Fall at the Brandts

Come on, ask me what I did yesterday?

Oh, what did I do, you ask?

Well, I laid in the yard with my sweet son and we watched the leaves fall off the trees!

It was awesome!

And we did something else....played fetch with Baxter :)

Here are some pics of our afternoon!

And, our sweet pup smiling pretty!

Food Is Complete!

I am pretty proud of myself! I made all of the following baby food for $8!!!!!!!

I looked back at my recipt! I can't believe it! $8 would normaly get you about 16 little cans of baby food. But, instead, I have all of this (each little mound is a tablespoon)!!!! Woohooo! I will definitely be continuing this even though I don't need to for a long time!

Food status:

Rice cereal is going great!

Avocados were a hit at first, but it looked painful when I tried to feed him it yesterday.

Today we moved to sweet potatoes and he cried when I washed the bowl because it was empty!

Yesterday I started making baby food! It was way easier than I thought and it is going to be super cheap too! Macklin has eaten a few things...blueberries, rice cereal, bananas, and avocados. Blueberries were a random first food. Then I went to rice cereal and he gulps that down! Then I tried putting a banana and avocado (different times) in that little mesh bags for him to try too! Avocado is really the one thing he has eaten a good chunk of (for all those 40-60 year old moms, avocado is the new recommended first baby food! crazy, eh?).

Since he is approaching this big eating stage, I thought I would whip up some things to work with. So, yesterday, with the help of this great website and my magic bullet (which is perfect by the way!) I made a ton of baby food!

We made green beans, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, avocados, and then froze some more bananas too. I just baked or steamed the veggie, then put it in the magic bullet with water. So easy! Out of one squash (at 50 cents a pound) I got like 30 tablespoons of baby food. I was planning to put them in ice cube trays and freeze them. But my mom gave me the idea of just putting the tablespoon portions onto a wax paper sheet and freeze them. Then I took them out and put them in baggies. It did take most of the afternoon, but totally worth it and I don't plan on having to do it again for a while! So fun to know that I am making pure veggies for my baby to eat! Keep you posted on what he likes best!

Here are some of the bags I have frozen!

Don't they look like that old dot candy?

My boy with avocado on his face!

Eating!

Playing

The last two days Macklin and I have done a lot of playing! He is loving his jumper now! And he even got ahold of the newspaper today....and because it crinkles...he is super fascinated with it. Had to do a little cleaning after that one though!

Woohooo for Naps!

What a difference five days can make!

Macklin is THRIVING on the new schedule that we have been doing for the past five days. I pretty much came to the conclusion that he wasn't napping enough and getting overly tired and then not sleeping much at all. A well rested baby sleeps well and a tired baby is crabby often...that is what I have learned.

We were all about schedules at first (who would have thought, Melinda likes organization and schedules??? No!!! Oh wait, yes, if it involves me, organization abounds!). We followed BabyWise principals (I know, everyone has their thoughts on this, we like it) and had a happy little newborn. I only read up to the 2 month sections as I thought that was all I could take in. I planned to come back to it later. Well, instead of coming back to it, we just kept doing the 2 month cycles and then I realized my boy was 4 months old! So, I missed a few things in there. So, from 8 weeks to 4.5 months Macklin was doing great. But for the past month, his sleep and naps have been way off and nothing has been regular thanks to busy schedules and inconsistent parents (us).

Last week I was in search of a new routine and found one on a mommy site that follows BabyWise principals (as posted earlier). After thinking about our lives and recommendations from other mommies, here is the routine for Macklin:

7am wake up and feed

8:30am nap (has been 1.5-2 hours)

10:45am feed

12:15pm nap (more like 1-1.5 hours)

2:30pm feed

4pm nap (lucky if he is in bed for an hour)

6:15pm feed

8pm off to bed

sleeps til 7am the next morning!

So, today was an amazing day for Macklin. I even tried to take him to Young Life again and he didn't make a peep the whole night. He just watched and took everything in!

It is amazing how happy a happy baby can make his mommy!

Now, I am just bummed that he wasn't this well rested for the past month!

Poor first child....his parents have to learn on him!

Date Night

Tonight Justin planned a super fun and simple night out for us

(thank you to the Brummers for watching our less than happy boy!).

While I was at practice, he got everything ready.

Justin picked me up, we went to drop off Macklin and then.....

We had a picnic in the back of our truck with a mountain top view of Gypsum! It was awesome! The picnic was complete with picnic blanket on our truck mattresses, wine with real glasses (and milk because I drink milk with everything), corn, potatoes, and sloppy joes! It was super fun to just be able to spend an hour and a half hanging out with my hubby.

We watched the sun set, chatted, and then went back to grab our little man.

Oh how life has changed in the past 6 months, but my husband is still the best!

Macklin's First Trip to the Dentist

Yesterday I had my 6 month dental check up. As a new mommy, I wasn't quite sure what to do with Macklin for these situations, but the ladies at the dentist said that I was welcome to bring him along. I thought it was worth a try!

I brought him and he did awesome for the first 30 minutes. But, as it approached nap time, he started to get a little fussy. I tried to calm him down a bit, but that failed as soon as I put him back in his stroller. My hygienist said that I could have him in my lap! I tried that and it was awesome! Not only was he quite, but he got to watch everything that was happening and loved all the tools that made noise. He did rip off my little splash bib and toss it on the floor, but the hygienist was super cool and not phased by it one bit. What a great trip to the dentist!

On a side note, it is day three of our new napping plan and things are going super-duper! Macklin laid down for all three naps yesterday (even though they varied in length from 1.5 hours to 20 minutes) and then went to bed at 8pm (with no night feeding). He woke up at 9:15pm and we let him cry it out for 15 minutes and then he was back to bed. I woke up surprised this morning to find that he didn't wake during the night. It is 7am and I am going to go grab my happy little baby who is awake and playing in the crib. PS-I am dressed, have eaten breakfast, diapers are in the laundry, have pumped, and I already did one Young Life project. Holy smokes! I hope this new schedule keeps up!