Corb 7 months

Well Corb...you are a whopping 7 months old today! We are so excited for your first Christmas!!! Mommy took you to sit on Santa's lap, which you were not a fan of the big jolly guy. Aaron tried to tell you it was all right but you just stuck that little lip out and looked up at me with the most pitiful face with big ole tears streaming down your face. Maybe next year buddy. We don't make a big deal of Santa in our house at all but we were in the mall and your brother asked to see him. Sorry I didn't get your picture with him...it was $15 for a 5x7 and well, frankly, it's not that important to me to pay for a picture of you screaming. Maybe next year...do I keep saying that???

So here is what you are up to Corban:

-You continue to LOVE your daddy. I think you would choose him over mama any day...unless you are hungry of course. I would say he is your favorite person right now...brother comes in right behind him.
- You are eating lots of different foods now and nurse 3-4 times a day. You still don't like carrots. We are slowly depleting our homemade baby food in the freezer....I am hoping you are going to start eating chunkier stuff so I won't have to make more.
-Bedtime is about 7 or 7:30 and you sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours straight. If you wake up between 5 and 6am I nurse you and you go back to sleep til after 7am. I can't tell you how happy this makes your mama...keep it up buddy!
-Naps are getting much longer in length. You will take a nap about 9 or 9:30 and sleep 1-2 hours. Then you will go back to sleep about 1 or 2 and sleep until around 3:30 or 4pm. I am also really liking this schedule. You sleep with your nuzzy and don't take a pacifier or suck your thumb. You love your nuzzy though. I try to only let you have it when it's time to sleep.
-You are starting to wave at people. You also this think is really funny and are usually smiling or laughing when you wave. I guess you like the attention.
-At home you 'talk' like crazy and are full of personality. When we go out, most of the time you just stare a hole through people. Interesting.
-You can sit up by yourself. I still put a pillow or something soft behind you because you still fall over some...and your brother thinks it's funny to 'help' you fall over.
-You are reaching and grabbing at everything and can pick things up and put them in your mouth pretty well. Yogurt melts and puffs are some of your favorite snacks.
-You love to jump in your johnny jump up and are starting to really like sitting on the floor surrounded by a million toys. I dump your toy box over and you will spend a long time reaching in the box and pull out toys.
- You have a tooth. Bottom front. It came in this past weekend. It looks like the one next too it will be in quickly too.
-You will pretty much let anyone hold you.
-I love your smile. Those dimples are adorable and when you stick your tongue out I just melt.

We love you sweet boy. We are so blessed by watching your new stages of life. You seem to discover something new every day and we find ourselves giggling quite frequently watching you do it. Next week is Christmas..we can't wait to wake up Christmas morning to 2 sweet boys and spend time together.

PJ's, Pancakes, and Pillow fights!

This morning we spent the morning at the Abrahams house. We went in our PJ's (which Aaron was more than pumped about), ate pancakes, drank coffee (grown ups only), made a xmas craft, watched The Grinch and The Polar Express, and played pillow fight (Aaron's favorite part he said). It was a blast. Aaron talked about how much fun he had the whole way home.

Thanksgiving 2012

Yay for firsts! This year is Corban's first Thanksgiving and my first time to host Thanksgiving at my house. I have been so excited for this day to come. I had the whole day planned out. We have always gone to Melber for Thanksgiving (well, all Holidays). We missed being with the Adams side of the family, but were excited to do something a little different. I was happy for a chance to feel like a real grown up. Let me tell you, I had my eyes opened to how much my mom and mother-in-law do to get things ready for holiday festivities like this one. Not only did I clean for 2 or 3 days straight in preparation, but the cost to feed a bunch of people for multiple days was much more than expected. It was SO worth all the time and money spent though. I can honestly say I appreciate those who do it every year (and sometimes more often than that). Next year I believe I will probably go back to not being a grown up:) Aaron and I even did a craft for each family as a gift for Thanksgiving. He loved it of course because it involved paint and construction paper...his FAVORITE past time. Mom, Dad and Raich got here Wednesday night late and Matt and Lori (and family) got here this morning. I started out making homemade cinnamon rolls this morning. They were a huge hit. I think it will be an annual tradition, but I am changing the icing part...not as good as I would have liked. Still yummy enough to have several cinnamon rolls for myself though. Lunch was really small. Followed by dinner at 5pm. We ate on my China (first time EVER), watched a movie together, loved on each others babies, took a walk, and cooked, cooked, cooked. Here is what we made:
Turkey
Ham
Green Beans (from Mama's garden)
Corn
Sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
gravy
Chicken and Dressing
Cranberry sauce
Rolls
Pecan Pie
Cherry Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Peanut Butter Pie

It was super scrupmtious and we have enough leftovers to feed us for about a week I think:) My house is a disaster but I wouldn't get up to clean it for the world right now. Love sitting in my living room being with my family. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! No shopping for this girl tomorrow....I'm staying in and playing with my kids.

Sweet 6 month old boy!

Happy 6 months Corban! What if our sweet boy was half way to a year???? Well, he is. I think I have decided that 6 months is one of my favorite ages. He is fattening up and showing his little personality and I LOVE it:) Here is what the Corb is up to...

-I love how easy going you are. I have said this before and you are continuing to be an easy baby. You seem to love being around people and go places. This is a good thing because we seem to always be on the go. You are also happy to just play by yourself most of the time. As long as you don't need food, sleep, or a new diaper, you love to play in your bouncy horse/seat, or spinner toy thingy.
-You continue to love, love, love your daddy. If you hear his voice you immediately look around until you find him. He gets the biggest smiles and laughs from you. Aaron is a close second as your favorite person. I hope you both continue to love each other this much. He is so sweet to just let you grab and pull on him all the time.
-You roll over all the time and are working on sitting up by yourself. You still fall over quite a bit, but just this week I have noticed a significant improvement in your balance.
-You have officially entered the dreaded 'screaming' phase of life. Mark and I are not a fan of this phase. And it's even worse because Aaron is picking it up again because of your new phase and that is NOT ok. Explaining that you can do it but Aaron can't because he doesn't understand is not flying well.
-You have tried several different foods. Oatmeal is still your favorite. Daddy calls you a great white shark when he feeds you at night...you dive for it. If you don't get it fast enough you reach your hand out and shove the spoon in your mouth yourself. Can you say impatient?

You have also tried green beans, pears, bananas, carrots, and sweet potatoes. So far you don't really like the carrots. Pears and bananas seem to be a favorite. You are chunking up too!!!
-You nurse 4 times a day on a regular schedule and I feed you one other food either at lunch or dinnertime when we eat as a family.
-Sleeping is a source of frustration right now. I have been holding out for you to just start sleeping through the night by yourself. It hasn't worked. In fact, it's getting much worse. You slept better at 10 weeks than you are now...little stinker. You are 6 months old now and I know you aren't that hungry in the night but just need help going back to sleep. So last night was night #1 to crack down on getting you to sleep through the night. It was tough and your daddy was sweet to help out. We made it, but you were up most of the night whining and crying off and on until about 4:30am and then went to sleep until 7am. It's hard for me to let you cry, especially when you are so persistent. But I know it's necessary and will be beneficial in the long run.
-Naps are much better. The 45min naps are slowly getting longer and I am SO excited about this. You take about an hour nap at 9am and then another nap after lunch and usually a 3rd nap about 5pm. I don't require a strict schedule to stick to, but I do like to have one...so this mama is much happier and I think you are too:)
-You have the sweetest smile EVER! Those dimples just kill me.
-You love your nuzzy. Everytime I go check on you when you are down for a nap I find the nuzzy completely covering your face. I pull it down and you put it right back up there. I am no surprised at this because you loved your face covered to sleep from the time you were born. It's worrisome for a mama, but I know you can pull it off. Someday I will get a picture for your baby book.
-You have started to reach for us when we put our hands out to hold you:)
-You are in 6 month clothes now. I think you are cutest in your jammies:)

I am so excited for your first holiday season. This mama loves the holidays. This year I am even more excited because I am hosting Thanksgiving at our house for the first time ever. We will miss having our annual Thanksgiving in Melber with Mark's family for sure. But I am excited for the opportunity to host my family.

Corban it's hard to believe you have been apart of our family for only 6 months, and we can't imagine our family without you. Our new normal is perfect. You have added joy beyond measure and we love you.

A short visit

Bala and O'Pa came to visit this weekend. Aaron was beyond excited. He carved another pumpkin with RaRa, played the IPAD and a million other games with O'Pa, made Goop with Bala, sat around a fire outside, and just plain had fun. Corb showed everyone how awesome he was at rolling over and eating bananas! Mark and I even got to take a short ride together:) They didn't get to stay long, but we sure did enjoy the time together. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving with Matt and Lori will be here (and Esssie too!).

"A great big 'ole Cow-a-pitt-er"

Yup. Aaron and I had fun building different shapes and animals with blocks this afternoon. The Cow-a-pitt-er as Aaron called it, was my favorite.

Aaron goes to the Dentist

Today Aaron had his teeth cleaned for the first time. He asked the Hygienist about 1500 questions as she showed him all her instruments and explained to him what she was going to do. He did great and was sure to explain the entire experience to Mark when he got home from work this evening.

Camping trip

We got back today from a camping trip with a bunch of friends. Greg and Megan are here on furlough and so we got together some friends from church and spent the weekend at Rock Island State Park. It was a beautiful place to camp and we had the perfect spots for the kids to play without just constant supervision. Aaron brought his bike and rocket ship. Other kids brought toys too, and they loved playing 'in the woods,'so there was plenty of things to do. We went on a short hike by a beautiful waterfall, talked until late in the night in front of the campfire, went fishing, and just had fun hanging out. It was a great weekend, and ended in an uplifting worship time together. The weather was pretty great. Sunny and slightly cool during the day, which is PERFECT campfire weather. Nights were not as perfect because it was a little too cold for me. We brought LOTS of blankets. We even brought a heater just in case and I am so glad we did because it came in handy last night. It was Corban's first camping trip (Aaron's too unless you count the practice night he did with Mark and the trail ride). Both boys did great. This family is camping again for sure. Mark and I shared our site with Greg and Meg which was great. We have missed hanging out with them. I loved watching our kids play together. This is really the first time they have gotten to do that because the last furlough Aaron was pretty little. We definitely had a lot of laughs over the little conversations we heard from them over the past two days. Hopefully we can make this an annual event:) Here are some pictures. Hopefully I will get more from others who were there and can post more.

Things I want to remember from Aaron's first camping trip.
1. After we got camp set up and dinner going Aaron started asking (and kept asking) when we were going camping. Apparently he thought 'going camping' meant getting in the tent and going to sleep.
2. He called Greg "Grag."
3. When we asked what his favorite part of the camping trip was he said 'riding in the back of the truck to go fishing.'
4.It was really cold both nights we were there. Mark and I woke up in the night and turned the lantern on to make sure Aaron's wasn't too cold. We found him completely out of all of his covers. We asked him if he was cold and he said, 'no dad. can you turn the light out?' That child is some kind of serious hot natured.

Horse lovers

Tonite we spent some time outside. The weather was wonderful so while Mark worked with Pepper (a horse), Aaron, Corban, and I decided to play. I looked up at one point and Aaron was inside the fence 'playing' with Bingo (his horse). Bingo didn't even seem annoyed that Aaron was following him around. So I decided to snap a few pictures and happen to get an adorable shot of Aaron and Bingo. I love how Aaron is really starting to love horses. He asks to ride all the time and is even starting to ask Mark how to guide them when he is riding. Here are a few pictures.

Corban 5 monhs

Well the little man is 5 months old. Hard to believe. This past month has been a whirlwind of a month. So many new things for you. Here is what you are up to...

- You are basically an easy baby. I have said this from the beginning and you are staying true to it. You love to be held (especially to fall asleep) but will play on the floor just fine as long as you aren't hungry or sleepy. You don't really care who is holding you and are content to just be carted around everywhere.
-I noticed over the past month that you were watching us eat very intensely. You actually started reaching for my food. So I decided to start some rice cereal. You LOVED it at the time and ate all that I had made for you, BUT that night you slept awful and it seemed like your stomach was bothering you. I waited a few nights and tried oatmeal instead. That was much better on you and it seems to be your favorite time of the night. You get really excited and scream and shake your whole body while I am making it for you. Today we started pears and you love those too. I am starting to be convinced that food is going to be easy for you. You still nurse 4 times a day.
-You are starting to get more of a sleep schedule now. Bed at 7pm. Wake up once in the night and about 7am to start the day. Then 1st nap between 9 and 10am, then again about noon or 1pm and then another nap around 4ish. Some days are completely messed up but I am excited to see some promise of a more scheduled life.
-You LOVE your daddy. He can get you to 'talk' and giggle like no one else.
-You are a pretty big flirt. You will stare someone down until they look at you and give you attention. You raise and lower your eye brows and smile really big when you finally do get someone's attention.
-Nicknames are: "Corby worbs", "Corb", "Corby-worby,woo."
-Unfortunately you have decided that bottles are NOT for you and refuse to take one. I have tried all different kinds and had high hopes....not it's just not going to happen. I have taken an leave of absence from work. The plan it to return in January when you are more capable of making it without someone having to bring you to the hospital to eat.
-You have found your hands and love to chew on your fingers. You have also found your thumb. Mostly you just chew on it, but the other day you fell asleep with it in your mouth. We'll see if you are going to be a 'thumb sucker' or not.
-Aunt Lori brought your horsey jumper back for you to use. You are still a little small but still seem to enjoy it for a little while at times.
-The biggest change right now is how much more aware of your brother you are. You notice when he comes in the room and are always laughing or talking to him when you see him. I am loving this because he will keep you distracted if I can't get to you right away.
-You spend a lot of time in your bumbo. You love watching what it happening all around you and it is a great place for you to do that and it works out well for me to not have to carry you all the time.
-Your favorite toy is still your soft cow that jingles when you shake it and is soft so you can chew on it...which you do.
-You have rolled over one time. You are not a fan of tummy time...the screaming starts after about 5 minutes. Aaron has helped keep you entertained so sometimes you last a little longer.
-You are sticking your tongue out a lot right now. It gets me every time. Too cute!
-You are going to be a cow for Halloween, thanks to Gigi who was proactive in getting you a costume. You're pretty adorable, and chunky, if I do say so myself.

Corban, you are such a joy to have in our house. We love hearing your happy screeches and sweet voice giggling at your big brother. Keep growing sweet boy:)

Saturday Fun!

We FINALLY had a weekend where we stayed at home. It's been a long time and will be a while again before it happens again, so we made the best of it. I cleaned out closets and put summer clothes up, Mark played 'animals' with Aaron, watched football and messed with horses, and Corban just watched all of us in between naps. Oh yea, and we took a short walk. Both boys have colds so we didn't want to go for a long time. Here are some pictures.

Farm Day

The longer Aaron attends Stepping Stones Preschool, the more I like it. The teachers/staff there are really good with the kids and seem to genuinely love each child. I don't see too much micromanaging or too little control either. From what I have seen each child is loved for who they are and are encouraged to express themselves freely. Last Thursday I went to Farm Day with Aaron's school. It was great and Aaron really enjoyed it and acted like he had never seen anything like it...even though he has been around all 'farm' stuff his whole life. He acted like he had never been around hay, tractors, horses, and everything else we saw...minus the chickens which he did without his mama. Aaron's confidence level has really increased since school started. I am so excited about this and hope it continues. Parent teacher conferences were last week too and I am glad to report that Aaron is super smart and doing great at school. Ms. Laura said she is going to start challenging him more after fall break with higher level work. She said he is the 'singer' of the class....surprise!(He told us last Sunday he wants to be a song leader when he grows up.) He loves to go to bible class and jump in the bouncy. He plays well with others and listens very well to instruction. Mark and I were so proud to hear how well he is doing. Enjoy the farm pictures:)

Jumping from hay bale to hay bale

ahhh...chickens! He wasn't scared at all.

Aaron's class (minus Sophie who wasn't feeling the picture taking situation)

Hay rides are fun! Poor Corban was kinda smothered, but he enjoyed it...promise.

Aaron loves Luke Wilson (he calls him Luke Wilson...not just Luke)

Sweet boy. He kept saying he 'caught' a pumpkin

Something new

For the past week or so I have been noticing that Corban has been watching us eat. And when I say 'watches' I mean SERIOUSLY watches in deep concentration. He has even grabbed at what I was eating once. So I decided to go ahead and try some rice cereal tonite. With Aaron, I didn't try cereal until he was 5 months, and he didn't take it well so I almost didn't even try with Corb. I'm glad I did because he is a totally different story. It's like this child knew what I was doing. He took the first bite like he had done it a million times. When I would take a break he would squeal at me until I gave him more. So I would say it was a very successful experience for the little guy. Maybe he will sleep through the night...maybe. Either way I think we'll try it again tomorrow night.


Pre rice cereal

Post Rice Cereal

He doesn't look too messy...but I did wipe some before I remembered to take the 'post' picture. Cute little chunky monkey:)

Corban 4 months

Today Corb is 4 months. Yay for 4 months:) I LOVE this age. I am really enjoying watching you start exploring your environment.


-You are grabbing at everything. Your favorite toy is your cow that crackles and rattles when you grab it or chew on it.
-You are pretty good at sitting in your bumbo now and prefer it over your play mat.
-Your daddy an get you to laugh like no one else...I love you watch you light up when he talks to you. You are also starting to do this more and more with Aaron.
-Sleep is still about the same as last month. Actually sleeping at night is slightly worse. You aren't sleeping as soundly...I think I'm gonna have to start being a little pushy with sleep soon. Naps are better, you aren't crying as much to go to sleep but still sleeping just an hour each time. I keep waiting for you to sleep longer...and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. No real schedule yet:(
-You definitely recognize your mama. The past few weeks I have seen a preference for me. You are a pretty big flirt with other people though. The way you wrinkle your nose, and those eyes just melt people the second you start 'talking.'
-We had a little bit of the 'problem' lately with you taking a bottle. You took one pretty well, but seemed to be getting worse and worse over the past few weeks. Then this past week you decided you were no longer going to take a bottle. It was on a day where Ms. Corynn was watching you and mama was at work. Being the good friend Ms. Corynn is, she brought you to the hospital to nurse and then Daddy had to bring you back when he picked you up to nurse again...STINKER! I have since tried a new kind of bottle and you took it...for now.
-I decided also to take a leave of absence from work for a few months until you get older. Mama was getting pretty stressed out with things and decided it was best.
-You nurse every 4 hours for the most part. Your schedule is usually 7 or 8am, then sometime around lunch, 3 or 4pm, and then bedtime. We haven't started any solids yet, but that is coming soon:) We go to the doctor this month so I don't have a weight yet...but daddy says you weigh a 'ton.' You are getting pretty chunky:)
-You are in size 3-6 month clothes.
-You are very good baby in general. You are very adaptable and just kind of 'go with the flow.' I love this, since I seem to be more 'on the go' with you than I was with your brother.

I have told your daddy how much fun you are right now and I know it just keeps getting better from here. We are looking forward to your first camping trip and Halloween next month. We love you little man!