Hi. My name is Jany.

Just thought I'd re-introduce myself since it's been a very, very long time since I last posted. Life is super busy for me nowadays. Cameron turned one two months ago so that has a lot to do with it. He's not walking yet but he sure is busy. He's all over the place exploring, opening, gnawing, slobbering, pointing and pounding on everything. He loves to point at things and say "What's this?" That's basically what we do all day, he points and I tell him what it is. I love to see him learning and understanding and love that he is so inquisitive.

Just as I had expected this blog has morphed into a full on Mommy blog. I tried to avoid it but it's just not possible when all I do all day everyday is baby related!  Oh well, such is life. I AM a mom, that's me... now.

3 years and 9 months

A few days ago, August 1, Dave and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary! How'd we celebrate? Well, we spent the day in Pittsburgh tracking down details of David's family history at town municipal buildings and the county courthouse. Might not sound fun to you but we love this kinda stuff! Then, as a treat to me since Dave HATES this place, we topped it all off with a visit to Ikea! Playing history detectives and shopping at Ikea- sounds like a perfect way to spend an anniversary to me! :) As for gifts... he got me a fab Dooney & Burke leather saddle bag and I got him his much coveted Zoku quick popsicle maker. Posts on these amaze balls items to follow soon!

Weekend Update: Life's a party!

I'm linking up with Sami's Shenanigans for the Weekend Update!




There's been a lot of celebrating going on around here lately. Two weeks ago we celebrated my birthday, Saturday was Cameron's 8 Month birthday and yesterday was Father's Day!

For his 7 month birthday I let Cam pick out his cake. This month I decided to make a sort of mini cake out of cupcakes fashioned into the number 8.

Saturday we headed out to Put-in-Bay, one of three small islands located just off the shore from Sandusky, Ohio on Lake Erie. It's such a perfect day trip for those in the Cleveland area. "Day" trip is key here because at night the place (I hear) turns into the mid-west version of the Jersey Shore!

We got on the ferry at Port Clinton and took the 15 minute ride over to the island at 10 am. It was Cam's first ferry ride!

Downtown is lined with lots of touristy shops and bars/restaurants.We had lunch at the Boat House and then stopped at a shop where we picked up the cutest little Captains hat for Cameron.

 We stopped by Perry's Cave and bought a bag of dirt that we then took over to the miners sluice to pan for semi-precious stones. It was a lot of fun even though it was obvious that the semi-precious stones were just pre-mixed into a bunch of gravelly dirt. That didn't seem to ruin the fun for anyone though, there were a lot of very excited kids sluicing away. Soooo cute to see how excited they'd get when the gems and crystals would appear from the dirt, such a great activity for kids!

 

Here's the loot we panned out for Cameron.

Rose quartz, crystal, amethyst, peridot, sodalite, garnet, pyrite, obsidian are just some of the gems in our booty. The finders card also had ruby, sapphire and emerald on there but alas I don't think we have any of those in our little cache.

For Father's Day Cameron got Dada his much longed for bird feeder. (I think Cam's going to say Dada before he says Mama. He says Da, da, da, da all day long. Sigh. Oh well, hopefully Mama will be his 2nd word?) The previous owners of our house had a bird feeder right in the same spot in the back yard. I was glad when we moved in to see that they had taken it with them, Dave however was disappointed.

Since then he's been talking about getting one only to have me shoot down the idea. I've just never been a big bird person and thought that the feeder's location in the middle of the yard was too random. I also thought that kids, when running around back there, would accidentally plow into it. I finally changed my mind when I realized that we don't exactly have six kids running around back there all the time. Heck, we don't even have one that crawls yet! And because it really isn't that much in the way, there's still plenty of room for little ones to run wild.

And finally, here's a pic from my birthday featuring me in the Birthday Hat sitting on my gift- the Indonesian  Bench that I've been wanting from Cost Plus World Market! Love it so much and the pillows I purchased from Festive Home Decor on Etsy are so perfect on it. Now we're searching for complimenting chairs and a coffee table.

Memorial Day Recap

Hey everyone! Had a great Memorial Day weekend. The weather was super hot and humid, a perfect kick off to summer. Of course our A/C decided to kick the bucket on Friday. Well, it didn't really completely die. It seems to kind of work a little, enough to keep downstairs a respectable temp. It's still warmer than we'd like but not so bad. Now upstairs is a different story. The A/C doesn't seem to work at all up there so it's been hot, hot, hot. Calling the repair people today!

Saturday we went to a birthday party in Pittsburgh. That night Dave and I went to dinner and a movie (the Avengers in 3D = 3 hours of non-stop explosions). It was our first "date night" and was a lot of fun. Cameron got up at his usual time (5 a.m.) so we watched the sun rise over downtown Pittsburgh. The view from my in-laws condo on top of Mount Washington is amazing!

Cameron basks in the glow of the morning sun.

On Monday we went to the Memorial Day parade. It was Cameron's first parade! I thought he'd be scared of the loud drums from the marching bands but he didn't bat an eye. The next three photos were taken by my mother-in-law.

 Cam made a new furry friend at the parade.

Our neighborhood pool opened this weekend so we checked that out for the first time after the parade. It was a lot of fun and not ridiculously crowded like we assumed it was going to be. I'm excited to have such easy access to a pool (right down the street from our house), especially for Cameron since he loves the water so much!

Cameron contemplates his attack on the kiddie pool.

 What kind of madness have you brought me into?

In between all of that Dave finished mulching the front yard (there were a few plant beds left), mulched around our mailbox and Cameron's playhouse and re-seeded a patch of grass. Phew! That's a lot of hard work in very humid, 90 degree weather! It all looks so, so, so nice though.

7 Months Old!

Yesterday was Cameron's 7 month birthday! Of course we celebrated with a little mini cake that he actually picked out himself. I'm not kidding, he really did pick it. I held up three cakes- chocolate, vanilla and rainbow and he actually looked at each of them for a few seconds and then reached over and pounded the top of the rainbow cake! (He just knew it coordinated with his birthday hat.) Of course, he doesn't actually eat the cake- that's my job (It's rough I tell ya!). I gotta say that I really wanted the chocolate turtle cake but he picked the rainbow one so what could I do, it was his birthday after all. :)

Grandma was on hand for the momentous celebration!

Look at that face! That's a face that says- "Mom, this has got to stop!"

For the record... I took two bites of his cake and that was plenty! It was like eating a sugar cube. Can't imagine having a child eat the entire thing, they'd be swinging from the rafters!

A little fishy

We've got a natural on our hands people! My little Cameron is a swimmer. I know he's only 6 months old but he really seems to have taken to the water. He's the youngest one in his class (all the other kids are 1 or 2) yet he doesn't cry at all, even when he first gets into the cold pool water. Every week there's always one kid (or two or three) who cries through the whole class. I suppose you could argue that he's too little to know any better and the older kids know that they have a choice to be in the cold water or not but even so, I hope that since we're starting so early he won't cry even when he realizes there's a choice. Only time will tell.

Anyhoo... here are a few pics from class. Every week the bleachers are filled with moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas all taking pics, video, waving and cheering. It all makes for quite a chaotic class with the kids crying, family snapping away from the bleachers and parents trying to teach their little ones to blow bubbles or hold onto the wall. Lucky it's only 20 minutes long!

DIY Party Hat & Cameron's 6 Month Celebration

Cameron turned 6 months old on Monday (April 16). It really is like everyone always says- time just flies by and before you know it they are all grown up. The last 6 months has just flown by and it just keeps on going by faster and faster the older he gets. It's moving so quickly that I missed his 5 month celebration. He was 5 1/2 months before I realized that I missed it! (Since he was 3 months old I've "celebrated" by sticking candles (unlit ones) into a cupcake and taken a picture.)

6 months is a milestone so this month I stepped it up a bit. All ramping up of course for that very exciting first birthday! So this month I got him a frozen ice cream cupcake (YUMMY!), made a 6 month topper for it and a fun little birthday hat!

I got the idea for the hat from Painted Preppy and tweaked it to make it work for me. The tutorial on Painted Preppy says to print out the hat template but I couldn't find it or a link anywhere on the page so I Googled party hat templates and found Oh Happy Day which has a downloadable template. Of course when I tried to print it out our printer stopped working for some reason and after fidgeting with it for a few minutes I gave up and just drew a template myself, basing it on the general shape of the Oh Happy Day template. I needed a smaller hat anyway, one that would fit Cameron so it ended up working out well.

Boo Kitty is a total photo bomber! Especially when it comes to pictures of Cameron. 

(Someone's a little jealous!)

Since I don't have a stash of fabric ribbon I ended up using scrapbook paper for the fringe instead. I simply cut strips, folded them in half and then cut them into fringe. Instead of stapling the fringe I taped it to the edge of the hat. To make the fringe topper I just cut fringe into a longer/larger piece of paper, rolled it up, stuck it through the top hole and taped it to the inside. I didn't put a chin strap on the hat because I thought that it would irritate Cameron and cause him to swipe at it so I adhered it to his head with double sided tape. It worked well and wasn't so sticky that it pulled his hair when I pulled it off.

Happy 6 Month Birthday Cameron!

A week of firsts

This week we started Cameron on rice cereal. He was not a fan. He made the cutest "yuck" face ever though! We're thinking it's more the feeling of something in his mouth than the actual taste of it because it seems like it wouldn't taste like anything or at the very least there's no way it could taste as bad as formula. He only tolerated a few tiny blobs of the cereal the first couple feedings. Now he's worked up to a few spoonfuls. He still makes the "yuck" face but he keeps trying it so that's good.

Hmm... That looks interesting

Dad? What's about to happen?

Help. Me.

Oh no. Here comes more.

Yuck.

Still yuck.

Monday marked our first Mommy and Me thing together. We went to baby story time at the library. It was fun and cute and thankfully only 20 minutes long! At first I thought, "Only 20 minutes?" but now I realize any longer than that and we would have had a crying fest on our hands. Definitely by the end of 20 minutes the babies were done with it. The 1 and 2 year olds probably could have gone another 10 minutes.

Not sure what he felt or thought about the whole thing. He was mainly just interested in his shoes and trying to get them off. We sat next to a little girl around the same age as Cameron who would lean over and babble and smile at him. Cameron was unfazed. He'd shoot her an "I'm busy here" glance and then it was back to his shoes.

Next up- swim lessons! This Saturday is the first of an 8 week baby swim course. I'm sure there will be no actual swimming but rather just a little feet, legs and baby bum dunking into the water. Not sure about the baby swim diaper thing. Do you just slap it on and you're good to go? Aren't you left with a nasty, sopping wet blob? I guess I'm about to find out!

Of course pics and a post of the event to follow...

The scoop on poop and cloth diapers

Before I even got pregnant I planned on using cloth diapers. I did a ton of research and read a bunch of mommy/baby blogs (Young House Love is the one that really convinced me! Read their post here.) that chronicled their use of them and decided that it was definitely something I was going to do. Most of the blogs I read made it seem pretty easy and so I thought since I'd be staying home with the baby that it was something that I could easily manage.

Why you ask? Well, basically because they are earth friendly and I fancy myself somewhat of a tree hugger. Not a crazy, over the top, hippy dippy, make everyone feel bad, save the whales, seals and spotted owls kind of tree hugger (although I do fret over the endangered-ness of these animals) but just someone who tries their best to help out good ole Mother Earth.

The thought of putting thousands of diapers into a landfill somewhere just gives me anxiety. I don't know why. I realize millions of diapers are thrown away every day so my using cloth diapers won't really make that much of a difference but I just felt like even though it may not change the world at least I'm trying to do my part.

The plan was that since I was going to be a totally inexperienced new mom (read my anxiety ridden post about that here). I figured I'd wait until the baby was three months old to start using them. Most of the blogs said that the baby doesn't really fit into the cloth diapers until they're bigger anyway. I thought three months was enough time for me to get used to the whole diaper changing thing and then transition into the cloth diapers. I planned on using Bum Genius diapers. They seemed to have the most positive reviews and were rated the least leaky, easiest to use and clean. Plus they come in the cutest colors and patterns!

Cameron will be 4 months old this week and I have absolutely NO plans on switching over to cloth. In fact, I knew as soon as he was born and I changed that first diaper that there was no way I'd be doing cloth! Um, can you say instant reality check!

Sorry Earth. Sorry future generations of children and grandchildren. Sorry animals and trees and the atmosphere! But I can't. I-JUST-CAN'T!

I had no idea how nasty the poop was going to be. Really. Everyone (on my blogs) just made it seem like it was nothing. That you simply just sprayed it off into the toilet and called it a day. Ummm... NO! That stuff is just too yucky to even get that close too. And I'm not sure what other baby's put out but our little one makes some crazy stuff that would require a fire hose to spray off. (Sorry for the nasty visual.)

Isn't it enough that I just changed the diaper? Then I have to spend another half hour scraping/spraying the poop and then pre-rinsing and washing it? And then there's the thought of putting all the poopy diapers into my washing machine and then washing all of our other clothes in there afterwards. Gross. I tried, I mean I intended to try and then reality reared its ugly little head.

I give my cloth diaper mommy bloggers all the credit in the world! They are angels, saints, amazing super moms with incredible mommy powers not to mention strong stomachs and a high tolerance for awful smells! More power to 'em. I hope they influence more people to consider cloth diapers or even give them a try, I really truly do! Hopefully more people will be able to hack it unlike this new mama who sadly realized that she is but just a mere mortal, unable to conquer the Kryptonite effects that poop seems to have on her!

Anne Geddes inspired photo shoot

My sister-in-law Julie took the amazeballs photos I used on Cameron's birth announcement. When Cameron was 6 weeks old she offered to do a photo shoot while she was in town for Thanksgiving. Of course I said yes! Who doesn't love a photo shoot!

Of course at 6 weeks Cameron was in the midst of his horrible colic spell so I wasn't really expecting it to work out. But we thought we'd give it a try and hoped for the best. To our surprise we just happened to luck out. Everything seemed to fall in line. Not only was it a perfectly sunny day, providing enough natural light in our living room for the photos, it was the perfect time of day for Cameron and he ended up cooperating really well, as best as a 6 week old baby can anyway.

We knew we only had a tiny window to get it done so the whole shoot took about 20 minutes total with prop changes and all. It was an intense period of time with lots of stuffed animals being waved through the air, noise makers vigorously being rattled and three adults making those funny, stupid noises and faces that you only make at babies to illicit some sort of reaction. It would have been hilarious if someone had taken video footage of us!

I give Anne Geddes all the credit in the world. I hear she keeps the temperature in her studio hot for the babies (a key point since poor Cameron was shivering the whole time even though the room was quite warm and we were all sweatin' it out!) and that for every photo she publishes hundreds were taken just to get that one. We didn't take hundreds of pictures but we took a lot and were able to get a couple really nice shots.

Speaking of baby photo shoots...

has anyone else seen Arty Adele Erersen and her baby Mila featured on the Today show and other news programs lately? She is a stay at home mom that created various vignettes around her sleeping baby and took pics of them. She is not a professional photographer nor did she use a fancy camera or even light kit. She just used a pocket digital cam and snapped the pics! Now she has a book out featuring each of the photos. Very cute! Lucky her that baby Mila slept through each of the photos. No way that would work with Cameron!