Between you, me and the fence post

Privitizing the blog. Lots of reasons, and I know it makes it a bit of a pain to follow/visit, but thanks for understanding :)

Love our lovies

Don't know if anyone besides me remembers this sweet picture of Little C with his lovies...
In honor of Carter's lovie obsession, Grammy C hooked Jack up with a precious lovie of his very own which he has recently started to enjoy. He loves the soft fabric and it's become a must-have when we are in the car. My boys certaintly love their lovies! :)

Nursery Magic

You'll have to excuse the poor photo quality, it was late! :)

Mirror I found at Marshals

The origami mobile I made

My 'wall flowers' as I call them that a lot of craft-love went into

Each one was made from scraps of scrapbook paper (same paper I used for the mobile)

Wall letters I painted, drilled then strung together with floral wire (also left over from the mobile project)

Lamp and table were two more Marshals finds.

And when Jack outgrows his nursery and we convert it into a big boy room, this little yellow table will look great in my living room! :)

Big special thanks to Mr. C for putting up with all my 'little' craft projects, and for using his handy laser level to help me hang the wall flowers (at 11 o'clock at night!)
I couldn't help but put a little extra effort into this nursery since my initial decorating plans came to an abrupt halt after the car accident that led to baby Jack's miraculous but early arrival. The room will undoubtedly morph and change in the near future seeing as we are already short on storage in there, but in the mean time, it was important for me to create a beautiful, calming and magical room that reminds me of just how precious and lovely a baby is and how important it is to cherish those fleeting moments of childhood. And I also hope that maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to use this relatively gender neutral decor again someday (three to five years from now) :)

Mobile Madness

I have been working on a special project for Jack's nursery...an origami mobile. I started and finished it this week, and (unlike many of my recent craft projects) was pleasently surprised how easy this was to make. I got the idea from a post on one of my favorite blogs, younghouselove.com. Jack even enjoyed watching it while it was a work in progress hanging in the living room.

5 months and the big switch

Jack is now 5 months old! I can't believe it. He is my little peanut and just a light bright spot in our lives. He's THE best baby ever, and is sweet as can be and just the happiest little guy. He's chunking up and has these precious little baby thighs. He has rolled from front to back a couple of times and from his side to his front/back a few times, but for the most part, he's pretty content wherever you set him down. I have to really work at playing with him as dilligently as I should, because he is so un-demanding, it's easy to get caught up in laundry or a phone call and just let him hang out in his jumper or on his activity mat. We are still in the bassinet, but will be making the big switch just as soon as the nursery is done (which is should be by this weekend!). I am honestly finding myself reluctant to let him leave our room. He's been sleeping through the night like a champ for a while now, but he's just my little buddy and his happy smiling face is such a treat to wake up to. Plus, I just like having him close by.
We've gradually been working up to the move, though. We moved the baby monitor out of Carter's room a few weeks ago which was probably harder on me than on Carter. There have been one or two mornings he was up before anyone else and we didn't hear him, but nothing terrible or traumatic has come from that. I still make Mr. C leave our door open so I can hear him in case he crys at night, and I check on him at least once in the night to make sure he is ok.
We have had some other big changes around here recently...we have started transitioning to cloth diapers. Cost/Savings and environmental impact were the two big motivators for me, and it is something I had been wanting to do since Carter was really small, but was just very intimidated by the idea. So far, so good, though. I can guarantee you, it's not what I imagined. I think I pictured beating cloth rags against a rock down by the river or something, but the new generation of cloth diapers is nothing like the days of yore when our parents put us in the plastic pants and secured the cloth lining with those giant safety pins. There are a ton of websites and blogs and such that are completely devoted to the subject so I'll spare you the details of how we came to our product decision, but if you are interested, we are using the bumgenius 3.0. We invested in 18 of them, and have started with diapering Jack, and hope to have Carter in cloth diapers by the end of the summer.

Up top is a shot of our happy sweet 5 month old boy and his adorable earth friendly tushie :)

Funny Face

Jack has been making some pretty cute faces these days...

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the number of times during the day I have deja vu with flashbacks of Carter doing something identical to what Jack is doing is astounding. This little photo shoot was no different. Seems like just yesterday, I was posting this post of our Little C making his own funny faces! Breaks my heart how the time is flying by.

Big hug for mommy!

Tonight Carter made an absolute mess at dinner. He's taken to throwing food when he is done, and even threat of death doesn't seem to deter him from doing this every.single.night. Tonight while I was cleaning up the mess, I felt these little arms wrap around my legs and squeeze me tight. 'Big hug for mommy!' Carter chanted while rubbing his food soaked face into my pants. It was one of those moments that makes it SO hard for you to stay mad.

The face of the stomach flu

The stomach flu swept through our home the week after Easter and was a milestone we had previously managed to avoid. Sure, we had had the occasional spit-up that bordered on puke, and then there was that one strange incident during a visit to Austin when Carter got sick out of the blue and then was completely fine, but never had we dealt with an actual tummy bug before, and let me tell you, it ain't pretty!

I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it struck in the middle of the night after Little C had spaghetti for dinner. I was so thankful we still were using the baby monitor otherwise, I'm not sure I would have heard the strange coughing sound that preceded everything.

As first-timers we made some classic mistakes. We foolishly though the first round would be the last round and put little C back to bed in his carpeted room after clean up was completed. An hour later, we were dealing with round two, and the scrubbing/bathing/washing frenzy re-commenced. Then we (maybe in exhaustion??) repeated our put-Carter-back-to-bed-in-his-room insanity. An hour later? Yea, you get the picture (we called Stanley steamer shortly there after to cover our bases). We finally wised up and (since we were out of clean sheets and pj's at that point) set Carter up on a pallet of old blankets and towels in the living room in an old t-shirt of mine (big neck hole, mean easier removal without dirtying the hair). By the end of the night, Carter was still having episodes, but had emptied his stomach, and it was heart braking to watch his little body shake and heave and not be able to do anything but hold him. Morning came, though, and we survived.

The next day we took it VERY slow eating very little except the occasional cracker dipped in applesauce. Then, for dinner I thought chicken and rice soup might be ok. Notsomuch. Apparently we were dealing with a 48 hour bug, not a 24 hour bug. Luckily, we were pros at that point, and Mr. C whisked Carter off to the bath while I got busy scrubbing and the mess was contained and cleaned up in no time flat. By the third day, Little C's appetite had returned and he was back to being the little Tasmanian devil we know and love.

Mr. C shined as the amazing husband he is throughout the whole process. He got up during all three rounds that first night to help me with clean-up despite the fact that he had work the next day. We even managed to laugh about things in the heat of the moment, which just goes to show you when you're with the right person, average and ordinary becomes memorable and special.

I ended up with my own stomach flu souvenir which thankfully hit over the weekend, so i was able to take a sick day while Mr. C covered for me (again, he is just amazing!). Sadly, we had to miss out on Aunt B and soon-to-be Uncle J's wedding shower, because of all the illness, but I know they had a blast without us and our germs :)

Spring Fever

Well we've been busy busy busy around here! Of course with the beautiful weather outside, I've had the itch to spring clean. At one point before Easter we took three truckloads of stuff to Goodwill. I kept joking, if it wasn't nailed down, I was going to toss it out!

As part of the cleaning process, I've been trying to get some big lingering projects wrapped up like finally painting and hanging the frame I bought off Craigs list over a year ago!

And of course, I've been busy trying finish Jack's nursery since he has almost completely grown out of the bassinet so stay tuned for a post with pics soon!

We had a wonderful Easter that started the weekend before in Victoria at Grammy C and Grandpa Gary's house where little C had his first Easter egg hunt! Easter morning enjoyed a visit from the Easter bunny (spoiler alert :),

followed by an amazing breakfast and worship service at our home church of Kinsmen Lutheran. We've been members at Kinsmen for a little over two years now, and it really has become an amazing part of our lives. We are loving raising the boys among their church family and are eagerly looking forward to Jack's baptism there next month!

Jack has become so much more interactive since hitting the 4 month mark in April. He is laughing and giggling more than ever, and loves to squawk and shriek just to hear his own voice.

He and Carter continue to bond daily and Carter is really starting to be more aware of Jack's feelings. As a mom it is so touching when Jack will be crying to see Carter run over to check on him. Here they are playing one of mommy's least favorite games called 'pick a paci up off the floor and put it in our brother's mouth!' :)

At 4 and a half months, Jack hit the infamous Bumbo milestone, which was just another reminder of how quickly time is flying by since it feels like yesterday I was posting pics of Carter in this same little contraption! Of course with the reappearance of the Bumbo, Carter had to try it out. Amazingly enough, he still fit!
My mom (Grammy R) has been back and forth between her home and Dallas caring for my grandfather who got some bad news last month. He was diagnosed with lung cancer just a few weeks before his 90th birthday. He is not your typical 90 year old, and he is mentally sharp as a tac, so to see him so rapidly decline was alarming to all of his family. Prayers for John Ronayne (Jack's namesake) are greatly appreciated as he is undergoing some pretty intensive radiation at this time to try to shrink the cancer and restore some of his lung function.

Despite her time on the road, mom was able to stop by on Easter Sunday for a quick visit and to drop off Carter and Jack's first MATCHING outfits!! Needless to say, I have become obsessed with dressing them in coordinating outfits. Never in a million years thought I would be 'that' mom, but I just think it is adorable, and Mom indulged me by taking me shopping at Carter's (the store) for a couple more coordinating get-ups. I mean seriously, have your ever seen anything so cute?? :) Then again, they are adorable in just matching diapers :)
We have some big events ahead of us this May. We will be celebrating Carter's second (yes SECOND!) birthday next weekend, and Aunt Bethany's wedding shortly there after with another fun wedding and Mr. C's 30th birthday in-between. Stay tuned for pics and posts about all of our May Madness, as I plan to be better about blogging this summer. Then again, if I'm not, it's because I'm chasing after this little toot! :)