Labor Day 2016

I love looking through all my friends feeds and all the blogs I follow and see the little kiddos just smiling and cooperating for the cameras.  It completely makes me believe that they are chill little kids that listen to their parents when told to do something without pitching a fit or running away.  But I'm a parent, and I know better. I know that behind the scenes, those kids are just as crazy as mine.. or at least I hope they are.

 

Conner pushes the energy to the next ten levels beyond how I see most kids interact.  And Linden tries to follow suit.  I also have a 9 month old that was finally sleep trained but doesn't do well outside of his regimented night routine. 

 

You may be wondering why I'm even talking about this. It because despite how these boys are, we decided to go tent camping for Labor Day weekend.  Take a moment.  Soak that in. 2 year old + 9 month + tent camping. yeah, that happened.

 

First off, I have to fully admit, it was fun! We had a blast hanging out with Joe's family. Conner even did great without a much needed nap.  A huge part of camping with Conner being a success was because he had his cousins there to play and wrestle and a lake for him to swim all day in.

 

See Exhibit A:

 

Most of the day was spent doing just that. Swimming. Walks. Eating! Watching the boys wrestle.  It was so much fun!!

 

 

 

Nighttime... not fun. After trying for two hours to get Linden to fall asleep, he finally caved and drifted off.  That lasted a whopping 2 hours and then he was back to crying until I gave in and laid down with him for the night.  Moments where you have time to talk with other adults sans kiddos is rare, so I was a little bummed that I had to throw in the towel early instead of chatting around a campfire.  Then 3am rolled around, and we were back to crying. I gave it 2 hours and finally called it quits, so me and Linden headed home at 5am for a morning nap.

 

Best hour of sleep ever!

 

We rejoined the group the next day for more swimming, walks, food, fishing and missed naps.  I left to pick up lunch, and while I was gone I receive this picture:

 

 

Conner caught his first fish!!

 

All in all, it was such an awesome weekend with family and our first camping experience as a family of four.  It was definitely an adventure.  And of course we rounded out our last summer weekend with a trip to the beach!

 



life lately | a look at august

I totally realize that I missed a lot of my updates last month. It's just that.. where did the month even go??? August always end up being our busiest month of the summer which inevitably catapults us so fast into Fall faster each year. And I know I'm not preachin' to the choir when I say that this summer went waaay too fast.

 

So in a brief overview, here's our life lately:

 

Nana and Papa came up for a weekend and we hit up the splash pad, playground, fair, and beach.

 

We celebrated one of our favorite little girl's second birthday.

 

Forget what Pinterest tells you, this sums up how toddlers really react to birthdays

 

We swam, ate and played the day away at the company picnic.

 

 

We celebrated Joe's birthday with family and a Moomer's ice cream cake!! And a trip to the coolest indoor bounce house ever and bummed around another beautiful northern MI town, Petoskey.



 

 

 

Summer, you were so good to us!

 

linden | nine months

Life is a blast with this little guy! Forget the days of catching a short break because these days are non-stop chasing after this busy boy. Also, look at this little chunk from last month!!

 

LAST MONTH: 

 

THIS MONTH:

EAT

Every time we sit down for supper, I am amazed at how well he eats.  I've noticed that we are no longer in that timeframe where he will eat anything you put on his tray though.  the 7-8 month stretch is when he had the most accepting palate.  He's a little pickier now and definitely prefers fruits over veggies.  Totally anticipated that, so we just keep offering veggies in the meantime.

 







 

SLEEP

Sleep has been the biggest struggle with this little boy, but we have finally found our groove and a bedtime routine that will get Linden to sleep through the night.  High fives all around!!  It was the smallest change to his bedtime routine but it worked like magic. His old routine went something like this: 7pm - change diaper, get into pajamas, nurse, bed, cry, cry, cry, sleep, cry, cry, cry.  The new routine is: 6:30pm - nurse, change diaper, get into pajamas, read a book, hold him while he buries his head in my neck for 30 seconds, put into crib and turn fan on.  The first few nights he cried for maybe 10 minutes, but the bigger celebration is that he put himself back to bed when he would wake up at 1:30am. Again, high fives all around!! It only took nine months, but we're doing so good now! 

 





PLAY

Linden boy will play with everything and anything which is now a problem in Conner's world.  And Linden hates sharing just as much as Conner, so there's that.  The only good thing is that when Conner takes a toy away, Linden will yell at him for a minute and totally move on to the next toy. 

 





 

Baby Misc:

Linden LOVES crawling up stairs all by himself.  He will get mad if you carry him up the stairs.

He figured out how to open cabinets and drawers but is sparing us from pulling everything out at this time.

He still only has his two bottom teeth, but he has been working on the top ones for for-e-ver.

We went through our first nursing strikes.  Totally unexpected on my part, but we got through them.

   

 PHOTO DUMP: