the suspense is killing me

We've been toying with the idea of getting a new laptop or netbook, especially with the upcoming move. My parent's desktop isn't the most convenient, and although you'd think that 3 adults could easily share the one laptop, I know it would be tough at times. I usually can only get online when the kids are resting/sleeping, which is probably when my mom would be online, and my dad is online in the evening. Anyway, obviously I'm totally trying to justify this...

Look what Al thought I needed for my birthday.


She's a cute little netbook and apparently has just what I need for searching the internet and uploading pictures. Now I just have to wait for Amazon to ship it. Patience has never been a skill of mine. I'm being put to the test!

7 months!!

So on Saturday Jason turned 7 months. Where has the time gone? Well, he's "talking" a ton, but not truly babbling yet. Just lots of screeches to let you know he's there. He's sitting up quite well (as you can tell from pictures). Not quite crawling yet, but very determined. He's still spending a good portion of his day attempting to eat his toes. He spends the rest of his time staring at Tyler. He is just fascinated with him and Tyler has been showing more interest in hanging out with his little bro.

As for food, he's come a long way. He seems to have outgrown most of his sensitivities/allergies. He can tolerate the eggs and wheat just fine (or so it seems) and was doing okay with minimal amounts of dairy. Unfortunately he didn't fare so well when I increased the amounts and ended up vomiting, gassy, miserable, and had blood in his stool yet again. So for now I'm back off the dairy and soy, at least until his tummy calms down. I'm confident that I can reintroduce it again, at least in small amounts. I have a feeling that cheese is still off-limits, but that's okay. As far as his actual consumption, he's doing better with his eating. He has proven to dislike green beans. He's still uncertain about avocados and peas. He enjoys rice cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I've also started experimenting with making my own baby food. He could care less, but I'm happy about it.

Lastly, I believe he's teething. Al laughs because he claims that I said this for 2.5 years with Tyler, but least night HE made the comment that he thinks he's teething. He's been running a fever off and on for 2 days, but has no signs of illness. Slightly runny nose (completely clear) and is just miserable. Those were all the signs with Tyler, and interestingly enough Tyler cut his first tooth right after he turned 7 months, so I guess we shall see if history is repeating itself.

So aside from his current potentially-teething uncomfortable predicament, I've got a happy little growing boy on my hands!

grandparents

I've said it before, I'm very lucky to still have 2 of my grandparents alive. My boys are incredibly lucky to know their great-grandparents (which, by the way, have been dubbed g-g.mom and g-g.pop). Anyway, they spend their winters about an hour south of me, and then the retreat to home (NJ) for the summer. While they are here we see them usually once every 2 weeks (or weekly when Al's deployed). Part of our trips there have often included "the grove" (and ice cream place near their house). They head back north in a few days, so Friday was our very last visit. Tyler was very sad to say goodbye, but he did enjoy his ice cream!

First Game!

Thursday night was Tyler's first t-ball game. Let me say, it was entertaining. A mom on the opposite team said that they often referred to 3 and 4-year-old t-ball as "herd ball" because all the kids would run for the ball at the same time. That was 100% accurate. Occasionally a child would run in a different direction than the ball had gone. Hitting the ball could take numerous tries. After hitting probably 25% of the time the kids would run to the wrong base. 2 kids on the other team cried almost the whole game. It was interesting. Funny, adorable, and interesting.

Tyler had a great time. He didn't field too much. There are 2 kids on his team that are very fast, so the coaches had to try to hold them off and let some of the other kids get a chance to field a ball or two. He had some good hits though. And he had fun, which is what is most important.

Speaking of coaching, both the coach and assistant coach were not available, so Al ended up having to help out coaching. He did pretty good for his first try at coach and Tyler was amused.

In case anyone is curious of the score, there is no scoring in this league. Regardless it would be impossible to determine because there are no outs. At all. Everyone gets a chance to bat each inning (and gets to keep trying until they have success) and once a ball is fielded it goes right back to home base.

Some pictures....

First up, an example of some classic "herd ball".

Duck duck goose while waiting for their turn to bat (their idea, not ours)

Up to bat

Shaking hands at the end of the game (a very confusing concept, apparently)

Earth Day!

Today was a pretty good day. For starters, while Tyler was at school, Jason took a nice little nap in my arms while I caught up on The Biggest Loser. Afterwards we picked Tyler up at school, grabbed a quick lunch, and head for the playground. My friend Scarlett was hosting a Juicy Juice house party, so a bunch of us from our play group met up at the park. Jason got passed from person to person, so I got to sit and talk with the ladies without breaking my back holding the baby. After Jen finally gave him up, Julie took over and even succeeded in getting to nap. Apparently she must be the baby whisperer because she can get all babies to sleep. For a while there I thought Jason was gonna break her streak, but he gave in! Meanwhile Tyler played for probably 3 hours. We tasted some juice, had good conversation, and head home in time to make dinner. Jason later napped in the swing which gave me time to finally print the iron-on to make his cloth diaper t-shirt. I learned 2 things from this process.

1)Old stained onesies that have been bleached will have their stains reappear upon ironing them.

2)It helps to confirm that the iron-on is facing the right direction.

After a second try I finally got it right! I wanted some pics of him in his cloth diaper shirt (after all it was earth day) so we went outside. Jason had a ball outside. He would hear a bird and try to follow it, often tipping right over.




Tyler was in a particularly playful mood, even offering to be in pictures!





It was a good day. I won't even allow the crappy movie that Al picked to ruin my night!

introduction to military life

So for almost 3 years now we've had MRE's (meals ready-to-eat) stored as part of our hurricane survival kits. In case you've never heard of them, essentially they are prepackaged meals typically used in combat zones or other places where prepared food would not be available. The box had a date of 12/09 on it, so I figured it would expire while it were in storage this summer/fall so we might as well give them away rather than store them. Al suggested that Tyler might get a kick out of seeing an MRE, and I've always been curious, so we opened one up. Tyler picked beef ravioli and Al did go ahead and warm it (only water is needed for this process). We ate the rest of the items just as they would out "in the field", but we put the ravioli on a plate just to cool it off for Tyler. Overall it was a hit. I was surprised that they tasted decent. And they can pack quite a bit into that little pouch. Ours contained the following: beef ravioli, pears (or "flat pears" as Tyler called them, because they were in a flat pouch), crackers, cheese spread, drink mix (like gatorade), brownie, 2 pieces of gum, the cutest little container of Tabasco sauce I've ever seen, serving of coffee, creamer, salt, pepper, napkin, spoon, matches, and a wet wipe!




BTW, I've since learned that an MRE really just doesn't expire, so we're gonna hold onto them. I'd rather have an MRE in a pinch than have nothing at all!

Mommy Necklaces

A long time ago, while I was on modified bed rest while pregnant with Tyler, I started to frequent WebMD. While there I met many wonderful women, many of which I became close with, sharing the details of our pregnancies and then later our births of our little babies. One of those women was Raelynn, who eventually give birth to a beautiful baby girl, Megan. Like many of us, she struggled with nursing, but I always admired her determination. Due to some struggles, she ended up creating a "nursing necklace" which allowed her to continue to nurse her daughter. Many moms on the board expressed an interest in her necklaces and she began selling them. Although I had ended up resorting to formula with feeding Tyler, I told her that I'd be buying one if I ever ended up being able to nurse a child. 4.5 years later, I finally made good on that promise. Raelynn is now a mommy of two and owns and operates a successful business called "Mommy Necklaces" which carries a line of beautiful jewelry, perfectly safe for us moms.

Here I am on Easter wearing my first, but hopefully not last, necklace. I've already received many comments and compliments on it.


Every Monday on her blog she features a different mommy. I happen to be that mommy this week! Feel free to go on over and check it out here. http://mommynecklaces.com/blog/

If you happen to be a nursing mommy in need of a gorgeous, and safe, piece of jewelry, I urge you to check out her site. In fact, anyone can enjoy these necklaces. I know most of us like to support work-at-home-moms, and I assure you that she is one of the best! Her jewelry can be found here. http://www.mommynecklaces.com/

Dinosaur World (picture overload).

On Sunday we decided to go to Dinosaur World. I had been wanting to take Tyler for a while, but never got around to it. I've been compiling a list of things I want to do/see before leaving FL, so I figured we'd take the opportunity to scratch something off that expanding list. I had planned on taking the boys after school one day, but learned on-line that military members get in free, so we decided to bring Al and make a day of it.

We got there early and it was pretty empty. The weather was gorgeous and we ended up having a perfect morning/early afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised by all there was to do and Tyler suprised me by having a great deal of interest in the dinosaurs.

Tyler reading one of the plaques. Yes, he insisted on us reading EVERY one. I assure you my pronunciation of dinosaur names leaves much to be desired.

Stegosaurus?? Apparently my recall of the plaques is pretty poor.

Tyler nearly eaten by a Velociraptor (or some similar dinosaur).
Happy baby.

Digging for fossils. You get to keep 3. Tyler kept a shark's tooth and 2 others that I quickly forgot the name of.

Help (see the fear on his face?)!!!
Attack of the dinosaurs.

This one seems much more friendly.

Dinosaur crossing.
Yet another dinosaur, and I won't even pretend to know the name.

Jason finally gives in to the nap.

Digging in the bone yard.

Tyler being silly.

Dino bones.

Just eating some lunch in a cave.

Last, but not least, some playground time...

lets go fly a kite

On Saturday my parents got on the road to head back to NJ. Tyler was pretty bummed, so we needed a diversion. Al blew up the kiddie pool and set it up out back. Tyler thought this was quite fun. Jason, not so much.
The beach ball kept rolling away, which made me realize that it was finally a good day to fly Tyler's kite he got for Easter!

Later on in the evening we had our first official "family movie night" and got to eat dinner on the living room and watch a movie. Al insisted on Marley & Me, which proved to be slightly inappropriate for Tyler (at least in my eyes) but he was amused for a while, although we did eventually turn it off. Regardless, he had fun, so that's what matters.

Spring Jubilee

On Friday we had a busy day. Tyler had school and afterwards we head to the mall to pick up our pictures from Sears. We ate lunch and Tyler played in the play area there. From there we came home and Jason napped while Tyler played various things with my parents. Meanwhile Al re-enlisted for another 6 years of military life. A relief and a pain, all in one! Anyway, after Jason woke up my parents and the 3 of us went over to the Spring Jubilee. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised by easy parking, beautiful weather, and low crowds. We got an arm band for Tyler and my dad (because Tyler needed to ride with an adult on many of the rides). Tyler tried all the typical little kid stuff before deciding (on his own) that he wanted to try the tilt-a-whirl. My dad did this, twice, with Tyler before becoming sick himself. At that point they were nice enough to let me take over the arm band and continue on the rides. Tyler shocked me by trying the little kids roller coaster AND the huge slide. All in all I believe he tried 13 rides, some of which he tried numerous times (he did the coaster at least 4 times and the slide at least 6 times). I'd say we got our money's worth off of the arm bands. He had an absolute ball and I was THRILLED that he tried some new stuff!