11 MONTHS

Wow. This was a big month.  Nobody prepared me for the jump from 10 to 11 months.  In 4 weeks time, he's like a new boy!

At 11 months old...

 

-He took his first steps 2 weeks ago.  He is taking anywhere from 2-5 steps at a time now and can stand up on his own without the assistance of nearby furniture.

 

-I started signing to him this month.  I started signing "more" and he picked it up quickly! The only problem now is he will often sign for "more" before he is even done with his bite! I am now trying to teach him "eat", "all done" and "milk".

 

-Him and Roxy are finally starting to bond....bond over food that is! He loves to drop her food from his high chair!!! Since we don't feed Roxy table scraps, this is a pretty big deal to her.  Probably the highlight of her day!

 

-Exactly 7 days ago today, He decided he was done nursing and it came as a complete shock. If I can work up the courage, I will have a separate post about this at a later time.  For now, I am attached to the pump for what seems like all day!

 

-We spent a lot of time in Eugene the past month which means Hanley got a lot of time in with the Grandparents! Probably my favorite moment was when I went to pick him up at my parents house after the Dirty Duck race, I asked my Mom how he was and she said, "I don't know, your Dad HOGGED him the whole time!" There's just something about seeing my Dad with Hanley that makes my heart happy.

 

-Our babysitter was on vacation which made me realize it really does take a village to raise a child! He spent one day with my friend Sarah and her two girls (Josie and Brooklyn), one day with my co-worker Shaira (and her nieces!), and one day with my neighbor and her daughter (Kate), then Cody and I had to both take one day off work to fill in some childcare gaps. As much fun as Hanley had getting passed around, I think we were all happy to have April back in town!

Mari's Visit/Stuebing Wedding

I have been wanting to post about Mari's visit and Wayne and Brooke's Wedding but I keep getting side tracked with life!

Mari flew in the Monday before the Wedding. Cody and I took the week off work and headed to Elk Lake where we met the rest of the crew.  We rented a little cabin on the lake and enjoyed a few days of relaxing before all the Wedding festivities began!



Group pic!

 

Fun with Meme!

 

The view from our cabin

 

Getting ready to take the ski lift up Mount Bachelor
 

Mountain top brews!

When we got back to Eugene, we had a full schedule ahead of us that included: American sushi dinner at Izumi's, shopping, lunch at Café Yumm, Rehearsal dinner, hair appointments then finally, the WEDDING!

I took my camera to the Wedding but I didn't take many pictures.  Hanley was being really clingy and pretty much wouldn't let me put him down or let anyone else take him (I can't blame he kid, he hadn't pooped the entire week and he was a clearly uncomfortable!).

It was a beautiful wedding at Deep Woods! (Photo Credit: By Tania Vargas)

Hanley and Kallen meeting for the first time!

Before we left town on Sunday, my parents held a BBQ at their house for my Step-Grandpa's birthday.  We had friends and family come from California, Alaska, Texas, Colorado, Mexico, and Canada (and of course Japan) join us for the BBQ!

 

It was a fun packed week but saying good-bye to Mari is never easy...

 

10 MONTHS!

Our little man is already 10 months old.  That means his first birthday is right around the corner. Let the party planning begin!

At 10 months old...

 

-We have gotten into a pretty good bedtime routine.  Cody puts him to bed each night. We often hear him chatting in his room before drifting off to sleep.

-He switched up his nap time routine on us and I am hating it.  I prefer it when he is predictable!

-This week he SCREAMED with JOY the minute Cody walked in the door after work.  I think my heart about melted right on the spot.

-We are teaching him to wave.  It's pretty cute.

-He spent his first full week at the babysitters.  He did much better than I did.

-We have introduced the sippy cup in preparation for weaning.

-He is learning to self-feed with sweet potato puffs! When we first started, they mostly ended up on the ground which meant Roxy always made sure to be nearby so she could scoop them up. Now he makes most of them into his mouth and he loves them!

-He eats oatmeal cereal each morning.  I wish we would have started doing this much sooner.  It helps keep him "regular" if ya know what I mean...! (Yes, we celebrate messy diapers in this house because a boy who hasn't pooped in a couple days in a handful!).

What? Four Years?!

 

It's hard to believe that 4 years has passed since our beautiful Wedding day! It's been 4 jam packed years of home projects, traveling, long work hours, and of course baby making & parenting!

We spent our anniversary dinner with my entire Hoot to Coast team at Denicola's Italian Restaurant carb loading on Thursday night. Romantic, eh?

That weekend we spent a part since I was running and Cody stayed at home to be Mr. Mom.  So, we decided to postpone the celebration until the following weekend, which happened to be Labor Day weekend.

We dropped the boy off at the in-laws and spent one night away in Florence. Just the TWO of us! Our first night together away from our little man.

As crazy as it sounds, I really wanted to go somewhere I have never been: The Sea Lion Caves. Despite Cody's resistance, he took me there only to find out there was an issue with the elevator and it was currently down. Nobody would be going down into the cave...

Next he took me somewhere else I have never been: Honeyman State Park.  Cody was shocked when he realized I had never been there either! (Side note: He spend a lot of our courtship complaining that all the places he took me to ended up being places I had already been to! Little did he know, he just needed to take me to Florence, Oregon! Haha...)

We spent the rest of the day in Old Town, enjoying lunch on the water, watching the both games in the hotel bar and going out for dinner.

We got back from dinner with plans to go down to the hot tub but we both just wanted to crash.  I guess it's fair to say that parenting really ages you!

I dreamed of sleeping in until noon but our internal clocks had us both wide awake at the 6 o'clock hour! Good thing it was a beautiful morning for a walk on the beach.

After breakfast, we stopped by the Casino to come home not a dime richer.

Sometimes as parents, its easy to focus so much on the baby that you lose sight of the love you have for each other. For this reason, I think it was really important for us to experience a night re-kindling that love and attention without the distraction of naps, dirty diapers, tears, feedings, etc (although, I can't wait for the day that I can ditch the pump and we can really have 100% freedom!).

When we got back into Eugene, Oma and Opa were happy to report that Hanley was awesome while we were away! Thank goodness because we would like to repeat our night away some other time!

9 MONTHS!

Well, now that Hanley is almost 10 months old, I suppose I should post his 9 month stats!! Can you tell it's been a busy month?

Every time I bring Hanley in for a well-baby check, Dr. Hall (who we love!) asks about Cody.  Each time I have to tell him he is busy at work and unable to make it to the appointment.  So after his 6-month check up, I told Cody he needed to make arrangements at work to make it in to Hanley's next appointment so Dr. Hall would get off my back about it! Cody got off easy when he made it to the 9 month appointment, one of the few well baby check-ups that doesn't include vaccinations! Regardless, Dr. Hall was happy to see us both make it to his appointment.

 

Stats:
Head Circumference: 18 inches, 50%
Length: 28 inches, 50%
Weight: 18 lbs, 9 oz, 30%

He's dropped in percentile in all area's but Dr. Hall had no concerns and said we have a happy, healthy boy on our hands!

At 9 months old...

-He is a crawling machine!

-He loves to pull himself up onto all the furniture in the house and is very proud of himself for being able to do so.

-He finally enjoys eating solids! His current favorite is sweet potato and corn puree.

-Has 5 teeth.

-Has spent a total of two nights away from Mama and done very well each time!

-Is still very vocal!!

-He got the chance to meet his Aunt Mari and spend a week with her while she was in Oregon for Wayne and Brooke's Wedding!

-Moved his bedtime from 9:15pm to 8:30pm! Score for Mom and Dad!

-Loves story time! We have to read the board books because he likes to be really helpful and turn the pages himself.

-Has a weird obsession with the vacuum cleaner and chases it around the house!

-Has horrible hair (just being honest here!). He has a messy mop on top and barely anything on the sides! Poor kid never had a chance...

 

Time seems to be flying by faster than ever but Cody and I both agree that the older Hanley gets, the more rewarding parenting gets.  It's such a joy to watch him learn and explore something new each day.



198 Miles, 12 People, 1 Team, and 1 Heck of a Mr. Mom

I underestimated how difficult it would be to prepare for Hood to Coast this year. However, I made a commitment to my team and I had been looking forward to HTC for 10 months now so regardless of how prepared I did or didn't feel, I wasn't about the throw in the towel!

The days leading up to HTC, I was pretty emotional.  It would be the first time I would spend an entire night away from Hanley.  Even though it was going to be hard, I knew it was a good thing for everyone. My night away taught me that Hanley can survive without me and it gave him and Cody a chance to spend some special one-on-one time together.

This year, I didn't make any "rookie" mistakes like I did when I ran HTC 2011. I stretched out and re-hydrated properly after each run.  It made a world of a difference and I felt great! I remember being so sore last time, I felt like I couldn't walk for 2 days. After my 17 miles this year, I didn't really feel sore at all. Heck, I was about to go for a run the next day!

I had the extra challenge of pumping in the van every 4 hours. Bless my teammates for being so easy going about it and letting me hog so much space in the cooler!

We got less than 2 hours of "sleep" during the second major exchanges.  By "sleep" I mean laying in a wet, lumpy field as it rained on us at 2am. Despite the lack of sleep, I felt good running my 3rd leg. I guess motherhood has prepared me well to function off little to no sleep!

Since I was in Van 1, we finished early and headed to Astoria for lunch.  After a 36 hour diet of Cliff bars, PB & J sandwiches, water and chocolate milk... a REAL lunch sounded amazing! After lunch we did some sight seeing. Since Whitney flew in from Texas for HTC the team decided to show her around Astoria. We checked out The Goonies house and the school from Kindergarten Cop then made our way to Seaside to run across the finish line as a team!

When I got home, I jumped out of Tyler's truck and RAN across the street and up the driveway to hug my little man.  I missed him so much that tears started rolling down my cheeks.

It turns out Cody is one heck of a Mr. Mom! I came home to a happy little man who slept through the night for Daddy and had another tooth!

I was happy to be home with both my boys but really enjoyed doing something just for myself.

Thanks Team SWIWS for another great year!


Van 1 at Timberline: Me, Courtney, Nicole, Whitney, Tyler, Cord

Meme's Visit

My Mom made arrangements to come spend a week with us.  She arrived on a Friday so she could watch Hanley while I joined the gals from work for our summer office party and Cody went fishing with his buddy Jeff. My poor Mother came up to spend a fun week with Hanley and ended up really taking care of the whole house...

I woke up Monday morning with mastitis AGAIN. I went to work and was miserable all day.  When I got home, I went straight to bed until it was time to get up and put Hanley down for the night. 

I wasn't feeling any better on Tuesday but I went into work anyways.  Since we had a light afternoon schedule, I left at lunchtime. I came home and my Mom made me lunch then she took Hanley and Roxy to the park so I could take a nap.  I was pretty emotional by Tuesday night because I felt like I hadn't spend any time with Hanley at all. When it was time to put him down for bed, I didn't want to let him out of my arms. 

Wednesday morning I was feeling a little better.  I was still sore but at least my fever broke. The day didn't turn out to be any more calmer though.  A routine oil change on the truck turned into a chaotic day of running it around for a second opinion, leaving it with the mechanic for 2 days and a hefty bill. So, it was nice to have my Mom to help with all the running around and to have her extra vehicle!

By Thursday evening I was feeling better which meant our camp out to East Lake was still on.  Cody took Friday off of work and we headed out that morning.  As we pulled out of the drive way Cody said, "It was really a blessing to have your Mom here this week". He couldn't have been more right.