Sawyer eats Cereal

A few days ago we let Sawyer try rice cereal for the first time and he LOVED it! he ate it right down! it gets pretty messy but he seems to really enjoy getting to eat some food- though i think he def. still prefers to nurse the best. he is also allowed to start eating some baby food now but we havent started that yet...dr w said to start with orange veggies when we start him on food. im going to make baby food for him though as much as possible- i read some not so great things about the store bought kind! i think we will do carrots first and then squash, maybe sweet potatoes...

here is sawyer eating cereal for the first time

things have been busy here with graduation, ect. This weekend we went to uncle marcus's grad party-what a great time! Sawyer was so happy the whole time and was a big hit with everyone there. zach epoxied our garage floor this weekend and it looks great! i cant park my jeep on it for 3 more days though!- thats the only bad part because it looks so so so much nicer now. we also got a blueberry bush and a raspberry bush for our yard this weekend! and more strawberry plants too! and i have been putting my clothesline to good use with these nice days!

here is Sawyer giggling!

Birthday Fun

yesterday was very fun- we went to my aunt ann's house for our joint bday party- it was aunt ann's birthday yesterday! in my family we have 5 birthdays in the same week in april, strange, i know- but mostly awesome! since friday had been my golden birthday (24 on the 24th) she had a golden birthday theme for me- with golden foods and drinks (think lemonade, cheese and crackers and organic yellow carrots!), golden silverwear, golden plates and napkins, golden flowers ect. it was awesome and i felt very special! it was much more fun than my actual birthday when i worked! sawyer was awesome all day long yesterday- he rode the whole hour there in the car without any fuss at all- which was awesome! he even took a bottle AND a nap while we were there- and then we went to babys r us, micheals and best buy and he was happy. he was fine in the car on the way home too- maybe he is over his carseat hatred now..lets hope so. zach and i looked at new laptops at best buy because zach said i could get a new one as my birthday gift!!!! yay!!! i have been using my laptop from college since our desktop decided to not recognize our web browser a few months ago....i havent figured out how to fix this yet...i need to get my pictures off of it and then reset everything and see if that works- but the deal is that zach is now going to use the desktop for midtown custom bending- his bending business and i have to transfer his files from his old shop computer to the desktop and get everything ready to go... I decided that i wanted to order my laptop online though so I could customize it the way I wanted..i got bluetooth, a tv tuner, photoshop, ect. Should be pretty sweet. I cant wait for it to come!! AND i saved over 40 bucks just by googling for a coupon- and zach made fun of me until he saw it work! Ha!
oh and sawyer is sleeping through the night again, im wondering if he was just having a growth spurt last week and that is why he was waking up at 2am wanting to eat- he is fitting in lots of his 3-6 month stuff this week so he must have grown... he is getting SO good about sleeping no though. I guess i shouldnt have obsessed over it so much because he is doing great now all on his own. He falls asleep on his own so much easier now- I can lay him in his bed after he eats and is tired and he will fall asleep- it is so awesome! Granted its not 100% of the time but's still...amazing.
When Sawyer was born cooper decided to move into our walk-in-closet to sleep, im assuming to get away from the crying- Zach lovingly dubbed the closet coopers "doggy bedroom". Now that sawyer is sleeping through the night more consistently, cooper decided that he was going to come out of doggy bedroom and sleep in his dog bed..i guess i didnt realize how much of his snoring was blocked out by him being in the closet, needless to say, dog bed now lives in doggy bedroom and we all sleep much better- coopers snoring literally woke sawyer up one night at 2am- not cool!

For my birthday I got the most adorable deck planter boxes and I can't wait to put them out and fill them up with stuff-I also have two big pots of flowers. Our deck is going to be an awesome plant oasis!! Ill put up pictures when I get everything going. I cant wait- not too much longer and then we can plant- I think after tulip time is when the last frost date is...

1800's bath...

it was an eventful weekend in our house. thursday sawyer was excited to get to play with his buddy megan again and on saturday he met lindsay again. he was MUCH bigger than last time he met lindsay- he was only a week old then! He has changed SO MUCH since then!






































on saturday morning we were thrilled to discover that our water heater decided to go on strike. we then got to enjoy taking "1800's baths" as zach lovingly dubbed the experince, for the rest of the weekend. this is when you have to heat water on the stove and then pour it into the tub until you have enough to bathe in- yes it was awesome. especially after zach worked out in the yard all day and got VERY dirty- he was very excited to clean off all the dirt in 2 inches of lukewarm water. Sick! You might ask- why didnt you just take a cold shower in the unheated water. Well, the water that came out of the tap was LITERALLY so cold that it made your hand hurt if you just stuck it into the running water and it would actually get warmer if you ran some into the tub and let it sit, and by warmer i mean still stinking FREEZING but not ice cold. It was SO FUN!

zach got so dirty by spending most of the day saturday saturday lining the little creekbed with stones to facilitate and beautify the flow. It looks so neat now! I think it is going to be really pretty this spring once the grass gets greener. its pretty hard to tell in the following pictures since the rocks are all dusty and everything is all brown but you can sorta see the water flowing into the little pond. its muddy from getting all stirred up by the work- but it should look neat soon once things start getting greener- it really does look pretty darn sassy compared to before- and i thought it was cute already :).
















and here sawyer and i (and cooper but he is hard to see- he is to my right) are on the bridge zach and i built last spring over the little creek. i put sawyer in his bjorn and then wore zachs coat- but he didnt enjoy having to wear his hat! he fell asleep and i got to enjoy the day outside for a while! Im excited to plant some more climbing flowers on the bridge again this year even though my morning glories last summer didnt climb or bloom until SEPTEMBER! Ill plant much earlier this year in hopes of getting some nice greenery all the way to the top of the bridge! The morning glories were BEAUTIFUL once they started to climb and flower! Im also pretty excited to see if my hydrangeas that are planted on either side of the bridge flower this year- they never got big enough last year to actually have any flowers but they did grow green leaves so maybe THIS year they will be big enough to have a few flowers! One is supposed to be pink and the other blue. They are def. still alive because they both are turning green again already, but they are still TINY, you can't even see them in this picture and they are on either side of the bridge!































Zach thought I looked funny with sawyer zipped into his coat- like i had a "potbelly" or a "funny big belly with little legs poking out" But it was nice to be able to take sawyer out without having to put him into a whole snowsuit since it was too nice for a big bulky snowsuit! He loves the bjorn so much! I was happy to see that my AMAZING, ADORABLE weeping willow tree did good thorough the winter and now has little green buds! - ok so i guess its kinda sawyer's too since we planted it when i was preggo with him last fall- but grandma and papa did pick it out with me in mind- because i LOVE weeping willow trees- i think they seem kinda whimsical i guess?? I just think they are special :) Im excited to watch sawyer and the willow grow together! Its hard to see the little green buds in this picture actually...



















And planted just to the left of the willow was THIS!




















its the daffodil plant that i bought from marcus LAST YEAR for honor society's daffodil days- i bought another this year so now this one will get a friend! I was so excited to see that it bloomed! Zach actually had to point it out to me because he planted it for me last year! What a cutie! Im also excited to see if my rose bush I got about this time last year (got it a few weeks after my birthday so probably actually 11 months ago) is still doing well! It was so pretty last summer!

Zach also put rocks around our firepit on saturday afternoon so we celebrated by having a big bonfire with bryan and linds. It was fun- love bonfires, but turned out to not be the wisest plan for zach and i- we ended up having to heat up water for ANOTHER 1800's bath because it is DISGUSTING to even consider getting into bed without showering after a bonfire...take note of that- if your water heater is broken, a bonfire isnt the best activity for you.

Sunday was easter so we took yet ANOTHER 1800's bath before church-this one wasn't so bad, we put sawyer's bathroom heather into our bathroom to warm the air more, and also got the water pretty warm. Im not saying i envy people with no heated water but it wasn't as bad as the rest. We left the house at 1030 am and went to church and then both sets of our parent's houses and didn't get back home again until 830 that night- sawyer skipped his bath that night, i did NOT feel like heating up any water for him. He actually went to bed ok without his bath first, i think he was pretty worn out. It was great to get to spend the holiday with both of our families. I really do love living with all of them so near by- and we got two amazing meals! Sawyer looked so cute in his big boy button up shirt, and even matched daddy AND grandpa but naughty mommy forgot her camera at home and by the time we got back sawyer was ready for jammies!

finally tonight Zach and grandpa erv put in a new water heater! It is much cuter than the old water heater (as you can tell i dont know much about water heaters). Brandon (from the tire shop) had to come over and help but they got it done, which is AWESOME because im not sure i ever feel like taking another 1800's bath again ever! I might go shower in the warm water just to celebrate!

Small victories, small setbacks..

mmmm fist!
















naughty daddy letting sawyer watch tv! at least it was the history channel! now he knows about the pyramids! sawyer was turning his head and looking at the tv while on his blanket so i guess zach figured he wanted to watch too! thats why i leave it off all day!!























mohawk





















im a chunk!


Well first and foremost YAY! because Zach is now stone free. He passed his stone on Friday night at the rehearsal dinner. Here is the story he told me: Caution it's graphic, I AM a nurse after all, and you know how us nurses love all the gory details! So here it is according to Zach: "I went to the bathroom and then my pee stream slowed down. All of the sudden the stone came shooting out and hit the back of the urinal and made a 'plink' against the back of it, and it bounced off the urinal and landed on my shoe!!" Me: " did you pick it up and save it so i can see it!!??" Zach: "Duh of course, i knew you would ask that!"

And folks, its gross, it looks like an apple seed to me...sick. And that is enough talk about THAT!

The wedding and Sawyer's baptism both went well. We were all SO tired after such a busy weekend that we just vegged out for the rest of the day. Zach now always says that he is glad that we have Sawyer because he is "too old" to party all night and now he has an excuse not to. Sawyer was good while I was gone at the wedding. At first he was crabby and wouldn't take a bottle but after 4 hours of not eating (yikes- i was ready to drive home and feed him, that seemed like a long time to me even though he can go 8+ hours at night and not eat) zach's grandpa gave him a bottle and he chugged it down now problem, and continued to do so for the rest of the time i was gone. Now i've tried to give him one bottle of breastmilk a day- ussually just 1-2 ounces, just so he keeps taking the bottle...today he was MAD when i tried- he took half an ounce and then i gave in and nursed him- im hoping it was just because he was tired because now he is passed out cold... 2 weeks until i go back to work and he has to be able to take a bottle 2 days a week... sometimes he will take it no big deal and other times no way...its not like im even giving him formula- it tastes the same buddy! I think he is going through a growth spurt right now though because he has been wanting to eat way more often the past few days and yesterday he slept ALL DAY long, i didnt even know what to do with myself- i cleaned up the house but it was already pretty clean since we had people over on sunday. I got 4 loads of laundry done! Yep 4 loads in ONE DAY! But he also woke up TWICE last night to eat- and he hasn't done that since he was like 3 weeks old! Yuck! I was SOOOO tired today that we had to sleep in together. He ate and then went right back to sleep but wow its been almost 2 months since ive had to get up in the night with him and then i always end up falling asleep while he eats which is a confusing experience..the cool thing is that after his last growth spurt is when he started smiling and cooing so im excited to see what he will be able to do in the next few weeks. Im hoping for either big laughs or rolling over, or both! He is such a "talker" now. He loves to coo and coo and his favorite thing is just to have conversations with us. We talk to him and then he responds with his aaaahhhs and oohhs, and sometimes even squeals and screams now! Then he smiles and smiles and smiles. he is such a happy boy and just thrives on attention. he gets mad if he isnt getting enough! He also loves to sit in the bumbo seat and is happy in it for ridiculous amounts of time...he likes to be like a big boy and sit up and he can hold his head up so well the whole time and he just looks around. And he is def. right handed. He loves to stick his right fist in his mouth now, or use his right hand to chew on his puppy toy. he is getting so big! lots his 0-3 month stuff is starting to get a bit small, although he does have a few things that dont even fit yet---same brands and sizes as stuff he is outgrowing!

last night zach did some more brush burning in our yard and started turning up the soil for our new BIGGER garden! in about a month we can plant in it! and my weeping willow survived the winter very well and has green buds already! yay spring!

Pleasant Weekend

We had a very pleasant weekend at our house! some of our good friends were in town and we enjoyed spending the weekend hanging out. sawyer enjoyed all the attention- he loved our friend megan! he made her hold him in the same position until her wrist hurt- he would get fussy if she tried to change positions- poor megan! she didnt seem to mind :) sawyer is the first baby in both of our fanilies, and our group of friends so he gets to be the center of attention quite a bit- it makes me laugh to see him surrounded by a group of our friends or family entertaining everyone with his charming smiles and coos for example....















here is sawyer being entertained by some of our friends singing to him- he loved it, i think it was george strait or rap at this point...


in bad news i think i have to cut out dairy-i think it gives sawyer green poo and makes him have a belly ache- its way harder than it might seem- i NEED ice cream and cheese...i havent had much dairy for two days though and sawyer didnt seem to have any tummy aches today

we also got more seeds for our garden tonight and zach is happy because our tomatoes have sprouted- our dining room table has been taken over by our seedlings! the warm weather is getting us excited for our big garden!

Growing "Soy Beans"

well, i don't figure i'll actually post everyday- and to throw this out there, i don't plan to use many capital letters or correct spellings/punctuation- its not my strong suite to begin with and its substantially worse now that i only ever have one free hand to type with. sorry but bambino needs to eat and i like to multi-task. think about it. currently he is fighting a nap...hard. i dont know where he gets his dislike for naps- i believe both zach and i were both champion nappers just a few years ago in college, maybe Sawyer didnt get the memo on that one. really i cant complain though, he has done great at night since he was just a few days old. and really i just wanted to post because i think i did a great job of "cutening" up my page and im proud of myself for figuring it out so quickly and to put up a few one week photo shoot pics.
a little update on us: Zach and i were realizing a few days ago that last year this time we were on spring break in panama city..great time- vastly different than where we are in our lives right now. along with this though, zach realized that a year ago we already had nice, inch high tomato seedlings growing in our windowsill pots and this year we hadnt started them yet! a quick trip to the store solved that problem and we are the proud parents of not only our sweet little "soy bean", but little sweet basil sprouts, along with cilantro sprouts and of course our fav. tomatoes- which to zachs dismay have yet to sprout. he is planning a much bigger garden for us this year and we have lettuce, cantelope, beans, carrots, radishes, zuchini, squash and my pick, pumpkins, waiting to be planted when the weather improves. i think there will prob end up being peppers somewhere in the mix as well. i know zach also wants to get some fruit trees growingl so we can have our own little "orchard" at the bottom of the yard, and im excited to see how sawyers weeping willow fom grandma and papa does once its warmer out! i love being able to enjoy our yard so much- i always feel very joyful in our yard and i think thats what makes me love our house so much- it really is such a perfect fit for us and i look forward to sawyer growing up here and playing in the yard and the creeks with cooper dog, building tree forts with zach and talking nature walks on the paths behind the house. sawyer has already been able to go for a few stroller rides and seems to enjoy the outdoors! anyways enough for now, really i wanted to share a few of sawyers one week photo shoot pictures that paul took to show off how good he did when he told me that he didnt think he got any good pictures- sawyer was not cooperative that day to put it mildly...he did make some goofy faces in a lot of the pictures but here are a few i love- and these are unedited. and if anyone needs sweet pics taken ive got p's number! the last one and the one i put in the header are my faves! i cant believe how tiny he was!