Happy Halloween!

 

Happy Halloween!! This is a picture of Max from last year. I mean he seriously couldn't get any cuter! That was the last year of us picking out his costume. I am still shocked we got him to wear it including the head piece and the feet. Nothing like a little peer pressure from the rest of the kids in the neighborhood. This year he will be a super hero (Spider man) and Colette will be a kitty like her cousin Hadley. Pics to come on Monday!

The Best Milk Storage Solution Out There!

Before I went back to work I pumped extra milk at night before bed and after the first feeding every morning for about a month and a half. I am so glad I did because I don't have to worry about going to an appointment, not pumping enough at work or even a date night. I know I have a little stash in the freezer for baby girl. There isn't a ton in there and I am depleting it as the days go on, but I hope it'll last till 6 months.

I know the trick of freezing your milk flat to store it better so I've been doing that. David also used some old formula containers he had saved from Max (David's a container hoarder if you weren't aware).

I have been putting them in there to keep them together and trying to arrange by date. I was so excited when Whitney from Fairhaven Health reached out to see if I would review some of their products. It's like she was looking into my freezer and knew I needed some help! Have you guys heard of this company? They are seriously awesome. Their mission is to develop products designed to safely and naturally promote fertility, pregnancy wellness, and breastfeeding success.

  She sent me The Milkies "Save and Store" bundle.  My favorite part is the freezer organization system. The concept and design is brilliant! You can lay your milk bag on top of the easy freeze metal tray and when it's frozen slip it into the top IN spot. The oldest milk comes out the OUT spot on the bottom so there is no guess work on which order to use the milk.

The lighting is horrible around my freezer so this will have to do to show you, but I am loving it! Just make sure you use the top freeze tray as some of my milk was a little too fat to fit through the opening. If it doesn't fit, don't force it, one of my bags had a leak in it from me shoving. I wasn't able to try the milk-savers as I don't leak much from the side not feeding anymore. This would have been great for the first 2-3 months as you have a lot of milk just coming out everywhere (sorry TMI). You can use any freezer bags with this system, I use the medela ones. She also sent me a supplement called Nursing Blend, which contains your full postnatal support, plus it has an added herbal component to help increase the quality and quantity that you produce.I haven't tried it long enough to comment, but I will when I have!
**Update** I am loving the supplement. I take it twice while I am at work to help with milk production and now I don't have to worry about getting my 4 ounces out per session. 

Colette approves! Check out Fairhaven Health. They have so much great advice, articles and products.

Colette is 4 months old

My pretty princess is 4 months old already!

Stats-

Height: 24" (39%)

Weight: 14 lbs 12.5 oz (72%)

Head Circ.: 15 3/4 (23%)

She's slimmed down on the percentages, but still growing nicely. I mean look at those rolls still!

Personality- She is just the happiest baby on the block for sure! She is always coooing, talking back to us and smiling. Such a difference between when Max was her age. I was just reading back on his 4 month post and he always had to be doing something and we can just leave baby girl on the floor and she is happy talking or eating her hands.

Developments- Her hands are always in her mouth. She will put your fingers in her mouth and bite down pretty hard. Lots of drool. She is getting really good at grabbing at toys and pulling them to her mouth. She loves her feet too!

 

She also rolls still from back to front all the time. She enjoys tummy time and just looking all around. 

Sleeping- Right around the 4 month mark she was beginning to regress on sleeping. She went from waking up 1 time a night to 2 even when swaddled. I read about this and it really is a thing. I decided I would take away the swaddle since she was waking up with or without it. We went with a zipadeezip squirrel suit I like to call it (mom found it on shark tank). The concept is that the startle reflux isn't that noticeable because their arms don't fly up with the range of motion it allows.

She gets up for the day around 7-7:30am and takes swing naps during the day still. She then gets one last cat nap around 6-6:30pm then when she gets up she gets some oatmeal cereal, a bath and bedtime around 7:30/8pm. Then she is up twice on a bad night and once on a good night. She's just so cute and I still like the night time feedings so I'm not in a rush right now to try CIO. She goes down so easily after that it's ok. 

Eating- She is eating around 4 ounces each feeding with 3 pumped bottles of breast milk while I am at work. She takes a bottle really well and no issues going back and forth. She eats around 7/7:30, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7:30pm and middle night feedings. She loves the oatmeal as you can see above. Most of it ends up outside of her mouth, but she still opens and makes noises indicating more.

I'll have to compare Max's first cereal pics for you. One major difference is that Colette has officially lost any blue in her eyes! Our Max was as blue as blue could be!

Randoms-

-We moved to size 3 diapers recently (honest company). I have to use pampers 12 hour night dry diapers at night because she drinks so much she's wetting out of them.

-She's wearing mostly 3-6 month clothing. 3 month is very snug. 

-Her eyes are more hazel than brown

-Although Max had darker hair at this point, her eyebrows are way darker than his was so I think she will be keeping the dark features (there's still hope for her looking like one of us!)

-She loves her bath and it's so funny to watch her move her legs so fast.

-Max still is the best big bro ever. Lots of kisses are being given and he's very patient with her.

David's Aunt Linda Comes For a Visit

David's Aunt Linda came into town from the Chicago area this past week to visit and for a work convention. We're so glad she was able to come see us and have dinner. Thanks to Cora and Frank for bringing the dinner! Darrin, Stacey and the kids came over to visit also (you can see Austin peeking his head out over in the top of the pic). David took some candid photos and I saw him snapping them so I posed.

Colette enjoyed some time eating her hands and bouncing around.

Max was being bribed to eat veggies by watching tv (as usual).

Sister photo! Aren't they just the cutest?!

Colette decided to freak out during the photo, but she's still cute.

David had issues getting the camera lighting correct, but at least we have a few photos!

Max was being shy and wouldn't take a photo until they both pretended (well you can see who was pretending and who was really doing it) to pick their nose.

Thanks for visiting and always reading my blog, Aunt Linda! Hope to see you again really soon!

Jacksonville Beach Trip 2014

Back in August we took a weekend trip to visit my brother and sister in-law at their place on Jacksonville Beach.

It was the hottest days they've had all summer with temperatures approaching the 100 degree mark. There was absolutely no breeze. My sister gave us her beach tent to use for Colette, but with no breeze and no fan she was extremely uncomfortable. This is the only pic I have of her on the beach in her cute swim suit! She was a bit over 2 month old here. She is normally so go with the flow that we knew she couldn't stay when she got so fussy.

Luckily there were so many of us that we could rotate who stayed up at the condo with Colette and the others played all day with Max at the beach and the pool. Of course Colette had to wear everything flamingo!

Max had a BLAST at the beach. He finally loved the sand, the pool and even wanted to go in the ocean (when someone was holding him).

We also went to the museum one day to get out of the heat. Max loves to explore and touch everything!

We even got to stop by my friend Jessica and Jasons to visit with them and see their beautiful kiddos. Max had fun playing with Olivia. Poor Colette had a massive poop explosion and her mama didn't bring extra clothes, at least her diaper is cute.

Max's favorite part was jumping into the pool!

Gigi, Max and my brother enjoying the water. I just realized that Marla and me aren't in any photos, picture fail.

Not sure if Max is waving or what. We had lots of fun watching dolphins and some sharks from his balcony most mornings, too!

Max and his shadow!

I mean how adorable is he with his hat on?! I think he was trying to get the sea gulls to move from his spot.

MOOOOOOOOOVE.

In the mornings down the middle of the beach was a smaller water area that Max loved to play with. He enjoyed the beach toys Marla got for him and would dig and try to make sand castles.

He was seriously occupied for hours, he was at the perfect age. We just need our little gal to get a little bigger before they can both enjoy it.

We had a lot of fun watching Max at the beach, thanks for letting us stay Chris and Marla!

Basement Progress Weeks 0-5

Our basement finishing is still going! They have officially been working 5 weeks with 1 week of break on week 3 for plumbing/electrical and AC work.

David and Bill worked long and hard at first digging up (through concrete) and re routing pipe lines for the spare bathroom and moms bathroom.

It was messy and loud (they used a jack hammer) but they worked hard. This was all before the crew could start.

It looks like they started digging an underground tunnel.

Max helping to load the concrete mixer from Home Depot.

The first week of the job was demo and starting to insulate and frame. This was our first truckload of supplies coming down the street.

Dry wall, framing lumber and insulation.

Next up we had delivery of our new AC unit. It was great entertainment for Max to watch the guys unload all the supplies.

Gigi and I had fun picking out some paint colors and bathroom tile testing it out in different lighting scenarios. She is showing you our greige wall color we chose.

I wanted to get some before pictures to remember what it used to look like. Our steps are now turned to give more room for mom's bathroom. I'm so glad David is talented and can envision all this (and draw it all out). It created a little more work plumbing wise and for the steps but it will be so worth it for her bigger bathroom and bedroom.

Our big helper!

Original studded bathroom.

Steps

Original hallway/under stairs area.

Max working hard apparently with a bike tire pump (who knows where he finds this stuff).

Back craft room/extra bedroom.

Looking into the playroom/living room/kitchen area. The major change in this room is knocking out the side wall area/big beam to make it a more open space.

Looking in from the back kitchen area to the new playroom/living room.

You can see the concrete all filled in here and the steps are being taken out to start turning them.

Demo cleaning

These next photos are progress photos after the demo and before the framing/insulation.

The biggest change in this space will be when the AC/hot water heater stuff from the far right is moved to the closet area on the left side of this picture. This will free up a whole side wall area for the kitchen refrigerator/oven area. Again it was a little more expensive to do it this way, but David knew we needed the extra space.

David enlisted the help of brother in law Mark and brother Darrin for the electrical and plumbing work.

Its clear judging from these photos who did all the work (ahem Mark). JK! They all worked very hard for 2 weekends plus David worked every night finalizing all the lighting. It is a lot of work trying to figure out where every single light, switch and outlet needs to go, Thanks Darrin!!

Hi Ian! We even had a family party for labor day at our house just to get them to come back over to help :)!

The framing in progress.

Here you can clearly see the steps that have been turned and mom's entrance to her room on the left hand side.

AC work

Insulation.

Steps turned.

Then there was more of the same thing going on for a while so I went back down once some of the drywall was done. You can see the puttying also. Man, is it dirty down there from all the sanding.

These steps aren't done, but just wanted to note the progress.

Looking into the kitchen area. New closet area with AC and hot water heater has been moved.

This was where the old units were. Look how much open space it freed up for the sink area/refrigerator and oven! You can also see some doors.

Utility Closet.

This is mom's room and her cool ceiling. The door leads to her walk in closet.

Her washer/dryer will go to the right into tucked into a corner.

The biggest change is in her bathroom. Look at all the gorgeous tile! I'm proud of us for choosing all this. It really came together! I LOVE it. She's going to have the best shower around! She has a bench in there also. I love the colors! It's not grouted yet.

The biggest change in the back bedroom/craft room is the addition of a window! It brings so much light in and I'm so glad we did it.

It's hard to get a picture but you can see it up there. Our contractor says he will be done by this friday, but I'm thinking at least through the weekend. He's making some good progress though so we will see. He's already painted most ceilings and some walls. All that's left is flooring, grout, painting, trim work and finishing steps. David will still have a few things to finish after his test at the end of October (putting in the kitchen cabinets and doing the steps with hardwoods).  I'm getting excited. The end of October we are having lots of family come to town so we will be utilizing our new 7 bedroom space hopefully! Each couple/kid can have their own room, they will be spoiled!