is all in fun and momma and daddy are near by.

Now for costumes, we only had time to craft one of the kiddos looks. Jude's I cheated on and actually bought from Target (but it was on clerence, so not too bad). Jude was a puppy dog, complete with booties and cute hat. He looked so sweet :-)

Tamlin was a race car driver. I got the idea from an online mom blog who had her son dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine using a cardboard box. I thought, hmmm, Tam likes trains, but loves cars...could we adapt this? I told Brian about the idea, and took it and ran! I totally credit the car to Brian with only basic suggestions (such as using suspenders and plates) from me. I crafted the racer suit. This was a simple black sweat outfit and I added the checkered sleeves and sewed all the patches on the front. Then we added "Racer Tamlin" with iron-on letters to the back. It is not my best sew job, which is a bit hard to do on itty-bitty sleeves...but Tam still liked it.
Okay, so Tam loves the entire costume. He called the car his "Adventure Car" after the Cat in the Hat Thing-a-ma-jig mobile. He also makes car sounds: Vroom, Zoom, Ert (breaks), and beep-beep-beep (backing up).

Brian went as a Pittsburgh Pirate in black and gold with all of his costume from a costume closet. I went simplest of all as a dark moth with purple wings and antenna.

On Friday, after we all got gussied up, we went over to our church for their Halloween family festival. This included a costume parade around the sanctuary, kid-friendly dinner, games, prizes, and candy (of course).
This was the first time Tamlin meant other kids his size dress-up in costumes. What a huge grin was plastered on his face. Jude just liked hanging out on our lap watching all the festivities. Tam also enjoyed playing the games, like the duck pond and coin toss. However, he liked the cake walk the best...and NOT for the cake prize! He just really, really, really, enjoyed walking around on the numbers while the music played then stopping at the end of song. I swear he spent nearly 20 minutes walking around on stage and got other toddlers / pre-schoolers to walk around the stage with him (even when there was no more cake prizes).

We all had a fun time...even Jude, who eventually just fell asleep in my arms.

What about actual Halloween, October 31st?

We did go trick-or-treating for the first time with the boys. Because not many people pass out candy on our street, we opted to trick-or-treat at the mall. This was a great alternative because its inside, well lit, safe, and not wet from rain. Tam walked with Brian and I followed behind with Jude in the stroller as we mosied from store to store. It took a couple of tries before Tamlin realized that this nice people in the front of the stores were giving out...CANDY. Then it took a few more stores before he got the hang of saying "Trick or Treat". (But he had saying "Thank you" since the first store front). By the end of an hour, one circuit of the mall, and a stop in the playland Tam realized that Halloween = Costumes = Trick or treating = Candy. We got a ton of compliments on Tam's costume, from his spikey hair to cardboard car to flame shoes. Some folk even tried to give us candy for Jude, which we turned down because he doesn't eat it and we didn't need any more. Yes, the kids got a good haul of goodies :-) I'm glad we got to the mall early for this at 3pm because it was mostly preschoolers at this time. By the time we left around 4pm, more grade schoolers (and high-schoolers) had arrived and it was becoming a bit more crowded and crazy.

Once we got home, everyone was a bit tired so we were going to nix trick-or-treating on our street. But, our two closest neighbors caught us outside and asked if Tamlin was going to stop by because they had bought candy. How could we say no? Especially when Tam likes wearing his adventure car costume. After dinner, around 6pm, we went out to see our two neighbors who both gushed over cute Tamlin and little Jude. And Tam obliged their sweet tooths by grinning, saying trick or treat and thank you, and zooming around their yards.

Finally, at the end of the day, all wee ones are in bed in a sugar-induced sleep (hopefully). I'm already thinking about next year...maybe a cardboard train with Tam as the engine and Jude as the Caboose. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - Humor

Laughed so hard, almost had milk out my nose :-)