9 months

Our little guy is 9 months already. Time is flying!

He's still mostly a breast-fed little guy, we've started some grains and veggies but he isn't too interested yet. He has nights of sleeping through the night, and then nights of waking up 1-3 times still. Honestly I am ready for that to be done. It's been so hard to muster up the energy to even check his diaper, sometimes I just give him his binky and that works, if he cries again then I check the diaper and feed him. I don't know what to say other than my body is done with the frequent wake ups!

We just came back from our first camping trip, which was good during the day, bad at night. We had this little packable sleeper box thing from his parents, but it was too small for him to roll onto his back. Plus it got pretty cold at night and his hands were icy cold when I nursed him at night, and stupid mommy hadn't packed any socks to even put on his hands. I wanted to tuck him into my bag with me, but Doug was worried I'd roll onto him, so he held him for a long time and eventually he fell asleep. And of course my whole family had woken up too, sorry everyone! My dumb phone is constantly out of picture storage space so will have to get the pics off Doug's phone.

Otherwise he's a pretty good boy. Addicted to his binky. Loves to reach out and grab anything he can possibly grab and stuff into his mouth. Sitting like a pro, but no crawling yet. Loves to be carried around and be with mom and dad. Will still sit and play with toys or be in his jumper, but not for too long, so that makes it difficult to get things done. Oh well.

He's always been so "easy", so when he's been more fussy lately it's been hard for me. Lately I've been struggling with feeling like a pretty lousy mom and have been praying so much for God to give me patience, kindness, and gentleness with him, and compassion for his needs. Pretty much praying Colossians 3:12-14 over me: "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

It seems bad to have to pray for more love for your own child, which also makes me feel like a failure, but it can feel very overwhelming trying everything and he's still crying and upset. It's so easy to get frustrated and even annoyed. So I keep praying. I always felt this deep desire to be a mother and God has so generously given that to me, I pray that I can be the mom that August needs! Please pray for me.

life lately

Not up to much these days. I've had the week off so I've been doing stuff on my to do list like hemming a pair of pants that have been sitting there for months, trying to figure out how to wipe my old laptop since I've finally transitioned to my new one, we celebrated Doug's birthday last week, making meals and taking family walks.

He's been jumping like crazy in his jumper

bugger nose! haha, sent this pic to his daddy. I think this was his 4th cold since birth? Already gone. We've been pretty blessed 8 months in and hasn't had more than the 4 colds here and there.

not crawling, but sitting up like a boss

He's started to do more of those annoying baby things like throwing his head back and arching his back when he cries. He fights naps and going down for bedtimes occasionally. Last night we tried the 'cry it out' but I couldn't take more than about 5 minutes. So Doug and I took turns holding, singing, and then Doug just sat next to him while he played around and eventually got tired. All in all he's pretty good though.

We started veggies. I made a mix of sweet potato, kale, swiss chard, and spinach. I don't think I minced the leaves small enough, pretty soon he was gagging and threw it all up along with huge amounts of milk that he had before the veggies. Whoops, maybe you're supposed to do milk more like an hour before?

We got a 'new' wooden highchair last night off a swap site, I don't really like the cloth one we registered for. Even though the fabric wipes down, too many cloth crevices for gunk to get stuck. I guess something can look great on a registry, but real life shows you need something else.

He's not really a huge fan of food. A bite or two and then he's done. Which is fine with me, breastmilk should be a baby's main nutrition at least until a year, and the WHO says until 2 actually.

less barfy, buggery pictures of our boy:

LOVES bathtime

our little cutie

grow garden grow

My mom came over and helped me plant the garden when we returned from Hawaii in May.

We planted zucchini, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, pole beans, san marzano tomatoes, cucumber, beets, broccoli, dill, and brussel sprouts. Mom set up the fence and we were good to go... or so we thought.

The neighborhood groundhog got in anyway (we think under the fence?) ate a bunch of the beet greens, almost all the leaves off the beans, a zucchini plant, all the broccoli, the dill, and 3 out of 4 of the Brussel sprouts. I went back to Lowes and got some replacement plants, but they weren't selling pole beans anymore, and I didn't bother with broccoli again. We thought we reinforced the fence, but the very next day he ate it almost all again. RRRRRRRR.

So we borrowed mom and dad's live trap.

Gotcha!

I will spare you the other 4 groundhog photos, because they pretty much all look alike. Yup, we caught 5 groundhogs. One day we even got 2 in one day. So after debating what to do with them, we decided to let them go in this fieldy area about 5 miles away. And we took them all one by one to the same spot so hopefully they can reunite.

It's been a couple days with no more in the trap, and no more garden decimation. So that's good.

So far I have some green tomatoes, a little cuke growing, but everything else is still pretty small. Here's hoping for a better turnout than last year!

Speaking of fresh veggies, I hosted book club last night and made this awesome salad. The dressing was the star of the show, everyone loved it and it was all gone. Can't wait to make it again.

4th of July

The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love the day off (when not working of course) to spend time with friends and family, I love the grilling, I love the festiveness and the fireworks, and I love being on a lake when possible. This year it was possible :)

We spent a nice little family morning together and then in the afternoon headed over to our friend Jeannie's. We ate wonderful things and went out on their boat. I got in my annual wakeboarding :). Some other friends joined us and we all hung out, talked, and went out on the pontoon in the evening to see some fireworks. Mr. August is unfortunately not a fireworks fan, that and combined with it being nearly 10 o'clock he was a little crybaby and we had our friends take us back to the house so we could go home. But all in all a very nice fourth.

The daily Bible verse my mom sent me yesterday was: "Romans 8:1-2: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death." It was neat to think of that yesterday as we celebrated our country's freedom and to also celebrate that through Jesus's death and resurrection, we have freedom from sin.

God bless America, let freedom ring!