Our Weekend

On Friday I got to go out to happy hour with a good friend. It was nice to have some time to catch up and enjoy a good margarita. The weather has been absolutely beautiful all weekend, and we got to sit out on the restaurant's patio and enjoy the evening.

On Saturday, Jon slept in while I got up with Aedan (since he got to babysit while I was enjoying that margarita). Only he didn’t get to sleep in for too long. As soon as Aedan finished his bottle, he crawled over to the bedroom door, stood up and started to bang on the door with his palm. Ha! I have never seen him do that, it was too funny. Needless to say he got his way and we went into the bedroom to “wake” up Daddy.

After Aedan’s morning nap and a quick lunch, we headed over to central market for a few groceries. We manly needed some more food for Aedan, and since central market has a better produce department we went there instead of our good old HEB. It was super crowed. Duh, I mean it was Saturday afternoon. Sigh.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon catching up on work. After I got the stomach flu, I pretty much let work slide all week. Luckily Aedan took a 3 hour afternoon nap so I got all caught up and even a little ahead.

On Sunday I decided to try out a neighborhood boot camp that was being given by a girl that lives down the street. It was actually really good. It was nice to just walk out the front door and down the street to work out for an hour and walk back. It was a good work out and I am so sore now. I think I am going to keep going every weekend.

Sunday afternoon, Jon, Aedan, Hiro and I went to meet some friends at a nearby park. The weather was perfect. Breezy, sunny and 75 degrees. Apparently everyone else thought it would be a good time to go to the park as well. It was so crowed. We ended up walked over to a smaller park that was much less crowed and more fun. It was nice to get out and enjoy good company and nice weather. It was just a little tease of what is to come in March, which are the few weeks that Austin is the perfect place to live. Don’t get me wrong, Austin is great. But the weather during March is wonderful and it makes doing all the fun outdoor things in Austin that much better.

And now it’s Monday, back to work. It is supposed to be super cold here by Wednesday so I guess we will pack up the shorts and t-shirts and wait for the next beautiful weekend.

-Lauren-

Daddy’s Back!

Jon was in Minneapolis for training last week. He got back after Aedan was already asleep on Friday night so Aedan didn’t get to see him until Saturday morning.

Jon went to get him up Saturday morning. At first I just heard happy squeals from Aedan (he is always super excited to get up), but then I heard lots of “Dada, dada, dada” over the monitor. So cute!

My Dad was in town for work for a couple of days last week, so he came by for dinner two nights and even hung out at the house while Aedan was asleep one night so I could go to coffee with a friend. Luckily my work load last week was light and Aedan was in a great mood every day, which made the week go by quickly.

We are so happy to have Daddy back. The evenings are the most hectic for me, Jon usually gives Aedan dinner and a bath while I straighten up/start dinner, and then I give Aedan his bottle and read stories while Jon finishes up our dinner. It was tough to do it all for 6 nights. I’m glad we are back to our normal routine.

One bed hog is very happy to have his Daddy back, except for one thing. When Jon is out of town, Hiro gets to sleep on the bed with me. Neither of us sleep well when Jon isn’t here. We are both more jumpy and it is easier to just have Hiro sleep with me verses him running outside every time he hears a little noise and barking all night.

We had a pretty relaxed weekend and just enjoyed being around the house. Then Monday night Jon woke up with what we thought was food poisoning. We thought it was food poisoning until exactly 12 hours later I was hit with the same thing. I couldn’t even keep water down for most of the day yesterday. It was awful. We were both able to sleep well last night but I was still completely drained most of today. I took naps when Aedan was asleep and hung out on the couch while Aedan played in the living room. I am so thankful he is so happy to entertain himself. I just closed the gate and the bedroom doors and he had fun going from toy to toy. We were super worried that he was going to get sick too, but I think we are in the clear now and he seems to be fine. Thank goodness! I did manage to wash all our sheet and towels and do some cleaning today. I just felt like the house was all germy!

And since I haven’t taken any pictures in awhile, here is a video clip I took with my phone a few days ago. Aedan is into pushing anything and everything.

-Lauren-

The Park

The weather this week has been amazing. Another cold front came though this morning, but before that the highs were in the low 60s and it has been nice and sunny. I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take Hiro and Aedan out to the park on Wednesday afternoon.

We used to take Hiro out to Auditorium Shores at least 3 times a week. He has always loved running around and playing with the other dogs or flying out into the water to go after his beloved squeaky ball.

Oh and just so you can see that he is really not that obsessed with his ball, here are a few old pictures…

As you can see he really doesn’t care about the ball at all. Haha!

Anyways, it has been forever since poor Hiro has gotten to chase squeaky ball at the park. He was so excited when we pulled into the parking lot, he just about jumped out of the window. He had a blast chasing after the ball and Aedan had fun watching him run around. Although every time Hiro would dive into the water and start swimming away towards the ball, Aedan would start to cry. Then when Hiro got out of the water Aedan was okay again. I don’t know what was wrong. Maybe he thought Hiro was leaving? The two of them have become best buds, it is too cute!

I didn’t bring my camera with me this time but this is what Hiro looks like when he goes after the ball…

Both boys crashed when we got home, so I think they both had fun.

-Lauren-

A New Home for the Video Monitor

We have had a video monitor for Aedan for about 6 months now and I love it! It has always lived on the corner of his crib. Well, always until a few days ago.

Aedan has independent play time for about 20 minutes every day after his morning nap. I just go in and turn on his light and some music and give him some toys and he happily (well mostly happily) plays in his crib until the time is up. I even taught him how to turn on his music toy on the side of his crib. I know that he has noticed the camera before, because he will stick his face right in it from time to time. But he had never actually grabbed it before, until now.

Earlier this week, while I was finishing up getting ready, I was watching Aedan play on the monitor. All of a sudden the whole screen is covered with a little hand. Then the camera did some Blare Witch moves and I was looking at the ceiling, then the side of the crib and then the mattress. I started laughing and grabbed my camera, because you know, I have to document these things for the blog, right?

Anyway, I went to his room and this is what I found…

That would be Aedan eating the camera. I took it out of his mouth and put it back on the side of the crib and this was his reaction…

So now the camera has a new home, next to his crib…

I think he is saying “hey! I was playing with that mom!”.

He is such a mess!

-Lauren-

10 Months

What! Does that say 10 months?!? Ah, where has the time gone? I guess I better start planning someone’s first birthday party soon.

 

Aedan, here is what you have been up to over the last month.

• You are 22 lbs and 28 inches long. Now that you are crawling, you are really starting to slim down. You wear size 3 diapers during the day and size 4 overnight diapers at night. You were size 12m or 12-18m in most clothes. Most of the pants are too long, but other than that everything fits you well.
• You have 6 teeth (2 bottom and 4 top), but number 7 is poking through on the bottom.
• You take 4 bottles throughout the day and eat 3 solid meals and an afternoon snack. I started to give you cheese this last month and you LOVE it.
• You love drinking water out of your sippy cup, but I tried some formula in one and you looked at me like I was crazy. But I’m not too worried, I think it will just take some practice and you will make the bottle to sippy cup switch pretty easily when you are closer to a year.
• You still eat pretty much anything we give you and this month you have started to try more finger foods. You have had veggie nuggets and corndogs as well as waffles, pancakes and breakfast bars.
• You wake up between 7:30 and 8 every morning and go to bed at 7:30 every night. You take about a 1.5 hour morning nap and then a 2 hour afternoon nap.
• You are a pretty busy guy. You love to crawl everywhere and over everything. You pull up on anything you can get your hands on and you love to play under the kitchen table.

 

• You still love bath time and I am pretty sure you would stay in there for hours if we let you.
• You think Hiro is hilarious especially when he comes over and eats the food you conveniently drop on the floor for him.
• You “talk” all the time. We take a family walk around the neighborhood every evening and daddy and I have a hard time keeping a conversation going because you are always interrupting. I have a feeling we may be in trouble when you start to actually talk.
• You play peek-a-boo now. Before I used to hold something up in front of you and you would pull it down, but now you hold a blanket or toy in front of your face and I say “where is Aedan”, you then pull it down and look at me with a huge smile – too cute!
• You love your wooden spoon. Even after all the cool toys you got for Christmas, the wooden spoon is your favorite thing to play with. You love to wave it around and bang on everything (including Hiro) with it.

Aedan, you are so much fun. You keep us on our toes but we love seeing your personality come out more and more each day. Now that you are moving around on your own, it is so much fun to watch you discover new things. We love you so much!!

-Lauren-

Things We Love Part Ten

I just realized hadn’t done a post about the things we have loved this last month. Since Aedan is still sick, I thought I would do this during nap time.

Aedan got lots of new toys for Christmas so that is what a majority of these items are from. He got two trucks and he loves them. They are played with at least once a day. He is really good about rolling them on the floor and crawling next to them. When I see him do this I feel like he is so grown up. I mean that is what toddlers do, not little babies!

He also got a ring stacker. He loves to get two of the rings and crawl around. Sometime he will go over and bang the rings on the tile or the wall or clap them together like tambourines.

Over the past couple of months, Aedan has really started to like books. As part of our bedtime routine, one of us reads him a couple of books every night before putting him in his crib. We have been doing that for a long time, but he just now seems to really be enjoying the books. He loves the touch and feel books as well as his first 100 words book.

In our part six post I talked about how we love our space saver highchair. We still use it everyday. I absolutely love that it just attached to one of our kitchen chairs and doesn’t take up any extra room. But when we were visiting grandparents over the holidays we didn’t bring it with us. Jon’s mom had a booster seat that all the grandkids have used so that worked out nicely. Then my mom found this great seat for their place. It was great. I think we may get our own soon since the one we have doesn’t slide under the table like this one can. As Aedan moves towards eating the same foods as us, I want him to be able to sit at the table too. Plus it folds up nicely so it will be perfect for visiting friends and great grandparents.

Finally, this is something we have been using a lot of lately. Aedan has had a running nose for going on a week now and he is sick of me having to wipe it. I originally bought a pack of these to keep in my purse to wipes Aedan’s hands when we went to a restaurant or something, since the pack is much smaller than regular wipes. But now that I have been using them for his running nose, I love them even more. The are great at dissolving all the crusty stuff around his nose and wiping it clean quickly, which is key.

So those are just a few of the things we are loving right now. How about you, what can you and your little one not live without these days?

-Lauren-

Being Sick is No Fun

Aedan has had a running nose and some congestion since last Wednesday. I figured it was just a cold and would go away soon enough. Then on Sunday he wasn’t acting himself. He was pretty fussy and not really interested in playing. I finally decided to take his temperature and it was 102.5. Poor little guy. We gave him some Motrin and put him to be early. He tossed and turned and whined most of the night, so I knew he didn’t feel well at all. Once he started sleeping a solid 12 hours a night around 4 months, I can count on one hand the nights he has woken up after bedtime.

With a fever Sunday night, I knew he couldn’t go to the babysitter’s house on Monday so I had to cancel my meetings. It is tough with my job because I only see my clients two to three times a month so when I have to cancel it can really throw things off. Luckily my client was very understanding and I was able to get everything rescheduled.

Monday morning Aedan slept in a little and then ate a little bit of breakfast. He looked like he was going to fall asleep while I was giving him his cereal. I put him down for a nap early and he slept for 4 hours! I kept checking on him because, while he is a good sleeper, a 4 hour morning nap is not normal. I kept alternating Motrin and Tylenol and in the evening I thought he was doing better but then his fever shot up again.

This morning he still had a fever so I decided to take him to the doctor. They did a flu test (it was negative) and a white blood cell count (it was normal). They decided it is probably just a virus and hopefully his fever will go down by tonight.

Poor thing just looks so sick. He was not happy about the flu test or the white blood count test.

I just hope he feels better tomorrow and that neither Jon or I gets sick.

-Lauren-

The Weekend

Jon and I both had a pretty stressful week at work. Jon is having to go on site for a couple of weeks for a big project and then next week he is going to training in Minnesota for another big project. Then there are some things going on with the company I work for and I had to make some big decisions this week. I can’t go into much detail yet, but things aren’t going quite as planned. I know that in the long run things will all work out, but man it is stressful to be in the middle of it!

Needless to say we were both ready for the weekend. Friday night we just stayed home and relaxed. Then we had a lazy Saturday morning. Aedan was super excited to have Jon home for the morning. Since Jon has been on site all week, he leaves around the time Aedan gets up and then they only have a short time together in the evening before Aedan goes to bed.

 

After Aedan’s morning nap we decided to go shopping for a baby gate (I got tired of moving the chairs to block the kitchen off). I had a pretty specific baby gate list. I wanted something that was pressure mounted since it will be going against cabinets on one side and I didn’t want put holes in those. Second, I wanted one with a “door” so that we didn’t have to take it down all the time to let Hiro get in and out. Third, our doorway is a weird size. It is bigger than most doorways, but not big enough to need a huge gate. We headed to Baby’s R Us to check out there selection. There was one gate that matched my criteria. Just one. It made the decision process pretty easy. When we got home, Jon set it up and it is working pretty nicely. Hiro is not sure what to think about it. He is a little big chicken, so it will probably take some time before he gets used to having to walk through it to get outside and to his food (he hasn’t eaten since we set the gate up). Can we say dramatic? Sigh, eventually his stomach will force him to man dog up.

Saturday afternoon, Jon and Aedan both took long naps and I got comfortable on the couch and watched a movie (I love Netflix!). Then yesterday evening Jon’s niece came over to babysit and we went out to see True Grit at the Alamo with our friends Jason and Meredith. We all really liked the movie and it was nice to spend some time with good friends. About 30 minutes after we got home, it started pouring. It has been raining off and on ever since.

Today it is rainy and cold, so we are just relaxing at home. I did run out and grab a Sunday paper this morning (and some donuts for breakfast). I am going to attempt to do some couponing. I just hate how much I spend at the grocery store every week. Hopefully it goes well!

-Lauren-

Back to Work

Yesterday was the first day back for both Jon and me, after having two weeks off. Ugh, neither of us was ready. We had gotten very used to just sleeping until Aedan woke up and then one of us would make him a bottle while the other changed him. While one was feeding him the other made breakfast, and then we all just kind of lounged around for the morning. Typically we would get ready for the day while Aedan took his morning nap. It to have the great time off and Aedan enjoyed getting to spend so much time with both of us.

Then yesterday came. Alarm clocks went off and we were forced to get back into the swing of things. Usually Jon’s commute consists of walking down the hall to our office, but for the month of January he is going to be going onsite for a few different jobs and even to a week long training in Minnesota. Um, Minnesota in January?!?! I’m not sure Jon even owns warm enough clothes for that trip!

After Jon left for work yesterday morning, Aedan and I jumped back into our little routine. While he played after breakfast, I got started on emails that needed to be returned and calls that needed to be made. After his nap, we had lunch and then headed over the the sitter’s house. I dropped him off and then drove up to one of my client’s house for a meeting. We live on the south east side of town, Aedan’s sitter is on the south west side and then my client is on the north east side. By the time I got home, I had made a huge full circle around Austin. Lovely. Luckily, Jon was able to picked up Aedan and I was able to use the toll way to get home. I don’t like paying but it is sooo nice to not have any traffic when driving home at 5:30, especially when the drive means going from pretty far north all the way south!

While it definitely wasn’t fun going back to work after having so much time off, I did have one thing that I was really looking forward to on the DVR…

I know. I know. It is a silly show and full of mindless drama. But I can’t not watch it. Jon got a new Xbox game over the weekend so he was happy to play, while I got comfortable in bed to watch 2 hours of silly girls and lots of drama. I’m hooked. The vampire girl anyone? Crazy! For the next few weeks I will be hanging out in front of the TV, tuning in every Monday night. Oh and if you watch the show, or even if you don’t, you have to check out this blog. She does a recap of each episode and it is hilarious!

What about you guys? Was it hard to get back into the swing of things after the holidays?

-Lauren-

Who Needs a Baby Gate?

Now that he can crawl, Aedan is so good about entertaining himself while I am getting things done around the house. He loves to play with his music table, trucks and ring stacker. He will crawl around with his spoon and tap everything. It is so fun to see him look though his books (he loves the touch and feel ones the best!).

 

Our house is great because I can close the bedroom and bathroom doors and he can basically explore all over without getting into things. Well all over except for the kitchen. I have a cabinet of tupperware. Do you still call it tupperware if it is not actually Tupperware? It’s like saying Kleenex for tissue isn’t it? Anyway, I have a cabinet of things he can play with and it enjoys it. He also enjoys standing up at the patio door and looking outside or playing under the table. But the thing he loves more than anything is playing in Hiro’s water and food bowl. He is easy to redirect, but when I am trying to get things done in the kitchen, there are times when I would just like him to play in the living room. We are thinking about getting a baby gate, but until then, this is what Daddy rigged up.

Nothing like blocking a doorway with chairs, right? Aedan thinks it is too fun. He loves to pull up on anything right now, so this is great for him. This afternoon, I was able to get the kitchen clean and swept and make some baby food while he happily played in the living room.

I’m thinking we might just stick with this for awhile. I mean it was free and by the time we get a baby gate that fits the wide opening, I think he will either push it down or try to climb on it. What do you think? Baby gate or no baby gate? Anyone have a baby gate brand that they like?

-Lauren-