8 Months!

Jay is 8 months today.

Wow!

I literally *just* got used to telling people he was 7 months when they asked and now... 8 months!

Time is just flying it seems!

"Look at me, in my big boy car seat!"

We put him in his big boy car seat yesterday! We haven't been using the carrier much lately anyway, aside from carrying him to and from the car, so hubby decided we should just use the regular car seat now instead. Seems to be a smooth transition so far!

Jay's learned how to pull himself up this month and as long as there's an object near by that's solid enough, he'll pull himself up to his knees and then his feet to stand.

We think he's going to skip the "official" crawling, as he seems quite content with military crawling and boy does he go! He's gotten quite fast this last month!

He also took a few steps last weekend while holding onto things. I was laying on the couch, daddy was laying on the floor with him when he crawled over to the edge of the couch by me and pulled himself up to his feet. Holding onto my hand and using daddy's legs like a railing, he took a few steps from the couch to the coffee table! We were so excited for him!

We're also counting his 1st official word as "hi", as he said it to both of us several times the other night! We've heard him say a few words here and there, but he never really repeated them like he did the other night when we tried to get him to say them again.

He has 5 teeth now, with a 6th one on the verge of breaking through at anytime now and he's been chewing his snacks and other little pieces of food we give him to try, so he seems to be getting the hang of chewing!

We have to watch him like a hawk when he's eating his bottle, as he likes to sneak it out of his mouth and squeeze the nipple to make the milk spray all over the place (and his reaction to it hitting him in the face every time is quite hilarious!).

He currently still eats 1/2 a cup of rice cereal with apple with 1/2 cup of formula plus the remainder of the 8oz bottle used to mix the cereal for breakfast. For lunch he eats a 2.5oz jar of chicken and apple puree with 4-6oz of formula. Dinner is a 3.5oz jar of veggie and meat puree (either vegetable beef or sweet potatoes and turkey) with a 3.5oz jar of fruit plus 4-6oz of formula. And before bed he gets a bottle where he drinks anywhere from 4-8oz depending on his appetite. He's turning into quite the little eater!

He's still sleeping well - most night falling asleep between 11-1130pm and sleeping til 930-11am, depending how tired he is. He also takes an early afternoon nap (usually by 1pm he's asleep again) for 30-60minutes on average and then a late afternoon nap (usually sometime after 5pm) for nearly an hour on average.

We went last week to get some fabric so my mom can start working on his 1st Halloween costume (not telling what it is yet, but it is Star Wars themed!)

Fun with Our Phones Monday #6

 

A bit late, but it's still Monday!

He's currently crazy about the show Super Why and I have NO IDEA why as it's a show that teaches words and spelling and yeah... goes over his head, but this past week he seems to LOVE it as he'll sit for the whole 20-25 minutes and watch it! Here he is, leaning over my lap and watching Super Why, lol...

Playing around in his walker in the basement as we watched the Cowboys Monday Night Football game against division rivals the Redskins (we won, woot!)

He didn't take much a late afternoon nap (he currently takes an early afternoon nap and a late afternoon nap) so he was completely passed out for the night by 930 - he doesn't usually fall asleep for the night until 11/1130.

A bit of red eye - doh! I took him to play at Sapora again last week. He was still pretty glued to me, but enjoyed playing on the net and with the noodles again like he did last week.

That darn cat, lol... Tiger decided to make a house for herself using Jay's toy bin in the family room, lol...

We went to Red Robin the other night and had some pretty fail service and interactions with the waitstaff. But anyway, I took a few cute pics of hubby and Jay together. People on Facebook say they look a lot alike in this one!

Jay LOVES his Gerber Graduate Puffies (strawberry apple blend).

That's one way to watch TV!

He's been pulling himself up A LOT lately. I put him down in his crib to go to sleep and in 2 seconds flat he was up on his feet, holding onto the side. I called hubby in, we took a few pics and then promptly lowered the mattress. Again. (We just lowered it maybe a month or so ago!).

Shutterfly's Custom Photobooks Review

A few months ago I got a coupon in my email from Shutterfly, offering me a free 8x8, hardcover 20 page custom photo book where all I had pay was the $8.95 shipping. Given that normally these cost at least $19.99, I didn't want to pass the opportunity up, but I wasn't really sure what kind of photo book to make as I regularly fill photo albums with 4x6 photos.

A friend on Facebook was talking about how she was doing a 1st year book for her son, as she felt she slacked on putting together his baby book. In the comments, a friend of hers mentioned how she knew someone that put together a family photo book for their children so the babies could flip through it and identify all the relatives they see regularly!

What a great idea!

Jay's got quite a big extended family, as hubby has 5 siblings so a family photo boo would be a great way for him to get used to recognizing faces of family members and remembering who's who!

So I spent an evening after Jay went to bed and put one together for him.

There's pages of just me and hubby, labeled mommy and daddy, then ones of us with Jay. There's a spread of our kitty Tiger, another of my parents, hubby's parents, my sister, my aunt, uncle and cousin Jay sees occasionally, one of his aunt, uncle and 2 cousins, hubby's sister, and one of Jay's other 3 uncles.

He loves looking at pictures, so this has been pretty neat, however I have to be careful showing it to him since it's not a board book and I don't want him tearing up the pages, lol...

It's actually pretty neat and I'm glad I didn't let the coupon go to waste! Shutterfly runs specials and promotions quite often too, so you'll most likely never pay full price if you want to make one of your own (which I definitely recommend!).

"G" (a Sesame Street parody of Glee)!

The 42nd season of Sesame Street premiered this Tuesday, and Jay LOVES Sesame Street (and pretty much any show with puppets) and especially Elmo and Grover.

During Thursday's episode they did a Glee parody - called "G" with the focus on the letter G and words that start with G - and since I'm on a Glee kick since watching this week's episode (OMG! I can't wait to see what happens next - who gets what part in the musical and how Quinn thinks she'll get full custody of Beth despite being a trainwreck now...) I thought it was pretty amusing! Sad that Tina, Puck and Santana aren't in it though, but it's still pretty funny!

Product Review: Baby Monitors

I mentioned a few weeks ago that our baby monitor was starting to crap out on us.

We registered for The First Years 49MHz Baby Monitor with 2 Receivers at Target as it seemed to be the best value - we don't need a video monitor or anything fancy, just something simple and basic that serves its purpose.

The monitor worked pretty well for a while, the battery operation that makes it wireless worked just fine and the sound, while a little bit of static from time to time and occasionally we would hear a nearby baby coming over the frequency, it was tolerable.

Right around when Jay turned 7 months is when it started crapping out.

We turned it on one night and the static was pretty bad not to mention the monitor kept cutting in and out. It was very annoying! Just to make sure it wasn't the receiver in the bedroom going bad, we switched it out with the one we use on batteries and it was doing the same thing - horrible static and the constant cutting in and out. We checked the child unit and did everything we could think to try to correct the problem but with no such luck. Nothing had changed from how we had previously been using it.

We pitched it in the trash and the next day I went out and bought us the Sony 900MHZ BabyCall Nursery Monitor.

It has multiple channels to use (the First Years one only had 2), and the receiver charges when it's plugged in so you can use it wirelessly for a bit (no batteries, woot!). A lot of the reviews said it had no static, which I guess is true if you don't use a sound machine or humidifier in your child's room, but we do so it does pick up a lot of extra noise, but it does amplify Jay's cries and movements so we hear them over the background noise in his room.

Granted, this one only has 1 receiver, but honestly, the only time we use the baby monitor is when I'm either asleep at night in our room or if Jay's in bed and we're downstairs for an extended period of time. The rest of the time, if I'm in the family room or kitchen I can hear him just fine. The charging feature is really nice though  - I really like that!

I am liking it so far, but we'll see how long this monitor lasts - hopefully longer than 7 months! I did purchase the extended warranty on it too for an additional $5. I forget how long it covers it additionally, but if it stops working properly within the extended time frame, Babies/Toys R Us will replace it for us.

Fun with Our Phones Monday #5

 

It's Monday! Which means it's time for Fun with Our Phones Monday!!! I have quite a few to share this week too!

Being a silly boy on the couch

That's Tiger, laying in her usual spot on the loveseat in front of the window, only she's completely stretched out over the pillow there, her feet hanging out over, lol...

Maybe a little hard to see, but the license plate says Ryne S and it's a Chicago Cubs license plate. This was here in Rockford... I thought it was a bit odd and was curious if maybe it was THE Ryne Sandberg, who was my favorite Chicago Cub while growing up. I didn't get to see the driver unfortunately =(

I busted out my Apple Strudel candle we got from the Apple Orchard last year - it's officially fall, so I figured why not? I LOVE this candle, it's PERFECT for fall!

He decided to just climb over his activity table to play with the toys on the opposite side there, lol...

Caught him trying to break into the kitchen cabinet, lol...

My sis took this one - too funny though!

I ALWAYS put his hat on straight but within seconds (it seems) he has it flipped over to the side like this, lol...

We went shopping at Kohl's and I bought him a Clifford stuffed animal (it was $5 with proceeds going to charity). He loves it and fell asleep with it in the car.

A friend posted on Facebook photos of all the dead fur and junk this product called the Furminator brushed off her cat. Tired of Tiger's shedding all over the place, I checked into it and found a great deal on it on Amazon. This is just the 1st 2 sittings I've done grooming her (she doesn't like to sit still) and it definitely got A LOT! I soooo recommend this product!

 Hubby got off work early on Thursday and we met him for a late lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. They gave Jay a kid's menu, which he had fun destroying, lol...

 I took Jay to the big indoor playworld again this week and he decided to play a bit this week (last week he just sat and watched the other kids, staying glued to me with a death grip!). Hubby came with, so I think that helped!

We went to our favorite sushi restaurant and let Jay play with a pair of chopsticks

 He had THE MOST fun with these little plastic cups you put soy and other sauces in - he even took it home with us and has been playing with it around the house, lol... it's just his size!

We stocked up on stuff at Sam's Club, including paper towels! This beast of 15 rolls took me a bit to figure out where to store them all!

Our 1st visit to the Edward's Apple Orchard in Poplar Grove this year!

We let Jay try an apple cider donut - he LOVED it and at probably 1/4th of hubby's donut! We also let him sip some cooled hot apple cider too, which he also loved and started smacking the cup for more, lol...

They have a mini-petting zoo, which we let Jay check out the animals

And there's this growth sunflower you can check your height at - hopefully we remember to do this every year!

He was FASCINATED by the huge fans inside the store.

Watching his Grandpap's team (the Steelers, as my parents are both from the Pittsburgh area) lose on Sunday Night Football while he plays with his daddy's hair, lol...

My Challenge for October

September is almost over and October is just around the corner.

One of the things I would really like for our house is a fireplace since it doesn't have one. I learned awhile back about electric fireplaces and have had my eye on a few, price comparing.

My goal is to get one for us by Thanksgiving, so I can decorate it for Christmas and hang our stockings from it.

Once we have the fireplace we can mount our smaller flat-screen TV above it, get a small DVD player and our family room will be done enough for us (the only other "big" piece of furniture we need for the house is a futon for the office downstairs, but we don't really need that right away).

With the hours I've been working, I could easily get the one at Lowe's we like in about 2 paychecks if I really saved. But that's the problem - me saving!

Aside from getting Jay snow boots, dress shoes, the shirt for Thanksgiving I'm waiting to go on sale at work, and snowpants, he's pretty much set for winter (assuming my mom decides to get him a pair of bib overalls and the fleece sleeper 3pk at Target), so I don't need to spend too much more on him. And after my shopping spree this afternoon, I'm pretty much set for winter too, save for maybe a pair of shoes like I mentioned previously.

So the only things I really need to spend my own money on these next few paychecks are gas for my car and food when I'm at work.

I think it's doable!

Here's to trying - let's see if I have that fireplace before Thanksgiving!