Feeding Finn

Being a new mom has been an adventure. Particularly in the feeding department. It's still an ongoing adventure, but I wanted to post this to remember it by. I'm sure it'll be different with our second child (not pregnant!) but I've just decided to bask in my newness of motherhood. Having tons of questions and just figuring things out and what works for us.

Nursing has been an adventure all on it's own. I think it may be one of the hardest things I've committed to but there are so many reasons I wanted to do it and stick with it. This can be a touchy subject in the mother world, but I'm totally not in the group of nursing moms that says it's the only way and blah blah blah. The pressure can be wild. But for me personally, I'm loving it for our boy and for our wallets. Pumping on the other hand, not a favorite of mine, but I know one day it'll go away. 

At around 5 months, we gave Finn his first "cereal". Mostly liquid, but hey, he liked it.

Our sweet boy...

We then moved on to jar food. I don't think I'm going to be making my own. We found a brand that we like and it's just not something I want to put extra time into. So far the only thing he spits out e-v-e-r-y time is peas. But apples and blueberries? I accept you.

Puffs, puffs, puffs. It's amazed me how quickly he figured out how to shovel these things in his mouth. If this boy hears the rattle of the puff container, his face lights up. I hear this is true for many. :))

"Hmmm...can you help me? I've seemed to have misplaced my puff."

Jack sometimes provides a little entertainment. Running around in circles or bringing his chew toy to feel like he's a part. Finn's always fascinated by him. Jack's also been a huuuuuge fan of Finn's feeding time. He's a puff lover as well.

Peek-a-boo!

So we've been trying some other food and here's a piece of watermelon I thought he'd love.

Nope, not so much. :)

So there's a little glimpse into our feeding world. So much fun watching him discover new foods. I remember I had so many questions when just nursing and pumping and a friend of mine said that as soon as you feel like you have this figured out, you move on to figure out something else. So true. Parenthood has so many stages and I just want to cherish each stage at a time. Questions and all.

Happy Tuesday to you all! We're hoping to share a master bathroom update on here on Friday. Hip hip!

Master Bath Demo Time

How about a little bit of demolition to cap off the week? Yeah, demolition might be too strong of a word for this, but the important thing is our master bath has our attention. I bought some white paint to freshen up the top off-white portion and ceiling in this room and it has spurred on some other things that need to be done first. 

Like this mirror...

This is really the only before shot of this mirror I could find. My sweet baby boy. But all you need to know is the mirror is off centered from our pedestal sink and needs. to. go.

I had mentioned this to Rob to help me with because I knew it would be a messy job needing a bit of muscles and skilllll. And then I get this picture of him later in the week while I was at work...

Lol, to protect himself while pulling the mirror off the wall he came up with a mask. Out of a t-shirt and welding goggles. Whatever works, right? :) Those welding goggles kill me, haha. He taped up the mirror and started pulling pieces off. This is our second (but much smaller scale) experience with ripping GLUED mirrors off our walls. And I gotta say, gluing a mirror to a wall is not the thing to do. It's just not right, people!

It's left us with a bit of a mess, but nothing our previous mirror removing experience can't handle. Our next step is spackling, then sanding, then re-texturizing. I don't think that's a word, but oh well.

Here's a good shot to see how the mirror was off center AS WELL AS the light fixture. Bleh...

So then I got the easy job of removing one of the most annoying cabinets ever. I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but this cabinet door will not. stay. shut. The magnet kept coming off and I can't tell you how many times we've almost pierced our heads on the corner of this thing.

The other annoying thing is the inside shelves are rounded at the ends so it really wasn't great storage, things always fell out of it. Needless to say, I'm happy to say good riddance.

Yeah, this was much easier than removing the mirror...but oh so satisfying.

So many holes in these walls, and pretty big ones from all the anchors. I think I lost count at 14.

Gah, the lighting in here is so yellow. Here's the white paint I plan on using for the top portion.

I have already purchased a new wall cabinet found in the as-is section at Ikea for 50% off, woot woot! And here's a little glimpse into what's mulling around in my head for the rest of it...

I'm thinking of doing a fresh coat of white for the top portion of the walls/ceiling and a very pale gray for the paneling. I'm loving the look of a round mirror over the sink and then DIY it to appear like it's hanging like the pics above. For the sconces, I'm thinking of either doing industrial or nautical styled. Also will later think of some simple bathroom-friendly art to fill a few spots.

Well I'm just happy that we're looking at this room now. We use this little bathroom so much, it'll definitely be nice when it's a little a lot more pleasing to the eye. And one day maybe we'll get to gut the thing and start fresh. But for now I'll celebrate our little mini reno.

Happy Friday!

Little Bear

Finn is a little boy. Not a chunker or anything and still fits in some of his 3-6 month clothing (sans his bulky cloth diaper). He is still so light when you pick him up. But I gotta say, he's got some muscles.

Is it possible for little babies to get six packs?

Whenever we lay this boy down on his diaper changing table, he ends up holding a crunch for quite some time all while trying to sit up and be free. He's such a squirmy wormy. (we're thankful just to get the diaper on him somehow...I actually had to put it on him while he was standing up once, yeah, that was interesting!) I've also noticed that while standing he's starting to hold on to the support more loosely. The walking days will be here before I know it. Then the real baby proofing will begin. 

But for now, I'm thankful I can just toss him in his crib and take some sweet pictures of my little bear. 

A sweet family friend gave him this little shirt and pants and I thought it was the cutest lil thing.

I took his binky out of his mouth and this is the face he gives me...lol. "heyyyyyy mom!"

"Give me my binky back...pleeeeeease?"

I'm so thankful I was able to capture this sweet smile of his that he's been doing lately. He purses those little lips...

Although these next two shots aren't perfectly clear due to me playing peek a boo from behind the camera to get that smile, I love them. You can see that little tooth too!

Love love love that squishy nose.

Ah, that kid. <3

In house news, I'm needing some motivation for our master bathroom. I bought some paint to freshen it up and have a few other changes to make which will seriously make it better. Just gotta do it. The can of paint has been sitting there staring at me for a week now. Will share the progress once it's going.

Love to you all...and along with everyone in this great country, I'm remembering all those we lost 12 years ago today. My prayers are with their families and loved ones.

Never will forget.-

8 Months!

I'm trying really hard not to look so far ahead, but for a second I just have to observe that this boy is only FOUR months away from turning 1. How can that be?!?

Okay, but back to him turning 8 months. Our sweet little one, 8 months old.

These pictures this go-around were quick and easy. I think I only took like 15-20 as opposed to my normal 30 or 40 or 50 (sooooo thankful for our external hard drive). He was also in a great mood, which always helps, and the lighting in the room was bright. Something we don't get very often in our north facing home.

So what's been new this month? Well, after much anticipation, Finn's first tooth finally arrived! It's his bottom left one. I'm gonna try to get a picture of it one day, although it might be impossible with his little tongue always in the way. He's still crawling like a machine and generally just one happy, but very studious kid. I love watching him observe things, I feel like I'm watching his mind grow right before my eyes. So much development in these short months.

Those shapes on his toes are courtesy of daddy.

Right now he's been obsessed with this blue cup...especially with a shape in it. Funny boy.

So here's to another month. Can't believe he's almost as old as I was pregnant. Pregnancy seems like ages and ages ago. Just thinking about my lack of mobility and inability to sleep on my stomach makes me thankful, although of course I miss it. I loved carrying that boy with me wherever I went.

Happy 8 months to our sweet boy!

Paint Swatch Art

I had no idea what I was getting into.

It started with a picture/frame that was given to us. I loved the size of it and thought it would be perfect to fill in the blank space above our dresser in our bedroom.

I've seen and heard of paint swatch art. Let's see, I've seen geometric patterns, squares, diamonds, butterflies, all sorts. So after collecting some swatches...and yes, I did feel kinda bad for taking some extra swatches in addition to the ones I already had (see the end of this post for alternatives to paint swatches)...so after collecting them, I then bought a circle punch from Michael's. This is when I was still oblivious to the amount of time this project was gonna take. Punching out the circles took about an hour or so.

Then came assembling the circles, which took a good chunk of time. I wanted to lay it all out before I glued them so I could shift things around if I wanted. Which I did. A lot.

Then came the gluing. I chose to use my low heat glue gun. I chose this because I didn't want to worry about the circles falling off and hot glue seems to do the trick and gets the job done.

And then there was some more gluing...and some more...and yep, some more.

Months later...just playing, it actually took about a couple of weeks for me to finish (mainly due to only having about an hour or so a night to dedicate to it) here she blows in all her glory...

I have the idea to glue trim pieces around the raw edges just to make it look a little more crisp...but for now, I'm just gonna enjoy the fruits of my labor... :)

Some of these colors are my favorites right now...like the deep indigo, navy, emerald and teal.

With all the black from the dresser to the frame, I'm thinking of getting a light colored runner for the top of the dresser to break things up.

It was definitely a time consuming project but I'm happy that I bit the bullet and committed to finishing it even though there were nights I just wanted to throw in the towel...or the hole punch.

So there's quite a debate out there regarding using paint swatches. As stated earlier I did feel a lil bad taking so many swatches. When I started this project I already had some swatches from previous painting projects and then I gathered some more here and there for this project. (Shout out to Behr and your beautiful colors!) But I didn't realize at. all. how many swatches this would take. But what I wanted to share is an alternative if you were to do something like this. You can paint a thicker grade paper with the colors you wish to use, let it dry, then punch it out. I also had the idea of using old magazines or books and punching those out. The various colors and prints would create a really cool look.

So there you go. One paint swatch art piece. One master bedroom starting to feel a lil more masterful. :))

Labor-free Day

I love three day weekends. Anyone else with me? I just looked up the history of Labor Day and it was created to reward the "contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." (credit) Yep, to that I'll say "hear hear!"

This past weekend all of us kids drove down to my dad and Marsy's house. It always feels like a nice escape going there. Even with this new house of theirs that has a POOL. Ah, pools in Florida are a must, yet this is the first time in a while a family member has had a private pool. Love it. We did what we often do, ate some delicious food, hung around, swam, fed Finn some real bananas for the first time, ate some more, discovered my dad knows way more lyrics to "Apple Bottom Jeans" than I do, laid on the couch, ate some cookies. There was no golf on the TV this time, maybe there wasn't a tournament going on. 

Finn was extra clingy when in the pool this go-round. It doesn't seem like he doesn't like it, there's no tears or fuss, he just wants to be close. So sweet, my boys...

Rob was on his best uncle-behavior...tossing the kids around in the pool for what seemed like a good hour.

Love watching him discover things, even if it's just the little button on top of daddy's hat...

A lil blurry, but Finn kept popping up on the ottoman with a sweet smile for Uncle Greg and Aunt Jen.

Last minute snuggles with papa before heading home...

Can you believe it's September? I love that the holidays are coming. I think I may wait until October till I get my yearly cinnamon broom this time though. Wanna hear a confession? I still have candy corn in a mason jar from last year. Yep, and I still eat it. And it still tastes really good. Don't judge.

I'm going to hang my paint swatch art piece tonight and then take pics to share. There's a little something extra I want to do to it, but I think I just need to get it on the wall for now. Cause who knows when I'll get to it.

Hey, it's halfway through the week already! Hip hip! :)