About a Jameson . . .

I need to update on my little!! Jameson will be 9 months on May 22nd. Wow! Where does time go, really? I know it's cliche to say that, but I can't believe it's been almost 9 months since he's been born, and hell, 18 months since he's been a part of me!

He is able, and has been doing this for a few weeks now, to get himself from stomach to sitting all by himself.

Saturday I clapped my hands and got him to try it too. And now the mere mention of, "clap your hands!" causes his face to erupt in a huge smile as he claps his little (or big man hands) together. He's a quick learner!

As of right now, he has three teeth: two on the bottom and one on top. Not quite the overacheiever his big brother was (16 teeth at a year was a little creepy on such a wittle fella).

He has not started solids yet and is happily healthy and an excellent size on Mama milk alone. He scoots towards me and squeals when I come in the door to do his feeds during my work day.

He is starting to have issues (normal) with object permanence and cries if I don't come back into the room right away. Other than that, he is HAPPY and SMILING all the time. We were around a lot of family over the weekend and everyone remarked on his good temperament. He really is never fussy!

Speaking of family, Jameson survived (and enjoyed!) his first camping trip. We stayed in a nice cabin for the weekend and it was nice to not have to worry about housework. I even managed to stay on top of the cloth diapers, rinsing each one before tossing it in the wet bag (better than I do at home, where I rinse them all at night before tossing them into the pail -- hard water issues, dontcha' know?).

I just am very much enjoying my last baby. I look into his big, blue eyes all the time and kiss and smell his bald little head. I just love my little guy so much. He's such a happy and innocent little thing!

Such a boy!

Andrew loves bugs, worms, and caterpillars. This is normal, I am assuming. Sometimes his conversations with us are real head-turners, such as this recent interaction while on a camping trip: we had decided after a full day of outside fun to make a run to Walmart. There was one about 25 minutes away, which would allow for some quiet, contained car time. We were also hoping for Andrew to fall asleep because he was beyond exhausted, but fighting the urge to go down. He decided to take a black, somewhat sparsely haired caterpillar with on this excursion.

On the way back to the cabin, he said, "Mom, I gave the caterpillar a shower".
Me, "uh, what? What do you mean, Andrew?"
[he didn't have any water back there]
Andrew: "I gave him a shower in my mouth."

Ew.

So then we had the conversation on why we don't put bugs and caterpillars in our mouths. Good Lord . . .

He never did take a nap.

Busy, busy, busy!

That sums up my life!! I have been pretty much swamped at work. It's not necessarily out of the norm for HR, but we have been very busy interviewing and hiring and there's all the rigamaroll that goes along with that. I also took a day and a half off last week, which put off some things so now I'm catching up.

I got a new camera (Canon 5D Mark II) and set up a website for my photography business.

I did some organizing around the house (there was a bunch of clutter: paperwork and whatnot in the kitchen). I finally organized pics I printed 6 months ago (4 x 6s that I put in the kids' baby books and photo albums).

It's May!! This is the official kick-off to summer, pretty much, and I intend to enjoy it. Not this weekend but the next, my family is going camping (my mom has a cabin and a yurt rented) so we are very much looking forward to that. We've never gone camping since having kids yet. Weird! That seems crazy.

Other than that, not much else new!

True Confessions

In the throes of newborn days after having my daughter, I was just so happy. One of my favorite things to do was to snuggle up on the couch and nurse her while watching The Office because I had only seen a few episodes here and there, so I took it upon myself to borrow the entire series of DVDs from my sister.

When I got to the wedding one, I was so "in touch" with the characters that that particular episode where Jim and Pam tie the knot just made me cry, almost uncontrollably.

True confession comes in here: while pregnant with Jameson, when I was almost full-term last summer, I was driving to work on a beautiful summer day. I heard "Forever" (the song that plays when Jim and Pam get married and it shows them on the boat together), I started crying in my car. Yep. Fucking Chris Brown. Cue the tears. WTF.

So yeah. There's my random story for you today! I'd be so embarrassed to share that with people in real life. But I love Jim and Pam so much.

I marvel at their observations.

Elise has just turned two and sometimes, well, most of the time, she is a very typical two-year-old. Other times, I am so amazed at what she does. I was home on my 10:00 boobie break and the hubby told me that he was in the bathroom (on the toilet) when Elise walked in with a book in hand and her bowl of cereal. She handed him the book (he just bought it, the first Hunger Games book so this is why I marvel at the fact that she recognized it as his, as he had just started reading it last night) and plopped down on the floor with her cereal and started eating it. Whenever I think she isn't aware of certain things, it's moments like this that I am reminded just how observant she really is. She's taking notes and keeping score, oh yes. :)

Have a great weekend. Enjoy this historical weather (that is, if you live in the central part of the United States, particularly the Midwest, where we are enjoying our warmest March well, EVER. This is a 1 in 5000 chance that this would ever happen, according to one of the hubby's weather geek friends who did the statistics of it all. Kinda creepy.).

Yep, that's me!

I'm the 31 (almost 32) year old lady with 3 [empty] carseats in the backseat of the Focus, jamming on the way to work with the windows down and the bass booming.

LOL, backstory: I got my license at 23 so I guess I missed out on the "cruising" days that most teens get to do those first few years of driving. I mean, I did with friends, but as a passenger only.

Did you know I've got "rubberband banks in my pocket"? LOL.

Hi.

Updates on me

I sit here in my office, Dr. Pepper nearby, some color on my arms, timecards finished, and I reflect back on what a beautiful weekend I had with my family. On Saturday, after I got all the major house chores out of the way, the hubby and I took all three kids to the park and enjoyed some beautiful weather. We then went to my mother's house to grill out, our first of the season! She has a new patio set out on her deck she wanted to show off. Mom, with her glass of wine, was enjoying the evening after a day's work, and we all watched a movie after supper. [Mr. Popper's Penguins, a cute family flick that is not too cheesy, somewhat enduring, and has some comedy to it.]

Sunday, we went over to the grandparents' house and the kids played in the yard while the adults marveled at the weather and basked in the sun, something we have never done as early in the year as March 18th! Later on in the evening, the hubby took the oldest in the bike trailer down to the co-op to get a few groceries. I took the younger two outside while I put away our lawn chairs and toys, looking up at the sky in time to see a fighter jet fly over (we're close to the airport). I am an airplane freak, if you didn't know it.

This week is still supposed to be nice. I'm taking a half-day on Wednesday, pending my boss's approval, and we're probably going to take a family bike ride (we have single and double bike trailers). We can have more of this weather and I will be okay! Yep, folks, I have a watch tan and am proud that I earned it in March and in Wisconsin to boot! My aunt and uncle leave today for Punta Cana. Haha, who needs to fly to enjoy the weather?!

Ah, and in case you're bored, you may check out my accent video. I am part of a close-knit group of girls who all had babies at the end of 2009 into early 2010 -- we've been friends since we were all pregnant and we became closer yet and I'm glad we all still talk daily -- anyway, we got to posting videos of our accents so I found a list of words for the "accent challenge".

Halfway recent pics

Jameson turned 6 months on February 22nd. It's hard to believe in another week he'll already be 7 months!





And . . . Miss Elise turned 2 on February 27th:


And . . . Andrew is still very adorable and sweet and cute but has been photo un-cooperative. I will try and get a pic of him to share soon. He has changed so much even since the Christmas pics I took. He's growing up crazily fast! I just freaked out about his height the other day because I had a moment where I realized suddenly that he's super tall!