Elijah is 6 mos old

Hard to believe some days that our little man is 6 months old. He is trying to be a mobile rollypoly. You put him in his crib and come back and his is in a different part of it. He can roll front to back and back to front, but prefers his tummy. The first few days he rolled from back to front I could not catch him doing it, I would lay him down on his back to help his sister with something and then look over and he on his tummy. His also pushing up onto his hands and trying to push up to his knees, so the play yard bassinet had to be removed, I hope he doesn't feel like it is a cage now :D

He loves to remove his sock, can't wait for summer so I don't have to keep track of socks when we leave the house.

We just started cereal and he seems to like it, not sure how much gets in his mouth since he spends the whole feeding time trying to control the spoon.

He is starting to transition to spending the night in his room in his big crib and it is a bit of an adjustment for both of us, but better now than me sleeping on his floor later trying to make him sleep in his crib.

Both my kids are little bookworms

So I didn't mean for  him to be wearing a similar shirt in these photos, but I did remember to take photos on his month birthday (one of the cameras has a bad time-stamp because I took theses all on the 16th):

4 mos

5 mos

6 mos

PS myBump growth chart and photos updated

toddler words I will miss when they are gone

Inspired by this article I thought I should write a list of some of my favorite toddler words:

Bummy = Bunny
Diabers = diapers, Nabins = napkins
Peas = Please
Tissues or ShoeShoe = Thank you
Ald-dem = all of them

I will add more as I think of them :D

Potty training battles

1. Some days she wants to try and other days she doesn't care how much candy you bribe her with, a soggy diaper is fine

2. She could care less about the patterns available for pull-ups  (all I can find are Ariel and Doc McStuffins - Minnie seems to only be in a giant box of other patterns in a size that is too big size) and therefore could care less if she pees on them, plus those disappearing images seem to take a lot of pee to make work right, so they are basically just pull on diapers - which they make but I haven't seen in her size in stores

3. maybe the right pattern will work - at the store we picked some generic princess fairy pull ups (from Walmart, she didn't want the generic flowers and frogs ones I found at Target and we don't watch Dora so that was out) and she wanted a pink ladybug potty, I was hoping to stay gender-neutral to reuse for Eli but if she will go on the ladybug, whatever works, it doesn't have a splash-guard so maybe that will help

4. She wants to jump straight to the pretty underwear we bought but still doesn't want to sit on the potty, sorry ponies but she doesn't seem to care about peeing on you either

5. Oma found some cute training underwear (the thick ones that absorb) maybe those are the key, I am sure they will at least come in handy

6. Maybe we just aren't ready still, good thing preschool is still awhile away.

7. Anyone have advice that doesn't involve a naked toddler for three days? At this point I don't think even that will work, plus I am sure that will involve pee on the floor.

How I keep a toddler busy

Well, I need to keep Nicollette busy while I nurse Elijah, so I have a stash of busy box things (lacing beads, flashcards, aquadoodle, color wonder book, pom pom sorting, etc) but I quickly learned that those don't last long. Sometimes if I do something with her, she is more willing to eat a snack or play on her own so I can nurse Elijah. So I did some Googling to find ideas and started liking toddler blogs on Facebook. Then after spending way to long trying to find an idea I had shared on my Facebook  page to save it. I took the plunge into Pinterest and it is as addicting as I had hoped/feared. So much easier to find toddler ideas and locate them later.

Some things we  have tried:

Felt Snowman

Foam sticker gingerbread baby

  

Cloud Dough cookies

Cloud Dough cake

felt tree

paper plate fish

pipe cleaners and a colander

Cream of Wheat sand

foam sticks to window with water

Elijah - The first 3 mos

It has already been 3 months with this mellow little man. It takes some getting time to get used to taking care of 2 kids all day alone. It has also been a busy time with several holidays.We keep teasing that we wonder if he is just naturally this mellow or if it is a product of being the 2nd kid. He really doesn't cry much and sometimes he does just to get cuddles, which being the 2nd,  he just doesn't seem to get enough during they day with busy sister around. 

1 month

2 months

3 months

I started Elijah his own myBump website to track his growth. Our Shutterfly ShareSite is updated with tons of photos including all the holidays.

Happy New Year

new year

View the entire collection of cards.

Winter Fun Ideas

What we did this year with Nicollette:

- Durham Tree Lighting and Ethnic Trees exhibit (went the day after for a much less crowded afternoon of museum time)
- Mormon Gingerbread Festival (was only a little interested in the gingerbread but loved the play house)
- made peppermint bark (helped break the candy canes)
- Advent Calendar - opened a winter or Christmas themed book or DVD counting down to opening the presents under the tree (about half were already owned)
- crafty activities - decorate felt tree, decorate foam gingerbread man with foam sticker, felt snowman, hot chocolate cloud dough, holiday themed coloring books (see post)
- Whole Foods Holiday food tastings - sample Saturday with a holiday theme

Ideas for next year:
- Bass Pro Shop Santa visit (didn't want to actually sit with Santa this year, so we didn't try)
- see Neighborhood lights (too cold this year and too hard to see from rear-facing car seat)
- Laurizten Gardens Poinsettias (thought she might be too little this year)