Floor time

Occasionally Jude gets company when he is having tummy time. Jude is checking out Gavin and Gavin is checking to see if there is anything in that toy bin for him......



All that playing is hard work!!!!


See that bunch of smiley flowers? If you press the flower heads, they light up and play a song. Jude figured out today that he can scoot up to it and press them himself. I was in the kitchen making supper while Jude was on the floor in the living room (Jerrod was in there to watch him). Then I start hearing the flower, I peek into the living room and see Jerrod has not gotten up, so Jude had to have pressed them himself (Julia was with me). I then hear the flower multiple more times (and watched him press it several times). I was impressed.

Snow fun!

We had our first real snowfall last night. At 6:30am Julia was already asking to go out and play in it.

She did get to play in it later this morning. Luckily her snowsuit from last year still fit!


Liking the snow.


Jude was not too fond of the cold wet stuff. Since his infant seat has a winter cover, he does not have a snowsuit or even a winter coat. So I dressed him warmly, put his hat on, and wrapped him up in a heavy blanket. Jude and I only stayed out about 10 minutes, so he would not get cold.


Jude was mad and Jerrod was telling me that his pants were getting wet!


Julia and Jerrod stayed out longer. Julia has been practicing making snow angels for weeks now, so she was happy she got to make the real things today!

Outfit of the day.....

Right now Julia is really into picking out her own outfits, which usually consist of a ballerina outfit with tights. This morning she really wanted to wear this purple ballerina outfit. These crazy tights were the only clean tights left. I then told her it was cold out so if she was going to wear the purple ballerina, she had to wear a shirt underneath it. The shirt was the only thing that I picked out in this ensemble. I LOVE how creative she is!!



And of course, now every time I take a picture of her, she has to take a picture of me. Today's was pretty good, at least she got my head in it this time. She told me I had to stand in the same spot she stood in!!LOL

Mr. Smiley

Jude is such a happy baby that his new nickname has become "Mr. Smiley" or "Mr. Smiles". I just love how he is smiling and giggling all the time. That smile gets me every time!

It is funny though. We can't get over what an easy baby Jude is, yet when we go to my parent's house, Jude is clearly the fussiest of all the babies there.

I guess our perspective on what is an easy baby is slightly altered because of just how HARD Julia was as a baby! Jude is a breeze compared to that!

DONE!

My Christmas shopping is DONE!! I am so excited. I still have two things that I am sewing for Julia. I finally got them cut out last night, now I just need about 2 hours of Julia-free time to get them sewn.

AND now I have the awful job of wrapping everything! I hate wrapping presents!

Jerrod's vacation starts next week, I might just have him take Julia out of the house for a few hours just so I can get stuff wrapped and sewn. I really hate waiting until Julia is asleep.

Temper

I think we are going to be in real trouble soon. I can already see that Jude is going to have a nasty temper!! I guess he gets it honestly!

I cannot believe the fits this boy can already throw!

Printer

We had an all-in-one that is almost 10 years old. Julia did something to it a few months ago and it finally broke. So we have been without a printer for a few months. We have not bought a new one yet.

On Monday, Jerrod had to go fix someone's computer outside of work. In addition to fixing their computer, they also bought a new all-in-one that they had Jerrod hook up for them. When it came time for Jerrod to leave, they paid Jerrod with their old printer, which actually was not that old.

I will miss not having a copier or a scanner, but it will be nice to have a printer again!

Some pictures

This weekend we were at my parent's house. All of the cousins were also there.

Playing on the garage floor with one of her cousins.


Being silly and filthy!


Jude spent some time in the walker. He thought it was great!! He was very interested in the toys it had on it.


Then one day last week, I found Jude like this... It must be comfortable.

Christmas tree

We put our Christmas tree up last weekend. It took me a couple of days before I got it completely finished. It is already starting to look bad. With two kids and several cats, the tree is going to be in pretty sorry shape buy the time Christmas is here!

I tried to get a picture of the kids in front of the tree.

First with the flash off; it was too dark.


With the flash on, but all Jude wanted to do was look at the pretty lights!


Then they both were playing with the tree.


I finally gave up. But I did get one of just Jude!


I eventually handed the camera to Jerrod and picked up the kids. Unfortunately the angle Jerrod took the picture from covered up the entire tree.


We have already broken a few ornaments and had the tree shaking pretty good several times. It looked good for a few minutes at least!

Love of apples

Julia loves apples. She eats them whole; no need to cut them up for her. I try to have some on hand around the house for her.

This weekend we were at my parent's house. They had a bag of apples in their garage that had come off my grandfather apple trees. Julia found that bag. She really likes those apples. She must have ate 6 or 7 of them in the two days we were there!! AND she eats the whole thing, core and all!! Everyone kept trying to tell her that she did not have to eat the core, but she kept saying she wanted to....

At least she was eating healthy.

Such sensitive skin

Poor Jude has such sensitive skin, even more sensitive than Julia's was as a baby. Everything he wears has to be washed in All Free and Clear before he wears it or he will break out. He still breaks out frequently, even using the sensitive laundry soap.

I have been very lucky that Jude has not really had any diaper rashes until lately. Now it is just a vicious cycle. You cannot use diaper dream when using cloth diapers because it will stop them them absorbing. Jude just recently started having diaper rashes. So I put Jude in disposables so I could use diaper cream. The only problem was that they don't make Pamper's in the sensitive type in the bigger size Jude now needs. Because of that, the disposables now make him break out in a rash. So it is a vicious cycle, he needs to wear the disposables so he can have the diaper cream on, but the chemicals in the disposables make him break out in a rash!!

Then I had a "DUH!" moment last week. I was trying to figure out why Jude was all of a sudden breaking out wearing the cloth diapers. That is when I realized that I switched the laundry detergent that I wash the diapers in!! I switched to Tide Free, which is made for sensitive skin so I figured I was fine, but I guess not. I switched back to what I was using and the rashes mostly went away.

Then a couple days ago, I started using a rash cream that is specially made to be used with cloth diapers. It seems to be helping too.

What sensitive skin the poor boy has. I hope his grows out of some of this.

The Gingerbread house!

One of the perks of being unemployed is doing things with Julia that I normally would not have time to do.

When Julia saw this Gingerbread house kit at the grocery store and wanted it, I thought it was a perfect thing to do. Who knows when I will have time to make one with her again.

Julia loved making the house, although, her favorite part had to be the icing!!


Decorating it......





All finished!!



It does not look the best, but she had fun and that is all that was really important! Oh, it was not until the very end that Julia realized that all the candies we were putting on it were actually CANDY!! Then she started eating them instead of using them on the house!

Santa

This afternoon I decided to take the kids to the mall to see Santa. Julia flat out refused to sit on his lap last year. At Easter, she liked to watch the Easter Bunny from afar, but once again refused to get anywhere close to him. So I was not sure how well Santa would co over this year. Julia is MUCH less shy than she used to be, so I was hoping that maybe it would work.

So the entire drive to the mall I talked to her about how we were going to see Santa Claus and how you sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas. Julia always does better at things when you explain them ahead of time. So by the time we got to the mall she was really excited to go see Santa. But as we got close and she could see him, I could see her start to tense up slightly. I could tell she still was not sure about this. There was not a line, so we walked up. She walked into the Santa area just find but once we could about 3 feet from Santa she turned and clung to my leg. I tried to explain to her that it was okay and she needed to sit on his lap so she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas. She was not freaked out like normal, but she was definitely frightened. I pick up Jude and put him on Santa's lap to show her that it was fine. She still was not completely buying it. I finally just picked her up and sat her on his lap. She did not scream and struggle to get off, so I took that as a good sign. But she did pout and try to hide her face. I told her I was going to tickle her if she did not smile and that got her giggling. The "elf" who was taking the pictures picked up on that and used hand puppets to make Julia smile. I was shocked, we actually got a good picture of Julia smiling on Santa's lap!! She was still a little too shy to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, so I helped her off his lap and thought she did a wonderful enough job. Santa then gave her a coloring book and that got her all excited.

Jude, on the other hand, could have cared less about the whole thing! He is so easy going!!

The funniest part about the whole thing was that the "elf" was using a Dora hand puppet trying to get Julia to smile. She was asking Julia who that was, etc.. I finally had to tell the elf that Julia has no clue who Dora is because we don't watch that show. The elf then pulled out an Elmo puppet and asked if we know him. I said yes and Elmo got some giggles out of Julia.

Oh, our printer/scanner is broke, otherwise I would have scanned in the picture and posted it here. It is actually a really great picture!

Seriously??

Jude has always been a good eater. Anytime I give him a bottle (which is fairly rare), he sucks it down in no time flat and asks for more. Lately, I have been putting 6 ozs. in the bottles and figured that was plenty, Julia NEVER ate more than 5 ozs at a time, ever! After sucking down the 6 ozs super fast, he cries for more. I figure he could not possibly fit more in there without puking, so I don't give him anymore. After a few minutes he stops fussing for more, so I figure it just takes his brain awhile to realize his tummy is full. Apparently not......

Sunday, Jerrod's aunt and uncle watched the kids while we went to a movie. I gave them two, 6 oz bottles for Jude. I figured they would only use one, but it is always good to have an extra. When we came back a couple hours later, I was surprised to hear that he ate both bottles. I did not think he would get hungry twice in the couple hours we were gone. But a few minutes later I finally understood what happened. Jude at BOTH bottles in ONE sitting!! That was 12 ozs!!!!! I asked it he puked any of it back up, because surely his stomach could not hold that much, but nope, he kept it all down!! I was SHOCKED!!!

He did end up taking a 5 hour nap that afternoon, so I think he was in a milk coma!LOL

I think this boy is going to eat me out of house and home when he gets a little older. He already gets so upset when we eat in front of him. You can tell that he wants to eat what we are eating so badly. With Julia I waiting until 7 months to start solids, but with Jude I will definately be starting them at 6 months (the earliest my pedi recommends, especially when dealing with food allergies).

Now I worry he is not getting enough to eat from me when he nurses, especially since his weight gain really dropped in the last 2 months. He seems content after nursing and is otherwise healthy, so I will just that to assume he is getting plenty to eat. He just burns through the calories so fast with all the wiggling and moving he does.

Pictures from last week

Here are some pictures from last week.


Julia loves feeding the kitties, but this is normally what happens when she does. The food ends up scattered all over the floor.


What I see as I nurse Jude.


Jude loved the lights on the tree and enjoyed watching me put them on.


Julia loves the fish. Here she is pointing out all the fish to me.

Her cat

Julia has always loved the cats. Gavin has always been her favorite. Mainly because he will put up with a LOT of abuse from her without complain.

Lately she has been taking to calling Gavin, "her cat". Pepe is daddy's cat, Sebastian is mommy's cat and Gavin is her cat. Now she is starting to ask who's Jude's cat!

Gavin is a saint to put up with Julia. She is constantly picking on him.

Chasing him down for some loving....


A common sight at our house!



Notice how he just hangs there limply and does not put up a fuss? A saint, I tell you! It makes up for all the naughty stuff he does!!

Julia, the photographer

Julia has been really wanting to use the camera lately. So I have finally been letting her take some pictures.

Her first attempt.....


Then daddy explained to her about seeing the heads of the people you take pictures of. Next shot was better.


Next night, more pictures.


But she seems to have not completely learned about the head thing.


Doing better with mommy's help.



The animals are also one of her favorite subjects.




One last shot with mommy's help!

Onto crawling, sitting and standing!!

I just cannot get over how advanced Jude is in gross motor skills. At this age, Julia was not even rolling over yet. Not only is Jude rolling over, he is trying to crawl already!! For the past week or two, Jude has been getting his knees under him and scooting across the floor that way. Almost like a very basic army crawl. I don't think he is quite strong enough to get up on all fours yet, but it is only a matter of time.

While Jude can roll all over the floor, he would prefer to be sitting up or ever better yet, standing! He has been sitting in his Bumbo since 6 weeks of age. He loves sitting up and standing. When standing on your lap, he has enough strength that you only have to hold onto his hands. He can support himself standing, he just needs us for the balance.

I know he is just trying to keep up with is big sister, but GEESH!! Slow down Jude!! You are supposed to be my baby; don't grow up so fast!!!

Guess what we got today?!

Our Christmas tree!!!

Julia thought it was neat to walk among all these trees.


Less than a minute after we got to the tree place and seconds after this picture was taken, Julia announced "I got to go pee!!". So off we went to find a restroom. Which turned out to be a port-a-potty; in the below freezing weather!! Nice.....

By the time we got done, Jerrod had picked one out and had it loaded in the truck. (we borrowed Jerry's truck)

Julia thought it was neat to stand in the bed of the truck checking out the tree.


More pictures to come. The tree did not get finished being decorated yet. Jude LOVED the lights on it and Julia just wanted to help.

That's safe!

Since Jude sleeps in a co-sleeper attached to our bed right now, the crib gets very little use. Now that it has been recalled, it get even less use until we get the replacement parts to fix it. BUT.. There are still times I need to safely contain him for a few minutes so I can do something. The crib is a good option, especially now that he is rolling around the floor.

So I put Jude in the crib and leave his door open so I can hear him while I go and switch out laundry. I come back and find this:


She was showing him how to turn on all the attached toys. She knows she is not allowed in the crib with him, so this was the next best thing! And yes, that is a glider, that ROCKS. At that point I think the crib was a bigger hazard to the toddler than it ever was to the baby!!

Jude just goes with the flow.... (Oh and he was facing the opposite direction when I put him in it just a few minutes before, the little wiggle worm!!)

Last swimming class

Julia had her last swimming lesson for the year on Thursday.

She is SUPER young for this class. Actually she is too young for this class, but the teacher allowed it since her skill level is so advanced for her age and she was getting bored in the classes for kids her age. Most of the kids in this class were a least 1 or more years older than her. Skill-wise she did great; but you can tell her maturity level is not quite there with the 4 and 5 year olds.

When the instructor handed Jerrod the certificate of Julia completing the class she asked him if Julia was three yet. When he told her she will be this month, the instructor was just amazed. She said for Julia's age, she has incredible water/swimming skills. She was amazed at the skill level Julia is at for her age. The instructor did say there were a couple things that they had a hard time getting Julia to do. She said that Julia knew how to do them, but she lacked the self-confidence to do them.

I think I will have Julia repeat this class when we do lessons again this winter/spring.

Here are some pictures from her last class. The lighting was poor and I really had to zoom since they were in the middle of the pool.

Getting ready to dunk under the water....


Under she goes....


Now diving for rings!


Her favorite part is still the Froggie slide. She goes so fast down it now that she is just a blur in the pictures.

Bathroom re-do

We are almost completely done with the upstairs bathroom re-do. I am LOVING it. That bathroom never looked that good.

The flooring went in today and all that is left is the baseboard and door trim.

I was able to finally take a shower in the new shower today. It is nice to finally be able to shower upstairs again!

We are working on re-doing the master bedroom at the same time. It has already been re-painted and the carpet ripped up.

We will do the kitchen this winter; then the entire house will have been re-modeled. Just in time for us to sell it!

Lesson of the day......

...... If you are going to give your constipated toddler 2 big glasses of apple juice to relieve said constipation, make sure she is wearing an outfit she can easily get off to use the potty!!

Julia was constipated today. She had a big glass of apple juice with breakfast, but after her third failed attempted to poop (she says she has to go, but when she tries she says the poop must be sleeping!!) I gave her another big glass of apple juice to drink after lunch. About an hour later I hear Julia calling for help from the bathroom. She could not get her outfit off and ended up pooping in her pants. The apple juice made everything all mushy, so I had a real mess. I threw her in the tub to clean her off, only to end up with poo streaks in the tub!! (I did not wipe enough poo off her before sticking her in the tub). So I empty the tub, wipe it out and refill. I started a load of laundry for the clothes and Jerrod scrubbed out the tub this evening to make sure it got completely clean.

Lesson learned!! Ahhhh... what motherhood will teach you!

Four month check-up

Jude had his four month check-up today. The pedi was very pleased with Jude's progress. Not only is he over the colic; he is doing many things earlier than she would have expected (like already saying mama and wanting to stand and sit.).

He weighed 14lbs, 8oz; 26" long and had a head circumference of 17". I was a little concerned about his weight. That was quite a drop off in weight gain. He was above the 75th percentile for weight, now he is below the 50th percentile. The pedi said she was not worried. His head circumference stayed on the same curve (around the 75th), and apparently that is what is really important. She said she can see just how active Jude is and how he is moving constantly. That is the main reason for the low weight gain; he is just burning through so many calories with all the wiggling he does.

She was sad to see that he is so rashy, but she knows Julia was the same way and that my babies just have really sensitive skin. While his head is looking much better, I just cannot get to to clear up all the way. Not to mention the minor rashes he gets all over his body all the time. After telling her everything I am doing for the rashes, she was impressed and said I am doing what was needed for the rashes. The only thing she suggested was using some diluted vinegar water occasionally, which I have done on rare occasions.

She was also pleased to hear that I was using Tea Tree Oil in his wipe solution. Since she is big into homeopathic treatments, she was pleased to hear of all the homeopathic things I am already doing.