six months old

i know. i can't believe it either. sweet sawyer, you're already half a year old. even though we've begged for time to slow down, it hasn't listened and keeps flying by. but that's ok. seeing you grow and watching you learn is well worth it.

you celebrated your first christmas this month. and while you didn't really understand what was going on, you most definitely got a kick out of watching big brother play with all the new toys – both his and yours! you also experienced your first real sickness this month. you developed a nasty cough and mama and daddy thought we should have it checked out. seems as though you're following in big brother's footsteps – double ear infection! ugh. but with some antibiotics, your cough cleared up. you're a trooper though; never once did you act like you felt bad. you looked pretty pitiful, but that's a whole other story!

while you were on your antibiotics, mama felt the syringe hit something pretty hard on your lower gum. and sure enough, we discovered your first tooth the week before christmas. not to be out shown, your second tooth popped through just days before christmas. so two teefs for you so far!

you've found your love for sitting up this month. you're managing pretty well with sitting without support. no worries though, mama and daddy are always close to catch you if you start to fall. your interest in big brother has grown substantially this month. just this morning, the two of you were "playing" together.

while you're still exclusively breastfed, we have tried a couple of solids. first was oatmeal. you didn't much care for it and shoved it all back out with your tongue. we tried applesauce next (suggested by dr. c to help the antibiotics be easier on your tummy). and well, that went about as well as the oatmeal. during christmas we tried itty bitty chunks of banana. and score! you didn't want a ton of it, but you did mash it all up in your mouth and swallow it. so this mama considers that success. maybe we'll try out sweet potatoes tonight to celebrate your six months!

sawyer, this next month is sure to be full of all sorts of surprises. we can't wait to discover them with you.

merry christmas, y'all!

teacher's gifts

when i talked about getting crafty earlier this month, i had no idea what i was really getting myself into. i finished up our tree skirt; it turned out quite lovely.

::reminds self to take final photos so that i can post them at some point::

and i got the grandmother's scarves made. they loved them! so that was fun. then, at some point this weekend, i decided that i needed to craft up cayden & sawyer's teachers a little something. by the time i added up all the teachers/helpers/directors/chefs, it equaled 12 gifts. no big deal. i can do this! and i did do it. and, of course, it took me a lot longer to finish them than i thought it would.

but guess what? those teachers? they love the handmade items too. it all pays off in the end. and you know what's awesome? i was able to make myself a little coffee cuff too. and my coffee? it looks happier than it's ever looked before!

candy cane cookies

as soon as we received the calendar for cayden's class for december, i told jeremy to be on the look-out for holiday party sign-ups. i'm all about signing up for the special treat line now that we had a successful go at halloween. and oh, baby, we snagged it again. (and now that i think about it, i wonder if we're really snagging it? most likely, all the other parents are like, "whew! that cayden kid took that again. i don't have to worry about making something special...")

but i digress. of course i turned to the one place that knows all things about making special treats: pinterest! in particular, i used this recipe. and you know, we bought the extra large bag of the candy cane kisses. those things are so good.

the cookies turned out fabulous. we weren't super-patient when we plopped the kisses onto the second batch that came out of the oven. sure, they looked fine, but as i snagged a cookie for us to test out, the second i tilted it, the kiss melted and ran all over the place. and while it looked a mess, OMG, candy cane icing spread across the whole cookie? to die for good. seriously.

so my suggestion, should you decide to try these out... let the kisses melt some. so. good.

look what we did last night!

oh, no big deal. sawyer's just sitting up. ON HIS OWN. sure, the curve of the changing pad helped him out a bit. but i promise that i put him on the floor a little bit later and he did several sittings of 15-30 seconds at a time before wobbling over. so exciting! i bet the world looks much more interesting from a sitting position. right, kiddo?

holiday photo fun

we ordered a new lens for our camera a couple of weeks ago. it came in last thursday and we've pretty much been shooting with it non-stop. it's a 50mm for our nikon that we've talked about getting for-ev-er. and now that we have it, we're not entirely sure what took us so long to finally just do it. but we did, and we're just so excited.

and now that we've declared ourselves PHOTOGRAPHERS (ha!) and that we must shoot ALL THE THINGS (ha, again!), we had a little photoshoot on saturday morning. since we have two cuties now, we absolutely have to send out cards this year. (we did it when cayden was a baby too. last year? not so much!) you know, and since christmas is um, less than two weeks away, why not just now order the prints? last minute, i tell ya.

the photo that made the cut for the card is cute! but you won't see it in the this mix. instead, here are some other very cute options that we'll cherish forever. and we'd like to thank our whisper kitty for being the model while we got everything set up. also? many thanks to sawyer. he put up with a lot while big brother joked around. it was actually pretty funny. these two? they are most definitely going to be the best of friends. oh, and trouble. they're definitely going to be trouble.

poor fella

i suppose we knew it was only a matter of time before sawyer had his first real sickness. sure, about a week after he started daycare, he got a bit of a runny nose. but that was super easy. this past weekend, he developed a cough that sounded like he'd been smoking for years. his eyes were so watery that he'd just keep them closed rather than open them at all...

so this morning, we made a trip to see his pediatrician. i was about 90% sure that we were dealing with an ear infection. (and oh, how i had hoped that maybe we wouldn't have to deal with ear infections with sawyer.) got him in the room and bam! he was running a fever. um, jeremy and i hadn't even thought to check that. doh. anyway, his doctor took a peek in his left ear and in a matter of seconds said, "yep, there's a mess in there. let me check the other one." and, sure enough, a double ear infection. ugh.

i'm glad we went in and got it checked out. antibiotics have been prescribed, so we're already on our way to getting better. even though i hate that the nugget has been so pitiful, i'll admit that i didn't mind staying home today and squeezing in as much snuggle time as i could. i mean, the snuggles can only make him better that much faster, right?

getting crafty

with the holiday season coming up quickly (um, two weeks away people. TWO WEEKS!), i've decided that i should just make ALL THE THINGS right now. and by ALL THE THINGS, i mean a tree skirt, christmas presents for all the grandmother's, stockings (that one is SO not happening this year) and other odds and ends that might come up. i have gotten the fabric for the tree skirt and i'm really excited to start on it this weekend. we'll see how that goes...

and then, there are precious moments that spring up that require some things to be made quickly. precious moments like the birth of a baby boy to one of our very dear friends. and if you knew our friends, you'd really understand how precious sweet baby lowen's (cool name, right?) birth was yesterday. i cannot wait to go meet him tonight! with that being said, last night, i whipped up a pretty cool diaper clutch for lowen's mama to carry around.

i think if i could live with chevron-printed everything around me, i might. of course then, i'd probably get really tired of the design and end up hating it all. so that's a bad idea. i'll just relish in the moments that i can create with it. and the blues and greens in this chevron get me every time. (after all, this babe looked really cute wearing it!)

i also grabbed some newborn diapers. (and oh my goodness, even though it was only five months ago, i forgot how good those itty bitty diapers smell!) and picked up some long-sleeved sleepers. i remember going through at least two sleepers a day when sawyer was brand-spanking new. oh, and wipes to fit in the clutch of course. but the cool part? i could fit one of the sleepers, the wipes, and SIX newborn diapers in the clutch. grab a blanket and you're set for at least a few hours with a newborn, right?

santa! i KNOW him!

oh, santa photos. they're always a gamble, aren't they? last year we were blessed with an epic screaming photo (and the introduction to the fact that santa has a cell phone). our very first year is most likely the best. and while sawyer IS smiling (somewhat) in the photo this year, i'm not much of a fan of cayden's deer-in-the-headlights look. ha! plusalso? the quality of this year's photos was a little lacking. a too-hot flash and lackluster prints have me a little grumbly... but, i am excited to add it to our growing santa photo collection...

on being "home"

why yes, we do wear halloween jammies in december! and since they're sized for 6-12 months, i'm guessing we might be wearing them in march too. ha!

we attempted to give sawyer oatmeal this weekend. and he seemed like he wanted to like it. but his tongue thrust is still really strong; he doesn't quite get how to keep it in his mouth and swallow. that's all good though. we'll try again in a couple of weeks. with him only being a little over five months old, i'm happy to keep him exclusively breastfed for a while longer.

sunday afternoon was met with both of us holding a sleeping boy in our arms. sprawled across the couch, there were pillows thrown in all directions for us to try and get comfortable. there was a cat somewhere draped across one of my legs. and our sweet, sweet boys... sawyer in my arms and cayden sprawling across his daddy's lap.

that little moment? it took my breath away. and i whispered to jeremy, "these are the moments i want to remember. i wish we had a photographer standing in the corner to freeze this moment in time for us." he just looked at me with a look that said, "yep, i agree."

eventually the sleeping babes woke and chaos ensued. that's just the normal for us these days though. and i think if it had stayed quiet for much longer, jeremy and i wouldn't have known what to do with ourselves. but oh, being with my little family... it's just home.

wordless wednesday: my boys in their bama gear

five months old

sawyer, this month has been such a great month! you celebrated your first halloween. you were able to dress up as a skeleton to go trick-or-treating at mama's office. and then on halloween night, you dressed up like a fireman. we ::may:: have recycled your brother's first halloween costumes, but they were just too cute to pass up!

we also celebrated your first thanksgiving. we did it twice! the weekend before the holiday, we spent with your nana and pop. on actual thanksgiving day, we spent the day with your granna and poppa. both places included a lot of food and family. you weren't quite old enough to enjoy the food this year, but you definitely enjoyed all the family.

you found your feet this month too. and it's completely ridiculous. your big brother was never fascinated with his feet, so it's fun for all of us to get to experience something new. if you don't have a hand shoved in your mouth, you're most definitely trying to get your toes in there.

while you aren't quite ready to sit up on your own, you prefer to be sitting rather than laying now. i'm guessing that during this next month you'll most likely master this skill of sitting all on your own. oh, and we pulled out the exersaucer. i'm pretty sure that cayden still enjoys it more than you, but you'll figure it all out soon enough.

sawyer, we all fall in love with you more every day. there's something special about you. and we thank the good Lord for all that he's given us in you (and your brother!) every single day.

chatterbox

i don't really have any photos to share from the weekend quite yet, but the weekend involved a santa visit and a visit to ice. so, in the meantime, enjoy this little video of sawyer. especially his expression at about 30 seconds in. it's awesome and makes me laugh every time i see it.

new shop update & a few random things

there are most definitely a few new items in the shop today. yay!

oh, and did i ever tell you that the night before we left for the beach to shoot a wedding, jeremy kind of broke our dSLR? (just the lens, but still. yikes.) yeah, that's cool right? luckily i have an awesome sister who let us borrow hers and its two lenses. otherwise, we'd have been in a bind (to say the least).

and because said sister is so awesome, she let me borrow a lens to shoot the new products. i tried to with my point and click... and yuck! with it being dark in the mornings, and dark at night, there's just no time to shoot them during daylight anymore. and that measly little flash on the point and click was KILLIN' me. too bright. too dark. too, too, too. you name it and it was bad. so yay for sisters!

and then this one time last month, i decided i was crazy and would see if i could get my shop listed on heartsy. luckily the board that reviews everything wanted to work with me (yay!). my sell went live this morning. um, it's sold out. someone's got a lot of work to do over the next month. gulp. wish me luck?

wordless wednesday: pretty much, i'm gonna eat your camera

wordless wednesday: things that make my heart go pitter-patter

over the weekend...

... we went to orange beach (alabama) for a wedding! i'd never been to orange beach, but with it being on the gulf coast, i knew that it would be just as beautiful as the florida beaches i grew up enjoying. and i was right!

only problem was the wind. good grief! we took the boys down to the beach to play in the sand and the wind kept taking sawyer's breath away. poor little guy. thankfully by the time of the wedding, the wind had died down.

the place we stayed was fabulous. we were in a penthouse. a four bedroom penthouse, to be exact. and we tried to pretend we were all fancy, but really, we weren't. we shared the place with jeremy's sister, parents and aunt and uncle.

this place was HUGE though. and even with that many people, it didn't feel tight or overcrowded. we didn't remember to take photos of the place. (except for the freakin' bathroom. and even our bathroom wasn't the largest in the condo!) there is however a video tour of sorts. ahem, please enjoy. (if you get motion sickness, you might want to skip it...)

but back to the reason we were there. jeremy's cousin was getting married and asked him to be the photographer. you want us to come to the beach and take photos of you? um, ok! so here's a sneak peek of a few photos. shot by jeremy, edited by me. (and holly, if you're peeking, these are filters i added to these shots; the original ones will still be on the disk you receive!)

we get excited...

... around here sometimes. and arms start flapping. and random noises come out. and sometimes big brother makes even louder noises in the background. these little moments are so fleeting. so, so happy to have caught it on film to be able to remember forever.

he definitely received some treats!

halloween this year was a new experience. cayden understood it. and after hitting up the first house, he was a pro. thankfully, he had his older cousin to show him the ropes. (p.s. they were both so polite. my sister and i were very proud mamas.)

neither of them quite understood the idea of ringing the doorbell once. but that was ok. i'm sure when our lovely neighbors opened their doors to these two cuties, it made up for the fact that their doorbell had been rung three times and the knocking was pretty much non-stop.

cayden very much was in charge of his candy. while his pumpkin was getting quite heavy, he was not a happy camper when daddy tried to carry it for him. and now that i think about it, i wish we had take a little video of him walking around. honestly? with the way he was walking, a penguin costume would've been much more appropriate. we'll just say that he's got waddling down to a tee.

the night was awesome. plenty of other little trick or treaters. and a few older ones who hadn't even bothered to dress up. had i been home handing out candy, i'm not sure that the teens without costume would've gotten any treats. i mean, come on, at least put a little effort into something.

we got home and all of our cheeks were a little pink. cayden was all about his candy stash... but with it being so close to bedtime, we only allowed one indulgence last night. (although thinking back, about eight houses in, cayden was getting pretty slow... so jeremy gave him some whoppers for a little pick-me-up. what? he needed some energy!)

it was a great night and perfect first time trick-or-treating experience in our neighborhood. and this mama is looking forward to seeing what goodies she might be able to indulge in tonight after our little shark goes to bed.

halloween treat

for years (ok, just a couple of years), i've been itching to be able to create the "special treat" for one of cayden's class parties. there was one year where we made sandwiches for fourth of july. we made the most of it. and then there was another time where we got to take, um, sandwiches again. so. boring.

but this halloween? the hubby was able to sign us up for special treat. (yay!) i couldn't decide if i wanted to make mummy oreos or frankenstein mallows. in the end, this cutie won out. and i think they turned out fabulously. idea first seen on pinterest (where else?) and adapted for a peanut-free classroom. (eyes and nose are skittles. i saw on friday that plain m&m's can actually have a trace of peanuts in the shell. crazy, right?) hope those kiddos are enjoying them. and i bet the teachers are loving all the sugar in them. ha. (sorry teachers!)

four months old

little dude, today you turned four months old. and you're totally rocking at this life thing. your personality is really starting to shine and you constantly make all of us smile – your brother included! this month we had to visit the pediatrician for your first sick visit. somehow you managed to get a viral rash. and of course, two days after we took you, it cleared up completely.

you want to sit up so badly but have no control whatsoever. it's still fun to watch you try. you love looking at the world around you. your laugh is most definitely contagious. and when you see me or daddy, your entire body recognizes us – from the huge smile to the kicks to the almost jumping, you let us know that you're happy to see us. speaking of jumping, you tried your jumper this month. you don't jump in it yet, but you still dig it.

we have your fourth month well check-up on monday. we can't wait to see how much you've grown since we last went. and we're sorry in advance for the shots the nurse is going to give you. we love you so very much, sweet boy.

then & now: boo jammies

these jammies were given to cayden by his granna... and while they might be a touch too big on sawyer still, we couldn't resist snapping some photos of him in it to compare them to cayden's photos. to me, i think they're looking less like each other every day. but then others say that sawyer looks just like cayden. i dunno. i can't figure it out.

while we were shooting some photos of sawyer, cayden took a little interest in the camera. that pretty much never happens anymore. i asked if he'd like to sit next to his brother and take a picture and he actually said, "yeah!" so, yay!

then cayden asked to hold sawyer. i'm not entirely sure he understands what that means really. we got sawyer settled in between cayden's lap and then cayden would just go limp, causing sawyer to go this way and that. it's actually a comical little series. yes, that's spit-up in sawyer's mouth in the second photo. and yes, it's being wiped away in the third. these boys. they crack me up.

a celebration of fall

there's something exciting about the weather turning cooler and going to get pumpkins. while the weather didn't necessarily want to cooperate with us, we pretended it was fall-like and visited a new pumpkin patch this year.

it was a really great place with tons of fun things for the kiddos to do. we went with my family to celebrate my nephew's sixth (6!) birthday. there was a great bouncy area that was awesome to let the littles just run around. two big slides, two bounce houses and an obstacle course. the bouncy house that cayden jumped in was a horse on his back. um, it was strange. but cayden jumped and jumped. until he decided he was done. then he slid on outta that horse's belly.

the hayride to the patch was pretty awesome. the best part? it was pulled by a tractor. cayden stared and stared at that tractor with his mouth wide open. oh, and he tried eating hay. that didn't last long, but hey (hay?), you gotta try it at least once, right?

speaking of hay, over at the patch, there were quite a few hay bales for jumping. and you know, as much as i was afraid the hay would make our little guy itchy, we just embraced it and let him be a boy. (side note: when i took his pull-up off later, he had hay all up in his business. but no itchies. so we'll call it a win.)

and because big brother is totally hogging most of the photos opps in this post, here's one of sawyer. waiting on some cake. (just kidding! we didn't feed sawyer any cake. but we definitely fed our faces some cake. thank you publix for making some good stuff.) and for funsies, here's a look back at pumpkin patch fun last year and then in 2009.

our little guy

he ::thinks:: he's big enough to sit up or something. totally assisted, of course. laying back and relaxing is totally for the weak. sigh. four months old this saturday, and already searching for his independence.

(please forgive the iphone photos. i apparently really need to upgrade seeing as how the 4s is supposed to have a kick-ass camera on it. or, you know, maybe i could just use a real camera...)

[wordless wednesday] a few things i've worked on recently

the ruffled burp cloths? i'm in love with. expect to see those in the shop sometime soon!