too many words & not enough pictures

Since the last post was EXTREMELY wordy, here are some pictures of the little man :)

Tried to get a nice family pic :) 

We decided to have a little 3 month photo shoot with Jackson...even though we did take him to get his pictures done at Target.  I am also hoping to do a few more maybe outside!

I absolutely LOVE his little jeans with suspenders!! I love them so much that I am probably going to go buy him another pair in a bigger size :)

Our Style....at least for now

Since the little man is sleeping and I have tons of actual work to do I find my self wanting to write a blog post....I really need to learn to stop procrastinating!

Moving out of the great state of Wisconsin has enlightened the Man and I on quite a few different things.  People in other states really don't drink as much as people in WI. There really are way more religions than the typical 3 or 4 you usually come across in WI.  Speaking only 1 language really does make you a minority pretty much every where else in the country!  And this last one is what the whole post is about: There are many different ways to parent and raise your child.

Now Time Magazine recently put out an article about attachment parenting. Now before I moved to California I had NO idea as to what attachment parenting was.  The Man does not like to jump on "bandwagons" or "fads".  And to him that is exactly what attachment parenting is.  But what this "fad" did was open our eyes to a different way than either one of us had ever thought to parent. We thought we owed it to Jackson to at least look into all the options for everything that pertained to him and make the best decision from that.

So far here is where we are at on some of the different issues:
- we formula feed
- we use disposable diapers
- we immunize at the recommended times
- at night he sleeps in a pack-n-play next to our bed (we do not co-sleep)
- I own 2 ring slings and love to wear the baby when its not to warm out
- we didn't let him cry it out at all until he was 3 months old (now we will not let him cry for more than 10 min.)

Now the whole thing that started this post was that the Man and I are now looking into Baby Led Weaning. It is a different way to go about feeding your baby solids than the normal purees. When I first heard about people I knew doing this I found it really odd.  The more I thought about it though the more it made sense. I personally am a VERY picky eater and I do not want my kid to grow up and be a picky eater. Josiah totally agrees with me on this reason and the fact that it will get us eating better and more diverse meals.

Since we didn't know a whole lot about it and what it all entailed we purchased 2 books off of amazon: Baby-Led Weaning: The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods and Helping Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater and The Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook. We are currently reading the books but from what we have learned from Google & in our reading this is something that we want to try.

Sorry about the super long post just to get to 1 little point.  But look for more posts on how our BLW is coming along and if we stick with it or find out it is not something we want to continue with.

Happy 3 months Jackson!!

On Friday Jackson turned 3 months old!!  Holy Crap where has the past 3 months gone! He is getting so so big.  According to our scale at home he is around the 15 lb. mark....the kid likes LOVES to eat! This weekend I am hoping to get an empty tote out and put all of his newborn & 0-3 month clothes away since he is now into 3-6 month.

What He's Been Up To:
- has been holding is own head up since about 6 weeks
- loves to tell stories to you or his mobile
- smiles at people and things he likes
- once in awhile he will laugh (it's pretty funny to hear!)
- smiles and laughs when we tickle him
- sleeps for 8 hours straight at night (he has been doing that since 6-8 weeks)
- LOVES his bath time with Josiah
- puts both hands together in his mouth (started this last week)
- drools EVERYWHERE

I know that there are so many more things that he has been doing or loves to do lately but I am drawing a blank on them.  So here are some photos that have been taken over the past 2 months since I didn't do a 2 month post!

Jackson & I on a walk on the walking trail near our apartment

Telling the bear's stories instead of napping!

SMILES!

Back To Work

I know its a little late but 3 weeks ago I went back to work.  It was bittersweet, as I really do love my job but I wasn't ready to leave the baby. Luckily for me my job is pretty flexible and I can for the most part make my own hours...as long as I get all my hours in for the week...and part of my job allows me to work at home.  Which working from home with a super cute baby is a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I really should be doing some work right now since the little man is sleeping but instead I am doing EVERYTHING but work :)

The whole going back to work situation was pretty stressful when we first moved to MD and for probably the first month after we had the baby.  We called what seemed to be 100's 10 different daycare places trying to get Jackson in. Everywhere we called either had a waiting list that was from 6 months to 2 years long, they didn't take infants or they costed more a week than what I make!  It was pretty insane.  The Man and I then figured out that there was only 3 weeks that he would still be on day shift before going to his actual job, which is 2nd shift, after I started back to work.  A light bulb came on and we called Nicki to see if she was up for the task of being our live-in nanny for 3 weeks until we were working opposite shifts.  She was totally up for it, granted we did sweeten the deal a little and even agreed to pay her & feed her :)

I think having Nicki here to watch the little man probably made it a little easier going back to work but boy oh boy am I ever excited when I get home and he gets a big smile on his face when he sees me....probably one of my favorite things right now!

Nicki left us on Saturday so today was the first day that the Man and I where on our own with taking care of  Jackson and both working.  So far I think this new routine for us will work out pretty good....hopefully in the fall Josiah's school schedule won't add too much more stress on to us and this new routine!

what was I thinking!!!!!

Yes I am well aware that I only blogged twice in June....blogging has been neglected big time since the little man has arrived.  I am still working on fitting it into a daily/weekly/monthly routine....so bare with me a little bit longer!

Anyways, to the point of this entry.

Wednesday happened to be the 4th of July, which is my FAVORITE holiday not counting my birthday.  Well it is now also a little bit of a sad day.  That night my iPhone was accidentally dropped down a street drain.  I think the worst part was that when we shined a light down we could see it sitting there, staring back at us from a 10 ft hole.  Now most people might be surprised by this but I really didn't get too upset about it.  I mean I have had the phone for almost 2 years and have gotten my monies worth out of it and was planning to upgrade this fall anyways to the iPhone 5.  The part that I am the most angry about is that I lost over 1,000 photos that I had taken.  There were tons of pictures of the baby and of trips and things the man and I did.

So the moral of the story is do one of two options: 1.) use the iPhone cloud....it automatically backs up ALL of your photos to your computer or iPad do not ask why I didn't use this...super frustrating! or 2.) get a Google+ account which I have and it will upload all of your photos to its cloud server so you can then get them from the internet.  The tricky part with Google+ is that it only uploads the ones that are taken since you used the app, so no past photos and it only uploads them when you open the app so you have to remember to at least open it once a week to get all the photos from that week saved.

Google+ did have a few of my pictures saved the middle of May through the end of June but other than that I pretty much lost all my pictures.  Granted a lot of them were taken using Instagram so I can go on there and see them or create a photo book with one of the serves that allows you to upload directly from Instagram but that is about it.

I also never realized how dependent I was on my phone.  I couldn't even pick up groceries because I have an app that I use to make a grocery list and I had NO idea as to what was on the list or what we needed at the house off the top of my head! Hopefully I can get a cheap phone to get me through till this fall when the iPhone 5 comes out and then I will be getting that and for sure using the cloud service!!!

Visit from Friend(s)

A couple weeks back, my birthday week and the little man's 2 month birthday, we were lucky enough to have a couple friends visit us.  Well I should start by saying that we only knew about one of these friends coming out...little did I know that they booked their tickets together and decided to keep a HUGE secret from me by not telling me our other friend was also coming along.  I just have to say good job to both of you on keeping it a secret for so long.  I was completely surprised when I went to pick up Megan from the airport and found out Nadine was also there.  It actually didn't really sink in until we were back at the apartment that she was there....the baby was having a rough morning and might have had me a little frazzled!

It was awesome to get to see both of them again and that they were able to meet Jackson.  We did a lot of fun things while they were here.  The first thing they got to do was go to Jackson's 2-month appointment with me and watch him get 3 shots, ok so maybe that wasn't so much fun.  But after that we walked around Georgetown and grabbed a bite to eat.

The next day was my birthday and we did some touristy site-seeing in downtown D.C.  We saw a few different memorials, the White House and tons & tons of girl scouts...it just so happened they were celebrating 100 years of girls scouts that day. 

On Saturday we got to check out the Smithsonian National Zoo.  It was really awesome, especially since its a free zoo!!  It has been decided that if we are still living in this area Jackson will have his 3rd birthday party there...so everyone better start saving up to come celebrate with us!  After the zoo we went back and had a little pool time at the apartment and just relaxed since we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get them to the airport.

Enough with the words and onto a few photos!

 World War II Memorial

 Jackson enjoying site-seeing in downtown D.C.

 Almost all of us at the zoo

 Thirsty Nadine getting water from the Tiger at the Zoo

 Zoo

 Megan's obsessed with Smart Cars and got super super happy every time she saw one

 The White House

Nadine & Megan some what near the Washington Monument

I know I didn't do a great job summarizing their trip but free time is limited and I really should be sleeping instead.  I had an amazing time while they were here and I really hope they both come back out to visit again soon :)

All pictures were taken by either Josiah, Megan or Nadine

Happy Birthday To Who??? To Me!!

So I know I am way behind on A LOT of posts, so bare with me as I try and back track and catch up.

Last Friday it was my birthday.  In previous years this is one of the biggest events of the entire year for everyone I know, well at least that's what I like to believe.  I usually celebrate for at least a week if not the whole month of June.  For some reason this year it didn't seem as important to me as it has in the past.  I'm not sure if that's because I'm getting older or if it has to do with Jackson.  Either way my birthday still ended up being amazing without me making a big deal about it.

Two of our friends, Megan & Nadine, came out to visit us that week.  So on my actual birthday we did a little site-seeing in downtown D.C. The baby did an amazing job with all the site-seeing, he was super happy all day and even was awake when we stopped at the Lincoln Memorial.  It was the first time I rode the Metro without Josiah, which I thought was pretty awesome since I got us where we wanted to go without any troubles at all.  I did almost have a minor freak out when we got to the Metro station and the elevator was broken so we had to take the escalator.  It wouldn't have been so bad if it would have been a normal sized escalator but this thing was super steep and extremely long.  Little did I know that Megan has experience with strollers and escalators, she pretty much man-handled that thing!  Thanks Friend!!!

Photo courtesy of Megan....The HUGE escalator we took the stroller down and this isn't even from the top!

So all in all it was a pretty awesome day spent with the family and two great friends!!  Let's hope 27 is as good to me as 26 was!