Easton : 12 months

 

Dear Easton, Your ONE. Impossible. Simply impossible. Oh the difference a year can make! (Seems like I have said that the past three years.) This time last year, I was going to a doctor appointment, stress test or lap test everyday to make sure you were staying healthy while I tried to stay pregnant as long as I could. As PRECIOUS as you have been on the outside, you were not easy on mama on the inside. Shew! Here you are the morning of the day you were born and a year later. wowza.

 

 

 

You got a great report at your one year appointment. I'm so thankful for good appointments and do not take them lightly! Your numbers remained impressive (for our family at least). Your weight was 24 lbs, 6oz (89%), Head Circ 70% and your height was 30 in (56%). Your slowing down in the height department, but not the weight -and mommy can tell when I pick you up!

 

 

I'm sure I will  be sad that we are out of baby stage now, but for right now, I'm taking a huge breath to inhale! It has been a crazy 3years in babyland and just like that - your one! No more nursing, no more pumping, no more bottles, no night feedings, no infant carseats, bouncy seats, exersaucers, or baby food. I feel like I've done it for three years straight....oh wait. Kidding. Anyway, Easton, you have brought nothing but joy to our family...and that is not the exhaustion speaking. You are my cuddle bug and I adore it.

 

 

 

 

You are an incredible eater. You don't know it, but God made you a great eater so I would not loose.my.mind at the table. Your brother puts me through the ringer and it is so refreshing to look over and see you shoveling food in your mouth, smiling, and demanding more. Does a mama's heart good! You are to the point where I put as much food on your plate as I do the twins. Like, I made three identical plates. And while we are documenting things to reminisce on, after you have cleaned your plate, we give you the twins' left overs and you down it too. Glory, child! You drink fully from a sippy cup at each meal. You have been  getting 3-4 ounces of warm milk in a bottle right before bedtime but we have just taken it away a couple of times and you slept all night so you probably do not need it anymore. 



Your favorite foods are cheese, pancakes, bananas, goldfish, yogurt, pasta and sandwiches. You love all food, but these are your favorites :)

 

This is one helping. You can easily eat another plate just like it for seconds.

 

Ever since you were itty bitty, you get a bright red spot on your right cheek. I have tried to write down circumstances, food, environment details around when you have your spell, but nothing matches up. And naturally, I forgot to talk to the doctor about it -hasn't harmed you yet, but I took a picture just to remember.

 

 

 

Your quite the trooper hanging with your siblings. They both LOVE you. They mostly let you play along with whatever they are doing, but every once in a while they ask me to whisk you away. ( they don't ask that nicely, rest assured.) Since October has so many beautiful days, we spent alot of time outside. Since you are breaking my back holding you, we plopped you in the walker and let you run all around trying to keep up :) It is one of the few times you have worn shoes your entire life!

 



You continue to be a wonderful sleeper. Thank You! If you have a catch, which I don't even call a catch for fear of persecution from other moms, is that once 7pm comes....we better be near your bed or a pack n play. You don't mess around - you want to be put down or if that is not possible, held. No playing or entertaining yourself past 7pm. You sleep soundly through the night til about 6:30 am sometimes. We let you talk and play (sometimes you increase to a cry) but eventually you go back to sleep til 7:30-8:00a.

You are such a happy boy and I am so grateful God allowed us to have you this past year. It has been loud and crazy, but quite blessed. I can't wait to see your personality continue to reveal and see how you add to the family dynamics. We love you, Easton! Happy Birthday.

 

House Love - Outside Doors & Lights

 

When we moved in to our home, it had a very "cracker barrel" feel to it, at least in my opinion. The shutters were a country green and the doors were a dark hunter green with lovely faded, worn and weathered brass hardware.

 

 

If I had limitless time and money, I would have painted the entire house, but I have neither so out the door that idea went. Instead, Ryan power washed the entire house by himself over THREE (yes, three) weekends. Next time, we will find the $100 or so it would have taken a professional (or at least someone who doesn't have three kids needing things all day) to wash the house in one day. Yes. Moving on...

So we agreed to paint the shutters and exterior doors. I'm saving my pennies for a new front door, so for now, country brown, way-too-ornate-for-me front door stays :(

It took me a few days during nap times to get them all primed since all I had to do was slap primer up. Then it took me another week during nap times to get them painted since I had to be detailed and do two coats. Did I mention we have ALOT of doors and door frames? As in 8!  I found these awesome exterior lights on Amazon for a steal. yea! Ryan put up the first 2 lights, then I got impatient with him (no, that doesn't sound like me at all) and did the last two. Well, almost last two. A big roach crawled in the socket on the last light I was working on so I bailed and let Ryan finish that one :)

Before

During

Almost Done - much better!

We haven't changed the door hardware on all of the doors yet, but this is the direction we are headed in!

primed and ugly

During

 

After- Ta-Da!

House Love - Easton's Room

Easton's room is technically the office of the home. It has no closet so it cannot be listed as a bedroom. However, for our needs, it works perfectly! Thankfully, the owners left us the huge armoire they had in there (they also used as a bedroom). Turns out, the armoire is bigger than Easton's closet in Ohio! ha. His room was the first to be completely set up and unpacked mainly because it is exactly the same as it was in Ohio. So all I had to do was unpack and hang!

That is, after we did some painting and light switch updates. When I see something I like design wise, I go for it. No need to dilly dally if what you see is what you want - in my world at least. So, I saw a picture of Easton's room that had some crown molding at the top. So, Ryan went out and bought me some molding, hung it up and went to painting. We painted all of the bedrooms before we moved into the house so most of it was done during Saturday nap times or after the kids went down for the night. We would put the kids to bed at my parents and race over to the house and get as much done as we could. Crazy days!

Anyway, I LOVE it. I think it adds some character to an otherwise blah set of walls. I can't remember if I put pictures up of Easton's nursery in Ohio, but it is basically the same exact room. I LOVE the grey in his room. Love it, love it, love it.

My mom flew up to Ohio last year and had a marathon sewing session. She made all of Easton's nursery! Crib bedding, crib skirt, recovered my glider, changing pad cover and curtains. She is awesome like that.

The only thing left to do in Easton's room is do something with that huge armoire. I can't decide what I want to do with it: paint it, stain it, something else it? It definitely stands out as it is now.

Some may say his rug is a bit non kid-ly, but for now, I like it in there. And if I want to move it later, it is neutral enough I can move elsewhere in the house - love that!

This is as you come in the door - gotta house the precious sound machine and sleep monitor somewhere

 

HAD to have this picture of my sweet boy up in his room. Our photographer in Ohio was amazing, by the way.

 

Nursing, Night-Time Rocking station :)

 

I got his artwork from Etsy - holy smokes - love that website! So cheap and so cute!

 

 

The previous owners left the white bookshelf so we just kept it up for our use!

 

I framed a picture of a wall mural up in Ohio where we got his name from. And a little picture of one of my FAVORITE stages...when they are all cocooned and swaddled in their bouncy seat.

 

Our entire house is filled with these old almond colored light receptacles and switch plates. We are going room by room switching these out, but with the clean grey and white - I had to bump Easton's room to the top of the list! Plus- one of his receptacles had a loose wire so we never knew if his room light or our hall light was going to work day to day :) Lovely.

MUCH better. I read a blog that showed how to switch these out and was too impatient to wait for Ryan to have time to switch them for me (I know your shocked at my impatience). Ryan had a level 2 freakout not comfortable with me dealing with electricity. So I had good ole retired Papa T (my dad) come do one and watch me to make sure I was doing it right. And that is all she wrote! I am feeling very electrical these days!

 

 

 So...would love ideas and suggestions on what to do with Easton's armoire. And no, I'm not painting it chevron...there is already too much of it in the world and in his room :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easton: 11 months

 

The month of September was very chill for you and us, sweet boy. We were busy trying to unpack and get settled (which mommy can only do during nap time and after 8pm - slow process!!!) We had some playdates, but generally stuck close to home and enjoyed the beautiful weather outside.

 

We utilized eating outside more this month which just might be your pefect combination: outside and eating. ha! You basically only want finger foods by now - you get angry with the spoon sometimes. Mommy has also started transitioning you to whole milk now. Your a big boy, I'm sure you can handle it! 

You continue to be the happiest, easy going baby - mommy thanks you! Anytime someone looks down at you and says "Hey, Easton!" - you look up with this exact grin. Really and truly - 9.5 times out of 10. It is wonderful!

 

 

 

We did go to some parks, birthday parties and fun outings with Nana and Papa. You enjoyed all of them and went right along with the flow even if it was during a feeding or nap time.

 



I officially don't see you playing with any of your "baby" toys anymore. Everytime I look for you I can find you with Caden and Jenna, trying to do whatever they are doing. Don't grow up so fast!

 

Your funny imitation act this month was standing up beside your brother and letting the cars roll down the "ramp" of his overturned chair. You LOVE doing this and truly, if we are home, you do it everyday. It is so sweet to watch you try to be like your big brother.

Your sleeping well again after the great teething episode of last month. You are down in bed by 7pm and even though I don't know what time you actually wake up, I go in and get you at 7:30am. Most of the time you are awake,playing or talking to yourself and your paci's. You are weaned to taking bottles and formula/part whole milk four times a day. You scarf it down in a minute flat. Then you proceed to eat everyone else out of the building. Your 1 year stats are sure to be impressive. You have been in 12 month clothing for a while now and have skipped shoe sizes since I last tried to put any on you! You are now a size 4 !

We love you sweet boy - I can't believe the big birthday is coming up so close!

Easton: 10 months

Easton, Easton...your 10 months old now! This past month we tried to bring some stability in your life by moving into our new house! We are praying that the Lord allows us to spend your entire childhood here in this home so we are very excited to be moved in. You are shooting up like a rocket and becoming such a big boy so fast!

 

As we were busy moving and unpacking things in the new house, I looked over one day and you had pulled to stand in your new room. Just like that! I hardly know what to do with that...your poor, sweet brother had to have weeks of therapy to teach his muscles how to do that. I'm so thankful it came easy for you!

 

 

You also got to explore the wonderful world of boxes and unpacked moving paper everywhere! You really made mommy work to keep boxes from tumbling on you or picking up little pieces of paper that you wanted to eat. There were cords and wires everywhere...every baby's dream and every busy mama's nightmare. :) Fun times...

 

 

 

Also, just out of the blue, one day you started drinking from a sippy cup. WHAT? I had prepared myself for the greatest battle of my life after what your brother put me through trying to transition to the sippy. I decided to start super early since it would probably take 7 weeks of screaming like it did with your brother. Silly mommy, I know...it's you-Easton-we are talking about. I gave it to you and gulp, gulp, gulp you went! As trivial as it sounds, I consider it one of the great mercies the Lord has given me with 3 kiddos so far. It was a nightmare with your brother.

 

 

 

You have taken the lead as the superstar at the dinner table. Breakfast, lunch and dinner you eat more than your siblings. You eat everything mommy gives you (which is triple brownie points in my book) and you scarf it down like it is the best thing you have ever eaten. You took to finger foods like you were made to self feed. Insert Hallelujah Chorus.

 

 

 

 

You had a little incident with teething this month. 3 teeth in all and while it didn't affect your eating or drinking at all - it more than affected your sleep. It took lots of Tylenol and cuddling to get you to sleep peacefully this month. Many times you ended up in bed with mommy while Daddy was in France for work. I will chalk it up to 3rd child privileges and mommy exhaustion. At the end of the day, there is a positive out of all of it - these precious  pictures:

 

 

 

You are really interacting and playing with your siblings these days. You LOVE to play with anything they play with. In fact, you surprised your dad and me when you picked up a magnet alphabet letter off the floor, crawled to the white board, stood up and put it up on the board. What a smart little buddy! I guess from observing your siblings, you picked up on that quick. You also picked up on crawling with a car or truck to make it "move" like it is supposed to do. It is precious!...and so smart!

 









 

We have loved seeing you grow up before our eyes this month Easton! You are perfectly content to be in the room with Caden and Jenna and play with their toys or watch them. It is very satisfying for this mama's heart to watch. We love you bunches, big boy!

 

just another stalking sleep shot...love!

using that tongue to play with those new teeth!

Love this boy and this picture!

 

Chillin at church with Daddy

Easton's first boat ride on Papa's boat