7 Months

Yes, this is a little late. You would think I'd be more on top of things since I'm now staying home, but I'm not. 


My baby Marky, you are 7 months old! There have been so many changes from 6 to 7 months.You are just so much more fun now.  You laugh so much more and smile so much more.  You see people do things and you want to do them too.  When Daddy shows you how to make certain noises with objects, to try to imitate him.

You are always looking at your big brothers and observe them so intently. You love to watch them play and talk.  Your face lights up and a big smile spreads across your face every time you see Michael.  You love both your brothers, but you prefer Michael.  And Michael just adores you.  He would do anything for you. You are the first person he wants to see when he wakes up in the morning.

Your little brain is like a big super-soaker sponge and I enjoy seeing you learn and discover things. You are not fully crawling, but you are certainly mobile.  You get on your hands and knees and propel yourself forward by launching your head forward.

You can almost pull yourself up all by yourself!  You love to stand up and when we hold you up on the floor by your arms, you are starting to make walking movements with your chubby little legs.  I think you will skip crawling completely and walk very soon.

You are a wriggle-worm. You can't stay still for a second, even when we are holding you!

You are a water baby for sure.  When we went on vacation, we put you in the pool and you loved it!  You were calm and we could have left you in the pool for hours!

Things to Remember:

• You are a horrible sleeper.  You wake up 1-2 times at night for feeding.  Thank goodness you go back to sleep right away - except when you poop.  Then you want to play after we change you. You surprised me last night by sleeping from 10pm to 5:30am, though.  This is only the 2nd time that this has ever happened.

• You still want us to hold you while you nap.  However, we've been able to put you down in our bed a few times this month.  I'm hoping to see some improvement here.

• We are trying to feed you solids, but you refuse it 99% of the time.  We've tried rice, green beans, and butternut squash.  you won't have any of it.  We will keep trying.

• You are taking 6-8 ounces of formula every 4-5 hours.  I'm not sure how that compares to other babies, but you seem content and the last check-up went well, so I'm not too concerned.

• You are still in size 3 diapers

• Your clothes size are all over the place.  You can still fit into some 3 months clothes, but mostly you are wearing 6-9 months clothes.

• I'm guessing you are about 18 pounds now.  We will update the stats when we visit Dr. Scott at the end of July.

Caught a monkey by his tail!

You love to eat paper!

All you want to do is stand up.

Living Room Tour

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner SUYL - Living Room Tour.  I love it when she does these links because I love seeing how people decorate.  Some people have "good eyes" for design.  I'm not one of them, so I love to see what people do and if I like it, I'll try to copy the look.  My style is somewhere in between contemporary and traditional with a lean towards traditional.

Anyway, with that being said, here's my living room - the room where we spend most of out time in.

This is our view from the eat-in area of the kitchen.  I'm not fan of the mirrored shelving, but taking them down would require too much work right now. This picture was taken a few months ago so some of the elements on the mantle has changed.

Close up of the current mantle decor 

This is a close-up of the sign on our mantle.  This sign reflects my sentiment exactly.

 A close-up of the shelves to the left of the fireplace

I realize I need to add some more decorative touches on the shelves because they are pretty sparse, but I'm a little intimidated because I don't want to look like a hoarder.  Hopefully, I'll  get some inspiration by going through blogs!

Memorial Day Weekend

We celebrated our Memorial Day Weekend with a quick trip to the JW Marriott in the Hill Country.  We had such a great time.  This was the 2nd year that we went to the resort and we hope to continue the tradition.  

There was lots of swimming. Matthew and I went on the waterside together.  We went in the lazy river together, including Marky.  Marky loved it!  He was so clam in the water and was smiling and splashing around in his little raft. 

The boys loved the watersides.

We relaxed by the pool.

Played poolside games

Played ping-pong and football with other kids

Helped in a magic show

And had a wonderful family vacation

Giving Up on Good: Being a PTO Mom

*I linked up today with Hayley (The Tiny Twig) and Jessi (Naptime Diaries) for their weekly series called Giving Up On Good.

I’m going to come out and say it – I’m not cut out to be a PTO mom. There are several reasons, but the biggest one is that I don’t have the time. I don’t have time to be at the school every day and make copies. I don’t have time to volunteer for every committee or organize the annual fundraisers. I wish I did, but I don’t and I have to come to grips with it.


I am just thankful for moms who do have the time and enjoy running the school PTO like a Fortune 500 company because the results benefit my children.

I tried to be a PTO mom this school year, and I think I was pretty successful. I volunteered to be the party co-coordinator and organized the several parties throughout the school year. I volunteered to bring food for the monthly teacher appreciation luncheon. I volunteered to chaperone field trips. Whenever there’s an event, I arrange my work schedule to be able to make it there to help out.

But boy, was it STRESSFUL! I’d like to think that I’m smart enough to know when enough is enough, but looking at my record of over-commitment, it doesn’t look like I’m very smart.

Maybe having it in writing will help?

1. I will not volunteer to be on any committees – yes I will help out if needed but I will not volunteer to coordinate or organize anything.

2. I will only go to events to enjoy, and will not volunteer to organize or help organize

3. I do not need to be at every assembly the school puts one

This doesn’t mean that I have to give up everything. I just need to pick a few things that I think are important and stick to it.

Party, Party, Party!

I’m in the process of planning Matthew’s SEVENTH birthday party! My Middle Baby is going to turn 7 years old in less than 5 weeks. We gave him a few options - bounce house place, trampoline place, and pool party, and he chose the POOL PARTY. The great thing is that we will have lots of fun picking out the theme, food and decorations. The bad thing is we’ll have to pick out the theme, food and decorations. It’ll be a lot more work that I’ve done in party planning in awhile, but I also think it’ll be fun.

I already found a few inspiration on Pinterest.

I'm not sure which to go with yet, but I want it to be bright, bold and beautiful!

Fast Track - The Polish

I’ve been obsessed with nail polish. I literally change my polish 3 times a week because I love it so much. I would probably change it every day if I had the time.


I love this color. This is from the Hunger Games collection by China Glaze (my new fave brand).

Fast Track – it’s so sparkly.

 Close-up is a little fuzzy.

TGI Friday!

TGIF, everyone! I am so happy for the weekend. This week has gone by pretty quickly because work has just been crazy. Towards the end of our fiscal year, it usually gets quiet but that has not been the case. Oh well. It makes the days go by faster.

This week was Teachers’ Appreciation week and I am NOT sad to report that I did not volunteer to do anything. I love my children’s teachers. They are terrific, and I appreciate them A LOT. They spend more time with my children then most people do and I’m sure they put up with lots of nonsense.

I just did not have the energy and I told myself that I would not over-commit. And nothing happened. The world did not come to an end because I didn’t send flowers and cards to them. I was worried that my kids would be the only kids who didn’t bring anything and they would feel left out. They didn’t care one bit. I think donating money at the beginning of the year for gift cards and such made up for it. I’m sure teachers appreciate gift cards more than flowers. I know I would.

We've discovered that Mark loves playing with plastic measuring cups. In fact he prefers that to his fancy little toys that are suppose to engage him in learning about the world.

Yesterday, I asked Matthew to keep an eye on him so I can start cooking dinner. He came up to me and said, “Mom, where’s the flour cup?” I had no idea what he was talking about. “You know, the flour cup?” I thought he said “Flower cup.” I finally realized he meant the measuring cup. He needed it for Marky to calm him down.

He cracks me up. He’ll go around saying things that adults would say. I’ve heard him say “Mark, I’m very disappointed at you.” For what, I don’t know.

Most recently, he’s been telling Michael, “It’s my DS, my rules.” Or “I’m the boss of my DS.” His biggest tattletale line is “Mom, Michael is threat-ta-ning meee…”

Waiting for Bo-Bos at the bus stop with the trusty "Flour Cup"

My little funny-man with his friend Will

I headed over to Nordstrom Rack to return a dress yesterday and found these cute flats. They are half a size too small, but I got them anyway because I think I can make it work.  Aren't they so darn cute?!