Roll-over--take one.

Yesterday, Blake rolled from tummy to back for the first time (with minimal help). I say minimal help because the first time I helped him and showed him how. The second and third times, he did it on his own, but his arms were perfectly placed to make the transition from tummy to back much easier. He did use his arms and legs to get himself on his back, so that was a positive for him :)

To see if he could do it completely on his own, I picked him up and placed him down again to reposition his arms and see if he could do it again....fail. Oh well, we are close :)

Here's a couple recent photos:

Always happiest with the diaper off. Daddy's making him smile in this picture.

Too enamored with Daddy to look at the camera

Now I have his attention :)



Blake in his new glider (his foot really isn't that disproportionate to his body...:) )



This one cracks me up--I caught him just as he was starting to sneeze! haha

$4.99? Yes, please.

On Monday, Blake went in to get the second round of his 2-month shots. We've decided to stretch it out slightly as I feel they give too many shots at once while our children are so little. He calmed down shortly after his shots, wasn't interested in food, and then fell asleep. Perfect, I needed to go to Macy's nursing section, so this was the ideal time. I stopped in and after getting my essentials, descended the escalator and remembered that I needed socks. I've needed socks for a while, but somehow never seem to remember to buy them. It's been years--granted I don't wear white socks often, so they last a long time, but nevertheless, it was time. So, after picking up my socks, I waited briefly in the checkout lane.

While in the checkout lane, I noticed a $9.99 rack of sweaters. What the heck, I decided to check them out even though I usually can't find anything I like on greatly discounted racks. Well, it held true with the $9.99 rack this time as well. While looking, I noticed another rack that was $4.99...and then I saw another and another. Well, that's just too cheap not to at least look. Meanwhile, Blake was still sleeping soundly. To my surprise, I found a few possibilities, but still wasn't that excited b/c they probably wouldn't look good once I tried them on. No, no, they looked great. Now I started getting excited and scoured the $4.99 racks and came up with 9 sweater that I liked! Score! I bought them all.

How lucky was I because I was just thinking I was getting sick of my sweaters and didn't have much selection. Plus, every time I wore one, Blake spit up on it and it sits in the laundry for a while since I hand wash my sweaters, thus I also put it off. I had totally forgotten that it was President's Day since I don't usually shop the holiday sales. I'll have to remember this for next year!

My loot:

I asked Scott if I bought too many and he then showed me our closet and pointed to my side and his side. My side, his side. He did this a couple times to make his point. Point taken, but I do plan on getting rid of some of my ugly sweaters, so it won't make that much of a difference. Plus, who can compete against a few hooded sweatshirts anyways?!

I did feel slightly guilty that I was enjoying the fact that Blake was konked out due to his shots, but I did enjoy my deals :)

Ok, so I don't really believe in Mommy brain or pregnancy brain, but it does seem a good excuse for why I can't find the chocolate I started eating this morning. Scott bought me truffles for Valentine's Day (so I believe I do have an excuse for eating them in the morning) :) I took a bite and set the remainder somewhere and cannot find it, although it's been a while now and I'm starting to think I probably ate the whole thing. The unfortunate thing about that is my memory has me eating only one bite of truffle, but my body has the calories of one whole truffle...

Homemade Turkey Sausage

My husband loves sausage, but I'm not thrilled about serving him store bought sausage for several reasons--1). We are trying not to eat much pork 2). There are nitrates in the sausage 3). It is very low quality, high fat meat and just not good for you at all. Thus, he never gets sausage at home :)

Well, I decided to try my hand at making my own sausage with ground turkey. After all, sausage is just made by adding spices, right? I must say, I was quite skeptical about the recipe I tried, but turns out, it was great! I was so surprised how much it tasted like normal breakfast sausage! I made only half of the recipe and used 1 lb of ground turkey instead. Also, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of fennel seed (chopped). Give this easy recipe a try if you like sausage but don't want to eat it for health reasons. Let me know if you like it!! I am going to form the remainder of my meat into patties and freeze it for another morning! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons dried sage
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 2 pounds ground pork

Directions

1. In a small, bowl, combine the sage, salt, ground black pepper, marjoram, brown sugar, crushed red pepper and cloves. Mix well.
2. Place the pork in a large bowl and add the mixed spices to it. Mix well with your hands and form into patties.
3. Saute the patties in a large skillet over medium high heat for 5 minutes per side, or until internal pork temperature reaches 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).

Valentine's Day--2011

This Valentine's Day held some special memories for Scott and I since today (actually two days ago) was exactly one year from the day we found out we were pregnant. It seemed so surreal--me? Having a baby? Other people had babies, not me. It was a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Now today, I hold my baby and am amazed at how quickly life changes.  While pregnant, it felt like forever before I'd be able to meet and hold my baby and now that seems a distant memory.

Joanna, our nanny, had no idea about our Valentine's Day story, but she made it special for us by presenting us with a gift "from Blake to Mommy & Daddy." It was a beautiful picture that she had taken of our little boy! It is 11"x16" framed black and white photo, with his shirt in color. The glass has a glare, so it was quite hard to get a picture without any reflection, but here it is:

Blake's Valentine's Day gift to Daddy & Mommy (taken by his nanny)

I was tickled pink to get it. I believe Joanna does some photography on the side, and it appears she does a great job! I don't think I've taken this good of a photo of Blake yet! Sadly, this is the first nice framed picture of Blake. We have some cute pictures, but I didn't have a frame for the size we purchased and have not yet shopped for one. I tend to shop only for necessities now...I don't like to make Blake go shopping :)

Here's a couple recent pictures just for kicks. :)

Sleepy baby and yes, my shirt always has a white spit-up spot on it now!

Mmmm, Elmo...

Mmmm, taggie football, nom nom

Love this picture--wish it wasn't blurry!

Classic Blake

Thumb...

Blake sucking on a taggie football

Blake has started to enjoy toys now. He wasn't real interested before, but now he loves to attack them with his mouth. Not all toys, he definitely has his favorites. He also loves to play with toys that light up and sing/make music. Here's a little clip of him with his new found love for a taggie football :)

Blake & Taggie Football

Blake is 3 1/2 months old and still has not yet rolled over. I believe he is just now getting to the point where it looks like he could roll over soon. He is pushing more with his arms while on his tummy. He used to just lay there with his head on the blanket, but is now a little more active while on tummy time. He's definitely gone through a growth spurt, but I'm thinking he is still a little small for his age. He was in the 25th percentile for height and weight at his 2 month appointment, so we'll see next time we go in.

The newest development for him is that he's found his thumb. We avoided giving him a pacifier and he didn't even always want one when we did give it to him and it was in the back of my mind that he might opt for his thumb without a pacifier. I didn't want to by held captive by the pacificer and always trying to keep it in his mouth when he's pop it out and then get mad. On the other hand, I'm not thrilled about the thumb sucking either, except for the fact that it is incredibly cute.

I just don't want him to be sucking his thumb as he gets older and thus creating orthodontic issues (and selfishly, I don't want the work of trying to make him stop). We'll see how it goes...either way, we'll love him :)

Bath Time--3 months

Blake sure enjoys his bath time! He is so squirmy while "playing" in the water. Here's a little clip:

Bath Time!!

Well, he's sleeping now, so we know what that means...time for Mommy to get something done! Gotta run!

Our Big Boy

So, I really only have this blog for Blake's grandparent's and other family and friends to see his growth and development while we are so far away in Indianapolis. So, that's why yet another post is about our little boy. He's been going through a growth spurt and I feel like I can practically see him growing. It is a really fun time and we are enjoying him so much.

Here is a video of Blake standing (with assistance of course). When I watch the videos I take, I realize that I repeat myself frequently with him, haha. Sorry about the angle, I always do these myself, so the camera was on the ground part of the time.

Blake Standing with Assistance

Along with the increased intake of food during this growth spurt, he's also increased how wet his diapers are when we change him. It's forced me to buy the next largest size of inserts for our cloth diapers. They are definitely more bulky than disposables, but his bottom is much healthier wearing these than the disposables, so I'm really glad we have them as an option. Plus, I really wanted to use them after hearing that disposables don't decompose for hundreds of years and Scott and I are pretty aware about filling our landfills, so cloth was a natural choice for us.

They've sure improved cloth diapers. These are a one-size shell with snaps to adjust as he grows with 3 different sizes for inserts. We only have 4 shells so I like them better than the pocket ones, where you have to wash the shell and insert every time you change the child. Here's what they look like:

Superbowl Village

So we were told that we just had to go to Superbowl Village in downtown Indianapolis, so we decided to go. I definitely did not want to drive downtown and get stuck in traffic for an hour, so we decided to take public transportation to avoid the wait and stress.

Well, we were stuck in this: http://www.indystar.com/article/20120204/NEWS11/120204011/13-hurt-in-Friday-s-Super-Bowl-2012-Village-crowd-of-200-000-police-announce-more-street-closings?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Overcrowding was the name of the game on Friday night. We were not able to see anything b/c we were just pushing our way through crowds. It took us forever to get to Georgia street and then we were turned away b/c that area was closed off. We held onto each other's coats to avoid getting separated. The only thing we saw were the 30 foot Super Bowl Roman Numerals that had TV screens on it. No, that's not true, we also saw some crazies :) At least we went with a couple of friends--it was fun to hang out with them.

THANKFULLY, we had decided not to take Blake (that would've been stupid). He was playing happily at our neighbors house. I don't know what they do to him there, but when he gets back, he is just exhausted. He did go to bed slightly later than normal, but he slept in til 9:15 this morning, which was AWESOME b/c I was really tired since we got home so late. Why did we stay out so late if we couldn't see anything? Glad you asked. It was because my time saving idea of taking the bus backfired b/c the buses were running about 45 minutes late going home, but at least they came!

When I grow up, I want to be a tax accountant

Maybe only funny to a tax accountant, but I sure enjoyed it :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v_alwa4V_Y&feature=player_embedded