Half birthday!!!! 6 Months

Wow 6 months already!! where has the time gone every time i turn around i feel like Caleb has grown another month. This boy has stolen my heart. When he smiles it seems like the world stops for just a second. this kid is rather smart. He has played in his walker since he was about 4 months old. in just 60 short days he has learned how to really move that thing around and boy he is so interested in getting into everything he can reach. I'm learning he can reach a lot more than i realized. I didn't have to baby proof the house with Madison except to cover the outlets and that really was all precautionary more than necessity. however with Caleb it really will be a different experience he has already found both trash cans in the kitchen and as he is learning to move the walker where he wants it to go he gets right to them and takes them to the floor trying to get into them.



He had his 6 month wellness check up and he's getting big fast:

16 lbs 6 oz (50 %)
27 inches (60 %)
head 16 3/4 inches

he got new cloths this month too! he can now wear clothes size 6-9 months although he has been in the pajamas for that size for about a month.

here's his new skills this month:

• he started chewing and biting on everything
• Lifts head when pulled to a sitting position
• Rolls from back to stomach and always sleeps on his stomach now but still cant roll from stomach to back
• Bears majority of weight when being held in a standing position
• Grasps and controls small objects
• Holds bottle fairly well but gets tired quickly and lets go
• Grabs feet and pulls to mouth
• Adjusts body to see an object
• Turns head from side to side and then looks up or down
• Prefers more complex visual stimuli ( he loves TV)
• he chatters and talks all the time mostly when we are talking to him
• Recognizes parents and looks for Dada when i ask him where's Dada?
• starting to interact with Madison and when he can get her attention he loves to "chat" at her
• he learned to sit with support from the boppy pillow

 

here's a pretty typical daily schedual:

7:30 wake up/bottle (7oz)

9:30 babyfood fruit/rice cereal

9:45 down for nap (sleeps about 1 1/2 hours) sometimes wakes up around 11:00

11:30 wake up/ bottle (7 oz)

12:00 Babyfood vegetable

1:30 nap (depending on morning nap sleeps 1 to 2 hours)

3:30 wake up/bottle (7oz)

6:00 babyfood vegetable and rice cereal

7:00 bath

7:30 bottle/bedtime

*sometimes he wants to sleep and he gets really grouchy around 6:30*

learned to sit up

 He started off only sitting for a few seconds but within like 2 weeks he was sitting like a champ and the pillow became pretty much precautionary

Sippy Cup!

Someone is obsessed with his sippy cup to say the least. he loves to drink water out of it. I have to be honest when i say i was really surprised how easily he took to this! but he really loves it.

My dad's Birthday

La County Fair 2013

Every year in September we buy season passes for the la county fair mostly because we never know how long the kids are going to last before they get cranky, crash out or freak out! one of the times we went this year was with my dad, who has recently decided that instead of coming down for his birthday and for the fair he is just going to come down for the fair and we can celebrate his birthday late. of course we're a little picky about what weekend he comes because he's not allowed to come during the weekend of our anniversary. of course the weekend he picked had to be one of the hottest all summer and did i mention i have a 5 month old who in all honesty really wasn't tolerating the hot or the crowd so Caleb cried if someone wasn't holding him the whole time we were there.

 so after taking Caleb to the fair multiple times and he cried multiple times we decided to go one afternoon and evening with just us and Madison. She gets very little mommy and daddy time all to herself so it was a super fun night for just the 3 of us to go out.

 after daddy helped her feed the goats once she was all for it and gladly fed them all by herself. *insert giant grin on mommy's face* this shows the confidence and the cognitive ability growth she is gaining.

 to end the night we went on the fairs wheel. this is the one thing we always try to do for while at the fair because its one of mommy's favorite rides.

Adventures in potty training

 WARNING GROSS IMAGES AHEAD...PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!

In early may I started the potty training process with Madison. For the first couple of days I tried the cold turkey straight into regular panties! What the heck was I thinking. She was willing to sit on the potty easily (thankfully) but I had a 5 week old too which made it difficult to constantly need to clean up pee and poop accidents constantly and when I say constantly I mean constantly! So after 2 days of feeling like I was going insane we decided to put Madison in pull-ups and work up from there. It only took 2 or three days where we had lots of successes and lots of accidents but it was progress. It took her over a month to really understand the feeling of needing to go pee pee. But it seemed like once she understood it was like a switch it just came on and she got it. I kept her in the pull ups for another month nut she really started to do well and by the beginning of August she was a pro at doing pee pee in the potty. So since she was so good at the pee pee I let her wear big girl panties all the time and at home she rarely had accidents if any at all. When we would go out I would put a pull-up on her for precautions but most of the time she was good at telling me she had to go and holding it until we got to the potty. Pooping however was a whole different story. She pooped her panties everyday for over a month. I tried everything

- cleaning it and telling it she can't do that

- timeout for pooping in panties

- spanking

- cold showers to clean her

- hosing her off outside

- I made her sit in the pooped for a little while before I cleaned it in hopes she would not enjoy the feeling and stop

Nothing worked she still continued to do it and eventually started hiding to poop in her panties. A friend suggested I keep her completely naked...and I thought I'll try anything I'm desperate. So the next morning I got her out of bed removed her pull up and pajamas and left her completely naked running around my house. Awkward is the best way to describe it. I constantly prayed that nobody would knock on my door or want to hang out. IT WORKED THE FIRST DAY! Since that day she has never pooped in her pants again! So 14 weeks later she is 100% potty trained and proud of her self and mommy is so proud of her too. She is growing up so fast and amazes me every day.

5 months of joy!

Wow time is truly flying I'm doing what I can to enjoy him as much as possible! He so active, he is rarely happy it seems like, and I love him all the same. We started baby mumums this month and this kid loves them and eats them like a pro! We also started baby food this month too. We introduced him to bananas first then avocado, squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. He eats them all except the avocado. He's not a fan of avocado at all.

• He is starting to chew on things more ans drool a lot
• Holds head up when sitting really well he has finally stopped bobbing his head forward
• When lying on back puts feet to mouth
• Voluntarily grasps and holds objects
• Plays with toes
• Takes objects directly to mouth
• Says “ah-goo” or similar vowel-consonant combinations
• Smiles at mirror image
• Gets upset if you take a toy away
• Can tell family and strangers apart
• Starting to explor his body especially when it comes to his manhood, anytime his diaper is off his hands go there first

Here's what a his schedual looked like right now

7:30-8:00 wake up

8:00 bottle

9:30 solids

9:45 sleep (usually sleeps 1 to 1 1/2 hours

12:00 bottle

2:00 sleep

4:00 bottle

5:30 sleep

6:00/6:30 solids at dinner with us

7:00 bath time

8:00 bottle and bed time

He is getting much better at putting himself to sleep and sleeping well.

Summer Scavenger hunt...Glow in the dark bowling and Group FHE

 One of the challenges to earn points for the summer scavenger hunt was to go bowling and another one was to have a second family over for FHE. so we decided to combine these two activities. We invited the Markarian family over and did glow in the dark bowling with the kids. they didn't really get this (not quite old enough to bowl) but the adults had a good time!

Trying to teach Madison how to roll the ball

Mom's turn

 

Kylie's turn

Summer Scavenger Hunt...mail something into the friend/ build something out of a box

One of the challenges that actually had me thinking from the beginning of this "scavenger hunt" was what to send into the magazine "the friend" our church has for the little kids. there are some pretty strict guidelines but one of the options was to send in a recipe. so we sent in a recipe for peanut butter play dough given to us by a friend of ours at church when Madison was just over a year old. its perfect for toddlers since you wont care if they eat it. then after we wrote the recipe down we took a walk to go and put it in the mail box at the post office. fun, quick, and simple activity. She was really proud of her letter.

Since the first activity went so quick i decided to try and cross another one off the list the same day. My mom got us a box from her work and when i asked madison what she wanted it to be she said she wanted a car. so we "parked" the car in front of the T.V. and turned on a movie, had some popcorn and there we had it a simple drive in theater and a very happy 2 year old!

 

Summer Scavenger Hunt...Go Miniture golfing

I've never taken Madison Miniature golfing and I'm always looking for fun things to do with her to challenge her brain. well this one absolutely challenged her brain a lot! this is one we're going to have to do a couple of times. we went on a Saturday while Anthony was at work because i found a discount ticket where you turned in 3 school supplies and you get 1 free ride at boomers. I thought this would be a great way to help others while having fun as a family. My mom and Kelly went with us (mostly because I'm still too chicken to take both kids anywhere on my own). Man they were amazing. My mom played with Caleb and kept him busy while the rest of us played golf. it was good to spend time as a family, we don't do that much.