Fun Weekend

Yesterday we took a road trip to Columbus, GA to visit some family. Zachariah had SUCH a fun time playing with his cousin, Jackson! They are only 2 months apart, so they both had the running thing down pat. It was so cute to see them running around together. They were EVERYWHERE. I was actually very shocked to see I got a picture of the two of them sitting still!


Let me just say how proud I am of my little man. He sat in a car seat for an hour and a half on the way there, he sat in a highchair at a restaurant once we arrived, he socialized with a large crowd of people all day AND he let several people hold him (which very rarely happens). All of that on no nap whatsoever (which NEVER happens. This kid loves his naps). He was a trouper throughout the whole day. No whining, complaining or attitudes were had. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

What surprised me even more, was that he fell asleep on the way home. He never falls asleep in his car seat. I don't think he has slept in the car since he was 6 months old. He slept for a solid hour too! Yet again, pleasantly surprised would best describe me.

Anyway, enough of my babble. Here are some pictures I took on the way home. I call these "the evolution of a nap". :)

the eye rub

the giraffe to the nose
(don't ask me why, but this is how he goes to sleep. he
has to put the giraffe up to his face. every. single. time.)

...and sleep finally takes over

I love pictures of him sleeping. I cant get enough of them.

Hope everyone is having a good Monday!

Ramblings

Daniel is at work printing something for our living room wall. He is actually printing something that he painted and designed. It turned out SUPER cool. I cant wait until it is up! (No worries, I will post pics)

Zachariah has really started HATING when I rinse his hair during bath time. He starts crying and begging to get out of the tub as soon as I get done washing his hair. Tonight he was pitching such a fit that he slipped out of Daniel's hands and hit his head on the side of the tub. Poor little guy. He used to sit there and let me dump water on his head with no problem. But now I cant even ring a washcloth over his head without him freaking out. I really don't know what to do about this new phobia. It makes bath time so much more stressful. *sigh*

It has been raining alot today. We have had tornado warnings off and on all stinking day long. It has made for a very looooong and unproductive day stuck inside. So I haven't been in the best mood. But after eating a whole entire box of mac n cheese, I think I am coming out of it.

Speaking of eating a whole box of mac n cheese... I am needing desperately to do some exercise and loose a little weight. We are going to the beach in May and I am coming to the horrific realization that I will never again be able to wear a bikini. I mean, its been a year and a half since I have had Zachariah. Its just not in the cards for me folks. I am 23 years old and will be confined to one pieces or tankini's for the rest of my life. How depressing.

Ok. Daniel is home now, so I can stop boring all 3 of my readers. :)

Goodnight everyone!

Another First

Zachariah loves to color. Or scribble. Whatever you want to call it, he likes it. Usually we will roll out this HUGE piece of material (that Daniel brought home from work) and Zachariah will sit in the middle of it and just scribble till his heart is content. Its pretty cute. Now that I think about it, I need to take some pictures of that. Hmm. Making a mental note....

Anyway. Yesterday, I rolled out the material and Zachariah started coloring. Soon after he started, I went to go put something in the kitchen. I was in the kitchen for about 20-30 seconds when I thought the following:

"You know what? Zachariah has yet to color on walls, or furniture, or toys... anything but the material and coloring pages. That's impressive right there. Then again I have never really left him alone with crayons before. Wouldn't it be ironic, and a little funny, if he were coloring on something right now? Hmm. On second thought, that wouldn't be so funny. I should get back in there."

And sure enough, when I go back in, Zachariah is proudly showing me his drawings. On his new IKEA furniture. He managed to color on both chairs and the table. In less than a minute of me being out of the room. And he somehow got a hold of one the few non-washable crayons that we had in his playroom.



Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with the situation. But he was so cute when he would go back and forth from each piece of furniture showing me what he had done. He was so proud of his work I couldn't get to mad.

Now I just need to get a magic eraser to take it off!

Lovey

This is Z's giraffe blanket. I thought it was a bit weird at first, and I would get weird looks from people who haven't seen these before. But its actually pretty cool. It is a giraffe stuffed animal and a mini-blanket all in one.

Zachariah actually picked this little friend out at Target when he was about 6 or 7 months old. We were walking around in the baby section and he pointed to this blanket. So what did I do? I bought it. And boy am I glad I did. This is one of the two items that Zachariah will NOT sleep without (the other being his blanket). Since the day it came home with us, it has been a staple for nap time and bed time. Mr. Giraffe Blanket is also the recipient of a good bit of Zachariah's hugs and kisses.

Can you tell that he adores this thing?? :)
Happy Monday!

Two Things

First off, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped with our diaper predicament the other day. We moved him up to a size 5 diaper at night, and we have had NO leaking problems since! He has also stopped waking up during the night as well. So I think we nipped that in the bud. Thanks again to those who commented with suggestions!

Second, I wanted to point out what an idiot I am. Lets look at the post below, shall we? You see the first picture of the ABC book? If you will take a good look, you will notice that my son's name is spelled wrong. That's right. I forgot to put an "h" at the end of his name. Sadly, this is not the first time we have misspelled his name. We also did it on our Christmas card. I really need to pay more attention to what I am doing, especially when I am putting it up on my blog for the whole world to see.

*sigh*

Oh! And shame on those who didn't say anything to me before hand! I had to find out at 3:00 in the morning while at a friends house that I misspelled my sons name on his ABC book. Honestly people, next time I do something that stupid I expect someone to step up and let me know. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

ABC, It's Easy As 123...

***DISCLAIMER***

I do NOT have a creative bone in my body. If I do anything that is considered creative, I probably taken/borrowed the idea from someone else. That being said, I got the following craft idea from this website. You should go check it out. This mom of two has some pretty darn good craft ideas! (thanks for the website, Jamie!)
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I finished making a custom alphabet book for Zachariah this weekend, and I was quite pleased with the results! (Save the chicken scratch handwriting.) I basically went around the house and took pictures of different things that Zachariah is familiar with. One for each letter of the alphabet. Then I slapped the pictures on some construction paper, added the appropriate letter to the page, and labeled the picture. It was mainly a "mommy project", but I think older toddlers/preschoolers would enjoy doing this with little to no help.

Anyway, below you will find pictures of our finished product! :)

I decided to make a cover page for our book. I let Zachariah color the front page and added a little foam letter action for the title. Put a cute picture of my kid up there, and I was good to go.
You get the idea. I am not going to bore you with all 26 pages. But Zachariah loved looking at his toys in his alphabet book. I need to video his squeals of delight. :)


And even though this isn't the best picture in the world, I just had to put it up. The picture I used for the letter "P" was a picture of all his stuffed penguins. As soon as he saw it he squealed and ran to his room to get one of them. It was so darn cute.
Let me know if you make your own! I would love to see other peoples variations of it. :)

Help Needed

The Facts:
Zachariah eats dinner at 5:30 or 6:00 pm.
He drinks about 8 ounces of milk with his dinner. Sometimes less.
He does NOT drink anything after dinner.
He goes to bed in between 7:30 and 8:00 pm.
He wakes up in between 7:45 and 8:30 am.

The Predicament(s):
1) For the past couple weeks, he has been SOAKED with pee when he wakes up. I am not talking about a little damp. He is drenched from his thighs to his armpits. It is so gross.

2) For the past few nights he has been waking up two to three times a night, and I am pretty sure its a combination of teething and sleeping in a puddle of his pee. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get my required 8 hours of sleep.

The Question(s):
What the heck do I do?? Has this happened to anyone else?

When his diapers have started leaking before, it meant that it was time to go up a size. But we JUST went from size 3 to 4. Those fit him wonderfully. So that isn't the problem. I am just so lost. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

IKEA Rocks!

This weekend Daniel and I transformed our guest bedroom into a play room (I will post pictures of that once I completely finish. I still have some rearranging and organizing to do). One thing that I have been longing for, has been a toddler table and chairs. I was getting tired of our kitchen table being cluttered with play dough and coloring stuff. Fortunately, a friend of ours went to his local IKEA and picked up a table for us (he saved us a butt load in shipping). Isn't it the cutest toddler table you have ever seen? Its from the MAMMUT series. I would do Zachariah's whole room in that furniture if we had money coming out of our ears. :)

Zachariah studiously working on his laptop

I think its a keeper!!

More pictures to come soon. I just wanted to share my new favorite item in our house. :)
Happy Wednesday!

First Baking Experience

Today has been a very boring, rainy day. Zachariah had been very fussy and nothing was appeasing him. I mean, the kid has six teeth coming in at once, and four of them are his first year molars, so he kind of has an excuse to be fussy. But I was holding out hope that I could cure his mood with something other than the TV. So I decided that we would make some muffins. Good idea, right? I thought so.

Zachariah was having fun dumping the mix and milk into the bowl and then stirring it all together. So while he was chit chatting to himself (mainly in Japanese), I was patting myself on the back for improving his mood.


After a few stirs, Z decides he wants to eat the muffin mix. I calmly tell him, "no, we are going to eat it later, lets keep stirring, okay?" Then the Muffin Meltdown of '09 begins...

Turns out I didn't help his mood at all. We will try the baking thing another time. When he isn't so emotionally unstable.

(And yes, I realize I am a mean mommy for putting these pitiful pictures up. But he is just so darn cute, even when he is having a meltdown!)

I Love This Kid

I have noticed over the past couple weeks that Zachariah is looking a lot older. I don't know what it is, but he is looking like such a big boy. Maybe its because he doesn't need me to carry him much anymore. Or maybe its because he is using more words, as opposed to baby babble. Maybe its because he is giving me "real" kisses, as opposed to the open mouth slobbery kisses that I was so used to. Then again, it may be because he is a year and a half old today. Yeah... that will probably do it.

Happy 18 month birthday little monkey! I love you!

P.S. If you could stop growing up so fast, that would be great. :)

Finally!

I have been trying to upload these pictures for two weeks now, but blogger has had a few issues with the size of the photos. So I have finally taken the time to re-size them so I could share them with you all. :)

Anyway, these pictures are from the first time Zachariah played with Play-Dough. I was a bit paranoid about him attempting to eat it, but he did really well! Once he figured out that we weren't sitting at the table to eat, he was good to go.

These first two pictures are of Z "pretending" to eat the play-dough. It was cracking me up. He would piece to his lips and say "Mmmmm!". Then he would look at me and give me the cutest little smirk.

Zachariah's cookie cutter of choice was definitely the pig. He has since moved on to other things, but the pig was his favorite the first day. I showed him how to do it one time, then he took over from there. I was amazed at how fast he figured everything out. I just love watching his little mind work!

Anyway! Without further adieu, here is the evolution of Zachariah's Play-Dough pig...

Needless to say, he was VERY proud of his first play-dough animal. :)

I just want to add that we were given a TON of play-dough accessories by our goddaughter. Cookie cutters, stamps, utensils... you name it, its probably in our stash. But at the end of the day, its a good ol' play-dough ball that really kept my little man entertained. :)

Happy Wednesday!

First Carbonated Beverage

Zachariah LOVES drinking through a straw. So the other night at dinner he saw my Sprite from Burger King and begged to have a sip. The only beverages he has consumed (to my knowledge anyway) have been water, juice and milk. He has definitely not had anything carbonated before. So I grabbed the video camera and let him have at it.

Needless to say, he HATED the carbonation going down his throat. Poor little guy. But his reaction cracked me up. So like a good mommy, I am sharing it with all of bloggerland. :)

Coming Soon

I haven't had time/been in the mood for blogging here recently. I have been posting a video here, a picture there... and that's about it. So this post it to let you know that I am trying to get out of my funk, so bear with me.

Next time I get on here I hope to post pictures of Z playing with Play-Dough! :)

Love It

I just saw this commercial while watching The Biggest Loser. From the moment it started, we were captivated by the music. Anyway... just wanted to share. Ignore the crappy youtube quality. :)