Music Together

When I started this blog in May I gave you all an introduction to Music Together in a previous post of mine. I had no readers at the time so I don't know how many have actually seen it...but backtrack and check it out!

We are totally MT groupies! Oliver had his first class of the summer session on Saturday (his fourth consecutive session). AND he is registered for the fall session! We are very excited to be able to continue him in these classes.

I would love to hear from other parents of the Music Together program, or any other music program for that matter. Share your child's musical journey with me! I am so amazed to see what Oliver has taken from these classes that I'd love to compare experiences.

When we started our first session last fall Oliver had just learned to crawl. In fact, he graduated from army crawl to hands-and-knees crawl the evening after his very first class. Now, he is a runner! That in itself is such a change. I love seeing how his independent mobility is incorporated into his musical appreciation. I, myself, have learned so much since we started last September that I know he doesn't need to be sitting still to be getting a ton out of the class. He sits still the least, but in my opinion, participates the most.

Unfortunately, our regular teacher had something come up and missed class this week. Fortunately, our substitute Val brought her baritone ukulele and allowed the kids to explore the new instrument. We are definitely looking forward to seeing Nik next week for class. I know Oliver will be so excited to be reunited after the break between sessions.

Oliver's Musical Breakthroughs:

Oliver leads the class- he is anxious to get started and lets Nik know that it's time to start the show at the beginning of class. He then anticipates what Nik is going to do and will do it just a second too early. It's adorable. It melts my heart a bit. "You're going to steal my job," Nik said to him one day.

Oliver dances- Baby's got moves! It started as some quick stepping and has turned into spinning and clapping. He will even do the Imagination Movers dance moves ("Reach High, Think Big, Work Hard, Have Fun".... but he really only "works hard"; and from the closing song "Jump Up, Get Down, Stand Up, Turn Around" ...he does every one of those moves).

Oliver remembers music- with every class we get a set of two CDs. We pretty much focus on whatever the current CD is and replay the others during breaks between sessions. We recently rediscovered the first CD we got almost a year ago (Oliver was around 9 months old)... and he remembers the songs! He remembers them so well that started clapping along with a song seconds before the clapping started. I was driving the first time he did this and was so surprised that I didn't have to coax him to clap. So cool. We've also gotten him to "shake those 'simmons down" along with the song and it's too cute. Too cute!

Oliver loves instruments- we learned this very early on but I hadn't realized just HOW much he loves instruments. I had gotten a ToysRUs rewards coupon for $5 and thought, "Hey it's a rainy day, let's take a ride and see if we can find a cheap little toy." Well...he was miserable the entire time we were in the store. No toy held his interest at all. Then I took him over to where the instruments are and showed him a ukulele. Loved it. Found a Handy Manny guitar. Double loved it. Keyboards? Oh we wish that $5 rewards was more like $100!

Oliver sings- it took me a second to notice that was what he was doing, but he started singing along to the Sesame Street theme song and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. It's just a high pitch squeal but it's definitely him singing along. In the car, I've also realized he is singing along to songs on the radio. He has joined in on two different Mariah Carey songs, The Who ("Whoooooo are you? Who who? Who who?" of course), and the intro to Alice in Chains' Rooster. I think as long as there is some very high notes he is going to join in.

Here is a picture of Oliver during his first session of Music Together

And here he is now!

Our Music Together experience is offered by Musical Folk.  Again, I expressed my love for Musical Folk back in May, so be sure to read that post!  Here it is.

And check out the Musical Folk website!

West Rock State Park

Since moving to Hamden I've been meaning to learn more about the area and the places to entertain Oliver.  I've driven by signs for the state park only about a kajillion times, so after dinner on Friday we took a ride over to check it out.  The scenery on the ride over was not pretty.  There was some housing that looked aweful and trash dumped on the sides of the road (I'm sure people just dump whatever the Transfer Station on the same road won't take). 

The park itself needs some more investigation.  There must be hiking/walking trails, but I didn't see any clearly marked or maintained ones and I don't exactly want to "wing it" with Oliver.  But we did park and get out of the van to stretch our legs (we had been in there all of 10 minutes and were getting cranky) when we reached the look-out at the top.  Very nice view of New Haven and the surrounding area.  Oliver had a blast running around, so did Genie.  That old dog was suddenly puppy-like running around there.  Awesome photo ops there, so I was happy.

Better Late Than Never

Bad Mommy Blogger! Bad! Naughty, naughty me posted ZERO times this week.  Do you feel so abandoned lovely readers?  I apologize. 

We spent the weekend in Barrington, New Hampshire with my in-laws.  Traveling is so rough lately.  Oliver is miserable.  Any suggestions for a 3 hour ride with a 17 month old is greatly welcome!  With our move we lost track of where the portable DVD player to mount on the van's headrest ended up.  Oh what a difference that would have made!  Oliver resisted napping so hard that he made himself carsick.  Literally SECONDS from our destination: BLEHHHH! Projectile vomit from my poor miserable little boy.  I was so busy thanking God for his timing that I only gagged two or three times getting Oliver wiped and out of his seat to finish our trip on foot.  Imagine this fiasco on the highway an hour into the ride as opposed to in my inlaws development three streets down from their house.  I am one lucky Momma!

Can you believe that in my 17 months as  mom I have very little vomit experience?  Oliver did not spit up much as an infant; even with the switch to formula it was minimal.  There was a stretch of puking with every meal as a means of saying "I'm done".  Yeah that was annoying, but it wasn't really a full vomit, so even that didn't have me ready for the projectile vomit in the car.  Oh man it was a no good start to the weekend.

We were cranky to begin with, feeling stressed with Nate's work schedule and feeling like this was the first time we've had to spend together in the new house and we had to travel.  Belly Baby is getting heavy on my back and I had some horrible nights' sleep in my OWN bed...was not looking forward to the million-year-old sleeper sofa at the lake.

But once we are there we always get caught up in the gorgeous weather, beautiful scenery, and the slow pace of being at camp.  Got some gorgeous pictures! Would you expect any different from me?!  I may need the camera surgically removed from my face!

The drive home from NH was almost just as bad.  And when we finally got home at 9pm Monday night...after two hours of crying and only an hour of sleeping from Oliver... our power had been turned off!!!!!! I was so angry I could cry!  We fumbled around the house in the dark and got Oliver and the dog back into the van and drove over to the still empty condo (no dogs allowed there by the way) to spend the night and hopefully sort things out.  We had gotten a letter from the electric company the week before that we had 15 days to send a copy of my ID for them to be able to provide service.  Well we had the letter for maybe 7 days and the power was cut off Monday while we were in NH.  It wasn't until then that we noticed the letter was dated nearly a month earlier! 

Of course no one at the electric company seemed to care that I am very pregnant, have a one year old and a big hairy dog, or that their was a heat advisory for the state the entire day...apparently turning on the power is not as urgent as turning it off.  It was turned back on Tuesday evening (at about the same time I called to ask if it as on and they told me no).  We spent another night at the condo before finally making our homecoming on Wendesday morning.  Now you know why I've been too tired and preoccupied to post!

Side note- seeing Oliver running around and rediscovering his first home drove me to tears! I was so tired and frustrated and over emotional that I broke down watching him scream and run through the empty rooms, especially his old nursery that still has the alphabet I made him on the wall.

What's Cookin', Good Lookin'?

Welcome to my kitchen. 

Well...this is not my kitchen. This is just what happened to be there. Too white. Too boring. Too small?

It's certainly not our "Forever Kitchen", but with my SAHM income (or lack thereof) it is definitely our "For A Long Time Kitchen".

 First things first- add a polar bear skin rug...oh wait, that's Genie, as always finding the most convenient place to lay.

Ok- first things first..for real this time: repurpose a sofa table we had from the condo. I really wanted to get a kitchen cart or island from Ikea, but realistically this worked much better. It was the perfect height to go under the window and it is very narrow so it doesn't make walking through the back door (to the left, faces the table) awkward, which was a concern of mine because the fridge is next to the door. AND we already had it...much more budget friendly.

For now, we have also repurposed the bistro table we had out on the balcony of the condo. Eventually we will figure out a more permanent kitchen table. Really, this is the only eating space but it is ridiculously small and awkard. Can't go too close to the oven and it can't stick out too far because of where the fridge and the entry from the hallway are. Basically, I have to figure out how to fit everything in and NOT have to twist and turn and side-step around things. So the search is on for a breakfast table that is bigger than this, but not too big. I would love a pub table so it makes for extra work surface, but I don't know how it would go putting Oliver's booster seat on a high chair like that.

I picked up some affordable shelving from Ikea. Didn't measure, of course, and I had intended for the metal shelf with the spice rack to go on the side of the window above the former sofa table, now coffee bar (once I order some more coffee that is).  It didn't fit AT ALL, which is why the mismatched shelves are next to eachother... and I dont hate it.  Kind of like it.  I like that having shelves frees up some cabinet space which is sparse to begin with. I had all the cabinets pretty figured out... and then I remembered that Oliver had an entire cabinet to himself between bottles and breast pump pieces and bibs and spoons and baby food and...well, you know all the things those little monkeys need! Now his plates and cups fit in with our stuff, but we have Little Stinker on the way, so I want to make sure I get used to having a space set aside for all his stuff to go.

And the color makes me so happy!  Granny Smith Apple.  Loving the brightness and the life it breathe into the space.

 So here is an overall shot of the kitchen.  To the left is the fridge and to the left of the fridge is the back door (facing the same way).  So the layout of the fridge and the doorways makes it a little awkward trying to get a table in, but I am very happy with the size of the kitchen.  It has less cabinet space and counter space (and no dishwasher! ahhh!) than the condo had...but I absolutely HATED being in the kitchen in the condo.  It had no windows and was a smaller space. Now, I don't mind being in there because I don't feel so claustrophobic in it...I don't even mind the extra time it takes to handwash all the dishes! Crazy, right?!

Speaking of dishes....I just needed to share the ridiculous amount of dishes and utensils I always seem to use when I cook.  I don't know what my problem is... but I definitly use much more than necessary.  There were more dishes on the other side of the sink, too.  It included a few dishes from throughout the day also, but still, that's a lot!

When it came to cabinet knobs I needed to add a little personality (some of my inner goofball) and strech my craft muscle.  I bought plain wood knobs from Home Depot, used the same Granny Smith Apple color from the walls, added some more color from the random acrylic paints I had in my craft bucket, and glazed them with some brush-on Modge Podge (LOVE that stuff!).  I did some searching on Google and Etsy and found quite a few hand painted wood knob ideas and listings.  I had so much fun and it was such a quick craft I think I may start busting these out for Etsy myself!  Any buyers?  I love the light heartedness of them... so simple, but they make me so happy.

So what's the verdict? How did I do?  I feel like this is the first space we have pretty much finished.  The babies' room has been painted and Oliver's furniture is in it, but it still needs a chair rail added...oh yeah, and a crib for Owen!  The master bedroom is painted also, but not fully put together yet. 

The bathroom is about done I guess, but there have been plumbing issues that will be finished with tomorrow.  The pedestal sink had a leak in the back that turned out to be more than we expected, and the tub is disgustingly slow.  It's so gross and needs to be snaked.  Oliver still uses an inflatable ducky tub insde the tub so he's been able to bathe and Nate has had to shower in it, but I am so skeeved that I won't stand in it.  I wash one body part at a time with the hand-held sprayer, pretty much bending over the tub.  I can't wait for that to be taken care of.

Oh what the hell- here's the bathroom.

Before: Bare bathroom still sporting the winterized sticker on the pot, and some weird arms we assume were for shelving (there was a random glass shelf in a hall closet).  There is tile from floor to ceiling so adding shelving is not that easy, and having a pedestal sink means no storage there either.  Ahhhhh! Again...condo bathrooms were much bigger (and there were two!).  But being homeowners so outweighs the downsizing and adjusting.

After:  The yellow and blue really breathed life into the bathroom.  The duckies are so fun and make me so happy.  We also found a rack at Target that stands under the pedestal sink, curving around it to take advantage of that awkward space.  "Yay" for some added storge.  "Boo" for the awkwardness and toddler accessability.

We finally got Oliver a hooded towel that covers him! We were still using his newborn towels!



How we spent our 4th of July

Because I know you are all just DYING to know...this is what we did for our holiday.

Nothing particularly patriotic- other than living the American Dream, I guess. After Oliver's morning nap, we set up our yard with lounge chairs and splashy pool and enjoyed each other's presense.

 Oliver isn't sure of the pool...still!  Yes it's freezing, but he has no problem being splashed or splashing, he just isn't convinced he wants to be inside of it.  But as long as I get a few shots that looks like he's having a grand 'ol time...well that makes me happy. 

Someday I need to catch up on my scrapbook!  I'm a year behind on Oliver...never did our wedding...and now I will have a second child sooner than we realize!  I will NEVER be caught up.  I take way too many pictures and make way too many pages in my scrapbooks.  Oliver's baby book is from birth in February up until my Birthday in June, with a trip to Sesame Place in September thrown in....and it's HUGE! I need to learn how to get picky...but I just love every shot of every memory!

Can you say tangent? Sorry.

So fireworks.  I think Oliver would have enjoyed a few, but of course he is in bed between 7 and 8 and none of the shows started until 9 at the earliest.  No fireworks for Oliver. 

Now, I am from NJ- you CANNOT set off your own fireworks in NJ.  We would go every year to Bunny Hill, lay out a blanket, and watch the fireworks.  So when people set off their own...it freaks me out!  They scare me!  Not to mention annoy me. 

Nate and I are such cranky old people.  We really were made for each other.  Both of us were so annoyed by the noise of the fireworks that were sandwiching our house.  Neighbors on both side were going nuts with the explosives...and Oliver was already asleep of course, which may have exaggerated our frustration with the holiday.  Not to metion that there have been fireworks being set off by some neighbor EVERY nights since we moved here.  We closed on a Thursday and that Saturday night my mom and I were pulling an all-nighter painting the nursery and we heard popping (which of course paranoid mom thought were gunshots), and once we started sleeping here we got to hear fireworks every night.  So yeah, almost 3 weeks later...4th of July or not....we are soooo over it!

Tuesday Tummy Time!

Baby Boy in the Belly is 26 weeks old already!

Here is what he's looking like and how he's developing....putting on some cute baby chub!

Courtesy of BabyCenter.com

"The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. He's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of his lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when he's born and takes that first gulp of air. And he's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days."

I get a kick out of watching my stomach ripple and roll with his movements!  I am starting to imagine him here with us in a real way.  You always imagine having your baby and the changes that will take place in your life... but I'm at the point where I can almost smell him and feel his skin on my cheek and his warmth on my chest.  He's going to look so much like Oliver, I mean there's not much else he could look like- Nate and I have very similar features.

He has been very good to Momma- another easy pregnancy, so hopefully that means he will be a good baby like Oliver too.  I love my boys so much!

Here are Baby Owen and I relaxing in the yard while Daddy and Oliver play.



Remember me?

Hello there.  It's been a while, and I'm sure you've missed my riveting blog posts.  No? Just pretend...humor me.

We are in our new home.  I was worried about feeling cramped but we are settling in well, even with my big ol' hairy dog that we saved from my mom's house.  More on her later (dog, not mom).  I think Oliver adjusted to the house very well.  The first night we slept here we were still kind of back and forth between the house and the condo and he cried at the door.  I'm sure in his head he was saying: "For shame, horrid parents! Deliver me to my rightful residence, that I may rest in deep slumber."  Or something along those lines.  But we went through his bedtime routine and lied him down and he did well.

He is loving having a yard and I just get a kick out of him running around back there with his daddy.

While I feel like we are settling in nicely, at the same time I feel like we aren't making much progress in settling all our stuff in the house.  Baby Daddy Natey Poo has had one HELL of a week at work.  It breaks my heart to see him so unhappy and stressed.  He feels bad for not being around, and at the same time trapped into this job because we just bought a house.  It puts me in a tough spot too because I feel guilty that he takes on all the money making responsibility so I can be home with our babies.  Oh... I could go on and on here.  But I won't.

It's been way too long since I've posted to detail everything thats been going on.  And I almost don't even care to get started again...like I blog-detoxed or something.   I went from being obsessed with blog reading and writing to not caring whether I get back on.  Sad right?  Just another example of how I lose focus so easily.  But I know that this is something I really do enjoy and just need to get back in the habit of. 

Since my last post my Belly-Baby has been growing and moving a ton.  Here is the babycenter.com picture for 25 weeks.

And here is a photo collage of what Oliver's been up to.  He loves having the front door to look out and watch for daddy to come home.  We scored him a slide and a non-operational quad at a yard sale.  His friends came over last weekend to check out the new digs, and he's just been all around adorable in his new surroundings.

This is Genie.  She is 12 years old.  My family adopted her as a puppy when I was 13.  She is the sweetest and smartest dog ever.  BUT, she is also the hairiest dog in the world and OH BOY! does she shed!  I can sweep the floor 1,234,567,890 times a day and still have more of her little fur bunnies dancing around.  Oliver is absolutely in love with her.  He calls her, squats down to talk to her, shares his toys, pets and kisses her.  In his mind she chases him and he thinks it's hilarious... in reality she's trying to get away from him so she can go sleep somewhere.  She is an old doggy and I am so very happy that she is still with is.  Nate and I have always said she is going to come live with us when we get a house, and we were worried that might not happen in time.  Well it did, and here she is... and in just a week we think we can see a difference in her.  She has trouble moving sometimes but she seems to be doing better and finding her playful old ways.  If only she wasn't so hairy, she'd be the perfectest doggie ever.

My mom bought this pool we saw advertised in the Target flyer.  I finally got it out for him yesterday.  It wasn't the hottest or sunniest and the hose water is always freeeeezing.  He wasn't sure what he thought of it.... he was also tired.  As you can see from the pictures, he went from entertained to unhappy in the blink of an eye!  I'd like to think it was fun overall...we'll be trying again with daddy this weekend.  He got a kick out of it from the outside anyway.  I think my favorite picture is the the top right corner one- he started sliding down and the second his toe touched the cold water he turned and clung to the pool for dear life!

So now that I've made my return I hope to get back to my regularly scheduled blogging.  I've missed you all... even if you havent noticed I was gone! (seriously...follow or comment, I'd love to know who's out there...I love to know who is checking in on our happy little life and I love making blog friends!)