Autumn's 6 Months Old

Tears are streaming down my face as I try and write this post, my baby girl turned 1/2 a year this past weekend! Wow, time flies. It feels like yesterday we were bringing this sweet little girl home from the hospital. Autumn has brought so much joy to our family and we continue to thank God for trusting her into our care each and every day. Autumn had her 6 month well baby check-up this past Thursday. She got 4 shots and was pretty crabby to say the least. Here are her 6 month measurements:

Weight: 12 lbs. 9 oz. Percentile: Below 5%

Head: 41 cm. Percentile: 5%

Height: 24" Percentile: 5%

Just for comparison here are Owen's measurements from when he was 6 months old:

Weight: 17 lbs. 11 oz. Percentile: 60%

Head: 43.2cm Percentile: Below 30%

Height: 29" Percentile: 30%

See what I mean? The doctors are not concerned what so ever and said she is a very happy & healthy baby, she is just small. She has doubled her birth weight and has continued to make an uphill climb on the growth charts. So most likely Owen is going to be tall like Daddy and Autumn is gonna be a petite little thing just like Mommy, sorry baby girl. Happy Half Birthday Autumn! At 6 months old, here are a few of Autumn's favorite things to do:

She has become very fond of her walker. She will hang out in here and play/eat her toys while Mommy is busy in the kitchen.

She LOVES rolling over onto her belly.

And her favorite person in the whole wide world is her big brother. They are always right by each other sides and Owen keeps begging for Autumn to play with him.

Owen is also very fond of his little sis. He loves pushing her around in her walker and now his shopping cart. Lol.

Kiddo Update!

Just thought I would give you all a little update on our kiddos.

Poor Autumn is in the midst of teething which is bringing her an extreme amount of pain, a low grade fever and tons of drool.

Here she is teething on some frozen homemade sweet potato baby food.
She went to town on it until she got a little brain freeze. Poor baby!
Here is Owen trying to cheer her up by tickling her feet. They have really bonded and have become the best little buddies.

Here is what I mean. I decided to pull out the walker from the garage because I thought Autumn would really enjoy it. She really did seem to like it especially cause her big brother was giving her some really fun rides in it.

He was pushing her all over the place. When she didn't look terrified she seemed to enjoy it. j/k, she was really having a blast.
Here he is taking her to their play room to go play.
See what I mean, she really enjoyed the free rides! Owen has this new thing where he opens his mouth to take pictures. I have no clue why, but he calls it his silly face.

Quick Potty Training update! We are finished, for the most part. It has been 2.5 weeks and 0 accidents. He loves being a big boy and using the potty. We even leave the house with him in underwear now, not pull ups and have had huge success. The only time he has a diaper is at night mainly because I have no clue how to even start trusting that he will wake up if he needs to go potty. Any suggestions?

Here is my big boy on the potty!
And here he is sporting his undies with his firefighter hat on! He is so silly.

Nana's @#st Birthday!

On Friday we celebrated my Mom's @#st Birthday. I am bleeping out her age cause she may not appreciate me sharing that with everyone. She is a great babysitter for Brandon and I so we want to stay on her good side. We had a great time and it was so much fun spending the day celebrating my exceptional Mother. We went and had an early dinner at Zio's, one of my mom's favorite restaurants, then we came back to our house and opened presents, ate cake and played some games. The kids were great at dinner and we all ate way too much. The day was perfect! Here are some pictures from our time. Happy Birthday Mom!

My Mom and her newest granddaughter Abbi at dinner.

Dad, Mom and Abbi. My poor dad had a root canal that morning so his mouth was a little swollen and he was a little groggy. What a champ still coming out to celebrate. Love ya pops.

Me and the Kids at dinner. I love Owen's face in this picture. He was so happy and had pizza sauce all over his face!

Daddy & Autumn. Doesn't she look like such a big girl in jeans?Mom opening her gifts. We all pitched in and got her a nice new camera. Figured she was gonna need this with 3 grand kids now!
Owen handing Nana some more presents.

Chocolate Cake + Chocolate Frosting with Pecans = Nana's Favorite! Yummy.
Little Abbi. So precious.

My parents defiantly have their hands full now!

The Ladies.

Autumn & Abbi. Autumn is completely fascinated with her and always wants to be right by her. They even held hand at one point, it was so adorable!Autumn is finally starting to look a bit bigger than her cousin. Not much, but kind of. Lol.

Where did my little boy go?

Our little boy amazes us every single day. He is growing and growing each and every day and he is continually learning new things. His new favorite thing to do is play on the computer. Yes, at 2 years old, he loves the computer. There is this program called Starfall that has ABC's with their phonic sounds and little games that go along with each letter and Owen goes crazy over it. Well, Brandon and I normally sit and do it with him because you need to use the computer mouse. Well, the other day while we were doing this program he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, can I do it?" and I politely looked at him and said, "Mommy has to do it because you can't work the mouse yet." He looked back up at me and said, "Mommy, I'll figure it out." So I stepped aside thinking, okay sure, I'll let him try and when he realizes he can't do it I'll go back to helping him. Well, much to my surprise, HE DID IT! He can completely work the computer mouse all by himself. He even figured out how to click and drag objects in the games. Wow, he amazes me every day

Girls Trip to Grandma's House

This past Sunday my Mom, Sister, Abigail, Autumn and I took a trip out to my Grandma's Assisted Living Facility to let her have some time with the girls. Owen had the choice of going with us or hanging out with his Pampo and of course, he chose to hang with his Pampo. Him and my dad had a blast playing with his new Hot Wheels Race Track my dad bought him. We surprised my Grandma and just showed up with out notice and needless to say, she was beside herself. She had so much fun with her two great-granddaughters. I think she showed them off to every single person in her building, workers included! Here are a few pictures from our afternoon.

The girls.
Autumn playing on the floor
Abbi chillin in her car seat
Me and my Baby Girl
My Grandmother with the girls. Such a special picture!
My Mom and Autumn. I love this one. My sister giving Autumn a ride on her leg. Autumn loved this!

Auntie Kiki putting my Uggs on Autumn. This picture cracked me up!

Us Girls had a wonderful afternoon and I am so glad we had a chance to go visit my grandma. When I got back to pick up Owen, the poor guy had a pretty nasty fever. I knew he had a little cold for the past couple days but he went downhill pretty fast. On the way home from my parents he asked me if he could go nigh nigh when we got home. It was only 5pm so I convinced him to just lay on the couch and watch a movie. I put him in his PJ's, got him some juice and he curled up with a blanket. Anyone that knows Owen, knows he is one active child and has a really hard time sitting still. Well, he laid on the couch for 2.5 hours strait. Poor guy was definitely sick!

One last thing, I promise.
Autumn started drinking from a sippy this weekend too! What a big girl, I feel like she is growing up overnight. I bought her two really pink and girlie sippy cups for Christmas and, of course, she likes Owen's old blue sail boat cup! Lol.

A New Year & A New Outlook

We have started into the face of another year. I feels so much pressure this time of year. Here we are again, a chance to start over, try again, hope to get it right this time. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get it right this time.

On the one hand, I love the idea of a new beginning. On the other hand, I dread the thought of failing once again. Failing to meet the goals, cross the finish line, follow through. There are so many words spinning around in my brain-- my relationship with Christ, budget, exercise, homemaking and of course parenting and the list goes on and on and on and on. You get the picture. So excuse me while I ramble all over this computer screen, but in these first few days of 2011, my mind is speeding along trying to figure out a way to failure-proof 2011, and..."it ain't happening." So as I focus & struggle to come up with a plan I keep going back to the most familiar verse in the Bible, "For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength" Philippians 4:13. Wow, what an amazing, hopeful and very true verse! So instead of making a list of resolutions that I will probably give up on by time February rolls around I am going to take this year a month at a time, who knows maybe even one day at a time. I will focus on my Faith and try and find strength everyday through this one particular verse. God doesn't want us me to fail and He gives me strength each and every day to push forward and prevail in whatever I do. So to turn my negative thinking into a positive I am going to make small achievable goals here and there for me to complete.

Goal #1 for this month is to finish up potty training Owen. Back in October I started the journey of Potty Training and my goal was for Owen to be Potty trained by the Holidays. October went awesome, a little too awesome in my opinion. He took really well to it and did great for the whole month. November came and I really have no clue what happened? He randomly started having tons of accidents and just kept asking me to put a diaper on him. With all the busyness that November and December brought I simply gave up, gave in and allowed him to naturally regress. So here we are a start of a new month, a new year for that matter, and we are starting over. I decided the other day to just pull out the underwear, forget the kid potty and...well...just see what happens. Day 1, not so good. I think we went through 6 outfits and lots of frustration. Day 2, 3 outfits. Day 3, perfect! Yay! He is doing great and he is now in underwear full time, minus naps and bedtime. I am so proud of him. He has even been going in public places which is a huge deal since most kids are a little intimidated with pubic restrooms. I am so glad to say that 8 days in and my goal is almost complete, just now trying to figure out how to teach him not to wet the bed.

Here is the big boy cooking me up something delicious in his new boxer briefs. He likes these underwear way better than the regular briefs we tried last time. I love this boy!

And here he is being silly stomping around the house in my Uggs. He cracks me up more than anyone else in the world.

Goal #2 for the month is to get Autumn on a nice regular schedule. I am trying to carve out my day so Owen, Autumn and I kind of know what to expect. Now that she is eating baby food regularly, it requires more of my time and I need to feed her on a kind of normal schedule. Kind of like we do, you know-Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner. It doesn't have to be exact, but at least I won't forget or wait until she is too tired to even focus or want to eat. I am just about there. She is now taking two regular and consistent naps and is eating baby food twice a day. Her schedule still needs a little tweeking but we are well on our way. Brandon loves when I put her tiny little bit of hair in pig tails. Here she is once I took them out for the night. Lol, she looks so spunky!

Did I mention she is rolling over now? Here is before....

and here is after. Such a big girl! Uh oh, does this mean crawling is next?

Last night we had my sister and my niece over for dinner since her husband is out of town for the weekend. I made Chicken Broccoli Fettuccine Alfredo with some delicious garlic bread. We had a really nice time hanging out and all the kiddos had fun playing. Here are some pics from the evening.

Owen and Auntie Kiki were playing with his baseball,

while Autumn was bouncing,

and being adorable,while Abby was laying back chillin'. She is so adorable and such a little sweetie. I can't tell you how proud I am to be her Auntie!And of course Brandon and I had to love on her. She started to get a little fussy so I took it upon myself to walk around with her and the little angel curled up on me and fell asleep. It made my night. Love you Abigail!

Happy New Year!

Celebrating New Years with kids that go to bed at 8 O' Clock doesn't leave a ton of options. Needless to say, we stayed home his year. We knew there is no way our kids would make it until midnight! But who says we couldn't have fun at home? We invited the wonderful Altman Family over and our very good neighbor friends over Paul, Colette and their son Zach who is 15. I made, for the 1st time, Chicken Corn Chowder and Brandon & Owen made some delicious homemade Salsa. Our neighbors brought some veggies & Kaitlyn made her delicious fudge! Unfortunately the Altman's only stayed until 8 cause they had to get Olivia to bed, but we hung out and played games all night with our neighbors to ring in the new year. We were having way too much fun playing our new PlayStation Move, which is similar to the Wii, and accidentally stayed up way too late. 2 AM to be exact. Yea, your tellin me! Brandon and I were exhausted the next day, to say the least, since it is literally 1 time a year we are up past 11pm. Needless to say we had a really kicked back January 1st and spent our day as a family at home and stayed in our PJ's all day! Of course I forgot to take pictures of our party until Midnight so enjoy the pics I do have....

Here I am chopping veggies for my Chicken Corn Chowder while Owen is helping daddy with the Salsa. Owen has a major obsession with cooking and loves to be in the kitchen helping with whatever he can. Hopefully he will grow up to be some world famous chef so I will never have to cook again. J/K but I can dream, right? Owen insisted on wearing his new apron his Mimi got him to go with the play kitchen that Santa brought him, so funny.
Starting up the blender. Daddy had to hold him because the blender noise scares him really bad.
Autumn watching all the action in the Kitchen. Sampling his work. He actually really liked the salsa and of course loved dipping chips in it!
And here is my final product. Chicken Corn Chowder topped with Green Onions, Cilantro, Green Chili & Bacon Bits. I have to say it was AMAZING and very flavorful!!!!!!!
Daddy & Autumn watching football on the couch waiting for our guests to arrive.
Like I said I forgot to take pictures the entire night until the clock struck 12 Midnight. Here is Paul & Colette's first picture of the New Year! We love them, they are such a wonderful family!
Brandon and I toasting!

And here is Owen and I the next morning spending the first day of 2011 having a PJ family day!
Owen, Daddy & Autumn. Like how her hair is sticking strait up? Looks like she had a wild New Years Eve!Owen & Daddy having some tummy time with Autumn.
Since we spent all of January 1st doing nothing, January 2nd meant back to reality. I spent the whole day un-decorating. Ugh. It was a lot of work but I am very glad it is all done now. Owen was kind of freaking out when I was taking everything down and kept saying, "No mama, I want more Christmas." I reassured him we will have another Christmas in 11 months and since he is a kid and has no sense of time he was okay with that answer. Lol.

Here is Owen feeding his sister, well atempting to, while I was busy taking down decorations. He loves helping out with her!