Act 3; Scene 33: Man We Have to Work Hard for those Little Giggles

Thomas is kind of a serious kid. 

In that he will smile all the time for Mommy, but whenever anyone else enters the room he has to stare them down for about a half hour before a trace of a smile will cross his lips.

And he almost never giggles.

Every once in a while, if you catch him just before nap time and do something really crazy, you can get a few giggles, like this:

Way to go, Daddy.

Act 3; Scene 32: Lovin' the Sweet Potatoes

For the past few weeks we have been braving a new adventure at our house.

Solid foods.

Well, sort of solid. They're more like the "plasma" state you learn about in 5th grade science. Or maybe between "plasma" and liquid.

But nonetheless, it has been an adventure.

So far, Tommy LOVES sweet potatoes, likes avocados, dislikes carrots, and HATES peas. 

He tolerates rice cereal and seems to like oatmeal a bit more than that--but mix these with sweet potatoes and it's a real treat. 

That is the art that I am becoming master of--mixing. He gets a combination of vegetable (ok...mostly sweet potato), cereal, milk, and formula all rolled into one plasma-tastic bowl of mush. That is what you can see him eating in this video:

The only problem with eating is the bouncing, which we sort of captured on video. Getting that spoon into a moving target is tricky! I do wish we would have captured his take on peas. You would have thought we fed him dog poop or something.

Tomorrow we will branch into the world of fruit. I have a feeling he is going to like it.

Happy eating!

Act 3; Scene 31: 1940s Glamour

I already blogged about this...

but some awesome pictures just came in.

Here was my inspiration for my hair and makeup, from my all-time favorite movie:

And our glamour shots, just in from a.com:

Truly, the best part of the party was getting dressed up for it and having our photos taken.

And the cheesecake.

All in all, our appearance was a success. 

What do we get to dress up for next???

Act 3; Scene 30: New Year's Eve

We were so excited to have people over to our new house, even if there are some bare walls and scattered boxes. The McFarlands came over for a New Year's Eve party.

We had dinner:

Played with the baby:

 Toasted our favorite 2012 happenings with sparkling cider and Shirley Temples:

Luke pulling off a "smolder" face...I wonder what his resolutions are?!

The "Shirley Temple"

We also played a few very rousing games of UNO, and finished off the night by playing Apples to Apples until we had gone through all of the red cards. Did you get that? All. Of. The. Red. Cards. That was one heck of an Apples to Apples game, and we were all pretty loopy by the time the New Year came in. 

It was a wonderful holiday, even if we did stay up about 3 1/2 hours later than usual. As a New Year gift, Tommy slept without a peep until about 6:40am. Yes!

The next day I made the best decision of the New Year...turned my cheesecake bites (delicious, but missing something...) into peanut butter cheesecake bites a la whip cream. 

Yup, that was a good decision.

And now on to the new year! How has your year been so far? Doing well with resolutions? (I struggled with my first one this morning, but I think I am back on track now).

Happy resolving!

Act 3; Scene 29: Since the world did not, in fact, end--we get resolutions for a new year

Here we are at the beginning of another new year (even if it is to the Mayan's chagrin).

I love the feeling of a fresh start and a chance to review how we have grown in the past year and set new goals for the coming months. 

As I was reviewing last year's post, I realized that after July 1st happened, any thoughts of my year's goals went out the window and I automated to survival mode. I peered through the fog of the past six months to find if any of my goals had made it through the year. Thankfully some of them were so entrenched that I still managed to do pretty well. I did keep up on the exercising (I'm pretty much addicted to it at this point); I think I ended up making some new and exciting dinners, although making lunch for Robert took a rapid and steep decline; and the survival mode did not help with the less complaining, more gratitude goal.

Squinting through the fog did make me see a few things that I have realized about myself this year:

• I have much less patience and understanding than I thought I had
• I have much more patience and understanding than I thought I had
• Babies missing naps send me into meltdown mode (often moreso than the baby...)
• Lack of sleep produces said meltdown modes 
• I picked the perfect husband for myself (good thing he was willing!)
• I'm really good at baby talking
• I'm a worry wort
• I don't know all of the words to primary songs that I thought I did
• I tend to be scheduled, organized, and orderly, and expect my baby to be the same way
• Motherhood is not an automatic cure-all for selfishness, at least not in my case: I need to make sure Motherhood does not increase it
• I have the most awesome amazing wonderful kind loving family in the world
• I am starting to understand how having a physical body is such a huge challenge

I read through my post about anticipating motherhood and all of the goals and hopes and dreams I had associated with that. I definitely had/have specific ideas about how I want that to be. Now I think I have a different idea of what resolutions can help me in my motherhood experience, and I'm sure every year will shape these ideas and resolutions. Here are my 2013 resolutions:

1. Relax and enjoy my baby

2. Eat more fruits and vegetables every day

3. Find ways to make our home a place we want to come home to--find some way to do this every day

4. Take more time to ponder (will this be a continual resolution?)

Robert and I also discussed our family goal for this year. It is:

Do more family history work.

We had the opportunity of finding one of Robert's ancestors who had not had her temple work done--and we did it. It was amazing. We love all of the information that we have been uncovering about our ancestors, and we know there is so much more to find. Our goal is to make sure our ancestors (all that we can find) have their temple work done, and to discover more of their stories in the process. 

 

I am very excited about this fresh start. I have cleared most of the newborn fog from my vision and am exciting to see how I will be able to see things more clearly. 

And, it just happens to be Tommy's half birthday today--6 months old. 

sitting up!

...and falling down

Happy half birthday to Tommy, and Happy New Year to you!