5 months old

Our little buddy is now 5 months old! We decided to do 2 big events on his big day.

#1 - we gave him his first bites of rice cereal. I made it myself using whole grain brown rice. He seemed to like it ok, but he was more fascinated with the spoon.

Yummy! Spoons are cool!Oops! Stuck the spoon in too far! ((GAG))

#2 - we started a sleep learning method called "The Sleepeasy Solution". We've been rocking him to sleep every night and we decided to teach him how to fall asleep on his own. I have a friend that used this with her son and it worked like a charm so she let me borrow her book so we could try it. It was also approved by our pediatrician at our last visit. We put him in his crib at 8:40pm (yes, I know that's too late!) and he cried off and on for 3 hours - yikes!!! It wasn't a frantic cry, more of a wimper. We've always swaddled him when he goes to sleep so we think he'd fall asleep and then move his arms and wake himself up and start crying again. After 3 long hours of this, we decided to quickly swaddle him and put him back in his crib. It worked and he didn't make a peep after that. I wish we'd done that earlier! We'll slowly start to unswaddle him as the days go on so he doesn't become dependent on that to fall asleep. Hopefully tonight will go smoother :)

Here's a cute picture of him playing with his feets. He's just started grabbing them and he can almost get them in his mouth.

Mega blister

I went for a walk with a friend a little over a week ago for the first time. I was excited about getting out in the beautiful weather, chatting with another adult and spending time with our 2 babies that are about the same age. I decided to wear a new pair of socks because they looked extra cushy and I thought that might be beneficial on a long walk. I won them several years ago at a healthclub and have never worn them. They were low-cut but were higher in the back which is supposed to prevent the sock from sliding down into the shoe. We started our walk and all was good. Then a few minutes later, it felt like I got a small rock in the back of my sock. I causually tried to shake my foot as we were walking but it wasn't going away. A little fact you may not know about me: I don't like to show that anything's wrong. I will hide pain. And this time was no different. I never said anything to my friend, but when we stopped to cross a street, I reached down and tried to brush away whatever was in my sock. For the next hour, I was in pain, a lot of pain. We talked and walked and she never knew anything was wrong (I'm good like that!). We went back to her place and I drove home. I took off my shoe and sock and found the mega blister. I've never had a blister this bad and have never seen one this big. It HURT!! I threw the cushy, new socks in the trash and got bandaged up my my army medic husband.



This was the blister a few days later. The fluid inside turned blackish/purple. I taped a quarter above it just as a size reference. I put a special blister band-aid on it and when I took it off, it broke the blister open. It's much better now and I can wear tennis shoes again as long as I keep a band-aid covering the raw, open hole.

I'm going for a walk today with a different friend and different socks :)

Irish Dinner

This is the dinner I made for St. Patrick's Day this year. I just love making themed meals. We had a little leprechaun as the centerpiece :)

• Shepherd's Pie
• Steamed cabbage
• Irish soda bread
  
  
  
  
  I've never had or made Shepherd's Pie before so I looked up several recipes and then combined several of them to make something that sounded good. It's basically ground beef (I used soy), veggies like carrots, peas, onion and celery and then potatoes on top. We all liked it! I used a pastry bag to pipe the mashed potatoes on top to make it fancy and then put it under the broiler to give it color.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Preston got all dressed up in green for St. Patrick's Day. I bought this outfit way before he was even born - we're not Irish, but we like to celebrate the holiday.

Talking of Irish...

I made homemade Irish Cream Brownies with Irish Cream Frosting (http://www.littleshamrocks.com/Irish-Cookie-Recipes.html#IrishCreamBrownies) and delivered them to my hubby's work today. They were yummy! I'm making an Irish dinner for tonight. Shepherd's Pie (never had it or made it), steamed cabbage, Irish Soda Bread and some of the brownies I kept for us.

Preston cracking up

Video of Preston cracking up as I was making funny faces at him. I love hearing that little laugh :)