Technical difficulties!

VID00636 a video by agstratt on Flickr.

I know, I know, the stuff is jacked up. Now I have to go find a new template and install it. Stand by!

In the meantime, check out this video of my tiny baby. My BAAAAAAAYYYYYYBEEEEEEEEEEE!! Where did he go? Now he's been replaced with a small boy who yells and bites my finger when I brush his teeth.

I miss the baby smoke monster noises. At least during the daytime.

Busy Bee

DSC_8252, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Sir is a busy bee and won't sit still. I snagged him for a pic and he was all "DUDE! Must keep going!"

He likes to bang on my laptop too. Working, Mom!

Look who is one!!!

DSC_8165, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

No concerns about lack of cake smashing around here. Emmett grabs the cake and smashes it right into his mouth!

At one year:
-Emmett is into EVERYTHING.
-He is cruising along furniture, and has two push toys he can walk behind.
-He can stand on his own when he doesn't realize he is doing it (once he realizes he is all AHHH and grabs for something).
-He climbed up on his car push toy onto the coffee table two days ago, resulting in a nice bruised noggin.
-Falls all the time
-Has finally learned to wave - with his whole arm!
-Make clicking sounds with his mouth and yells while smacking his mouth making an ah-ah-ah-ah sound.
-He can eat an entire can of mandarin oranges and has housed an adult sized serving of lasagna.
-He loves chef boyardee ravioli and especially loves to rub it in his hair - making it red and spiky.
-He looks like Ralphie from a Christmas story with the glasses.
-Took his first steps last week!

Scratchy Sir

DSC_7965, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Emmett likes to scratch his noggin ALOT. Part of this is because he has the dryest scalp EVER. I also think he got into the habit of always grabbing onto his head when he wore his helmet. For whatever reason, he is always running his hands through his hair and rubbing his head.

Hubs laughs at him a little b.c his hands barely reach the top of his head. Go ahead. Put your hands in the air. See how big your head would be if you could barely hug it with your arms. Big. Babies are so weird!

That's right ladies...

DSC_7972, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

eat your hearts out :)

I couldn't resist this onesie for E. Snarky baby onesies make me laugh.

New Year's Eve

DSC_7959, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

On New Year's Eve we stayed home and knocked something off the bucket list by trying Dom Perignon. It was good, but let's just say I'd rather have four bottles of Tattinger Brut from Domaine Carneros by far! I'm glad that we tried it though, now we can say we've had it ;)

Other than this, the night consisted of having my parents over for a garlic pork roast, watching the IU game then switching over to the British version of Top Gear, and falling asleep on the couch around 10. I had a great time and I even put on jeans and a ruffly red shirt instead of my awesome purple yoga pants. Fancy!

Yearly recap!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? Had a baby. Scored a job that offered to move my family to another state, bought a house.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for 2011? My only resolution was to step back and let Mike be the great Dad I was sure he would be. And I hope I’ve done that. I think I can do it more but overall I don’t think I’ve done a bad job.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Do I count? Yes. There were a ton of babies born this year – My friend Karrie had a little girl Kinley that is Emmett’s bff at daycare, and then Dora had Michael and Amy D had Everett. Another friend from high school, Sara, had a little girl in march. Also, my friend Tracy had twins (!!) this summer

4. Did anyone close to you die? Hmmm… I don’t think so?

5. What countries did you visit? None!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? Calm. This year was Bananas and crazy and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I’m looking forward to settling into our new home and getting some more chill time.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 1-8 Emmett was born, 4-4 I went back to work, 9-26 I started my new job, 12-13 last day in the condo, 12-20 we closed on our new house.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Keeping my head above water and trying to give my best to everything.

9. What was your biggest failure? Not being more strategic and aggressive about the pricing of our condo

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I got a couple of bad colds and also caught the flu but overall not bad.

11. What was the best thing you bought? A house!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? The husband. Not many couples relocate for the wife’s job, and he welcomed the relocation even though it probably didn’t mean the best things for his own career.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? No one really.

14. Where did most of your money go? Daycare, mortgage, moving

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Having a baby! Moving back to Indiana!

16. What song will always remind you of 2011 Baby Jamz – Mary had a little lamb, Adele – Someone like you, Sugarland – Stuck like glue

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner! I was extra pregnant this time last year but the Mommy diet is great! I’m thinner than before I got pregnant.
c) richer or poorer? Richer, kind of. Got out of the condo without losing our shirts so that is something.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Concentrating on work

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? I’m not really sure. I feel like I did a pretty good job this year of handling all the big changes, sometimes with tears, but I felt they were necessary. I probably could have been nicer to Hubs though J

20. How did you spend Christmas? In Evansville with the parents and siblings, with a sick Dog and a teething baby

21. Did you fall in love in 2011? Yes, in love with my tiny Emmett man

22. What was your favorite TV program? How I met your Mother, One born every minute

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope.

24. What was the best book you read? The Hunger Games series

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Sugarland

26. What did you want and get? A baby. Out of the condo.

27. What did you want and not get? Hubs around more

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Crazy stupid love

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 32. I went to work and had pizza delivered to work when I was leaving (they don’t deliver to the south side of Indy). I took it home and Hubs and Emmett and I had pizza and breadsticks while Dog ran around the yard. It was so perfect.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Really nothing. 2011 was amazing for me.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011? Shirts that were baggy enough to hide the end of the baby weight but tight enough to not make me look slubby. New job also has me getting back into the business casual. I wear lots of wrappy sweaters too.

32. What kept you sane? Getting ourselves unstuck in the Chicago hamster wheel and getting more room to grow our family in Indiana.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Ryan Gosling? Not sure.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Honestly with all going on this year I tried to ignore the political issues. I get really annoyed about how none of the politicians can’t seem to figure anything out or work together though.

35. Who did you miss? My old friend Chicago and the girlfriends I had there. I miss having them around terribly. I also miss Hubs during the week but Sir Emmett keeps me soooo busy!

36. Who was the best new person you met? Emmett Jeffrey, Sir Cheeks!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. You can do it. YOU CAN DO IT.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Lil Wayne – How to love

See I just want you to know that you deserve the best, you’re beautiful
You’re beautiful

And I want you to know, you’re far from the usual
Far from the usual

Random updates

• I LOVE my new job. The company is great, the people I work with are SMART, so very smart, and good at what they do. I think I can learn a lot from all of them, and in my book that is a great situation - to be able to learn from your boss and his boss. I am super excited about the new job and feel so blessed!
• The condo is still on the market. If there are no bites by December 9th, the relocation company will buy it from us. This is one of the greatest benefits of the relocation package - which is the best relo package I've ever heard of and one of the major reasons for our move. So as of December 13th we will be out of the condo regardless. We've had close to 25 showings and no takers. At this point, we pretty much think we will be taking the buyout offer.
  
• We close on a new house on December 20th! We were going to wait until the spring, but found a house we love and couldn't wait! The place is 5200 square feet, with 2200 of it being unfinished basement. We love it because it has plenty of finished-off room for now and with the basement we also have room to grow into and stay and raise our family. Mike is overly excited about the man-cave possibilities! I have to say I am as well, as I'm currently planning a very girly office for the basement. :) Oh and the price of this house? 65% of what we purchased our condo for. Ridiculous!
• Hubs and I are headed to the Purdue/IU game in Bloomington on Saturday while the small creatures stay behind with Grandma and Grandpa. I am so excited to hang out in my happy place of Bloomington while Sir and Dog are safely ensconced with grandparents. Perfect!
• Life in Indiana is going so well that sometimes I have to pinch myself. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I think that whatever happens we are super excited to be closer to family! Speaking of that, my parents move to Indy on Jan 1st. My Dad is a pastor and got a church on the south side and my Mom got a promotion to manage a data center on the south side. So excited to have them nearby!!
  

10 months

DSC_7512, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Hard to believe Sir is so big!

-He loves to stand up, and needs some propping up.
-Can crawl... but only backwards or side to side.
-Loves to yell DADADADADADA!!!
-Eats ANYTHING. Pizza, burrito fixin's, sweet potato fries, short ribs and mashed potatoes, anything you put in front of him. Not a fan of rice, but other than that loves pretty much anything.
-Is currently giving the daycare ladies crap by not drinking bottles well during the day. But he's eating so much real food that we're not overly worried.
-Is on the go... no more snuggling with Mama!

I love to....

DSC_6891, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

clap and yell. You wouldn't know it by how sweet I look here!

So big!

Big news!

WTH Mom? What do you think you're doing?

Wow, over a month has gone by with little to no word on the front here. Major big news....

We're moving! I'm no longer going to be Monkeying around in Chicago... I'll be Monkeying around in Indy! Hubs is from northern Indiana and I'm from southern Indiana. That means that Indianapolis is WAY closer to all of our family. And we have a ton of family and friends IN Indy. So when I was approached about a position that sounded like my dream job, we decided that I should interview for it.

And when I got an offer that we couldn't refuse... well, we didn't refuse it!

For now we have a rental house in Indy starting October 1st, our place is on the market, and I'm heading down for a week of orientation starting Monday. Emmett starts his new daycare on October 3.

It's going to be a tough couple of months with Mike traveling back up here for work alot, but I think it'll be worth it. Fenced in back yard for the Dog, more room for all of us. And the option to save more. I love Chicago but darn it is expensive. I just couldn't take it anymore - we weren't taking full advantage of the city having a kiddo and I was over paying for it.

So anyways, that is what is going on around these parts!!

Smiley Booboo

DSC_6605, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Sometimes when I am having a rough day, I look at pictures of the booboohead alot :)

The sitting...

DSC_6651, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

gets better and better every day. It's wild!

That's right, Emmett...

DSC_6584, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Mommy DOES rock. :)

As an aside, I will never get over plaid pants/shorts on E. They are the awesome.

7 months!

Another month has gone by and our tiny Sir is 7 months old!

At seven months, Emmett:

• Has been to TWO Cubs games. Luckily the Cubs won the second one. Emmett slept almost the whole time and I managed to eat chili cheese fries AND a chili cheese dog without any of it falling on E's head (he was in the baby carrier)
  
• He is sitting up largely on his own. He still tumps over a decent amount, but he is doing pretty well overall.
  
• Loves jaunts around town in his stroller
• Has started (kind of) eating solids. I started him on purees and just recently ditched the purees and started the Baby-led weaning methods. He can pick up a piece of cheese, get it to his mouth, and bite off a chunk. The chewing and swallowing could be better but I think he's doing great for only doing the method for a few days.
  
• He is OVER swings. Swings are for babies, Mom.
  
• Loves his activity table, and just recently figured out how to walk himself around it.
  
• Is loving not having to wear his helmet. He is so much more comfortable without it.
  
• Has discovered his feet and spends alot of time trying to get them in his mouth. Unfortunately, his belly gets in the way of this objective.

While taking his 7 month pictures, I got an action shot of Emmett spitting up. This is how we see him much of the time! While gross, this picture TOTALLY cracks me up.

Michigan Vacation 2011

I went to my grandparents' lake house every year as a tiny tot, and visiting that area (and Lark's Lake specifically) is one thing I would really like to make sure Emmett gets to do. I don't know that we'll go every year, but it would be nice to go at least every other year or every couple of years.

This year my parents rented a cottage about 15 minutes away from my grandparents' cottage. I love my grandparents' place but it's super small and definitely does not have room for all the family expansion that has happened recently with the addition of husbands (and a wife for my brother next month, woohoo!!) and Grace and Emmett.

So without further adieu, here is our vacation in pictures. First up, let's get some shots of the cousins together.
Emmett is very against looking at/smiling at the camera when there is anyone else in the shot. Diva baby.

OK, scratch that. Maybe he just won't do it when the other subjects are smiling/looking at the camera as well. "Let's take turns smiling, Gracie. That way they never get a really good one."
Emmett's Great Grandma and Grandpa Kovacs bought him this shirt in Hawaii and Gracie helped me pick out his outfit that day. I do think he totally rocked it.
Those crazy tufts of hair on the sides of his head are totally the reason why he got a haircut later that week.

On Tuesday of that week we headed over to my grandparents' lake to get in some water time. Here, my Mom (aka "Neemaw") is helping Gracie play in the sand.
My sister Katie poses with Emmett on the dock. He is more interested in her glasses than the camera.
Ok, now, this is probably one of the favorite pictures I've ever shot of the little man. Had to order one for my desk.
That night we headed to the Legg's Inn for a polish feast. Katie got pierogis and I got a pork kotlet and we split both of them. We also got some potato pancakes and a polish sampler that were amazing. Oh and the mozzarella sticks that Mike ordered were pretty fantastic too. Here Emmett is with Great-Grandpa Curley. Grandpa Curley makes all kinds of fun sounds that babies love. :)
Posing for a picture with my Dad and Gracie. Of course the other two are smiling so Emmett had to make a weird face.
Emmett wanted a bottle once we sat down so Mike volunteered for the job. Had to grab a shot of them both with their sunglasses on.
The next day Mike and I headed into Petoskey for a date night. We stayed at the Perry Hotel and ate at Chandler's. I would highly recommend both! Loved that the Perry was historic and close to downtown and we had a balcony with an amazing view of the bay. And Chandler's had a great selection of food and wine. Loved walking over there and the downtown area of Petoskey is so cute!

The next day we had brunch and came back to the cottage. My parents had some friends around who were visiting from Midland, Michigan. They headed off to see my grandparents' cottage and I gave Emmett a haircut.
Let's put the #2 guard on and buzz the sides here, son. You hold the mirror so you can see what you look like.

Then we headed into Mackinaw for dinner at Mama Mia's, a Stratton family tradition. Afterward, Katie picked up some fudge for her husband while we took pics of Emmett outside. Sadly, he is too little for ice cream!
Then we headed over to the bridge to get some shots.
After a drive and getting lost a few times, we ended up at the sand dunes over by Sturgeon Bay. Love this shot of Emmett and Mike both looking down the beach at my Dad and Gracie.
My Pops and Emmett!
And Mike pulled a total Dad Move and put Emmett down in the sand. As a Mom who hates messes, I would never have done this and cringed when it happened. But Emmett loved it so much that I was so glad Mike did it. Dads are so much fun aren't they? I'm glad Emmett has a Dad that sometimes doesn't think about messes and just thinks about how great of a time he'll have doing something.
(This doesn't mean you never have to worry about messes, Hubs! You hear me??) Mike buried Emmett's legs in the sand and Emmett was digging through and found his foot. The look of wonder on his face was so ridiculously awesome - he was like "HOLY COW that THING on the end of my LEG was UNDER HERE THE WHOLE TIME!?!?!" He looked up at Mike with this incredulous face I wish I'd gotten on video.

On Friday it was time to go home. But first we headed over to the cottage to get a little more lake time. Milly LOVED it there. Check out a beagle action shot....
Can you just leave me here with Grandma and Grandpa? I swear I won't howl anymore.
There is a tree in front of my Grandparents' cottage that used to grow out over the lake, but actually fell into the lake this winter. The root bulb the resulted was our playhouse in the summer. Here, Gracie and my Dad play on the roots.
Emmett got some more Aunt Katie snuggles and hung out on the shore.
Here is a pic of Gracie with that tree that goes over the water. Love this shot. I am totally submitting this in the photo contest at work!
So that's our vacation in pictures. It was so great. Maybe a tad too short and not enough time at the grandparents' lake but I loved seeing the family. Emmett was very sad to see us all part ways, he misses his fan club.

For more photos from the week click here

Reality check

As Emmett gets older and my body peters out on the nursing efforts, I am forced to face a harsh reality that I haven't had to deal with in over a year:

My horrible eating habits.

I'm not one that particularly enjoyed being pregnant, but there was one thing I enjoyed - for seven and a half months I didn't have to worry about sucking in my stomach once. It was AMAZING.

During pregnancy, it was whatever would go down my food-hole and stay there. One week I ate only poptarts. The next week it was spaghetti-o's and macaroni and cheese. For the duration of my pregnancy anything with complex flavors would turn my stomach. Mike and I joked that I had a limitation of 5 ingredients per dish. It would have been funnier if it hadn't been so true. As a result, I only gained ten pounds during my pregnancy - and that was when they weighed me at my check-in at the Women's Hospital triage with my coat and boots on.

The minute I was told I could eat after I gave birth, I asked someone to get me a sandwich. I was starving.

The next morning, I woke up and ordered what Mike refers to as "the left side of the menu." My appetite was back with force. I got a southwestern omelet, chocolate milk, regular milk, grapes, and a blueberry muffin. That was my breakfast each day I was in the hospital.

Once we got home I ate like a horse. I ate ten packs of fruit snacks a day. A lean cuisine was no longer a meal, but a paltry crappy snack. Emmett ate every three hours and so did I. I think the Eating through Evansville illustrates my maternity leave eating habits nicely.

When I went back to work it got a little better, at least with snacking all day long. Although lunches have been bad. We go to lunch together every day. About once a week it's to a bar with phenomenal burgers. I order a cheeseburger with a side of mayo, the fries with asiago cheese on them and a side of ranch to dip them in. Oh and once I ordered the queso dip to start it all off.

Luckily with all of this, my metabolism has been extra high with nursing and taking care of the bambino. Clothes that I haven't worn since before my wedding fit. I have a whole section of "fat clothes" I put away altogether. Some of the jeans that I couldn't fit into before I got pregnant have had to be washed and dried to even stay up, whereas I didn't dry my jeans EVER before I got pregnant. I had to start using some of my inventory of belts.

Alas, I believe those days are about over. The pants are getting tighter. Last night after a ridiculously meaty pizza I sat on the couch feeling extra fat. Seems that a few adjustments are in order.

Next week I start a few adjustments. I am no fool. I know with a baby and not much time to myself I need a FEW indulgences. So here are my simple cutbacks:

• Breakfast - Do something reasonable. No more McDonald's sausage biscuits (only $1! McD's just TRIES to mess up my diet!) and no more Anaheim panini's from Corner Bakery (zomg these are so good).
• Drinks - Nix the caloric drinks. I've gotten lax. I drink a vitamin water with 150 calories or fruit juice or the like. Drink lots of water and no-calorie tea
• Sweets - Cut. It. Out. Eat more fruit and drop all the cookies. I eat a lot of cookies.
• Snacks - Try to have healthier snacks. BBQ cheetos from the vending machine, while good, are not very healthy.
• Consider nixing the fries with that. So sad. But I need to cut out having fries with every meal we eat out.
  

Basically I need to stop being ridiculous and eating as many calories a day as Michael Phelps. I am going to allow myself to go to lunch with the coworkers and have whatever I want. But I need to be reasonable for breakfast and MOST dinners.

I'm at a weight I like. My clothes fit and I feel OK. I could be WAY more toned and fit but for now with Emmett sleeping from 8PM to 5AM or so this is what it's going to be. Maybe if he starts sleeping a little later I could feel rested enough to work out. But that's not going to happen right now. So for now I just need to make sure I don't add on a ton of weight!! Cut it off at the pass, so to speak.

We'll see how it goes.

Six month stats

DSC_6282, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

It's hard to believe it's been six months. Six months? Really? Have I not slept for that long?

I kid, I kid.

Sir had his six month appointment last week.. here are the stats:
-27 inches long - 75 percentile
-17.5 lbs - 50th percentile
-whatever the head circumference was, it was 25%

As of Friday we are done with the helmet! There are some pretty amazing before and after pics, email me if you would like to see them. I have it in a pdf and am not sure how, if I even can post them here. But it's pretty awesome. We are so glad he doesn't have to have it anymore - he seems so much happier without it and I know I won't miss the weekly trips to Skokie where I have to leave at 6:45 AM. Holy crap, those were some rough days. My favorite was the one last week where he decided to wake up at 4:15, then I had to get up at 5:15 to get ready to head out the helmet doc. I felt hungover all day just out of lack of sleep!!

6 months!

DSC_6234, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Look how big....

Baby fight!

DSC_6059, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

We thought it was funny to put the babies facing each other over the lake weekend for the fourth. Mike and our friend Danny started narrating for them as if they were fighting. "I will stun you with my ninja moves!" We were having a good laugh over it.

The little one on the right is my friend Amy (she is right between Mike and Danny) and Tom's baby. His name is Everett. Isn't he such a cutie too??

Amy and I were due just a month apart with the boys, so we had a lot of fun being preggo together and now it's awesome to bounce ideas (and complaints about sleeplessness!!) off each other! :)