Our wedding, 3 years later

I've seen this wedding meme pop up several times the past few months or so and it looks like a lot of fun! Since today is me and hubby's 3 year anniversary I thought I would do this meme in honor of it!

A is for Attending

We had right around 120 people, having invited about 140, despite our reception hall only being able to seat 120 in the main dining room (oops!). We got lucky though and were able to squeeze everyone in one room!

B is for Bridesmaids

My bridesmaids were (from left to right) my little sister, my best friend from Junior High and High School (she was Matron of Honor), a friend of mine and hubby's that we had both known since Junior High, and my roommate & best friend from college. No, they didn't wear the hats during the actual wedding - the hats were part of the guys' attire but they let the bridesmaids take some awesome photos with them! And as you can see, at the reception, some of them decided to wear their sashes as scarves =)

C is for Catering

We actually didn't have any "special" catering as our reception hall included the food as part of the building rental. We did buffet style for the dinner though, as we figured that'd be easiest for everyone. I honestly don't remember too much of what was served! But I do remember it was all really yummy!

Hubby actually made the suggestion of who to do our cake - a supervisor friend of his from UPS at the time, her mom makes cakes for a living and from time to time she would bring some in to share with them at work and he said it was the best cake ever. She makes her own special icing too, which is excellent! Everyone loved the cake and kept saying how good it was and the best part was just how reasonable her prices were compared to most of the other "big name" cake people in town. We also had her do my baby shower cake and I plan on calling her up and having her do Jay's 1st birthday cake too when the time comes.

Should also note our awesome cake topper! My Matron of Honor had one of these for her wedding almost a year prior to mine and I loved it! After having a hard time finding a way to do our WoW characters as a topper (as Figureprints is expensive and has their lotto system) I thought this was a nice alternative. The maker of the cake topper was originally a company on eBay called Ling's Moment (you can find their current site by Googling them). Basically you do "Buy It Now" on eBay and they send you an email with color palettes and a questionnaire about your attire, etc. They send you several pictures throughout the process so you can change a color or have them add something etc. I LOVE our cake topper - it's currently in a display cabinet in our house.

D is for Dress

I got my dress from One Stop Wedding here in Rockford. It's a smaller boutique in town and was the 1st place we went to for dress shopping. I tried on a handful but this one seemed to be the best of them and because it was off the rack we got it for a great price! I want to say it was an Alfredo Angelo. It had a row of buttons down the back of the dress which I loved and it's actually a light ivory instead of white. One of the straps was broken when we bought it but my mom, being the seamstress she is, could easily fix that and we did the unique criss-cross thing in the back. I tried a handful on at David's Bridal (and had a really pushy saleswoman who almost made it seem like I *had* to pick their most popular dress they were pushing) but this dress was in the back of my mind the whole time and I decided that was the dress and we ran back and got it before they closed for the night.

E is for Engagement

We got engaged at the beginning of January 2008 so we had roughly a 9 month engagement as we were married on September 13, 2008.

F is for Flowers

Unity Candle display (ignore stuff in background)

My bouquet

Bridesmaid bouquet

Pew bow

Reception table centerpiece, sat on top of mirrored glass

The chapel outcome

Our flowers were all DIY. I wanted red roses which are expensive and I have allergies so real flowers were out of the question anyway. My aunt used to do flower arrangements so she had some experience doing them and my mom is crafty too so between the 2 of them they did all our decorations and flowers. We used LOTS of the weekly 40% off coupons from Michaels and Hobby Lobby and my mom cleaned Michael's out of their faux red roses the day after Valentine's Day when they went on clearance too, lol...

G is for Groomsmen

Hubby with his groomsmen

From left to right we have hubby's 2nd youngest brother, our good friend who lives about an hour away whom we originally met in World of Warcraft several years prior, hubby, hubby's brother that's a few years younger than him, hubby's youngest brother. Years ago in college I was at a party with some friends and one of the guys was talking about a wedding he was in where they were doing the zoot suit look and OMG I thought that was the coolest idea ever and had to have it for my own wedding. Hubby was all for it too and so we opted for the longer suitcoats and the fedoras and we got the guys all pocket watches with chains as their wedding party gift that they could wear the day of as well.

H is for Honeymoon

The view from our hotel room balcony!

We went to Vegas for our honeymoon, getting there late Monday evening and leaving early Saturday. We did lots of tourist-y things like visiting the Hoover Dam, a nearby chocolate factory, seeing a Vegas show (Bite - an adult show with "vampires" dancing to classic rock), walking The Strip and stopping into all the famous hotels and casinos along the way (we started at the south end at Mandalay Bay and spent and entire day walking all the way north to the Stratosphere), and road the indoor gondolas at the Venetian and checked out the wax museum too! We stayed at The Plaza on Fremont Street in the downtown area and had an amazing view outside our window too!

Some tips: 1) Don't walk from Fremont Street to The Strip and especially not in heels - it's A LOT further than it looks, the flat topography lies! 2) Slots A Fun is an AWESOME place to hang out and kill time - cheap, but good (and large!) booze, low pay-in costs at the tables and $1 footlong hotdogs!! We went to this place several times on The Strip (it's out in front of Circus Circus, across from the Riviera).

I is for Invitation

 

I went to a bridal show shortly after our engagement and for $20 down, if you got your tuxes from this one tux shop located in our local mall you would get your invitations for free (or rather, they would rebate the cost). Our colors were red, black and silver and our theme was double hearts, so we went with these simple invitations.

I also made Save the Date magnets for people too!

J is for Justice of the Peace

Hubby's dad is an ordained Reverend/Minister who has his whole missions ministry that he does and hubby specifically requested that his dad wed us. It was the only request he really had so I agreed to it (although the months before the wedding he did start getting a little bit more into some of the wedding stuff and became a little bit more opinionated than he had been, hehe).
 

K is for Keepsakes

  

For our favors to guests we made M&M tins with red and ivory M&Ms as well as placeholder cards that I made that sat atop little doubleheart topped bells (not pictured).

L is for Ladies Night

My bachelorette party... it was held 2 weeks prior to our wedding (as the night before is just tacky) and the same weekend as my bridal shower as one of my bridesmaids lives in Minnesota and it was easier for her to have them both the same weekend so she could just stay with family in town. Since my sis is underage and was a bridesmaid and I invited hubby's brother's underage girlfriend to join us we kept it PG13 to start and invited my mom and my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law and cousin (who were 10 at the time). We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner (which had just opened the week before so it was a bit packed!) and then went bowling for a bit afterwards, where those of us old enough could get drinks from the bowling alley bar. Gotta admit, I was feeling a nice buzz when we left there and me, my 3 legal bridesmaids and my aunt (who was our DD for the night) went bar hopping for the rest of the night. They made me do that bachelorette scavenger hunt game where you have to take pictures doing random things, like dancing on top of a bar (which a bartender let us do on one of their empty back bars so long as he didn't notice, lol...), and get kisses (on the cheek or hand) by an assortment of guys and retrieve a condom from a bathroom, lol... it was interesting! The first bar we went to was laidback and played 80s hairband metal which I found awesome. The bartender also looked like hubby's brother's twin too which was a bit odd and we met some creepy old fart who was trying to teach us "golf swings". We went to a bar downtown that I liked and my aunt insisted we go dancing at the gay bar downtown as well, so we did (we were pretty drunk by this point, all I remember was dancing with my bridesmaids in the cage they had and some gay guys posing for a picture with us, lol... oh and I got a "goody bag" too from there!).

M is for Music

We put together our own playlist for the ceremony and one of my brother-in-laws performed a song that my father-in-law wrote and sang at his wedding years ago that he let us borrow for our wedding. For the reception we had a set of DJ's (Sounds Unlimited from Rockford, IL) who I met at the bridal show I went to - they had polka on their playlist which sold me as my dad and grandpap are both big on polka and I had to have at least 1 polka played, lol... whatever they didn't have in their catalog they said we could submit on CD for them and they did a great job. They were older guys but had been in the business since the 80s and were known for DJing the annual fireman's ball event every year and they were a lot of fun and did a really good job! They also had the best price in town too!


Our 1st dance was to our song - "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol
The wedding party's dance was to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
For Father/Daughter dance we used "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle (which btw, is a REALLY long song when everyone is watching you!)
And Mother/Son dance was to "Moon River"
For our last dance we played "Closing Time" by Semisonic

N is for Newlyweds

We spent the day after our wedding at my parents house with family and relatives from out of town for a brunch and we opened our gifts too... and fell asleep on the couch for a bit before running out to Target to buy some last minute stuff for our honeymoon, like a camcorder we had on our registry as well as a luggage set.

O is for Old, new, borrowed, blue

Old and borrowed was a ring I wore, new and blue were my underwear I ordered that had "Bride" printed on the butt, lol...

P is for Photography

We had Solko Photography for our photography and well... it could have been better. Originally when we booked we had the owner slated as our photographer. We went with them as my matron of honor had them for her wedding and they did a really good job. Well, a few weeks before my wedding I get a call, requesting we permit them to have one of their other photographers shoot our wedding as another bride they booked on our day decided last minute she wanted their videography services and the only ones that could use the equipment were the owner and her husband (who was already slated to shoot that wedding, meaning she would have to do the video). They gave us a great break on our package, basically giving us our album for free, and we agreed after seeing the other guy's work and it looking fine. However I was a bit disappointed in the lack of candids he took and that we didn't get some photos with relatives we never see that I really would have liked to have gotten. To be honest, one of my bridesmaid's dad's was taking photos the whole day too and I really liked more of the ones he took better! And the album... I was under the assumption I'd get to pick which photos went in the album, but apparently not - they chose them and had it all put together by the time they called me and some of the photos... I would have chose others. I was told I could switch out 3 for free and then a fee for others. Yeah... since I owned the copyright for the proofs I bought an album and compiled the ones from the photographer and the one's from my bridesmaid's dad (and others who took photos) and put together my own wedding album which we display on our coffee table. Don't get me wrong, our photography was fine, just... iono... not quite what I thought I guess you could say.

Q is for Question popping

My ring!

 When and where he proposed was a bit of a surprise! I knew it was going to be sometime after my college graduation in December 2007, as we had talked before and he said I had to finish college before he would propose (as a way to motivate me to stick with it as I was really hating school the last few years). Christmas came and went with no proposal, as did New Year's, so I was expecting maybe for Valentine's Day. (I knew he already had the ring as I came across a receipt for resizing so I knew it was going to happen to eventually). We went out for lunch after church that Sunday to Chili's with one of his brother's and his brother's then-girlfriend. Him and I got to talking about when he was going to take his 2 vacation weeks that year and I told him it all depended on him and he slide down from his chair, pulled out the ring and asked if it all depended on him asking me to marry him. Obviously it did and that was what I was implying. While I still am a bit confused by the location (up until then we had never gone to Chili's together and even now we don't frequent there often, lol...), it was definitely us - laidback and a bit random, lol...

R is for Reception

Our reception was at the University Club in Rockford, IL. My aunt had her wedding there nearly 11 years or so prior and since then I had always envisioned mine being there. It's an older historic building in downtown Rockford and very pretty. We had a sit down, buffet-style dinner and then dancing in the next room later in the night. There was also a bar however we only had open bar for hubby and I as I had heard of horror stories where the whole wedding party had open bar access but gave drinks out to LOTS of the guests, making the bar tab nearly half of the reception cost!

S is for Shoes

I wore strappy block heeled sandals in an ivory color to match my dress.

T is for Trash the Dress

Yeah... no thank you. Granted I'll only wear it once, but I can't bring myself to trash it like that.

U is for Unique

Well we did the Zoot Suit type suits for the guys, we used my dad's 1965 Corvair as our getaway vehicle, and our cake topper was custom-made.

V is for Vows

 

We just stuck with the traditional ones.

W is for Wedding Woes

Oh we had quite a few!

1st, my grandma (mom's mom) passed away the night before. She had been sick in the hospital for awhile now so we knew it was going to happen sometime soon. I hadn't been close to her in years though, but it was still a bit sad. All her kids and her brother were in town for the wedding and got to say goodbye to her though and they said the wedding was a nice distraction too.

The morning of my wedding, while on my way to the hair stylist, my mom calls asking how much I really wanted to wear a veil. I wasn't that crazy about them to begin with so we bought one from Hobby Lobby for a fraction of the cost of a bridal shop's. Apparently while steaming my veil that morning my mom got the iron a little too close and it melted part of the veil - oops! Oh well, I didn't want to wear one really anyway, lol...


Then, my mom never met us at the salon as she got held up at the reception hall fighting with them over the chairs in the dining room setup. We were paying them extra to set it up banquet style like they did at my aunt's wedding (as that fits the most people in there, which we needed) which I guess they no longer do very often, but apparently half the chairs they used were too high that when sitting you couldn't get your knees under the table!! My mom got my aunt's inlaws involved, in which her father-in-law had been president at the club several times, and they took care of it for us so my mom could meet us at the church in time.

What we refer to as
"the hairspray incident"

As we're getting ready before the ceremony my mom said she wanted to spray my hair with hairspray one more time to make sure it held. As she spraying my hair like crazy we notice 1) it doesn't smell like hairspray and 2) my hair is wet. Turns out, my sis had used the spray bottle awhile back and used it for water on a hot day to spray on herself and my mom forgot and so she had soaked my hair we had just paid to have done! Fortunately we had a big curling iron to fix my curls and my matron of honor had heavy duty hairspray with her that we used and we saved the day!


It rained almost all day - we didn't get to take very many outside photos at locations we had planned and we couldn't do the dancing outside like we had wanted.



My dad's side of the family left and went back to the house to hang out between the ceremony and reception so we didn't really get any photos with them like we had wanted.


Hubby had trouble getting my dad's Corvair to start several times.

The DJ messed up my sister's last name during her introduction - I gave specific notes on how to pronounce it, as it rhymes with Harris...  yeah, he just said Harris instead /facepalm



During his speech before dinner, my dad goofed and said hubby had fallen in love with my sister many years ago instead of me. There was a pause after he said it and everyone burst into laughter at his mistake which he caught right after he realized what he had said, lol...

I'm sure there were others but those were the most memorable, lol...

X is for X-Rated

No one that does this meme seems to know what this one is supposed to be, lol...

Y is for Young Kids

Since we didn't know any little boys at the time (besides our nephew but we weren't sure if they would make it or not) we didn't have a ringbearer. Hubby's little sister and my little cousin, who were both 10 at the time, were our flower girls - hubby's sister carried the rings and my cousin did the flowers.

Z is for Zzzz

We slept good that night (took hubby forever to get me out of my dress and then it took me forever pulling all the bobby pins out of my hair, lol...), had brunch with family the next day and then Monday morning we left for Vegas which was nice, fun and relaxing!

Happy Anniversary, Hun! 

We've had our share of ups and downs these past few years we've been together, but like our vows say, we take each other "for better or for worse." Here's to many more years together!

Fun with Our Phones Monday #3

Linking up once again!

 

On Tuesday my mom had to serve Jury Duty so I requested the day off work as she's my babysitter when hubby's at work and she most likely wouldn't be done til 5 or so. I also had to go downtown as I had to turn in our tax assessment "complaint" forms to the public administration building by a certain date. I find a parking spot and whadyaknow - I'm parked right behind one of my parent's vehicles! I was a bit confused as to why my mom was parked in a 1 hour spot... we no sooner cross the street and are heading up the block to the public administration building when we spy my mom walking towards us down the block! She offered to walk with us up to the office and as we're waiting to get in the elevator... my dad comes out! How weird! Apparently he had some stuff he had to do there as well and turns out I had actually parked behind him and not my mom. She didn't know he was there either - it was too funny!

I often sit with Jay on the couch in our family room on the main floor and we high ceilings althroughout the house. Tiger loves that she can jump on top of our hanging cabinets in the kitchen and the interior wall of our kitchen doesn't go all the way to the ceiling so Tiger can easily reach it from the top of the cabinets! I was laying on the couch with Jay one afternoon when I looked up and saw Tiger chilling up above us - too funny!

My Dallas Cowboys "wired star" game day earrings arrived Thursday afternoon... in that giant box you see there! Yeah, I was a little confused as to why such a tiny item was in such a big box! I was expecting maybe a small padded envelope or something! lol...

As a gift to myself (but we'll say it's from Jay) for my birthday I had this necklace pendant made from The Vintage Pearl. I had seen them before on various blogs and in various giveaways but it wasn't until I saw there was a discount code in last month's issue of Parent's Magazine that I decided to get one made. Based on the photos online, you'd think it was a pretty decent size, however it is a lot smaller than I was expecting, but I still love it! I was debating about getting this one, as Jay and I often read "Guess How Much I Love You" before bedtime some nights, but opted for this "Dainty Drops" one instead. I figure I'll add a charm and birthstone for each child we have.

 He decided to completely crawl under the coffee table the other day - before he's just reached over the edge but never completely climbed under it. This time he did and seemed to be having one going at daddy's notebook before mommy took it off him, lol...

 I get What to Expect's emails daily and last week they mentioned taking your kiddo to the playground. We've had decent weather lately (not scorching hot, but not cold either) and I don't know why the idea to take Jay to one didn't dawn on me sooner! The article mentioned baby swings, sandboxes, slides, etc so I decided that since Jay was all mine on Saturday (daddy had to work alllllllllll day and I already was scheduled off work) that I would take him to a playground since we had some errands to go out and run anyway. He really seemed to enjoy the baby swing, as he swung for a good 10-15 minutes, just watching all the other kids run around. I also assisted him in sliding down part of a slide but he seemed a bit unsure about that one.

 

Jay's first Cowboys game day!! I decked him out in his little Cowboys gear - onesie and socks (and later in the night bib and bottle).

We went to Sam's Club, all decked out in our Cowboys gear, and picked up a few things in the afternoon before the game, such as hubby's beer (a 24pk of Sam Adam's Octoberfest. At Sam's it's basically $1/bottle, which is how I was able to get hubby sold on the idea of joining Sam's - no, it wasn't the diapers and food in bulk, it was the beer, lol...) Jay was a bit confused as to why there was an entire other seat next to him in the cart though - he kept waving his arm there all like "uh... guys? What's supposed to go here?" It was pretty funny!

 Game day photos with mommy and daddy! We're misplaced Dallas Cowboys fans, living in Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers territory - I'll root for the Bears so long as they're not playing Dallas or in a playoff race with them, but you'll never see me like the Packers.

He fell asleep for a bit prior to the kick-off, waking up screaming 20 minutes later when daddy started cheering loudly (ie: yelling and screaming) at the TV. We had a mini football party with 6 of hubby's friends coming over to watch the game with us. It was fun times, despite me being the only female, lol...

Eventually Jay sat and played in his walker for a good bit of the game, but we did catch him watching the game and commercials for a little bit =)

Thank God for Sprout!

I am sooooo glad we get the 24hour PBS Kids channel known as Sprout - Jay LOVES it!

I know and have read about some parents who don't let their babies watch any TV, however I need something on in the background for noise as I can't stand silence and we noticed that Jay was sometimes watching the TV when it was on so we figure that if it's going to be on, might as well put something somewhat educational on so if he does watch it maybe he'll absorb some of it and we won't have to worry about it being anything inappropriate.

Anyways, he started watching Sesame Street around 3 months old after he 1st saw Elmo in Barnes and Noble and was instantly drawn to the stuffed animal. He doesn't always watch all of Sesame Street but he does seem to pay attention more when Elmo's on.

I looked up what shows Nick Jr, Disney and Cartoon Network plays and really weren't impressed (there's not really much anymore on those channels for really little kids) and so I opted to let him watch PBS instead - you can't go wrong with Sesame Street and the rest of the shows on there seem to be pretty appropriate too (save for a few shows that seem to appeal to slightly older kids, such as Electric Company, Ruff Ruffman, Wild Kratts, WordGirl etc). WordWorld, while a cute show, is hit and miss with Jay - he'll watch it somedays and other days he just won't have any interest. Same with Super Why, Thomas, Caillou and Dinosaur Train. Sid the Science Kid and Martha Speaks both bore him right now. He does seem to like Clifford (which is usually on while he's drinking his 1st bottle of the day), Barney, Curious George and Arthur (which are usually on when I'm getting ready for work and he's stuck in his Pack n Play).

On the weekends it was a bit tougher though, as Sunday mornings PBS plays the more older kid shows and on Saturdays there just isn't much good on for kids nowadays (which is sad as I remember Saturday morning cartoons being AWESOME in the late 80s and early 90s... now ABC is the only channel with a 2hr block and the Magic School Bus is the only decent show in the line-up!). When Jay stayed with my parents for Thursday through Saturday trip hubby and I took up north for a wedding at the end of June and beginning of July my dad realized Sprout is on the basic digital starter line-up and I've been soooo glad for it!

It's nice to have something little-kid friendly on in the evenings, especially when he's eating his bedtime bottle and it's been great on the weekends too, as they show Sesame Street on there also.

Nina and Star
hosts of The Goodnight Show

The Goodnight Show with Nina and Star starts at 5pm and replays at 8pm and 11pm, so we usually catch the last hour and the first half hour around bedtime. It mixes the Sprout hosts teaching stuff with kids shows and other fun songs - we usually watch The Berenstein Bears, Driver Dan's Storytrain, the Rubba-Dubbers, the Nurdle Gurdle Aquafresh tooth-brushing song, a Jim Henson's Pajanimals song, Chica and the day's host from the morning's Sunny Side Up Show announcing the day's birthdays (he LOVES the Chica chicken puppet and watches her whenever she's on) and the commercials for the afternoon Sharing Show with the Patty the pig puppet (again, Jay LOVES the Patty puppet and watches her too whenever she's on).

Chica with the morning Sunny Side Up Show hosts Danesha, Sean, Kelly and Liz

On the weekends we usually catch the last hour or so of the Sunny Side Up Show with Chica and the 1 of the 4 daily hosts they rotate each week and sometimes Sesame Street at noon. In the afternoon we usually catch a little bit of the Sharing Show - he really likes this show called The Mighty Jungle which has... puppets! I swear, anything with puppets Jay will just sit and watch, lol... Bob the Builder is also on the Sharing Show and he seems to like that one too.

Patty from the Sharing Show and the main characters from The Mighty Jungle

She's ALWAYS crying about
something!!! WHY?!?!

The only show I really CANNOT stand is Angelina Ballerina. Now on Fridays, PBS plays a newer version of the show, but the version we often catch during the Goodnight Show is the older version and oh my gosh... I swear that mouse cries about something in EVERY episode - I have yet to see one where she doesn't cry about something. It gets really old and annoying. Fortunately Jay doesn't seem interested in her. I know a lot of parents complain about Caillou whining a lot, and while I notice he does whine from time to time, it's honestly not every episode like Angelina and her crying.

I also find the DirtGirlWorld show to be slightly creepy too, the way it merges actual people's faces and expressions with animation... soooooo creepy!

These guys creep me out with their big heads and realistic faces & expressions!

I know, I'm a horrible parent for letting my 7 month old watch TV... oh well, it works for us and honestly, while the TV may be on, he's usually playing with us or his toys half the time or eating or falling asleep so it's not like he's sitting glued to the TV like a zombie, it's just background noise and sometimes when something catches his attention (like whenever there's puppets on) he'll stop and watch for a few minutes.

Fun with Our Phones Monday #2

Linking up again this week to show off my photos =)

Yesterday, Jay's 7 month birthday, was a fun day for us. Daddy had a fantasy football draft with some of his co-workers from UPS so it was just me and Little Man for a good bit of the day.

Saturday night our baby monitor stopped working correctly (more on that in a separate post), so I had to go out and get us a new one. We also stopped at PetCo so I could get one of those pet hair glove things as Tiger's been shedding like crazy the last few weeks (this past weekend I think I vacuumed up enough cat fur and dander to make my own cat!). Jay really enjoyed the pet store! There were quite a bit of people walking around with their dogs so he was looking at all of them, he got to see lots of fishies and was really watching the turtles swim! The local humane society had a side room with some kitties for adoption too so we walked by and looked at the kitties in the window and we also saw some small birds too. He LOVED it!

We also stopped at Babies/Toys R Us to get a new baby monitor (which they jacked the price up over night too, as the one we wanted was showing online to be $26.99 Saturday night but when I pulled it up in store it was back up to $44.99... grrrr... yay for coupons though!). We stopped and looked at toys too and Jay saw some Winnie the Pooh figures in a set that he got all excited for. I let him play with the box in the cart and he had fun, but eventually fell asleep... on it! lol... it was pretty funny!

Anyways, onto the pictures!

Jay climbing under the coffee table, trying to get at the books (which are no longer there now because of this, lol...)

Riding like a big boy in the shopping cart at Target

I randomly decided to braid my hair in braided pigtails, lol...

 Playing with his blocks and Baby Einstein's turtle

I spelled his name with the blocks =)

 

He noticed I was taking pictures

 He found one of my braids and decided to be ornery, lol...

Trying out the shopping cart cover at Walmart, blinking due to the flash, lol... not sure why we bought the shopping cart cover - half the time we don't use it, we just wipe down the cart with a wipey real good first... this thing is a bit of a pain to put on, not sure how I'd juggle Jay and putting this thing on a cart by myself.

Hubby came home with some Wonka candy the other day - apparently they're now promoting the Willy Wonka book on their packaging now... kinda funny, but neat at the same time that they're plugging a book on a thing of candy!

Watching Sesame Street while mommy puts his shoes and stuff on

He fell asleep, in the shopping cart at Toys/Babies R Us, gripping onto the Winnie the Pooh figures he wanted, lol... prying the box out of his hands without waking him up to check-out was quite a challenge!

1st Carmel Apple Spice cider from Starbucks of the season! Hubby and I get a few of these every fall. This is the only thing I ever frequent Starbucks for, as the closest thing to coffee I'll drink is McDonald's Iced Mocha Frappes.

 We brought his walker downstairs while we watched our HBO shows tonight so he could move around and play with some toys (like his new Winnie the Pooh ones there). Between True Blood and Entourage we flipped it over to Sprout, which he's watching here.

7 months already!

By the time this is posted, Jay will officially be 7 months old!

Being a cutie with "uncle" Steven

7 months... wow! It's September already... where did summer go?!

Jay's been sitting up, playing with his toys pretty well these days and can stand by himself with minimal spotting. He also LOVES tearing into my (already read) magazines that live under our end tables. It's official - our front room, while I would have liked to have kept it as a nice living room, is actually just a nice family room since we spend a lot of time up here as it's carpeted for Jay to play on and his toys keep finding a way out of his room into here (he has almost no toys to play with in his room as they're all currently residing in the family room, lol...). He was moving along quite well in his walker tonight too, speeding back and forth across the kitchen. He gets mad I won't let him pull over the trash can though (it's got a pop-up lid so it has to stay out).

He LOVES shows with puppets in them too, I've noticed - for some reason they catch his attention and he'll just sit and watch them the whole time they're on the screen.

Crawling under the coffee table

He loves to jump too - lately he's been quite the jumping jack, if you stand him up (and hold onto him) on a flat/hard surface he'll often start jumping like crazy, lol...

He can't completely crawl properly yet, but he does this military-like crawl where he pushes and pulls himself all over the place. This afternoon I left him sitting with his toys in the family room while I went in the kitchen to get his dinner ready. As we're in the separation anxiety phase, he soon realized I left the family room and started crying, so I called to him from the kitchen so he would know I was just around the corner. I went to go get him to put him in his high chair and there he is, doing his form of crawling and halfway between where I left him and the kitchen, like he was coming to see where I went, lol...

Sitting in the shopping cart like a big boy!

He enjoys trying new foods/tastes too - he got some ice cream cake at my birthday and loved that, daddy let him lick a cool ranch Dorito and he liked that, he liked the candy daddy let him lick tonight... we gave him a little bit of plain steamed rice which he seemed curious about. He also eats the Gerber Graduates Puffs in Strawberry Apple for a snack sometimes too (my friend let us try the banana organic ones her little girl eats - he didn't seem to like the banana flavor too much though, despite him eating banana baby food). He loves Apple and Strawberry and Grape tasting things though!

He likes to make some pretty funny noises too - his latest enjoyment is rapidly smacking his lips and the noise that makes, daddy taught him that and he gets such a kick out of other people doing it after he starts doing it, lol...

He also likes "playing" with blocks - ie: you build them up, he knocks them and makes them go "boom!" He's also riding in shopping carts now like a big boy - he LOVES being able to sit and see everything at his eye-level rather than ride in his carrier on top of the cart (which by the way, he's almost too big for his carrier now too - he has less than 5lbs til he's over the weight limit!)

Playing blocks with mommy

He also seems to understand teeth brushing, as we added that to his bedtime routine recently - he knows when I put the toothbrush to his mouth to open up for me =)

And also, I noticed tonight, when his head was back while I was changing him that his top 2 front teeth are in! The right one is all the way through and about halfway fully in while the other you can just see the tip of the whiteness broken through! So 7 months old and 4 teeth already! I knew he was getting a few more in soon, as he was really tired earlier this week and the last day or so he hasn't been finishing his bottles completely either like normal.

A day in our regular routine goes like this:

• Jay wakes up between 930 and 1045am, I change his diaper and bring him over to our bed to snuggle with me for a bit, putting on PBS (Sesame Street is on from 10-11am so he usually watches that while I hold onto him and close my eyes for a bit longer, sometimes he falls back asleep too).
• By 1130 or so he's wide awake and hungry so we get up and I fix him a big bowl of Gerber's Rice Cereal with Apple (2 servings in his bowl) and the remaining amount of formula in his bottle (a full bottle is 8oz of water with 4 scoops of Enfamil Premium Powdered Formula and the cereal is mixed with about 1.5-2oz of that).
• He eats all his cereal and then we sit down on the couch and watch some Clifford the Big Red Dog while he eats his bottle. Sometimes he falls back asleep right after his bottle, other times he'll stay awake, playing with his toys til about 1/130pm before falling asleep for his 1st nap.
• On days I work I'll wake him up about 3/315pm so I can get ready for work and we can leave around 4pm when I drop him off at my mom's.
• He usually takes his afternoon bottle around 4/430pm.
• Usually he takes another nap in the early evening while the rest of the time he plays.
• Between 7 and 8pm he eats dinner - 1 jar of veggies, 1 jar of fruit, and a 6oz bottle.
• After his dinner he plays some more, sometimes he'll take a short nap, hubby and I usually eat around 9pm (hubby goes into his 3rd shift job around 10pm and if we eat too early he gets hungry again shortly after he gets to work - eating at 9 usually holds him over for the night).
• Jay takes his medicine between 9 and 10pm, as I don't like to give it to him too close to meals in case it upsets his stomach. 
• We play for a bit after daddy leaves and then a little before 11pm we start getting him ready for bed - change his diaper, let him pick out his jammies and put them on, turn on his scent melt plug-in and his nightlight, brush his teeth and we sit down and he eats his "bedtime bottle" (8oz) while watching The Goodnight Show on Sprout. If we're lucky he falls asleep before finishing his bottle or right after, otherwise, we try to keep him calmed down, reading to him if need be before putting him down if he's still awake past 1130pm.

Jay welcomed September with a thud

Jay greeted the month of September with a THUD this morning as he fell off our bed and onto the floor =(

Jay playing with his blocks and Baby Einstein's turtle

Poor guy... that's the 3rd time he's gotten hurt this week, as he banged his head on the back of his changing table earlier this week while my mom was changing him (which is the 2nd time now that he's whacked his head while getting changed as he won't lay/sit still...). Then Wednesday night, while we were playing in his room with his blocks he was sitting up but fell over on me, his face smashing into my glasses and giving him a little scratch on the side of his face...

...and then this morning.

Every morning he wakes up between 930-1045am and usually lays in bed with me and we snuggle as he watches Sesame Street and mommy gets a little more shut-eye (he usually lays on my chest with my arms around him or next to me with my arm around him). This morning though, he was laying next to me and got away. I heard a loud thud, opened my eyes and as he started screaming it registered that he was no longer in the bed. I sprang up out of the bed and ran over to the other side and there he was, face down on our laminate floor, crying at the top of his lungs. I quickly picked him up, checking to make sure there wasn't any blood. His teeth were still intact, his nose didn't seem broken, I felt his ribs and they all seemed okay and once he calmed down (he was snuggled up on me bawling for a good minute or 2) I bent his legs, knees, arms, elbows and wrists to make sure they didn't hurt and weren't broken or sprained either.

I also called hubby to see if he thought I should take him to get checked out - just as he said the time Jay whacked his head on the shelf above his changing table, he reminded me that babies fall time to time and that as long as I checked him out and he seemed to be okay then not to worry about it, just keep an eye on him and see if he behaves like his normal self. I called my mom to see if she knew what signs I should keep an eye out for and Googled as well. No vomiting or seizures and I kept him up for a couple hours before letting him take his nap just in case he had a concussion or anything. He was a little clingy the rest of the day but other than that he seemed like his normal self, so that's good!

Fortunately our bed is only like 3 feet high, so it could have been worse. I think he was just more scared than anything as he's never fallen like that before. Well I guess you could say he learned why we don't let him get close to the edge and always pull him back when he crawls/rolls too close to it! Gotta say though, I was pretty scared at the time though and felt sooooo bad for it happening as it could have been prevented.