travel diaries | Charleston day one

We got back last Monday from a GREAT 4 night trip to Charleston, South Carolina. What started as a pipe dream for me turned into a super fun trip with two other couples and our babies. Our friends Jevon, Kim, Michael, Amy, Emma, and Mark, myself, and Beau rented a house about 5 miles from Charleston and 5 miles from Folly Beach. It had a pool and hot tub and was in a cute little neighborhood. The weather held out on us (until we got soaked the last day) and I think we all had a great time.

I take a TON of pictures and I'm super into pretty things like address numbers and cobblestone streets. I'm very much into the 'atmosphere' of things so I have lots of photos of blue sky and buildings but not one picture of our whole group. Whoops. Anyway, since I'm not 'regularly blogging' anymore, I'm not going to go super in depth with my post but just wanted to dump my (way too many) pictures here for the future. I hope you can just enjoy the pictures like we enjoyed Charleston. 

As a bonus, I took a few videos (because I JUST figured out how to do video on my camera) and put together this sloppy, horrible iMovie of our trip. I have a friend that takes his GoPro camera on vacation and makes WONDERFUL videos but I fall so, so, SOOOO short. Anyway, it was a fun learning experience and I'm totally going to take more videos from now on. 

So here we go, here is day one of Charleston. This was last Friday and we spent the day exploring downtown Charleston. We ate lunch at Jestine's Kitchen, dinner at Hominy Grill, visited King Street and two paintings of George Washington and General Beauregard (obviously), and took a quick swim in the pool.

And that was day one. :)

I'll post the rest of our trip next week, hopefully. Happy weekend!

beau andrew | nine months

Well hey, y'all! I've missed you guys...a little bit. Life has been good and I'm kind of enjoying not blogging regularly these days. For those of you that have said you miss it - don't worry! I'm not gone for good. I'll keep doing these updates and I'll do some random posts with pictures and stories of Beau. Plus, I'll blog after we travel, so look out for a few posts on Charleston coming soon! Thanks for all of the love, it makes me feel good to know that so many people enjoyed this blog. 

So Beau is now NINE months old! What?! This is another big milestone, much like 6 months. He is so, so, so fun but also a little bit of the toddler attitude is starting to show it's face. Uh oh. For real.

So here is what Beau is up to these days:

-pulling up! He now wants to be standing 80% of the time. It is much harder to supervise him this way and also I can't really leave him in the living room (the most baby friendly area in the house) because he will try to pull up on something and then fall and hurt himself. 

-arching his back when he doesn't want something (that's the toddler coming out). He will do it in the stroller, car seat, and even the high chair (although he loves to eat!). 

-refusing to bend his legs when we want him to sit down and he doesn't want to. This one is fun. Sometimes he will finally sit but as soon as we let go he will throw himself backwards. He did this yesterday and bonked his head so of course I had to pick him up after he started sobbing! 

-crawling. He still has a unique way of crawling but he is getting much faster. I'm not sure that he will ever decide to crawl the 'right' way.

-had his first sickness/ear infection while on vacation (of course). Everything had been good and Mark woke up with him on Saturday morning and took him on a walk to the coffee shop. When they got back, he started crying and would. not. stop. We tried all of the normal things but he would not nurse, would not eat, nothing. Typically he will stop crying as long as you pick him up but he was not having it and he was inconsolable. It took about 5-10 minutes for me to figure out that something was wrong so we got in the car to head towards an urgent care. Of course, he fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. Since he had already lost sleep and was thrown off of his nap schedule, we decided to let him sleep in the case that maybe he was just super tired. That lasted for about 30 minutes while we drove around west of Charleston but when he woke up it was full on tears again. We turned around and went to CVS to get Tylenol before we went to the Urgent Care. I got him out of his car seat in the parking lot while Mark was inside and facetimed with my mom for some reassurance. He broke his tears and smiled at her but then was back to sobbing. She ended up singing him to sleep over facetime! I couldn't even do that and I was right there! Anyway, she agreed that something was wrong so we took him to the Urgent Care. As suspected/hoped (although teething would mean nothing was really 'wrong', I didn't want to have to endure that kind of crying every time Beau cuts a tooth. And nope, no teeth yet), he had an infection in his left ear. We got a prescription, the go-ahead to give him the Tylenol, and we got out of there. He was asleep for about 30 minutes as soon as we got back into the car and when he woke up he was his normal, happy self. Hallelujah! We went to the beach that day and as long as we gave him some Tylenol for the pain, he was completely fine. I'm so glad that was all it was! It is so hard seeing your baby in pain!

-first plane ride. Beau's first plane ride was on our trip to Charleston. He did so great! We had an extra seat in between us on both flights and that was nice to have the extra room. He was a little bit needy (always wanting mama these days) but otherwise he was silent and perfect. We got no evil glances and the people behind us said they didn't even know he was there. Yay! I can only hope all of our flights will be that easy.



-still nursing. The frequency has dropped a lot and I'm trying really hard to not push him to keep his old schedule but it is hard! I am letting him pretty much nurse on demand. That means sometimes he goes 5 hours without nursing and it is so weird. Selfishly, though, I am looking forward to when he will just nurse a couple times a day, hopefully at night and in the morning. I loved the ease of nursing for the first several months but now that he is harder to keep still and it is summer (I want to wear dresses!!!) I am ready for the downhill process of weaning. Still planning to nurse until 1 year though.

-he has said 'mama' a couple of other times but not consistently. We are working on other words and signs so hopefully he will start doing those soon!

-napping much better these days but bedtime is still a toss-up. He is waking up pretty much every night at least once. I'm feeding him but trying to shorten the session every time so hopefully we can eliminate the habit once and for all.

-started working on using a munchkin360 cup (thanks to the recommendation from Mark's cousin Kelly!) but still doesn't have it 100% down. Since he doesn't take bottles often, he can't hold a cup/bottle for himself but we will be working on it.

-signed "more" and continues to do so! He usually just does it after he takes a bite but, you know, it's the thought that counts? haha!

                                  

-swam for the first time. He had his first pool swim at the house in Charleston and he did it in the nude! He seemed to like it but it was about to storm so I got him out. Then, he had his first ocean dip in the Atlantic at Folly Beach. He wasn't so much a fan but he didn't really fuss, either. We will be swimming lots at our neighborhood pools and at nana's house this summer. Can't wait to see if I have a little water baby!

As a bonus, here are some iPhone pictures from the last few weeks. Thanks for reading!

My grandfather passed away last month so as sad as that was, we were happy to spend time with lots of family that we don't see often. First, we got the great-grandkids together:

Then, there was almost a series of unfortunate events. Note my nephew Noah holding Beau...

Nice save! Beau wasn't amused, though. 

Thanks, Little Tikes!

Baby's first Byron.

We put up this gate between our living room and kitchen area so Beau stops making a bee line to Motley's water dish (which he proceeds to shake and splash water everywhere), among other non kid friendly things. It is this brand but I got the standard (not the tall) on craigslist. :) We love it! It's really sturdy and I love that we don't have to step/trip over anything.

the end of an era

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this little blog here and I've come to the conclusion that it is time to take a break. That may not come as a surprise to some of y'all since my posts have been few and far between lately, but I felt like I needed to post something to explain the absence and make it a little more permanent in my own mind.

Before I started blogging, I followed a TON of blogs and looked forward to reading them everyday. As you might expect based on the initial theme of my blog, most of those were home and DIY blogs. I loved reading them every day and getting inspiration from them. Once we bought a house, I was so excited to finally join the blogging world and have this little space to document all of the changes I wanted to take on with our somewhat fixer-upper. I've been around 'these parts' for about three years now and have met tons of people, introduced lots of new themes to my blog, redone my kitchen and floors, painted the whole house, done a bunch of shopping, had a baby, and had some great opportunities just because I shared a bit of our life in this space. It has been everything and more than I dreamed it to be and I'm hesitant to step away.

I never wanted to feel forced to blog and a lot of my posting would come in waves, depending on how motivated I was feeling about writing or not. Recently, the motivation has been at an all time low. After I had Beau, I thought I'd have some great new content (and I have!) but adding in the intense photography and time commitment it takes to get a decent post up has been difficult. I wanted to keep offering a variety of content but found myself constantly talking about babies. I didn't want to live each day in order to have something to blog about, but rather wanted to do the opposite. These days, I am making an effort to better myself and soak up all of this one on one time with Beau. Our lives are very simple and I LOVE it that way - but that doesn't make for good blog fodder. I want to continue these easy days without a camera shoved in his face or the stress each night of needing to write a blog post. 

I'm not completely quitting, though. This is my space and I'm going to keep everything up and looking the way it is. I'll still pop in and post about Beau for family and just to keep some of our memories here. The blog may be resurrected down the road when there are new babies, a new house, or if I just feel inspired to write. Right now, though, I wanted to let you know that I'm stepping away to focus on Beau, on myself, and on my Etsy business (which takes up a lot of time and creativity these days!). I'll miss the interaction with y'all but please know that I am still here! Send me an email or just leave a comment (because those get emailed to me) and if you ever have questions or want me to post about something - let me know! I find more inspiration and motivation to post when I know someone wants to read it. 

Thanks for the ride, y'all. See you around!

beau andrew | eight months

Here we are at eight months old! As usual, it's going super fast! Beau has learned TONS recently and he is just a ball of fun. His personality shines and we are pretty much in sync these days with our schedules. Life is so good!

Beau:

-is crawling, and he learned how to do it quickly. He is getting faster and faster every day!

-is thinking about pulling up...he will pull up on my hands and will crawl to something and put his hand up on it but doesn't do much ab/leg work...yet!

-found his voice. Like, woah. The kid screams just for the fun of it! His little "ahh's" are pretty cute though!

-likes to bounce and tap his right foot a lot. He uses his left leg to propel him when crawling but his right leg keeps the beat. He loves to bend it over and tap his left knee. It's so weird and cute! (See the first picture)

-doesn't play well with others. Haha! He has been around our friends' baby Emma a couple of times now and last week when she was over she sat up and kind of screamed in his face (in a happy way) and he burst into BIG tears every time. It was too funny! He liked to grab her face, too.

-is inconsistent with sleep. Last weekend was rough but it slowly got better and then he did a 10 hour stretch! So who knows...

-loves his Motley. He loves to pet her and crack up laughing at her. She tolerates him but is getting better and better because she realized very quickly that he eats people food. They are becoming fast friends.

-is eating pretty much anything we eat. The only things that are off limits are crunchy things (that he can't smash up with his gums) and spicy things. We usually give him table food and puffs for breakfast and lunch and then supplement our table food with a fruit/vegetable pouch at dinner. He is still working on using a sippy cup...

-has said "mama" once! He hasn't repeated it so I'm not calling it fact, but it was clear.as.day and he said it when he was wanting me. He has also waved twice but again, hasn't repeated it. We're working on it though and I think between 8 months and 9 months is going to be his sweet spot!

-barrel rolls any time he is on the bed. He is so fast! We can't leave him even for a second. He also tries to roll off the changing table pretty often.

-fusses for pretty much EVERY nap. We are on a pretty strict schedule of 2-3-4 (hours in between rest) but he still doesn't go down easily. He has the most pitiful face when I put him down but he usually falls asleep after about 10 minutes of crying.

-sleeps on his stomach most of the time. He rolls ALL over his crib all night.

-is super interested in technology. That is, he makes a bee-line for any remote control, iPad, computer, phone, or anything else resembling something technological. He also still loves water bottles.

-has suddenly started to look a lot like me. It is so bizarre how he can look so much like his dad and then switch and suddenly look so much like me. I'm always pulling out my baby book to compare and I'm convinced he's my little look alike for the moment!

-has maybe, MAYBE finally plateaued as far as weight goes. He is around 22 lbs and is wearing 12-18 month clothing. He hasn't been growing out of everything super fast like he was before, so that is good! He is still in size 4 diapers. He can't really wear many shoes because of his difference in size and his feet are too fat, but he does fit a pair of size 4 faux birkenstocks. I have a feeling we will be seeing a LOT of those this summer.

It was around this time that I realized these monthly photos won't last much longer...

...total chaos.

This month he will swim for the first time, go on his first plane ride, visit the beach, and enjoy summer in Texas! We are looking forward to lots of fun this summer with this pipsqueak!

Lazy days

Hey y'all! 

Sorry for the absence. I've done a little thinking about blogging lately and I've unintentionally taken a step back. I never want to feel pressured to post just for the sake of getting something up here and lately I just haven't had the time, motivation, or content to post! I'll be popping in here from time to time but posts may become a little more sparse around here. We'll see. 

Life has been good to us. Beau and I are in a pretty steady groove and we are having fun! My Etsy business has unexpectedly gotten busier over the last month or so so I'm really feeling creative and find myself spending my free time in the office working on various things. 

While we are talking Etsy, I'd like to ask you to check out and if you're inclined, support my cousin's new Etsy shop. She and her husband have struggled with infertility and are now raising money for adoption. Their story hits close to home as my cousin herself was adopted by my aunt and uncle. To raise money, she is selling these handmade necklaces to show your school or town spirit. If you're not (semi) local and want to support them, I'm sure she would take custom requests. Just send her an email via Etsy or leave me a comment and I'll pass it on. If necklaces aren't your thing and you just want to support them in bringing home a new baby, you can donate on their fundraiser page here. I can't imagine the emotions they are faced with daily during their struggle to conceive and I know that every little bit helps.  I also fully understand the hard work, stress, and time commitment that comes with owning an Etsy shop and creating handmade goods. So please, if you can give any amount or if you are interested in a necklace, please support them!

Moving on, here is what we have been up to the last day or so!

Friday, B and I headed to the mall for a couple of errands and ate Chick-Fil-a in the food court. He sat in his stroller while I fed him pieces of my lunch and sat with his leg up like this the entire time. So silly!

Yesterday we enjoyed the beautiful weather and headed out to White Rock Lake for a stroll. Homeboy was rocking his new faux birkenstocks and looking extra squishy.

Crazy hair, don't care.

He got distracted by the dogs:

That's about it for us! Life is nice and easy these days. I love spending them with Beau!