Little Underwood, Big Harte

Happy Easter!  We hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter! We got to spend the day together and enjoy each other's company after Stefan was gone the week before. After Gavin napped and Mommy went to Mass, all three of us zipped over to the zoo and out for lunch before heading back to the house to play outside and go for a walk.  The Easter Bunny brought Gavin a few toys and ... some more teeth! This kid almost has all of his baby teeth - we are working on the rest to make SIXTEEN! The incisors have all poked through and two molars on the bottom plus little white spots have joined the group on the top where his molars will come through. He isn't walking yet but he is an early teether! This brings some fussiness, rosy cheeks, a runny nose and lots of drool, but hopefully once these come through he is done for awhile until he gets those last four molars much later.  Enjoy some pics from Easter Sunday. Family of three - or five if you count the gorilla and ba...

Gavin was 14 months on Saturday! We had some great family time by going to the local BBQ festival. He loved people watching and hung out in the stroller while we were tasting everything. Later in the evening, thanks to our wonderful nanny, Kait, we got to go out with another couple for dinner - just adults! We are happy to report he is sleeping consistently through the night now. If he wakes up he can put himself back to sleep quickly usually, and he makes it until 6:15 a.m. in the morning after going to bed around 7:15 p.m. We have yet to teach him how to fall asleep on his own for naps because we love the snuggles and it is pretty easy to rock him during the day to sleep, but that is probably coming to an end soon. That will probably help him take longer naps if he can go back to sleep on his own when he wakes up during the day. He still likes eating and enjoys most things except wants a variety. He loves his breakfast smoothie normally consisting of kale or a different green,...

We have been looking for a new place to rent since December and we finally found it! It is in the location we wanted, is nice enough and in our price range. No pool unfortunately, but those are so hard to come by actually (you wouldn't think so in FL, but its true)! Even though we sold our Colorado home in November, we are not ready to jump back into being homebuyers and are perfectly happy with renting after having a long distance rental for two years and putting so much into repairs last year. End of June/early July we are moving to Gulf Breeze Proper, about 20-25 minutes down the road, just a few minutes across the bridge from Pensacola. It is 5 minutes from Stefan's work, Starbucks :) and a new Panera Bread! It is also exactly one mile from a huge park, the community center, a public access swim area and dock and the library! Lots of fun to be had I'm sure. Our current rental is a really nice four bedroom and has great appliances. It is just not a great location for...

Here's Gavin with his new baby walker enjoying puttering around on two feet. Now that he is an efficient crawler and is over a year we are fine with encouraging him to explore the world with another foot of perspective. In other updates. Now that his ninth and we think tenth (first molar) have poked through, we finally put the last big push on his night time sleep training (before the next ones come, they aren't far behind), and it has been going really well so far. He is still waking up some, but two out of the last three nights he made it until 5 or 6 without a peep and the other night it only took him a few minutes to put himself back to sleep. Now if Mommy could just learn to fall asleep at night things would be going swimmingly. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Big success - We all made it through the recent sleep draught (my new word for it)! The day after I last posted, he slept through the night and did so for about 6 or 7 nights straight (insert big smiles from Mommy here)! To clarify this means he slept from around 7:30/45 to either 5:30/6 and we could normally get him back to sleep until about 6:15/30. MUCH IMPROVED from the last three and a half weeks before that where he was getting up multiple times a night. We really believe he was just going through something like the sleep regression quotes I shared last post. I've been nervous to post about him sleeping well and as soon as the thought entered my mind he had a rough night (my last night without Stefan). Luckily last night he made it through again. He's been a bit fussy and clingy and we were attributing that to a big adjustment ... I officially stopped nursing! Last Friday before bed ended up being his last feeding and then Saturday we just made the decision and skipped ...

The monthly stickers don't go past 12 months, but I couldn't let March 12 go by and not acknowledge that Gavin is now 13 months. Each day is no longer his first time being around, but that doesn't mean we aren't seeing a lot of new things still. (No, he isn't eating the bar below just playing with it!). His development is constant! He loves imitating us so he can do lots of fun things now and even try to put a word to it (da, ma, ba, sh and variations of those sounds). The answer to the big question we get lately ... no, he is not walking yet. He can motor around crawling and pulls up and surfs along furniture, and as of this week stands on his own for extended periods of time. He is completely mobile - just not on two feet yet! Many of you know we have not been actively encouraging walking so we are just fine with him taking his time. Early I posted about our baby sleeping woes. We thought the sleep trouble was from molars coming in, but we haven't actually s...

We aren't sure if the little man is getting some molars in or what, but he hasn't been sleeping well. After sleeping for 9 or so hours straight for a week, he started getting up 3, 4, 5 even 6 times (of course right after our helpers G&G left!). I thought by now we'd be getting some consistent sleep! Needless to say we are pretty tired, but we made the most of the sunny, spring weekend together! Loves emptying out his bottom drawer and well climbing into it. He's pretty proud of himself as you can see. This was a couple hours after a major meltdown on the new part-time sitter and I left work an hour early because he was inconsolable. Little stinker! Going to see the Gulf on a sunny spring day. Not impressed with my kisses I guess.  Family fun. He's still quite leery of the waves. A visit to the Budgies at the zoo. He wasn't too sure but didn't freak out even when one landed on my shoulder and pecked his finger.  His fac...