05/2/13

Hunter: 11 months

This has been a pretty exciting month in Hunter’s world. The biggest change? He is a WALKER now! Which makes taking a picture of him extremely difficult, especially if I want him to stay in one place for more than half a second. Out of our two photo shoot attempts, I ended up with 3 pictures that were not blurry and with him looking at me. The runner up picture:

This one cracked me up. But, since he’s now a walking machine, I wanted his 11 month picture to be of him standing.

Playing at the park is a new adventure. Staying sitting? No more. Mabel (who is more of a walking machine!) and Hunter – aren’t they the cutest together? That picture was from last week, and his walking wasn’t as stable. Every day he gets better and better on his feet. Now he’s traveling all the way across the house without a problem. He still gets excited sometimes and tries to run, which makes him fall, but then he just stands back up and walks again. He walks more than crawls now, although crawling is still the fastest way to get to something….

Like a box! Hunter sees a box. Hunter climbs on a box. Hunter stands on a box.

Swinging is still super fun, especially now that we found a new park just a couple minutes away from our house. I think we’ll be spending a lot of time there this summer! There is a huge grass area I’m sure he’ll love running around in.

One more new development this month is a pretty cool one. Long afternoon naps! From the beginning Hunter never really napped long. He’s been more of a cat napper. Well, last week something changed and all of a sudden he started taking 1.5-2 hour naps. They don’t always happen (yesterday was 1 hour and Monday was just 20 minutes), but it’s been more often than not. He always wakes after 20-40 minutes, cries for a few minutes, and then goes back to sleep. Let me tell you, this afternoon nap thing has been awesome. I hope it’s something I can continue to count on!

His morning nap is still short. Anywhere from 20-45 minutes. Nighttime sleep has been great. He goes down around 7:30pm and wakes between 7-8am. A good long stretch. I’m watching to see if he sleeps a bit less at night when he takes a long afternoon nap, or if that makes no difference. In the morning, sometimes he’ll wake a bit earlier, like today at 6:30am, but then after a few minutes of crying, will go back to sleep. We started our day at 7:20am today, after him waking twice (6:30 and 7am) and going back to sleep.

Our little man Hunter loves to be messy. And loud. Both at the same time are even better (like the pic above). We’re still following baby led weaning and he rocks at feeding himself. He’s beginning to have some preferences, like preferring more flavorful foods over bland food. Plain black beans? Spice it up with some garlic! Plain scrambled eggs? Nope. But add some parmesan cheese in there and he gobbles them up.

We were out a couple weekends ago and Hunter being able to sit there at the table with us while feeding him food from our meals was so nice and easy. He still gets food on the floor, but I think that comes with the territory of having a baby eat at a restaurant.

He’s nursing twice a day: first thing in the morning, and before bed – around 7:30am and 7pm. One more month and I’ve made it to my goal of a year!

Since he’s nursing less, I’ve seen a huge increase in how much water he drinks. I leave a couple sippy cups out and he tends to just see them and drink. Thankfully I don’t have to force it down! At meals I’m trying to offer a regular cup more, but the sippy cup is offered there too.

I cannot believe he is almost 1 year old! Time has flown by. Less than 3.5 weeks until his birthday party… I’ve almost finished the invites (which look reallllly cool in my opinion) for his vintage newspaper themed party. More to come on that as I make the decor and it gets closer.

Hunter says banana (banana-na-na), Joe (sounds like doe), mama, dada and no!

What new milestones will happen next month? We’ll see!

Moms: When did your kid learn to drink from a cup? Everyone: What’s the weather like where you are at? I keep reading about snow in May! It’s sunny here.

Have a great Thursday!

Heather

04/29/13

lawn care: getting started

Hello all! Hope your Monday is starting out well. We had a jam packed weekend. Lots of time outside, a get together with some friends and bread baking!

My first loaf on Saturday to share with friends.

And then a small loaf for us last night. 5 minute bread is my favorite!

Before I get into the topic for today, I want to announce the winners to the final Chobani + Champs giveaway.

Case of Chobani 6oz cups

Case of Chobani Bites

Case of Chobani Champions cups

Case of Chobani Champions Tubes

Congratulations all! Send me an email (heather.englund@comcast.net) with your address and I’ll forward it on to get your prizes sent out to you. Thank you all for entering and participating in my week of birthday giveaways!

If there is one thing I am not an expert on, it’s lawn care. Or plant care. Or gardening. Or controlling the ever growing and exploding black berry vines. So pretty much anything outside.

In the 5 years Jacob and I have owned our house, we have neglected our yard. It was actually really nice when we first moved in, and then it all went down hill from there. In the past we have tried to keep up with it, but since we never got to the maintenance stage, the crazy amount of up front work always got the best of us and we gave up.

But things have changed now. We have a little man that’s going to love running and rolling around in nice grass. We also have a birthday party here in less than 1 month and it would be nice to have the yard looking better.

While Jacob and my dad worked on fixing the lawn mower, pressure washing in the front and back, tackling some black berry vines, trimming branches and cutting down weed explosion in the back, I put in some work in the front lawn.

It is not that big of a space, but dang there were a lot of weeds! I don’t want to use too many chemicals in the lawn since Hunter already likes to play out there while I’m weeding, so I put in the effort and began getting the weeds out of the yard. By hand. This little tool sure helped!

We’re going to be ripping out half of the lawn and putting garden boxes in, so I only had to work on getting weeds out of the left half. Still, I filled up more than 3 of these 5 gallon buckets!

As I was pulling out weeds, I realized how mossy the grass is. It may look like we have lots of grass, but it’s pretty much half moss. Once I finished the weeding (half done with Hunter out there on Saturday, the other half during his nap on Sunday), I spread moss killer. Once the moss is dead (a few weeks????), I plan to fill the holes to level it out, plant some new grass in those empty spots and continue on with the care. And what that care entails… well that is still to be determined.

I’ve actually been enjoying working out in the front yard. Hunter is pretty good about staying on a blanket most of the time. He has started wandering a bit more, but it’s at a slow pace.

How are you with lawn care? Do you enjoy it? Do you have any awesome tools that make the job easier? I didn’t even know about that weed puller tool until my friend Megan showed me on Friday. It’s genius!

Heather

04/17/13

Q & A: dropping down to nursing twice a day

Hey it’s half way through the week. Whoop! Our little family is going away for the weekend, which makes me look forward to Friday even more. Today we’re talking food, but not so much recipes. Hunter food. The boob food.

Between 9 and 10 months we made a big switch in our daily nursing routine. At 9 months he was nursing 4-5 times a day. Then at 10 months we dropped down to 2-3. Now at almost 11 months we are just at twice a day. When I originally made the switch to less than 4, I had lots of questions, so to the internet I went searching… and I came up disappointed. I couldn’t find that much info on when or how to do it. So I went with my mommy instinct and dove in. While I am no expert in nursing or babies, I thought it would be helpful to answer the questions that I had, in hopes I can help another mom out there. This is what worked for Hunter and I. Remember, every baby is different!

I should also note that Hunter does not feed on demand. While we do follow the baby led weaning approach for his food, I did not follow the ‘let him nurse whenever’ approach. We have a flexible routine, which I’ll outline, but it’s still a routine none the less.

When does Hunter nurse?

In the morning before breakfast. If he wakes before 7am, I’ll have him play for a bit until 7am, then we nurse and have breakfast. If he wakes after 7am I nurse him right when he wakes. He nurses again at 7pm before getting ready for bed.

When did you know that Hunter was ready to drop a feeding?

A few months ago I remember reading about some other babies that nursed just twice a day, that were the same age as Hunter. I thought to myself, I don’t think Hunter will ever get there! Well, at the time he wasn’t ready. He was eating solids well, but still I think his solids vs. nursing was split 50/50. Then around 10 months (or a little before), I decided one day to just try nursing 3 times – morning ,mid day and before bed. On that day he instantly made a switch to eating more solids. He didn’t fuss about nursing less, it just seemed natural. I was already at the point where he was eating solids first, and then nursing.

How old was he when he dropped a feeding?

Between 9-10 months he dropped down from 4-5 times a day, to 2-3 times a day. Now at 10 1/2 months he only nurses twice a day.

How did we drop the feedings?

Cutting out the midday feeding was a more gradual thing. He would eat lunch between 11-12pm, then I would nurse him about an hour later. He didn’t always seem to need it, but I did it anyway. Then one day we were busy and I just forgot. Thankfully he didn’t seem to mind. For a couple weeks he would want it (he’d get fussy), so I’d nurse him. Then last week I just decided not to anymore and it’s been fine. He eats soooooo much food. I think nursing has become more of a comfort than anything for him.

Do I pump now that he is nursing less?

When we first went down to 3 times a day, I was still pumping. I wanted to make sure my milk supply stayed up in case he really wasn’t ready to nurse less. Then on the days I only nursed him in the morning and night, I pumped midday. Now I don’t pump midday. I have seem a huge decrease in my milk supply, but I figured that will happen as he needs it less and less.

Nursing and solids, how does it work together?

When Hunter first starting eating solids, I would always nurse first, then offer solids. Then as time went by I picked one meal a day to offer solids first, and then nurse. Then as we continued on over the weeks I’d offer solids first at more and more meals, to where he was always eating solids first, and then nursing. I tried to make sure solids and nursing were within an hour of each other, so that it was a big meal, instead of two separate snacks.

When will I stop nursing?

My goal was always to nurse to 1 year, and I know we’ll make that goal. After that, I”m not sure. This is probably a selfish reason, but I want to get pregnant again, and breastfeeding has definitely been working as birth control for us. I’ll see where we’re at when he turns a year.

I hope this is helpful to you nursing mamas out there. Please let me know if you have any questions I didn’t answer!

Have a great day.

Heather