Oh the Place's You'll Go....

no pun intended!

I regret that I have not posted Mills' milestones by month. It was something that I had intended on doing, but honestly, I forgot about it. Each month I had planned on posting a picture of him and listing the many accomplishments that he has reached. Well, I guess its not to late for it, even though he is 8½ months old. I can still do that right? If I don't do it now, by nine months, I'll forget...again, and I hope to turn this blog into a scrapbook at the end of each year.

Mills Oliver,
Today, you are exactly 8½ months old. You are growing so quickly, and as a matter of fact, I think you've changed more in the past month than you have your entire life. Here's what you're up to...

1. You are crawling everywhere, and boy, you are FAST! We even had to stop you from going up the stairs yesterday. Daddy watched you go to the third step and then decided that it was time to get you down. So, in lieu of that, your mommy will be shopping for an additional baby gate tomorrow.

2. You are pulling up on everything, and are even trying to climb up on the couch. You even try standing up in the middle of the floor without something to pull up on, but to no avail, you fall to your bottom and try again. You are steadily learning to walk along the coffee table and couch, so we have put padding around the sharp corners to save your precious little head.

3. You are sleeping from 7:30pm-6:30am, and most of the time I have to wake you up to leave for Mimi June's. All I can say is THANK YOU! I love to sleep too, ya know! ;)

4. You are now using a sippy cup pretty well. You finally figured out that if you turn your cup up, you can actually get something out of it without help from mommy or daddy.

5. You have learned what "no" means, and so far, you are minding pretty good. I caught you heading for your daddy's guitar this weekend, and watched you sit beside it, very still, and you did not touch it after I told you "no." That was very good of you! But you then headed for the springy door stop, pulled the rubber stopper off, and about gave me a heart-attack. Tomorrow, I will be super gluing all of them on and finishing putting covers in all of the electrical outlets tomorrow as well.

6. You now have two teeth, and this weekend we started you on Stage 3 foods. At first, you didn't like them, and tried to gag when a solid piece of carrot touched your tongue. I panicked a little, and was a little bit afraid that you would never eat table food. Tonight, you ate every bit of your supper with no fussing; carrots and ALL! I then gave you some sweet potato puffs, and you loved them. You actually hit your mouth tonight instead palming them and dropping them in your lap. I have learned one thing...puffs stick to EVERYTHING, but I am now at ease and am really relieved that eventually you will be eating steak and baked potato.

7. You FINALLY said you're first "word." Although we don't think you know what you're saying, "da-da" is what we are hearing. Actually every morning we are waking up to you sitting in your crib saying, "dad-dy....dad-dy." It is so adorable, and melts our hearts.

Everyday is a new adventure and we look forward to watching you grow and grow. You are our precious miracle and we love you!

Jumping to the Tune of "Da-da"

For the past 4 months, I have been the terrible mother who lost the "charging cord" to our video camera. So, unfortunately we haven't done much videoing of Mills since Christmas. It broke my heart, but hey we finally found the thing and are back on track. Well, almost. One of Mills' favorite things to do is bounce in his jumperoo! Here he is bouncing and practicing his new favorite word.

Spring Flowers

Since, I am sitting here in doing absolutely nothing, while Mills takes a nap, and Joey snores, I thought I'd do a quick post. Thursday, I was finally able to get some annuals planted, before the crew comes and cleans my beds, does some trimming and mulching.

Last year, I only planted my vinca, which is a must, and didn't get around to the back flower beds. What usually took me fifteen minutes, took about 45, because I was pregnant, and crawling around, well, scooting anyway, on the concrete moving from one corner to the next. So, after that, when I looked at the back, I said, "forget this!" I love my vinca. It always does so well. Last year we had so much rain, that I think I may have watered it twice. Now that's my kind of "gardening."


This year I was able to get a few things planted out back as well. I have always planted lantana, petunias, and few other things. The lantana attracts tons of butterflies, so I am hopeful that we will get some for Mills to see.

Our vinca starts like this.

And ends up like this...

Lantana: I always do yellow. This year I thought I'd spice it up a bit!

Geraniums, I've NEVER done before. I've been told.."good luck with that."




Beautiful pink petunias

Happy Birthday to Us!

Today, I am another year older. Thirty-two to be exact. It seems that the older I get, the more I have to stop and think about my age when someone asks. Birthdays have always been a big deal in our family. There was always a cake and some sort of party, and a lot of time spent with family and friends, but the older we've gotten, the less we spend celebrating, but its okay, because the thrill of a huge party with tons of presents isn't important to me as being thankful for what I already have. What I am looking forward to, is passing the tradition down to Mills. I will get to re-live the birthday parties that I had as a child. It is going to be so much fun, and his 1st Birthday is only 3 and a half months away. Yes, I am already in the planning stages, and have the venue booked. You know me, I like to be on top of things, and don't like to be rushed.

Today, I share my birthday with my cousin, Kelley. That has always been a special thing to me. I was born on her 9th birthday, and as a child, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Oops! I guess that gave her age away didn't it. She's the older one! ha! A couple of years, we shared a cake. She had her side, and I had mine. I look forward to sharing many many more birthdays with her, so today, not only am I celebrating welcoming a "new number," I am wishing her the happiest of happy birthdays! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLEY! Love you!

circa 1981

Kelley (12 years old), Amy (3 yrs.), & Brandon (4 yrs.)

He said "Da-da"

Mills turned into a chatter box on Thursday. It started with "Da-da," of course. Now he won't stop! In one sentance he exlaimed, "Da-da-da-da-dy-ma-ma-me-pa-pa-na-na-na-na-ya-ya-*squeel!" So, we've almost got everyone covered!
Our days of being able to take him out to eat for dinner are dwindling. Instead of sitting quietly in his carseat. He insists on screaming to get down, squeeling, talking VERY loudly, and reaching for anyone and everyone that walks by our table. Last night, I think everyone at Marlos held him. He insisted on keeping all of the waitresses from working. What can I say? He's just a friendly baby, and I am thankful. I guess we'll have to take him earlier, or get a baby-sitter. hmmm.

The Search is On

Mills is about 3 lbs. shy of needing a "big boy" car seat, and at the rate he's going, it won't be long. I have been searching and doing A LOT of reviewing. I have talked to a few moms and gotten a ton of opinions, but just wanted see what my fellow blogger moms thoughts are as well, before making my final decision. We WILL get a Britax, and I am going to be EXTREMELY picky about what kind of car seat he is riding in, but my question is: For those of you who have Britax car seats, which one did you get, and why? When I think about the safety of my baby boy, the fear of a side impact collision scares me, even though he's in the middle, and I want to know what your thoughts are. Mills will be in this car seat for quite some time, until he's big enough to ride in mommy's built in booster seat. We will get a nicer one for my car, and will probably step down a bit for Erik's truck. Any opinions?

Britax Boulevard CS

Britax Advocate CS

Britax Marathon

Ch-Ch-Changes

We're finally up and running in a new fashion. Thanks Jennisa, again, for making things beautiful! It was definitely worth the wait. Friends and followers, feel free to "grab our button" for your blogs on the left side bar...if you wish!

Lights, Camera, Action!

After lowering Mills' mattress, we were unable to see him with the video monitor. So, we temporarily put it at the end of his bed on a TV box that we found in the attic, just until we can mount it on the wall, which I DID NOT want to do.


Mills LOVES lights. He stares at the computer battery light, the answering machine, and loves our red lampshade in the living room. Well, his video monitor camera has red night-vision lights and a green "on" light that he has now discovered. Tonight, when I put him to bed, evidently he wasn't ready to go to sleep. It appears as if he wanted to play a little while, which is fine with me as long as he is content. He found the lights on the camera and has been trying his hardest to get them. It is too funny. We just sat and laughed! Okay, well, Erik cackled! He's been doing this for the past 2 nights, but tonight I had my camera ready.

Crawling and More

We've had so many new things happening in our lives the past week. Mills finally cut his second tooth, he is now crawling and pulling up...yikes, he had his first rice snack, his first ear infection, and....drum roll please... Erik and I are FINALLY sleeping in our bed again. You may wonder what the hold-up has been, but honestly, I can't tell you. When we brought our baby boy home from the hospital, we had it in our minds that he would sleep in his travel crib for about two months before transitioning him to his crib. Well, that just didn't work, so he began sleeping in...oh wait, no he didn't sleep for the first 5 weeks of his life, remember? Anyway, he slept in his bouncy seat IN his crib until December, before we finally got him uncongested and on prevacid for his reflux. So, Erik and I just slept upstairs in the landing on our guest bed so that I wouldn't have to travel upstairs 50 times a night to nurse him or give him his pacifier. I was tired enough, and the last thing I needed was to climb the stairs half asleep. I remember those many nights I slept in the rocking chair holding our baby, and not even realizing it until waking 3 hours later. Daddy, well he just slept right through it-haha! He's been sleeping through the night since October. Part of me thinks that it was just separation anxiety on my part. Being right beside his door, even with a video monitor was just more comfortable to me, but that oh so comfy mattress, oh let me rephrase that...that old comfy CHEAP mattress, began sagging in the middle after 8 months of continuous use. Every time we would say that we were sleeping downstairs, something would come up. Mills would be sick, or he had a bad day, or something. I just had the feeling that if we moved back downstairs, that he would wake up again 50 times a night and I'd be back to square one. I think that I was also afraid of moving to a new step of life. It's like it's another stage of him becoming a "big boy."

Last week, while Erik was at work, I grew a wild hair and took the plunge. Mills, he doesn't know any different, and never has; and I have the video monitor right beside me. He sleeps from dusk til' dawn ;) This momma is finding it awfully hard to get up out of our supreme pillow top mattress in the mornings for work, but oh how I missed our bed! So, I can pat the two of us, or should I say the three of us (Joey included) on the backs. We're steadily returning to normalcy.

Mum-Mums

Mills had his first "snack" today. I bought him some of the Gerber puffs, but he didn't know what to do with them, so I tried a vegetable mum-mum. Mmmmmm....good and messy! He finished the whole thing!

Okay, so maybe he didn't finish the WHOLE thing, but at least Joey had a bite too.