Nolan’s 9 through 12 Month Update

Ok, so I’m a little behind. Nolan is getting close to 18 months and I just never got around to posting this update and his last monthly photos that I took. Better late than never I guess.  I’ve waited too long to write this post so I’ve forgotten many of the milestones that he reached along the way but I’ve added in a few things that I’ve remembered. Otherwise there’s tons of photos of Nolan between 9 and 12 months old.

12 Month Stats: At his 12 month appointment he was 18lb 9oz and 30″ tall.

Clothing Size: At 12 months old he was wearing mostly 12 month size clothes. Except for pants. 12 month were still a little too big around the waist even though the length was probably fine.

12 Month Sleep: He was taking two pretty consistent naps a day. The first was about 2 hours after he woke up and it lasted about 2 hours. His second nap usually fell around 2.5 hours after waking up from his first nap and it usually lasted about 2 hours as well.

  

9-12 Month Milestones: If I remember correctly Nolan started pulling up sometime between 9-10 Months. As of 12 months he was still just crawling around, pulling up on furniture but not yet walking around on his own. (He didn’t start walking until almost 15 months.)

1st Birthday Party: Nolan has two cousins (on Chris’ side of the family) that were born within 6 weeks of him. We decided to make it easy and had one party together to celebrate all three babies 1st Birthday’s.

It was so much fun watching all the babies with their cupcakes.

Each had their own way of doing it but they all had fun.

 

 

Nolan 6 to 8 Months

I’ve been taking monthly photos of my son Nolan but I’ve gotten behind on putting together a monthly update post. I didn’t want to completely stop or skip them so I thought I would just try to start from where we are now and add in some of what’s happened since he turned 5 months old.

Stats: The last Dr’s appointment we had was at 7 months. At that time he was 16 lbs and 6 oz. and I think he was 27″ long. So that put him at the 15% for weight and 67% for height. He’s just a tall skinny boy.

Clothing Size: As of 8 months he’s still wearing mostly 6 month clothes.  Since it’s summer he’s mostly in onsies and shorts so the length isn’t really an issue. I’m not sure that he’d really fit into the 6 month sleepers anymore. He does have a few 9 month clothes and they fit fine as well.

Sleep: We stopped using the swaddle around 5 and half months I think. It was pretty rough for a little over a week but it slowly got better. Now he just sleeps in some kind of sleep sack. At this point I’m not sure if he really “needs” the sleep sack to sleep but I don’t have a problem with it and I don’t see any reason to bother with something that’s working.

We got the ok from the Dr. to drop the morning feedings at 7 months and after that he started sleeping through the night with the exception of a dream feed that I did around 9:30. A couple of weeks ago I stopped doing the dream feed and now he’s sleeping completely the night. He usually goes down between 6:30-7:00 and wakes up anywhere from 6:00-7:30 in the morning.

Eating: Just after 6 months we started adding solids. He’s currently eating solids 3 times a day which is usually a mix of baby puffs and some kind of baby puree. Other than that he’s still breastfeed but he’s cut back quite a bit. I usually offer to feed him about 6 times a day but he only breastfeeds 4-5 times a day.

Schedule: His daytime schedule has been pretty steady for about 6 weeks now I think. The wake up time tends to vary but the hours between things is usually consistent. I’ll start with waking at 7:00 just for an example.

7:00 am: Wake/Breastfeed
8:00 am: Eat Solids
9:00 am: Offer to Breastfeed (usually doesn’t) / Down for Nap
11:00 am: Wake from Nap (2 hrs usually)/ Breastfeed
12:00 am: Eat Solids
1:30 pm: Breastfeed (sometimes)/ Down for Nap
3:30 pm: Wake from Nap (2 hrs usually) / Breastfeed
5:00 pm: Eat Solids
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm: Breastfeed / Down for Night (usually no later then 3 hrs after last nap)

Milestones: He has been doing the army crawl for a few weeks now. He doesn’t seem to interested in crawling on his hands and knees right now. I think he figures he can get anywhere he wants to with the army crawl so why do anything else. Just in the past couple of days he’s been trying to pull himself up on things while he’s on his tummy. He still hasn’t figured out how sit up from laying down and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of trying to really.

Favorites: He’s still playing in the exersaucer and with most of the toys he has. Although I think he would prefer to just crawl around and explore all the time. That about the only thing that keeps him from screaming and squealing.

Memories: Now that he’s crawling we’ve been shutting doors and using baby gates all over the place. He can move really quickly and loves to explore all over the place. The moment I set him down on the ground he stretches out onto his tummy and starts to crawl.

Along with that he has started screaming and screeching at the top of his lungs which he loves to do whenever he’s in the high chair or exersaucer. He does occasionally babble but he isn’t really saying any words yet.

Chris taught him how to blow bubbles with his mouth and he loves to do that. Especially when he’s eating which means we end up with baby food all over the both of us.

In the past month it’s been warm and I bought Nolan a little swimming pool. He enjoys splashing around in it. He also enjoys pushing his body over the side and letting all the water out of the pool.

Now that he’s crawling anytime he sees the cats (usually Marshall, Lily tries to avoid him) he crawls right over. Marshall loves to bump up against him and Nolan just loves to look at him and laugh. Nolan is surprisingly good at not pulling at Marshall or grabbing chunks of fur or his tail. I keep a close eye of him but so far Marshall is really patient and I think he’s just so starved for attention he takes whatever he can get.

Nolan’s 5 Month Update

We have made it to five months old. I took the photos just a few days after he turned 5 months, it’s just taken me a little longer to get up the blog post.

Stats: He hasn’t been to the doctor this month but we have weighed him at home. According to our scale he’s 14lbs 10oz but I’ve always felt that our scale measures light so he’s probably a little bigger than this. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how big he is at his 6 month appointment.

Clothing Size: He’s currently wearing only 6 month cloths. We switched over just before 4 months and it already feels like he’s almost growing out of them. I know that the cloth diapers do make his cloths fit a little tighter so we’ll see how long we can make them last.

Sleep: I think one word sums it up: Inconsistent. Naps are pretty much all over the place and change from day to day. His wake time has been all over the place in the morning as well. It can be anywhere from 6:30 – 8:00 depending on how the night went or if he woke up in the early morning and I fed him and put him down again. He takes his first nap somewhere between 1-1.5 hours after we officially get up for the day. The rest of the day he’s usually up about 1.5 to 2 hours and then takes a nap. His naps last anywhere from 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 usually. When he goes down at night varies widely based on whether or not he just decides to “nap” after 6 pm or just keep sleeping. If he doesn’t wake up on his own I usually wake him up to eat one last time between 8:30 – 9:30 before I go to bed. From there he sleeps until anywhere from 4:00-7:30 am before waking up. So I guess you could consider that sleeping through the night. Although many nights lately he’s been waking up between 4 and 5:30 and I’ve been feeding him and putting him back down to sleep for a few more hours.

Eating: He’s still exclusively breastfeeding. Since he’s sleeping longer at night we recently dropped another feeding. Right now he usually eats 6 times in a 24 hour period. Some days he ends up eating 7 times if he’s eating close together during the day or if for some reason the normal schedule gets thrown off like when we are traveling.

Milestones: He is laughing and smiling a lot. His best laughs are when I’m genuinely laughing at him for some reason and he’s laughing back. I can usually get at least a little giggle out of him by smiling and touching my nose to his. Occasionally he’ll laugh if I try to tickle him in some way. He loves to look at us and smile, laugh and show off his dimples.

He’s starting to grab things better and better every day. He still can’t quite figure out how to get the pacifier in his own mouth consistently but every once in a while he gets lucky. Then he usually pulls it out because he can’t figure out how to let go of it without pulling it out.

He’s been rolling over from front to back since before he was 2 months old. Just in the past few weeks or so he’s been rolling over from back to front (although he seems to do it most frequently over one shoulder but not the other). He’s doing it multiple times a day. Usually once he’s on his tummy he has a really hard time rolling back over and frequently gets frustrated. It’s like he’s forgotten how while he was working on the other way. He is getting better and occasionally will roll from his tummy to his back.

Things we want to remember: He’s adorable baby giggle. I never think to try and catch it on camera but I would love to have it to look back on. Since I know I’ll probably not get the chance with a second baby I’ve also been enjoying the occasional nap on my chest during the day.

Things that were invaluable this month: I have a love hate relationship with the SwaddleMe swaddles. They are the only swaddles that out little Houdini doesn’t immediately get out of but he still can and frequently does. He has a really hard time falling asleep without being swaddled but on some days it’s almost impossible to swaddle him in the first place. We’re going through another one of those phases now. I attempted to wean him off the swaddle earlier this month and it didn’t go well so we’re still swaddling.

Favorites: He loves just about anything he can grab. He loves the Sofie toy especially when I squeak it or whenever he can get it in his mouth. Other than that he’s been loving the Oball rattle and any of the teethers we have I think just because he can easily get them in his mouth. He spends quite a bit of time rolling around under the baby gym and grabbing at toys as he goes.

It’s amazing how it feels like the time is dragging on and yet it’s flown by so quickly. Sometimes it feels like a phase is lasting forever but it really couldn’t have been going on too long since he’s only 5 months old.

Nolan’s Monthly Photos 1-4

Since I’m just now getting back into blogging I’ve got a few months of Nolan’s photos to catch up on posting. So much of the time has already started to blur together. In future months I’ll probably write a little more of a specific update on how the month has gone but in the mean time here’s Nolan up until now.

Looking at his one month photo I miss that tiny little body and all those warm, sleepy snuggles. However, I do not miss how little sleep I was getting.

I think around the two month mark he started to roll over from front to back. He doesn’t always do it now but he still can.

Around the three month mark I think he starting grabbing and batting at toys with a lot more precision. He still couldn’t always get what he wanted (and still can’t) but he was showing interest and getting better at it.

At his four month well child visit he was 13lb 14oz and 25 inches long. He’s grabbing toys like crazy and trying to roll over from front to back. Right now he’s still getting “stuck” about halfway over.

We are frequently able to get him to smile and laugh now. We just have a hard time capturing it on camera (without the blurry hands).

Our little wiggle worm won’t stay anywhere for very long. He may not be rolling over but he’s still finding ways to wiggle around in circles. I occasionally find him turned 180 degrees in his crib by morning.

We are pretty much past the stage of having him easily fall asleep on us. I loved being able to hold him for hours while he slept on me all warm and snugly.

Introducing Nolan . . . A Little Late

It’s been over 4 months now since our baby boy was born. I haven’t decided whether I’ll ever do a full birth story post or not.  Either way I felt like if I was going to start blogging again I …

Changes are Happening

Two weekends ago we moved everything from my sewing room up to one of the rooms upstairs.

Why you might ask? Well, we needed to clear everything out to make room for a nursery!

I am currently 20 weeks (5 months) pregnant with a little baby boy. There’s a lot that I want to do in this room before baby comes and I’m excited to get started and share everything along the way.

Shout Out to the Uncle

It’s been another one of those weeks where we have been busy finishing up projects so there hasn’t been a lot of time for blogging.

Instead I thought I’d pop in to give a shout out to my Uncle Dan who is the bomb dot com. Last weekend he hooked us up with some awesome shrubbery to help us fill in some of the less than attractive spots in our yard.

I also can’t forget to mention my cousin’s husband Travis who also helped us out with this little plant haul.

Thanks again guys. We will try really hard to keep everything alive.

Sewing A Shirt

Remember a long time back when I talked about sewing more shirts. Well another fabric in the pile was meant for McCall’s 6167. I actually started it a while ago and just now got around to finishing it. Are you seeing a trend here? Start a project, wait a month or more and then finally get around to finishing it. Yeah I know I’m still working on this.

Anyways back to the shirt.

Even though I’ve been sewing for 20 years now I still have issues just about every time I sew something for myself. It’s probably just because I am way to picky. I usually feel good about the construction but the fit or look seems to be less than perfect. This time around the shirt ended up being a little big. It worked out ok since there is the draw string around the waist but if I were to use this pattern again I think I would make it one size smaller. Even though my measurement are a perfect match for the size I made it always seems like everything is too big. You would think I would learn and just make everything small but that doesn’t seem to work either.

I don’t know if I’ve shared before that my sewing machine is actually a late 1950’s Singer slant needle machine. When I went off to college my mom let me take her grandmother’s machine with me since I didn’t have one of my own. It may be fairly simple but it has a surprising amount of functions and it is so well made and sturdy. I love it. I have thought about buying a new one but I just can’t see spending so much money on all those new features that I would never use.

Now I’m telling you all this because for this shirt I needed buttonholes. Since this isn’t a fancy machine it doesn’t just have a button hole setting. Well a few years ago when going to garage sales with a friend I found this:

I had never seen one before but for a dollar I took the chance that it would work with my machine. I did some research online and came across a copy of the book that was supposed to go with it. Luckily the only plate that was left in the box was exactly the one I needed. Even after finding the book it’s taken me years to finally use the button hole attachment. I just really don’t like sewing buttonholes.

Actually using the attachment was pretty easy. I set everything up and did a few test runs adjusting different things to make sure I liked the look and that it would fit my button. Then I just started in on the shirt.

Once it’s set up all that has to be done is press the presser foot and watch it go around. I ended up doing two times around because I thought there wasn’t enough thread with just one pass.

So there it is, one button hole done.

To sum up here’s my thoughts on the Pattern:
– I should have made it a size smaller
– I had to add a length of elastic to the back of the waist tie to make long enough to actually tie in a bow
– I had to cut about 5″ off the bottom because it was so long

Now that I’ve washed it I have to iron it now. . . That will probably take a week or more. This is why I never buy clothes that have to be ironed. I don’t like ironing. So why again did I sew something that has to be ironed?

Meeting My Blogger Crush

It seems that many people all over the states have been going to meet a blogging couple that recently released their first book. Young House Love was in my area last weekend and my cousin Kayla convinced me to go with her. After a little back and forth I finally decided to go with her and I’m glad I did.

We meant to show up a little earlier but ended up getting to the store maybe 10 minutes before it was supposed to start. Even though we were waiting in line outside we got to go inside to see John and Sherry give a little talk about writing the book.

(Sorry for the less than stellar iPhone photos)

It was actually a little surreal seeing them up close after reading so many posts, seeing pictures of them and seeing them in video clips. Is that a little crazy? Yes probably, but I’m ok with that.

Then we got back in line and waited for I think at least 2 hours. Kayla and I enjoyed our time chatting about all sorts of things.

After winding our way past an endless wall of lighting fixtures they were finally in sight.

Then we were finally just a few people away from getting to meet them. Let me tell you a secret; this is the place where I got really nervous. All this hype and I had no idea what to do. Let’s just say that this is also the spot I realized that I just don’t have that blogger personality. I’m not a person that would be able to have a wildly famous or well known blog, let alone write a book and travel all over the place meeting and talking to so many people.

Seriously, how do they always look so fabulous. That must be a well known blogger prerequisite.

Well a few seconds later it was all over. We got our books signed. I smiled in awe and we went on our way.

In the end I’m glad that I went. It was great to finally see them in person and it was an afternoon well spent with Kayla as well.

Anyone else meet John and Sherry at one of there book signings? Were you nervous as well?

Our Home Buying Journey

It’s been almost a year (geesh) since we closed on our house and moved in. With our house-iversary I thought it would be fun to take a look back at our house buying journey. Everything didn’t quite go as planned and made a few unexpected turns along the way.

The summer of 2011, Chris and I had been married a little less than a year. We were currently renting a place close to work and saving up what we could to use as a house down payment. That spring we spent a lot of time on the motorcycle driving around different towns and neighborhoods trying to see what area we thought we would like to  live the most. During this time Chris was doing a lot of online research and we were narrowing down our house must have items.

Since we were getting close to our rental lease being up we thought we would consider looking for a house to buy instead of renew our lease for another year. We went to the bank to ask questions about getting a mortgage and we ended up getting pre-approved for a loan and actually set up with a real estate agent. From there we went home and starting looking at some houses online that we wanted to see. By the end of that same week we meet with our agent for the first time and went to see a couple of houses. One of the houses was one that we had driven by and was interested in.

Since we had only looked at few houses and had really only been looking for house a short time we weren’t ready to commit to anything yet. We went home for the weekend and thought over the options and what we wanted.

By Sunday night we knew that we had to see this house one more time before we could really decide. We met with our agent on Monday and decided we were ready to make an offer. Within a week we had started the process and we were ready to buy a house. At this point I don’t think either of us really thought that buying a home would go this fast for us.

After a little bit of back and forth with the seller/builder we came to an agreement, officially went under contract and had a closing date about a month and a half out. We were both pretty excited about purchasing our first house and we couldn’t wait to move in and hopefully not move for a very long time.

We followed all the normal processes from there. We talked with our bank, had an inspection done and got everything in order so we were ready to close on time. Minor stumbles with loan processes aside everything went pretty smoothly.

Now, if you follow the blog or know us at all you’ll know that the pictures above are not the house we purchased. You may be thinking what happened? You said you were under contract? Did the inspection not go well? Well, it wasn’t anything like that at all.

We were just days from closing on this house when we got a call that changed our direction. We had already given our notice on our rental and were ready to move out and in to our new place when we found out that there was a huge lean on the house. Basically someone who previously owned the lot, before the current builder bought the lot, had owed a rather large sum of money. Somehow along the way the lean had been removed when the lot was foreclosed on and sold. Then after the builder of this house bought the lot the lean was than inexplicably placed back on the lot. Since this lean was on the title and the builder/seller wouldn’t pay it off and we could never get a loan to purchase a house with this much debt the house couldn’t be sold.

Days before we were supposed to close we did a lot of scrambling around trying to do anything we could to make the closing go through. Unfortunately, in the end there was nothing we could do and we were completely out of luck. We were then forced to find some place to rent short term with less than a week to get moved out of our current rental. We did in fact find a place to rent and were lucky enough to work out a deal so we didn’t have to sign a full year lease.

Now if felt like we were back at the beginning  We decided to take a break from the house search. We were still stuck on a house that we couldn’t have and since it was an issue with the government we had no idea if or when this house would ever be sold. I’ll admit I probably had the hardest time trying to let this house go. In my mind I was already moved in and it was my home. I was so excited to paint walls and find places for all of our possessions. Instead now we where in yet another rental with one room completely full of unpacked boxes since we didn’t plan to stay long.

When finally decided that we were ready to let the first house go and start looking at houses again it was already late summer. We looked at a few other options and even walked through some houses that were in the process of being built. After much debate we decided to put in an offer on a pre-build home after looking at another house in a new development. Unfortunately, we were never able to come to an agreement. In the end Chris and I just weren’t comfortable with the deal so we decided to say no and started looking again.

Some time later our agent saw a house come up for sale and thought we might be interested.  Since we were already out we asked to see another house that had just dropped price and into our search. The first house was an interesting layout and just not really the one for us. The second was a foreclosed house and from the listing we thought it wasn’t the house for us but since it only had one photo we were curious and thought it was worth a look.

Yes you guessed it. The house we thought we would never buy was the house that we did. From the moment we walked in we were in a little bit of shock. We couldn’t believe that a house like this could even be in our price range. It was a never lived in home that had been finished sometime to 2009 but was foreclosed on and the builder was never able to sell the home.

We walked through the house admiring and laughing about how we were looking at this crazy house that there was just no way we could ever buy. It was almost 1000 square feet bigger than the first and full of all kinds of upgrades that we couldn’t afford in the pre-build home.

Then we went home and that’s when we started to really go crazy. We actually considered buying this house. After a lot of back and forth we thought it would be worth a try to write an offer and see how that went.

Since the house was a foreclosure we had to first go back and forth with the sellers agent before he would send the offer to the bank.

At first we had hoped that we could close within a month and then we would be able to move in before Christmas. But with all the back and forth with the bank and the waiting and waiting for them to answer us that became impossible.

So, here we were again finally under contract with another house. Then as luck would have it the first house became available again and we had yet another decision to make. After a whole lot of talking and even some fantastic pro-con lists made by me we finally made a decision. We would continue on with the second house. (Although you probably already guessed that one.)

At the  end of January, in the middle of a small snow storm, we finally signed the papers to purchase our first home.

If you want to see more photos of the house before we moved in you can go to the Before page in the house tour. The Progress page has more up to date photos.

Anyone else has a unexpected home buying journey?