Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Catch Up!!

So I've been horrible about keeping up with the blog besides Blake's monthly updates. So here's what has been going on this summer....



We flew to Florida and went to the beach with the Harwood Family...













 We spent the 4th of July Weekend in Dallas. Ashley and I went to the Dirty Dancing Musical, we shot fireworks at the ranch and went to a parade!






Kevin and I took an anniversary trip to NYC!!!


















We went swimming...




The boys got new chairs...





 The boys played...




We stayed up late and went to a Round Rock Express Game!




We went to birthday parties...



AND we survived the Blue Bell drought...




We had a great summer, ready for Fall!! FOOTBALL, FOOD, cooler weather, boots, and all things PUMPKIN!




























Monday, September 14, 2015

Blake's 10 Months Old

 Blake is 10 MONTHS OLD!!!


Man, only 2 months away from being 1!!! Crazy!! Blake is such a sweet and funny boy!! We love his little personality that is shining through!!! He wasn't feeling great during his pictures, so didn't get too many smiles.


Blake's favorite thing to do is EAT!!! He loves everything, seriously I dont think there is anything he won't eat. And he totally out eats his brother. He loves fruit, meat, veggies, everything. He is funny too because he'll just slam his hand down on his highchair and grab a handful of food and shove it all in his mouth, over and over. He eats 3 meals a day with milk in a sippy cup. He has 2 snacks in between those, one with water and one with a bottle. And then a bottle at bedtime. This month we are going to work on dropping that snack bottle and just having water there. He's gotten much better about drinking milk from his sippy cup. He still doesn't love water though, he'll drink some just not a lot.


Blake goes to bed around 8pm and sleeps usually until around 7am. If he wakes up before then we just leave him in his bed until 7, and sometimes he'll even go back to sleep and wake up around 7:30ish.

Now nap time is another story. We are down to 2 naps, but this kid is still struggling a lot of the time to sleep more than 30 minutes for each nap. He knows how to self soothe because he does it all night and he puts himself to sleep for naps, so I dont know what his problem is. Every few days we'll get a long nap in the morning, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. But his afternoon nap is always just 30ish minutes. And you can tell he's tired, because he wakes up crying. I'll leave him in there for a bit to see if he'll go back to sleep but he doesn't.


We are doing really good with the paci too. He doesn't use a paci when he sleeps, honestly its just if he's being super fussy or to wind him down before nap time. Hoping to kick it to the curb fully in the next 2 months.

Blake is crawling, cruising and even standing on his own some!! CRAZY! I have a feeling this kid could be taking a few steps over this next month. He wants to so bad. He walks behind his walker and loves it, just need to work on his balance a bit more.

He loves playing with toys too. He loves pulling toys out of the box and throwing them on the floor. Blake has started even pushing cars around and making a noise. Probably taking after brother and doing like a vrooom noise. So cute!! He loves throwing balls and has a pretty good arm. He still loves putting everything in his mouth. He loves messing with Carter's toys, much to brother's dismay. And he'll get SO MAD if Carter or anyone for that matter takes something away from him.


Blake has 2 TEETH now!! Yah for my slow teeth growing children. He got the bottom 2 about 2 weeks ago I believe.

Blake LOVES dancing. I think he's going to be my musical child. He sways his head back and forth everything music or singing comes on. He loves it.


Blake loves clapping and playing patty cake. 

He loves watching his brother and wants to play with him so bad, if only Carter would let him most of the time. 


Blake loves his daddy too, which totally warms Kevin's heart since the first 5 months at least of his life, he wanted pretty much nothing to do with daddy. He would scream bloody murder if Kevin tried to feed him or hold him or anything. So its so sweet now to seem him light up with Kevin comes in the door. Melt my heart!


Blake loves saying UH OH now. He says it all the time. Thats really the only word he'll say on demand. He can say mamamama and dadada. He'll even do a Ca sound for Carter sometimes. He loves babbling nonsense as well. He definitely has some lungs on him and can cry, scream and laugh when he wants.


Blake is also exploring more and more these days. He loves to do things he shouldn't. He's started opening the kitchen cabinets. He's even learned to pull the outlet covers OUT!! Ugh, don't know what to do about that. And he likes to mess with anything plugged into an outlet. He likes to mess with the trash can too. Blake thinks its HILARIOUS when I tell him no and to stop something. He just looks at me with this mischievous smile and laugh. Yah dont know what to do about that. Cute, but seriously its not funny Blake. So he definitely doesn't want to stop things when I tell him no. And a little pat on the hand while saying no doesn't do anything either.

Blake is such a joy and has come SO FAR from his first few months. He really is a completely different child and we love seeing him so happy and fun!!

Friday, August 14, 2015

Blake's 9 Months Old





9 Months Old??? Can we really only be 3 months away from Blake turning 1??

He is one cute kid, if I may say so myself.



He is

22lbs (85%)
30inchs (> 95%)
47cm head (95%)

I compared them to Carter's 9 month stats and Mr. Blake is ahead of Carter!!! So he may end up being bigger than his brother! We'll see.



Blake is all over the place. Crawl, speed crawls, pulls up, cruises, walks behind things while holding on. He is seriously ready to start walking soon. Just needs to get a bit more steady on his feet.




He also enjoys getting into things he shouldn't. Unfortunately every time I try to tell him no, he turns around to me and smiles and laughs. hmmm Not sure how to get my seriousness across.



He loves his brother and likes to follow him around and play with his toys (much to Carter's dismay). He has such a sweet laugh!! He can say mamamama and dadada. Just yesterday we were saying Carter and he said Ca. So maybe thats his way of acknowledging his brother? If we tell him to wave or say bye, he waves for us. He loves clapping. And he loves to dance his sweet little head with music.



He's eating great. We've mastered puffs and such. Now we are moving to more finger foods. Again not much he doesn't like. We are eating 6 times a day with breakfast, lunch and dinner and then 2 bottles in between and a bottle at bedtime. He still doesn't love using a sippy cup and doesn't drink too much from it. He'd rather mommy hold his cup for him too. So we'll work on that.



He's sleeping great at night. Around 11 hours, give or take. Naps we are slowing trying to improve. Still 3 naps because mostly he's only doing 30 min naps, but some days his middle nap can last up to an hour and a half. So hoping we can stretch the other naps soon, so we can get down to 2 naps.



He loves reading books more now. And pulling the off the shelves. Loves toys with music. And EVERYTHING goes in this kids mouth. He still uses a paci some, but mostly its if his being fussy. He doesn't use it the majority of the time and doesn't sleep with one. YAY!!

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Blake's 8 Months Old



This cute kid is 8 months old!! My oh my over the last 4 months we have really made leaps and bounds. No more is the unhappy, fussy baby. Now we have an active, happy, fearless little boy.





**Haven't been to the doctor in a bit, but I'm guessing he's around 22-23lbs? Still wearing 12 month clothes.



**He's crawling all over the place still and continues to be fearless and pull up on anything and everything. We take some bad tumbles sometimes of the hard tile down stairs, but for the most part he takes it like a champ. He can also, with some assistance sometimes, walk behind his little walker. He isn't great at it yet, but with the little progress he's made, I think we'll have an early walker on our hands.



**He's still eating like a champ. We just went to 3 solid meals a day. And stopped nursing in the morning. He has 3 bottles in between in between his meals and bedtime; 7 oz each. So eating 6 times a day. He's having a sippy cup with his food, but doesn't love drinking from it, so sometimes we can only get him to drink and ounce or two. He just loves his other food, he could care less about his milk. Since last month he's tried:

*butternut squash
*green beans
*pineapple
*yogurt
*cauliflower

We also just started trying a few yum yums and puffs.



**He's sleeping right at about 10-10 1/2 hours at night. Naps are still a struggle in that he's normally only sleeping 30 minutes at a time. Every now and then we'll get a long nap out of him. So that can be super frustrating. He goes to sleep on his own but just wont sleep too long.

**He loves watching his brother and playing with his toys (much to brother's dismay).



**He loves following mommy and wherever she goes. Usually crying, because he wants to be picked up.

**He loves bath time and splashing away.

**He's started swim class and seems to enjoy that too!




Monday, June 15, 2015

Blake's 7 Months Old

7 Months Old!!



I can't believe this little boy turned 7 months old last week!! We don't visit the doctor this month but he's around 21 lbs right now! He really is such a happy baby now and it makes my heart so full!! Blake is full on crawling!!! Its like one morning he did it just a little bit and by the end of the day he was crawling across the room. Blake is really good a transitioning from sitting to crawling and back to sitting. He loves to try and pull up on things now too. We had to lower the bed the other day. The time he tried to pull up on his knees and then he immediately went to standing!! He learns fast!! He's also has no fear!! Which of course makes me nervous!!

Blake can sleep from 7:30 or 8pm to about 6:30am. But lately he's waking up either once during the night or deciding that 5:30am is a great time to wake up! ugh!! So trying to get him to sleep at least until 6-6:30am.



He loves sitting up in the bath now like a big boy and play with his brother! Blake absolutely adores Carter and all he does!! He wants to be a big boy just like his brother! Carter like Blake, unless he's playing with his toys!! Lots of lessons going on right now!



Blake is a great eater too!! He nurses first thing in the morning and then he drinks pumped milk every 3 hours. He is also eating solids twice a day!! He LOVES food. Here is what all he's had:

Rice Cereal
Oatmeal Cereal
Bananas
Peas
Apples
Sweet Potatoes
Pears
Peaches
Avocado
Carrots
Zucchini
Mango

I'm making his food (besides the cereals) like I did with Carter and its so easy!!



Blake has gotten better about dad feeding him at night or putting him to bed, so thats great progress!!

He loves music! Loves playing with toys! Can't wait to see how much more he'll be growing in the next month!