Oliver's First Halloween

We didn't have any Halloween plans until the very last minute. I hadn't made any because I don't think 10 month old babies make very good memories at this age and I don't have to courage to go trick-or-treating when everyone knows the candy will be for me. I already had the Halloween photoshoot in Ollie's costume so I wasn't even planning on putting him back in it. But, the social butterfly for a husband I have RSVP'd us to a Halloween party in Salt Lake and BOOM, we had plans. I went to ShopKo and picked up a couple of wigs for 60% off (which was still a big fat waste of money) and turned us into some pretty pathetic hippies. Before we left, Austin expressed to me his concern that we hadn't carved a pumpkin this year, so we had to do that first.

Little Shark trying out the hippie hair

Thrilled with his find.

I wish I looked as good as he did at 18 weeks. 

Let the carving begin!

He was very curious about what was inside and it was pretty nasty. 

See? 

He didn't mind. 

The artists!

These are some of the decorations at our house. 

This handsome fella greets us when we get home. He stands watch over our cars. 

Precious moments <3

This baby loves those horses. 

No pictures in costume, but that isn't a bad thing. It was a pretty fun evening after all.

Pretty and Pregnant: Dead Hair

Pregnancy sucks the life out of my already lifeless hair. It's not the hairs fault, I'm the one who blow dries and flat irons it. But pregnancy (plus Utah winters) suck every single ounce of pretty out of my hair. It is DRY. I'm growing my hair out and I came across a blog with some tips.

I think my first step is to give this hair a drink and healthy it up. So, number one on my tip list is no more blow dryers and no more flat irons. This is not a pretty picture. However, on another bloggers hair tip list (maskcara.com) I found a recipe to make my not so pretty air dried hair a little prettier.
     1. Brush hair before you get in the shower
     2. Brush again with conditioner in hair
     3. Don't brush it again until it is dry. Towel dry and lightly run your fingers through.
The trick is not to touch your hair until it is dry. No twisting, scrunching, combing. And since this routine my hair is more presentable.

Next step I am trying is to wash less often. I can't go more than every other day and a lot of times I want to wash it every day. I don't understand for the life of me how one can take a shower and NOT wash their hair. It is not possible for me to do so. So this step sounds simple but is pretty tough on me. Another reason I want to wash it every day is because.....

Step three, I got new shampoo! I am taking the WEN challenge and I love it so much! My hair is crazy soft and feels healthy again. I read a lot of other users mistakes and have tried to use the product the right way. Number one complaint I have found is that the hair feels greasy after using WEN. The natural reaction is to use less of the shampoo, but you need to use more. And it doesn't lather so it takes a little elbow grease to work it through from scalp to tips. Following the instructions is key. I will update my review after I have used the product a little longer including some before and after photos.

Step four. I brush my hair 100 strokes every night. I don't know if this helps it grow but the theory is that stimulating the scalp will stimulate hair growth. Either way, it feels good and my hair is soft.

I am fighting my pregnancy woes one day at a time and I will post again on other pick-me-ups I have discovered for myself.

My Growing Boy

Waking up to an oven full of muffins was the best thing that ever happened to him. You can't tell here, but he was licking the glass. Next stop--spying on Dad in the shower. It's a good start to a new day!

These guys are my whole world.

   I took the leap tonight and deleted my Facebook account. I'm talking real live delete, not just deactivate. I think it is an awesome tool for keeping up with friends and family but I'd like to spend less of my time "keeping up" with other people's lives and spend more time in my own. Because mine is pretty darn good. With a new baby on the way I am having major attachment issues to Oliver. I want to soak up and cherish every little moment we have. He's my best little buddy and it's his life I should be immersing myself in, not everyone else's. I feel like every one of his days are worth documenting and every picture I take is worth posting but frankly, I take way too many pictures to post and how many posts can one write about what a great kid he was today. 

   Oliver's sleeping habits are improving, sometimes he sleeps so well I want to wake him up because I miss him! We are slowly decreasing the amount of bottles he gets in hope of an easy wean and transition in the coming months. His adorable toofless grin is filling up with little teeth. All the kisses I thought he was giving me have turned out to be him biting my face. I should get that under control but I think it's so cute! He is just playing anyway because Dad and Mom are always nibbling on him. I love watching his personality emerge. He looks a lot like his pops but I think on the inside he is all Mom. He's a very timid and sensitive little soul. Animals scare him, heights scare him, sneezes scare him. Almost everything scares him. Still not the dark though, which always amazes me. I can shut him in his room at night and he doesn't care at all. I'd be pretty vocal about being shut in a dark room all by myself. He loves to play catch and his throw is getting better and better. He gets so excited though, that as he throws he crawls closer and closer to me and soon he is in my lap and we are just handing the ball back and forth. Bath time has also become pretty cute. He likes to flip over onto his tummy and stick his whole face into the water. I think he is going for a drink but can't quite keep his eyes and nose out of the water yet. It makes for a good laugh. He is such a boy! He loves to play with anything that moves. If he sees a steering wheel or a set of handle bars his hands are glued to it! Stuffed animals and dolls are not interesting in the least. Everything he picks up he tries to tear apart. He loves yelling and smacking things and ripping paper (including books that I carelessly leave around). He even has a little baby six pack. It is so cute! You can see it really well when he climbs on and off of the couch over and over again. He also loves the cell phones, lap tops, iPad, etc. Tonight he got his fingers on my key board and pulled up the "P" key which is now very difficult to press. I have a feeling I am in for a lot of things being destroyed in my future. He is already wearing holes in the knees of his jeans and his once white socks are now a grimy shade of brown. 

   We are looking forward to finding out Baby #2's gender in the coming weeks. Our appointment is on November 5th and I keep going back on forth between wanting a boy and a girl. I've been wanting a boy but I pulled out a bag of little baby girl clothes today and my heart just melted! And in my emotional state, now that I'm back on the Pink team, the thought of having another boy makes feel a little sad. It's ridiculous! Austin is a good man for being so patient and understanding with me. I'm generally happy but I have days that I hate everything about my body and I don't want to leave the house (like the day I watched 11 consecutive hours of Law and Order). My hair is also taking a beating right now, it's dry and I have a MILLION little angel hairs from all of my hair falling out after giving birth to Oliver. Fly aways galore. I have a fuzzy head. But I am trying very hard to ignore it and not do anything rash. I really want to grow out my hair and it's times like these that I lose control and cut it. So for now I just look in the mirror less. That is probably a healthy decision regardless of my bad hair days. 

   I don't know how many of you will stumble upon this blog anymore without me posting the link to Facebook with each new post but I use this as a journal so it's important for me to keep up on it, whether or not anyone else is able to keep up.

Halloween Photo Shoot

Today I put Oliver in his costume (Peter Pan) and bought a larger than life pumpkin to use as a prop. We took a whole-lotta pictures of him being adorable so we could get that perfect shot to send to all of the Grandma's and Grandpa's. We didn't get very many smiles, I think because the sun was pretty bright in his eyes, however, he worked it anyway. Here are a few (maybe more).

He wouldn't wear a hat, so I hope he still looks Peter Pan-y

He did have a great card board dagger tucked in his belt though.

We ended up picking this one (below) to send out in our Halloween cards to G-mas and G-pas. It was a tough choice, I think he is so cute in ALL of them! This one just had the most smile in it. 

Having a good time with Dad. 

Then proceeded to lick the pumpkin. Can't blame him, it is tempting. 

Thinking happy thoughts so he is able to fly!

Posing with the help. Thanks for your time, Dad!

9 Months

Today we went to the doctor for Oliver's 9 month well baby check. He is well. He weighs 22.5 lbs and is 31 inches long which puts him in the 88th percentile for weight and 100th percentile for height. TALL boy.  He's got 3 teeth so far and one in the works.

 He loves his mamma and always wants to sit on my hip and make it hard for me to get anything done. I really don't get a lot done. It makes me feel lazy and like I am an inadequate mother/wife but when I try to be productive Oliver makes it truly impossible. It's hard to use a knife or the oven with a baby in one arm. And if I put him down he is climbing up my leg crying for me to pick him up and how can I say no to that? He gets independent for a few minutes at a time a few times a day. He will crawl to the end of the hall and tear the night light out of the wall all by himself, or I will find him in the bathroom unraveling the toilet paper roll. If he's in another room being quiet I always need to check on him but I have to be sneaky because if he sees me then it's right back in my arms. So I do a lot of slinking around when he is occupying himself.

He still doesn't sleep through the night, he stopped that at about 6 months. He wakes up once on a good night and three times on a bad. We traveled a lot this summer and we were often in someone else's home which made it really tough for me to help him learn to soothe himself back to sleep. I would have loved to let him cry it out during the night and not quiet him with a bottle but I always worried he would bother somebody. So we have a bad habit of waking up to eat during the night. He can put himself to bed at night and down for naps but he still wakes up for a bottle. I have stressed and worried about him rotting his teeth from drinking formula through the night so we have finally trained him to drink water during the night for the most part. I wish that would discourage him from waking up but it hasn't yet. And now we live in a basement apartment of a very nice family and I still can't let him cry during the night. I am too worried about waking up the whole house. So we will continue to get up for a drink of water for now. It doesn't make me tired during the day because I just get up and give him the bottle of water and go right back to bed but I do get really frustrated with him during the night and I hate feeling that way about my baby. Wish us luck that he will learn by the time new baby gets here. I try not to dwell on the thought that I have already failed as a mom and I try to think that someday he will stop and he will turn out healthy and happy and sleep soundly...someday.

I am not feeling very pregnant lately and I often forget that we're expecting another little beebop in about 6 months or so. He (I'm saying "he" to put that positive energy out in the universe) is fist sized this week and I like that because I have a big fist. It's all going very fast for me, I seem to remember Oliver being the size of a raspberry, plum, key lime and so forth for a very long time!

I am really excited for Fall and for all the upcoming holidays. It will be so fun dressing Oliver up for his first Halloween and I'm hoping for a better Thanksgiving than last year. We had about 30 people barfing their brains out not even 24 hours after dinner. And I had a wicked cold that took my voice, stuffed up my nose and scratched my throat to death, never mind being 8 months pregnant. I've already started Christmas shopping which makes me feel on top of it and prepared but also sad that it will be over so soon. I like going out during the Christmas shopping season and just enjoying the atmosphere. It also made me realize how few people I have to actually shop for. Austin's family doesn't do much in the gift giving area and my siblings all rotate between each other giving a gift. So one sibling gift, parents, and my husband and son. Not much. I should be grateful for that I suppose but I just love giving gifts to people and it's sad when I'm done Christmas shopping in September.

Well, Happy Holidays everyone, let it begin! No skipping Halloween or Thanksgiving!!

Here's a picture for good measure