Beck's 2nd Birthday!

Beck Turns TWO!!!!

He spent the night at Mimi's the night before his birthday so that Momma could make his Mater cupcakes without interruption (good thing too b/c they took FIVE HOURS!) Since Luke was in town, Beck's crib at Mimi's was taken, so we decided to try him in a big boy bed. Daddy laid with him for a bit, but he just tried to wrestle Daddy. So after a while we finally just left him alone. We checked on him about an hour later and he was fast asleep. Mimi said he woke up once at 5:45am, so she checked on him. He was still in his bed, leaned over the side, looking at the ground. She laid down with him and he fell back asleep until about 8am. He got a birthday greeting and a crown when he woke!

He also had his first ever dry nighttime diaper! Hip hip hooray!!

Uncle Joshie and Luke say Happy Birthday Beck!! (Beck has given Josh the name Joshie)

Sis helping Momma make the Mater cupcakes!

Step 1 Bake the 6 large cupcakes and 12 regular, then cut off the tops of 6 regular

Step 2 Ice the cupcakes and sprinkle with crushed cookie (have you tried to ice a cupcake while holding it?! then set it down without tipping it over!?)

Step 3 Ice some more, apply teeth, headlights, eyeballs, and tires (so the tires are what made this a huge ordeal. the recipe called for a specific type of cookie that apparently doesn't exist in Evansville or anymore, I don't know. So I bought a version of that cookie but it wasn't the right size or shape to be a tire. Therefore I had to hand carve all 60 tires with a knife into tires. I now have lots of broken cookie pieces that I use to make my nightly blizzards. Yum!)

The finished product... black eye balls would have made him not look so spooky.

Luigi's Ding Dong Tires

Stoplight Fruit Kabobs

Yes the RED McQueen fruit punch boxes would've matched the decor much better... but did I want 10 kids running around my house with RED fruit punch?? No. So I deviated from the theme just a tad. It works.

Grandma Janet made the lightening cheese for me!

Notice the craftsmanship on those wheeels! Spectacular.

Mimi made the Graham Cracker Stop Lights for me! Delegation...

For the past week if you said anything about his birthday, such as "Beck what do you want for your birthday?" or "Beck who's coming to your party?" His response was "cake!" And he meant it. You see Grandma Janet is the world's best cake maker and she makes us a cake at least twice a month. A few months ago she got the okay from Momma that Beck could eat a few bites of cake when it was served. Well she now serves him an entire piece. And he pretty much devours it and loves it. So when he heard Momma was making him a Mater cake (or 6), that's all he talked about. You can see he's excited about the cake in this pic!

Mason giving Beck a hug! Watch out for the Cake!!!

Mason loved Beck's car!

And Beck loved Mason's car!!

The Hansons brought their four wheeler... it was a big hit for the big kids!!

Their fearless leader ??? I guess this is when Beck was getting a band aid for his bloody knee. I came back to LOTS of random pics like this.

Lukey!

Miah was a big helper pushing Reed around!

Mimi and Pops got Beck a picnic table! We are going to have lots of fun with it this summer!!

I wish I'd taken a better pic of their outfits b/c I made them... I used Cars fabric and Beck's shirt says TWO and Liv's says VROOM with a McQueen cutout, a fabric flower, and ruffles on her butt.

Mater kisses

Mine. All mine.

Sadie and Laine

This is just funny.

Papa Gregor got him a basketball goal! He loves it!

Liv 5 months

Pushing up! She's gonna crawl soon... I can feel it.

She only sucks her right thumb now.

Liv's Baby Dedication

with Max and Jessica

With the Shockleys

I finally got her name on the wall... I made a banner!

at her 4 month check up

Schedule:

wake 7am, eat

nap 9-10:30/11am, eat

eat again 1pm

nap 1:30-4/4:30, eat

eat again 7pm

bed 7:15pm

This is her schedule most days. I try to keep her on a 2 nap a day schedule because it works best with our schedule.

The girl is just happy all the time! Don't get me wrong, when she's tired, she'll let ya know... She LOVES to watch Beck! That gets her so excited and giggly. He is dying for her to be able to play with him. I can't wait! I find myself wishing away her babyhood so that they can play together. Bittersweet. She sits up on her own in a tripod form. She rolls both ways, although back to front is still difficult. She is an excellent sleeper. Naps and nighttime. She rarely falls asleep in her car seat and even rarer in the stroller. It is difficult to keep her awake for 2 hours.

The blowouts have completely stopped (except for the once a month that's normal for all babies), and the spitting up has almost completely stopped. She can wear the same outfit all day now! Blanke suggested raising one end of her crib mattress to help reduce spitting up or drainage with a cold... I tried it and I feel like it's helped.

My biggest struggle is feeding times. Beck does not like it when I'm feeding Liv. He will stand by me and talk, shake her hand, hit her head, pull on her, drive cars on her, kick me, (all in a playful, not mean way) just to get my attention. He's done this since we brought her home. I figured it would have stopped by now. I've tried everything it seems- if I lock him out of the room he beats in the door which distracts Liv which drags out the situation. I've tried reading to him, putting a show on, having Jamie play with him, or giving him something to play with. I'm at a loss.

We're now running into a problem with Liv sleeping. Now that she's older she wiggles more which causes her to roll over. She's a belly sleeper so when she rolls over it wakes her up. So at 3 am I wake up to her starring right at me in the monitor laughing and squealing as she plays with her toes on her back. Then after about 5 minutes she gets tired of that and starts screaming. So far I've always gone in to turn her back over. It doesn't happen every night, just occasionally. She's not that good at going from back to front yet, so I figure I'll keep turning her until she can do it easily on her own. The past 2 nights she's consistently done it at 9:30 and 11:30pm. It always starts with her coughing so much it wakes her up. So I'm thinking it's because she's suck and the pattern will end once she gets better. I hope! Any advice from your experience is welcome!

Beck 22-23 months

The Children's Museum

Thomas Train!!

In the PlayScape Room

The Mr. Potato Head exhibit

The Barbie exhibit

Loading rocks onto the conveyer belt

Driving a front loader!

The water table! Mommy's favorite!

Helping Laine style her mannequin.

Now let's see... how does Gregor run one of these???

Thomas Train!!!

A warm day in January!

Assphault-1, Beck-0

Beck is into climbing on things... he climbed on his trash can to reach the remote on top of the tv. Luckily the tv didn't come down on top of him!!!

We went to Indy for the weekend at the beginning of February to visit our sweet nephew Luke who had cranium surgery at Riley. He is a strong, brave boy!!! And so are his parents! We thank the Lord for bringing them all through that surgery.

While we were there we went to the Children's Museum with Mimi and Laine. Beck had a blast! We cant wait to go back when we have more time!! And take Daddy! Mr. Potato Head was an exhibit this month. He loved it! His favorite room was the Playscape; the room I spent my childhood in, it seems. I have such vivid memories of that room that I feel like we went daily- my mom assures me we didn't. I hope Beck can visit often enough to have the same memories I do.

Liv 4 Months

She started sitting in the Bumbo this month!

Yes. I'm sure many of you see coming what I didn't... I thought "aw, cute. He's pretending to feed her." Then he shoved it down her throat. Not my finest moment.

Giraffe! This is the greatest toy for her age! Thanks Shockleys!!

Tummy time with Queen

Pics of Cassie

We think she looks like Mommy. Notice the double chin, hair line, and eyes :)

Liv's smiley face while laying on the changing table

We sat outside while Beck played on a very warm day in January.

Liv FOUR Months Old

Stats:

Length 25.5 in 90%

Head 41.25 cm 72%

Weight 14lb 2oz 52%

15 weeks

7pm Last Feeding

8pm Dream Feed

6:30-7am Wake/First Feeding

Dream Feed had been at 9:30, then 9 for several weeks. She would stir and cry once or twice between 6-7 am. On the first night I moved the dream feed to 8pm she didnt cry at all in the morning. That was a sign she was ready to start dropping the dream feed.

16 weeks

7pm Last Feeding

Dropped Dream Feed

6:30-7am Wake/First Feeding

The timing worked a couple nights that she was up until her 7pm feeding so I laid her down after that last feeding for the night. She woke at random times throughout the night for a few days after dropping the DF, but she had a cold so I wasn't sure if it was b/c of the stuffy nose. She has a hard time breathing while sucking her thumb with stuffy nose. So I decided to wait out the cold. Sure enough after the worst of the cold was over she stopped waking throughout the night. Beck had a cold at the same time and he was waking throughout the night as well, so that gave me the clue.

17 weeks

I wasn't sure how to adjust her naps since dropping her DF, b/c she naps from 5-7, then takes her last feeding at 7pm. Well I didn't want her sleeping for 2 hours right before I put her down for 12 hours at night. So I've started keeping her up after her late afternoon feeding at 4pm until bedtime at 7pm. This can be difficult b/c it is dinner and clean up and getting ready for bed time for Beck as well. I always make sure after her 1pm feeding that she only stays up for about a half hour, then takes a nap from 1:30-4 or 4:30 so she's good and rested for the 3 hour wake stretch before bed. Not fun to have a cranky baby while you do dinner and night routine by yourself.

We've also found a new routine with Liv that we didn't have in place with Beck. Since Jamie works retail hours, he's home in the mornings until about 9:30am. So he gets Beck up, pottied, dressed, fed, and played with, while I take care of Liv. The trade off is he's not home at night for dinner or bed time. I'm VERY THANKFUL for his help in the morning. I soak it up and try to remind myself of it when I'm worn out around 5pm.

She seems to be wanting to stay awake longer for naps. According to the Baby Wise blog they give signs of readiness for naps. I've been using those to determine when she's ready. They seem common sense, but sometimes just reading something, especially if it comes from others' experience, helps. So I watch for her to be fussy, yawn, get red or watery eyes, then I look at the clock and it always matches her symptoms- it will be about an hour or hour and a half that she's been up. If she's just fussy, I try to move her to another "station" like from bouncy seat to play mat, or back to belly, or play mat to bumbo. If she continues to be fussy in the new station, I know she's ready. Also about an hour into every nap she usually cries or whimpers for usually 5 mins max. I can hear her cry, look at the clock, and it will be at an hour give or take 5 mins, every time. It is her resettling in her sleep- moving into a deeper sleep. Thank you Baby Wise for such great info!!!