Sleeping Baby

 Yesterday Milo didn't wake up before it was time to pick Olive up from preschool. He looked so peaceful sleeping. So I had to take some pictures.  There is something amazing about a sleeping baby. So sweet and precious. It broke my heart to have to wake him, as it always does.

  You can see that Milo is still swaddled. We call him our "burrito supreme". We have always called our swaddled babies burritos but he is just getting so big. Over the holiday weekend our relatives were kind of making fun of us when they would see us wrap Milo up. He is just so big that it does look funny.

 Here is a close up of his little cheeks. And oh that poutty lip!

 

Do you think we are crazy to still wrap him up? Olive was swaddled until she was 8 months old, Milo is only 6. We had to actually ween Olive off of her swaddle and even to this day she really likes to be tucked in nice and tight. I don't know if it is the swaddle or Milo but he is sleeping 12 hours most nights, so I am not willing to mess with anything at this point. 

So, do/did you swaddle your babies?

Thanksgiving

I am sorry about those last few posts. I did them in advance, and then obviously forgot to finish them. I promise I will go back and update the ones that didn't have pictures like I said they would. Oops!

 We had a really fabulous Thanksgiving this year. We have so much and are so blessed that it is easy to make a long list of all that we are grateful for. I'm not going to add that list here but just know that all of you great friends and family that read this blog are definitely at the top! 

 

Scott started off the day with a Turkey Trot with his sister Becca. They did amazing and we are so proud of them (Becca, please forgive me if you are mad that I posted this picture:) but I love it!)

 Then we went as a family to go see the new Muppet movie. Scott and I were laughing the entire time, we thought it was so funny. Olive got pretty bored towards the end, but thankfully her popcorn was enough to keep her happy until the end.

 After some nice naps we went to my aunt Lori's house for dinner. This is the first time in forever that this side of my family has had relatives here and it was great to get together with them. Dinner was delicious, as always. We took some real pictures of their cute turkey outfits so hopefully I can post those soon.

Then we just had to break out the Christmas jammies because, well you only have so long to wear them! I love matching jammies, almost more than life itself. Sadly, camera phone pictures just do not do the job. I hope your Thanksgiving was as joyful as ours!

Exterior Transformations

 A few weeks ago Scott painted the exterior of our house. All along we had planned to paint it this fall but somehow it snuck up on us. We ended up in a frantic rush to pick colors and paint before it got cold and snowy. Fortunately October stayed nice and he was able to finish, although it did take multiple Saturdays. We always underestimate the time of a project, especially this one. We also miscalculated how much I would be able to help, which ended up being not at all, other than "occasional ladder holder".

It was pretty hard to pick our colors. We got probably 15 samples and still weren't sure. The hardest part was that we wanted colors that would compliment but downplay the purple-ness of our brick.

 

 Here is house the front looked 2 years ago when we purchased the house. Cute but, I don't know....something seems old lady-ish to me. I think it's the hedge.

 

So, we (read Scott) pulled out the hedge. We also need it out to paint. The main reason we were painting was for looks, but we were also hoping it would stop some of the leakage we were having in our basement if we painted and sealed the foundation.

So here is the finished product:

 

 What do you think? I love it! I think it is just a subtle change, in fact a lot of our neighbors didn't even realize we had painted.  It's just that little bit of updating. Now I feel like the exterior matches the interior. Besides, I've always wanted a gray house!!

Two Whole Years

As of November 7 we have officially lived in our house for 2 whole years. That is so shocking to me. It is the longest we have lived in one place since we have been married. It doesn't feel like our new house any more, it just feels like our house. I do kinda miss it not being new. Everyone has seen it now. I did love when people came over and I got to show it off. I love our house. I adore it.  I loved it when we first walked through it, and I loved it after we remodeled it and moved in, and I loved it when we got to do all of the firsts in it like first Christmas etc, but now.... I really love it. Now it has all those memories and time in it. I wasn't too sentimental about moving out of our other places even though they had lots of the same "firsts" but this house is different. Besides we have made so many great friends and love our neighbors.

I sometimes stress out about the potential of someday having to move out of this house. Crazy right? Well, I thought I would just show you some of the things that have happened and changed in our house over the last 2 years.

Knit Romper

I am actually quite proud of this little knit romper. You might not know it by looking at it, but it is one of the hardest things that I have knit. The pattern was pretty confusing, the shaping was pretty advanced, and it took forever to sew on all those buttons. But, it was perfect for the fall day that I knew Milo would be wearing it on for his 6 month pictures.

 

Good thing he still fits in it with that chubby tummy.

 I made a hat to match, but, well, the hat barely fit! This boy and his head....but still so cute!

 Some details:

Olive at 6 months

I just had to post this picture because I think it is so amazing. I was looking back at pictures of Olive as a baby (she loves to see herself) and found this forgotten gem. She is a little older than six months here and this is right before she started crawling so she was at her chunkiest. Those cheeks are intense....I love it!

Milo at 6 months

Today Milo is 6 months old.

 It is absolutely shocking to me that my little guy is so old. These may have possibly been the fastest six months of my life. Milo is such a joy and it is really hard for me to remember what life was like before he was here. He fills our lives.

 Milo, in most ways, is a very easy and cheerful boy. I feel like his life has kind of been divided into 3 sections: pre-prevacid (which is a blur), diagnosed with reflux (which was a lot of adjusting of dosage and our expectations, this is when he started sleeping and I kinda feel like we could start seeing the baby he "really is" because reflux hid that for a few months), and now he is just....Milo.
He is almost always smiling and easy to get to laugh. We can really get him going with big belly laughs and its the most amazing thing ever. Most mornings I look in his crib and he greets me with a huge smile. His tongue is almost constantly sticking out, as you will notice because it is out in every.single.picture we took yesterday. I love it. (He was also in a strangely serious mood while taking pictures, I think it was because he was so fascinated by all the leaves.)

 He loves eating real food and basically yells at you if you don't feed him fast enough. He will eat almost anything, but he so slow and it takes like 20 minutes. His stomach does much better with oatmeal than rice and it has cut down big time on his spit ups. I used to have to warn people that he would probably barf on them if they held him, but not so much anymore. He got his first tooth on Saturday. He sleeps like a champ and I am so extremely grateful (although day light savings transition was a nightmare waking up at 5:30 am). He can sit up, most of the time, but flops hard when he topples over. He can roll from back to tummy and then back. The only frustrating part is that he hates being on his tummy but refuses to roll back over. He will scream and then when I flip him he just looks at me like "How could you do that to me?" He gets shy and hides his face in my neck and shoulder. I adore it.

 Milo likes to bounce and jump. If you hold him standing on your lap he will just bounce like crazy. He loves his jumper and it gets lots of use. He still kicks his legs, especially when he is excited. He will kick and then twist his feet at the same time and it is a pretty funny sight. He has discovered his voice and likes to use it, inevitably at the worst times.  He can play with toys and entertain himself for short stretches. He wants to be in the same room and cries if you leave. He has learned how to grab Olive's hair. He is Olive's biggest fan and is fascinated by her. He has yet to make it through church, 1 o'clock time is hard. He charms everyone.

 He is growing out of his 3-6 month clothes but 6-9 month ones are very long, he must have a short torso. He loves baths and splashes like crazy. I would still describe him as intense, especially if he is upset about something, be he is much more flexible and predictable which helps with his intensity. He cuddles....in the mornings we are the first ones up and it is just our special, sweet time as he lays on my chest and grabs my face.

 I could go on forever.

There is just so much to love about him! I am very smitten.

Knit First Coat

There are so many people that I just absolutely admire and they all seem to be pregnant right now. My friend Meredith is one of those people. She is amazing! I look at her strength, talent, style, kindness, and am often in awe of her. She designs the most beautiful stationary and you should definitely check her out at LilyJaneStationary.com. 

Well, Meredith is about to have a new little addition in just a few weeks, although you would never know it because she looks like she is maybe six months pregnant (so jealous!) I just adore her and her cute family and I wanted to make her something special. Since her due date is in December I thought what better to make than a "first coat" as this pattern was called.  I think it turned out great and the details really make this sweet little coat. I am in love with that collar! Congratulations Meredith and thank you for being my friend!

PS Did you know that today is 11/11/11? I just barely realized that. I feel like I should do something to commemorate it, but what? Anyway, sorry to any of you that may still possibly read this blog. I know that I don't comment on any of your posts because well, I usually read them in bed before I fall asleep and then forget to comment later. I do read them and love your post and keeping up with your lives. I hope that you don't think I have ditched you and I hope you haven't ditched me too! I miss you guys!

Milo Swimming

A few weeks ago Milo went swimming for the first time. I just loved him in his robe

 But he was super cute in his suit too.

 

 Oh, and we can't forget his sweet sunglasses.

I love how they were making the same face in this picture. Hehe! Milo loved the water and was splashing away. Olive thought that was awesome and was excited to splash him back. She was very confused when she got in trouble and he didn't.

Olive and Renegade

 Four years ago Scott gave me a kitten for Christmas. He was tiny and cute and we called him Renegade. This cat lived in our family until about a month ago when we listed him on KSL and a nice family came to take him home. There were lots of reasons why we decided to give him away but it was pretty hard to come to that decision because Oilve really liked the idea of having a cat. She identified herself as a cat owner and liked to talk about him when we saw other animals. I was pretty nervous about how she would react to him being gone. This is the funny story of her coming to terms with it. I'm sure no one else cares but I just really want to remember.... 

 One evening a family came to look at our cat Renegade to see if they wanted him to live at their house. Olive met the family and liked running around with the little boy. We had prepared her before hand by talking about how Renegade was going to live with a different family now and she seemed pretty ok with it. She liked the idea of him, but didn't actually like playing with him, or at least she wasn't too interested yet. So they took Renegade home with them that evening.

The next day Olive was playing in the back yard with Scott when some cats came running through our bushes. One of them was black, but small like a kitten (Renegade was huge weighing in at 20+ pounds) Olive yells "Renegade! He's back!" Then pauses and looks more closely at him and says "It's kind of Renegade?" because she realized that something was off about this cat. Still convinced it was hers she went up to try and pet it and it kept running away from her. In frustration and chasing it around the yard she yells "Renegade, it's me! Come back here! Renegade, stop running away!" Finally the cat scampers away into the next yard probably because it was feeling harassed by this little girl convinced it was her friend.
The following morning as I was doing my make up, Olive was sitting outside the bathroom talking to me as she often does (she is not allowed inside the bathroom while I'm in there so she just sits on the floor and talks and talks) I brought up the cat from yesterday to see if she was upset about missing Renegade or not. I asked "Did you see Renegade yesterday?" and she tells me "It was kind of Renegade." Then she thinks for a minute and says "It was Renegade's little brother!" He was small." Surprised by this I said "Oh, his little brother huh? What is Renegade's brother's name?" and without skipping a beat she answers "Rufus!"

This is why I love 3 year old Olive. I have no idea where she came up with Rufus. I have racked my brain thinking where she might have heard it before. I just adore the innocence and confidence that fill her life right now. I just might think that this is the perfect age (like I have never said that before).

I Promise....

This is the last of the Halloween posts this year! Ha!

For months Olive has been saying that she wanted to be Rapunzel for Halloween. So that is what costume I got her. Then, as you have seen from the other posts, she frequently changed her mind because well, she has a whole box of costumes. You might not know this about Olive but, she spends about 80% of any given day in some kind of dress up. So, that meant that she had lots of options readily at hand. But, on actual Halloween we convinced her to be Rapunzel because we had all planned costumes to go with her.

The trickiest part of Rapunzel, as you might have guessed, is the hair. We bought a wig online, because well, I thought the $25 dollars for the Disney one was outrageous (in retrospect we should have just got the one at the store but oh well)

 

Well, when it came in the mail it had these crazy bangs that we could never fix. But the back was pretty cool.

 

So we cut the braid part off and just figured out how to connect it to Olive's hair. It didn't look perfect but at least she didn't look homeless anymore.

 Here is Rapunzel with her Flynn Ryder

 Apparently he is still afraid of her hair! Hehe. We seriously love this movie at our house!

 Milo was Pascal, in case you couldn't tell:)

 And finally the whole Tangled bunch. Flynn, Rapunzel, Pascal, and Mother Gothel. I think we looked dang good, but I couldn't stand that horrible wig.

More Halloween Activites

So here are some of the other Halloween highlights  (there were lots of fun things that we did that I forgot to take picutres at! Oops!)

Decorating our homemade witch's hats

 Preschool costume parade (Olive is the bride in white. Interestingly, the other kids didn't know what I bride was.) Olive loves playing in the leaves.

 Orange and black dinner

 Homemade donuts and hot cocoa

 

Library Halloween Party

 Painting pumpkins

Posing with Pumpkins

Our Giraffe. We have had multiple costume changes this year.
We had a family Halloween party and Scott decided to be....can you tell?

 

He was Steve Jobs (a tribute) and I was his greatest invention

Cute family

I think this picture is so awesome and hilarious at the same time. First of all, that littlest cheerleader isn't even two yet but I think she has a bright future. And second, how funny is Olive desperately wanting to be part of their awesomeness?

These two are so cute together! Love our cousins!

Here is the whole group:

There is so much more like our own Halloween party, a Halloween playdate, sugar and pumpkin cookies, caramel apples, a trip to St. George, carving pumpkins, etc. etc. etc. Even though it has been so much fun,  I am ready to put the decorations away and start thinking about Christmas presents. Yeah!