It's official!

Ladies and gentlemen...we have a walker!



He started taking steps about a month ago but didn't have the confidence for any longer attempts. Today it's all he wants to do! Now we really have our hands full!

One little, happy family

We so rarely get a picture of all of us together. Thankfully, someone thought to take a picture of us at JJ's party.

It was such a happy day. The party was a huge success, even if JJ slept through at least half of it. It was so wonderful to celebrate such an important day with our friends and family!

Can you tell that we're Mets fans? :)

If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I'll even throw up a post about the birthday banner I made. I plan to take it out every year to help us celebrate!

Woah

So here I am, sitting on my balcony (newly redone!) with my little boy having the time of his life splashing in his water table. I just spent the last two weeks setting up his nursery and packing away all his itty bitty clothes. I blinked and somehow my sweet little baby is now a big boy!

I'm a hundred years late on posting this. We celebrated the big first birthday! He got presents and a delicious cupcake. Which he did NOT like. See?

yikes! Crazy boy who doesn't like cupcakes. We'll have to discuss this with him at a later date.

How is it even possible that a whole year has gone by? Sheesh. This little boy, whose entry into the world came as a surprise being a month early and all...has spent the past year continuing to surprise and amaze us every day. He changed our lives for the better in so many ways. He truly changed who I am in ways that I'm only now starting to understand. I'm so proud to be his mother and nothing makes me happier than coming home from work and getting a HUGE smile from him. I know it won't last forever, so I'm determined to make the most out of every smile I get :)

I find myself with such a mix of emotions. There were definitely tears on his birthday. But they were happy tears, I promise.

I miss having him need me so much! He's getting independent and has a ton of personality. Perhaps a bit of an irish temper too...

I am so proud of the little boy he's becoming. He's sweet and ADORABLE. That's right, i said it. Cutest baby ever. Perhaps I'm biased, but come on! look at this boy!

I'm impressed by the fact that both Scott and I have found a way to make the work/parenting balance work. Not easy. Especially with Scott going back to school. The strange part is I find myself 10x more motivated than before at work. If I have to work, and I do, why not make the best of it? I want to be successful and work my big, white irish butt off during those 8 hours! It makes the day go fast and makes coming home that much more sweet. I savor the weekends and especially those that Scott gets to be home.

I'm feeling mildly guilty that It's been like 2 months since I last posted. I'm not really sure where June and July went. It's been pretty crazy around here. It feels like things might be settling down though. That feels good. We have another nice, long vacation to florida coming up. Such a great way to cap off the summer. Then hopefully things will cool off around here and going to the playground might become a bit more tolerable. I have lots more to share from the last few months and I'll throw up a few quick, short posts soon! First haircut and the big first birthday party on that list!

The twins

I love these boys!

Fun in the sun

So we just came back from Florida. It was such a wonderful vacation. We really needed to get away. It was relaxing, but I must say vacationing with a 9 month old is not exactly restful :) That little boy loved the beach and is a total fish in the water. That one swimming lesson before we left really paid off! ha.

Before I left, my boss recommended that we get a baby pool and put it on the beach. Best. Idea. EVER. He spent hours in there every day. Distracted by the water, his toys (which I included a solo cup most days. What baby doesn't love a solo cup) and just completely loving his life.



Clearly sand is delicious to a baby. By day 3 we gave up on trying to keep him from eating it. Scott tried and tried but was not going to win that battle. You know what JJ learned was tastier than sand though? Ice cream.

In case you are wondering, that's lime and chocolate swirl ice cream. The child LOVES lime. He tried to eat a whole lime that he found on the tree outside my parent's place. Silly baby! Um and maybe he ate the lime that came with my margarita. I promise, it was not IN the margarita. But that probably would have given us a good night sleep...

We even got a date night while we were there. It was fantastic. *sigh* It was hard to come back to reality after all that! We're already planning our next trip.

my new alarm clock

I shot this video the other afternoon, but this is exactly what I wake up to every morning now. He learned how to make this noise and has WAY too much fun with it :)

Luck of the Irish

We had a great St. Patrick's Day here...how about all of you? I had the day off so I got to spend lots of time with JJ and it was a gorgeous day. Oh, and we watched lots of basketball! It really is one of the best days of the year. Beer, corned beef, and basketball. Yes, please!

Here's my little leprechaun...

I started preparing for the holiday last weekend. I bought a 7 lb. brisket and brined it for 4 days. Making your own corned beef is 100x better than buying the packaged one from the store. It's SUPER easy too. It's beer, water, salt, sugar and pickling spices. Then it sits in your fridge for 4 days. The only strange thing is it doesn't come out red, it comes out looking like brisket! Imagine that. I then split it in half and made it two ways. The traditional boiled method with cabbage, potatoes and carrots. The other half got slathered in cloves, hot mustard and brown sugar. Then it got put in the oven for 2 hours and folks, this is the way to make corned beef. It's really wonderful. Tender and flavorful. I sauteed cabbage and onion to go with it.

I used the recipes found here:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/corned_beef_and_cabbage

Ok, it isn't pretty, but damn it tastes good!

Now I'm off to make corned beef hash. MMMMM good. But first, it's time to lower the crib mattress. Someone learned another trick this week...

Lift off!

Ok, folks...we have a crawler! An honest to god crawler. First there was the rocking (humping?) motion. Then it was almost a marine crawl...a dragging of the legs type thing. Now, a real crawl! JJ is on the move...so, watch out world!



As the end of the video demonstrates, child proofing has become a new priority. He can find everything. Especially wires that he can choke himself with. That seems to be a speciality. I swear those wires didn't even exist a month ago, now they are everywhere! *sigh*

So what else is going on. Hmmmm. I've been meaning to post for ages. I'm like a broken record on that, right? If only I could stop this break neck pace at work which results in me coming home so spent. I have energy to be with my little man for a few hours and that's about it. Oh and laundry. I swear, it's my new hobby. Can one baby really create this much laundry? I dream about getting a professional launderer one day. Launderer? You know what I mean...

I promise to do a St. Patrick's day post. PROMISE! I have my corned beef brining right now, so we're doing it up all homemade style this year! CAN NOT WAIT! Plus, JJ has not one, but two outfits. So necessary.

I'm going to de-wire my apartment now! Look for an update on Thursday :)

So close...

Yet so far away.

(Please say I'm not the only one singing Hall & Oates now...I'm looking at you Stephanie! Help me out here!)

This is quite an interesting time for a baby. JJ is right on the edge of a few milestones! It's very exciting. As you all saw earlier this month, he's very close to figuring out the crawling thing. He's also working on feeding himself. Just two weeks ago he had zero interest in these puffs...now he loves them! He realized that...hey! These taste good! And if I pick it up with my fingers, I can put them in my mouth. Occasionally. His average isn't all that good, but I'm sure Marley is loving that :)

This video just cracked me up because he was working so hard and got that puff in there. Only to have it come right back out! Better luck next time baby!



Oh and can we all just agree to watch my videos on mute? God, I sound so silly in them.

footprints

I wanted to post this weeks ago. But I had some technical difficulties. I am simply not capable of turning something from pdf to jpeg. *sigh*

Look at these little feet! I have footprints from the hospital too and I really can't wait to do this again when he's a year old. Sad thing is, I never would have known how easy it is to do this if we hadn't done it at Gymboree! It was such a fun thing to do...and that poor teacher really looked like she needed a drink after spending the day doing footprints for countless babies. They let us bring in whatever we wanted, in addition to this cute little poem they provided...so we all took full advantage of her generosity and she paid for it!

My baby boy is getting so big! It's especially crazy considering that he is at the very bottom of that damn growth chart. But he's 15 pounds now! Tripled in size. Can you imagine?

Victorious!

Dear sea horse -

For 7 months, you have entertained me and lulled me to sleep. I have watched you closely and hoped to reach out touch you. But you were always just out of reach. Until today! Today my arms are juuuust long enough to reach out and not just touch you...but TRY AND RIP YOU DOWN!

Watch your back octopus. You're next!

Sincerely,

JJ

Putting the pieces together

It's so interesting to watch him put all the pieces together in his head. Last week he realized he could get up on his hands and knees. Then he would collapse a moment later :) Now he's doing this cute move...



Not much longer until he's crawling, I'd say!

It was a big week for JJ. He had 2 doctor's appointments which put him all out of sorts. The first was his 6 month check up (with all his shots, which is what got him all screwed up). Then he visited a gastroenterologist. He's a tiny little guy and we're keeping a very close eye on his weight gain. It's gotten better, but he had stopped gaining at a good rate back in the fall. We realized around christmas that he definitely has reflux and between being treated for that and the super duper calorie rich formula he's getting, he seems to be doing much better! I was hoping they would say we could stop with the super duper calorie rich formula because we go through formula at a break neck pace and lord almighty, that can break the bank! Both Scott and I are so relieved after 2 good doctor visits though. A king's randsom in formula is a small price to pay for a healthy baby and restful sleep for mom and dad :)

BTW - might I say again...he had his SIX MONTH appointment! Six months! Crazy.

Hello, Handsome!

JJ and I started going to Gymboree a few weeks ago. At every class, the babies spend tummy time on a big mirror so they can see themselves. JJ loooooves it. I caught this video last night of him checking out this handsome baby in the mirror at home :)

Tardy for the (New Year's) Party

I feel like getting this post up only one day late is actually pretty impressive. The only reason it's getting done is I have a mountain of laundry sitting here and I will do just about anything to procastinate putting it away. We just returned from a very long trip home to Massachusetts. We celebrated our first christmas with JJ (who is one spoiled baby, I must say) and rang in the New Year at my best friend Alissa's wedding. She married a wonderful man, looked absolutely amazing and the wedding was SO much fun. The after party is still a bit hazy...but I feel like any good after party should be :)



I spent 8 hours in a car on New Years Day, which left a lot of time to reflect on the last year. I rang in 2010 VERY sober and newly pregnant and rang in 2011 very much not sober and spending the night away from my son for the very first time. I not only welcomed this beautiful boy into my life, but have a wonderful baby nephew now too! It's really been quite an eventful year. I know 2011 is going to be equally as exciting. We have quite a few big plans, including a 1st birthday party for JJ which I may or may not be already planning :) Work shows no signs of being less crazy. And because it's just that time of life...we have no less than 4 weddings to attend and quite a few babies on the way that we can't wait to meet!

As I sit here and write this, I can hear my nearly 6 month old baby chatting away, while rolling around on the ground. I'm amazed every day by how many changes are happening. I'm pretty sure we're into full fledged teething mode, if the fountain of drool is any indication. He's eating lots of new yummy foods...applesauce, pears, bananas and mom's favorite...avacado! The one bittersweet experience that I'm currently struggling with is I just finished breastfeeding. My goal was 6 months and I'm just one week shy of that. It was such an amazing thing, I'm so glad we were able to make it work. But with being back at work full time, it was just not working anymore. I'm sort of sad about it. Luckily, I still have LOTS of milk in the freezer and I have to be honest, I'm sort of excited about ditching the nursing bras :)

Happy 2011 everyone...I hope this year is even better than the last!