July Crazyness

Whew, I am so behind. Here are some pictures I uploaded a few days ago, all from my big camera since I haven't had a chance (energy/motivation) to sort through my phone pictures. But here's a few things that have happened this month...

(No picture). Monday, July 6th, the kids and I had to be at the new house by 8 am for the steam cleaners (for the carpet that's staying) and the carpet installers to do their thing.  All that carpet work meant that the kids and I were restricted to the den and kitchen in the house, and since the pool fence hadn't been installed, no free-ranging outside.  Thankfully Pawpaw and Gran picked up the big kids and took them to a concert downtown that is put on free the first Monday of every month.  Then some friends came over in the afternoon to join us for a swim and Brian got off in time for me to shuttle the kids home for bed.  This day in particular I was thankful for how cheerful Andrew usually is no matter how short his naps may be!

The very next morning, Gran, Grandmother, the kids and I took a road trip to see the cousins from the Lexington "Jim Haub" clan.  It was quite a day: leave at 8 am, 3 hours to Lexington, lunch, visiting, Gattiland for dinner and entertainment (kind of like Chuck E Cheese without the creepy characters), then a 3 hour drive back home.  And although I desperately wished for a longer nap for Andrew during the morning car ride (instead lots of screaming), he did great on another day of sporadic naps, and the big kids were champs with great attitudes and ZERO meltdowns. And all of us LOVED getting to hang out with our extended family!
 

The next three days were VBS for the big kids at Hardin Valley, which the timing of was providential since I was trying to pack the whole house while caring for a six month old.  Brian was busy that week with work and trying to get lots of electrical problems addressed at the new house plus fix the second-floor AC which had decided to go out in a timely fashion.

Sunday morning (our last full day at our old house), we got a picture of the family before church outside the old house.  (And here's us after we moved in last year.)  

The the next day, Monday, which also happened to be Andrew's 6 month birthday, we moved.  Oh yeah, and Brian was on call.  But it was my decision to go ahead and move without Brian there... we had waited a bit late to schedule movers and that was the day that was available, so rather then wait another week I said go ahead!  Of course, all four grandparents were there to help wrangle kids and babies and get food and ferry things back and forth, so THANK YOU THANK YOU to my great support system!

A few days later I realized I should at least try and get a few shots of Andrew to document 6 months...

Then Aunt Bridget had a birthday.  There was quite a bit of angst at our house over this one.  The kids knew her birthday was coming up but it wasn't until that morning when I realized they were expecting to go to a party with birthday cake, and I had to break the news that there was no party planned.  Nathan stared me down and said "Mommy, I think you are mistaken!"  What to do?!  Have a party!  We made and decorated a cake and took it to Aunt Bridget after dinner so we could sing and she could officially turn another year older! (We were also supposed to hand-deliver her birthday card but after much arguing between the kids about who would lick the envelope closed and who got to carry said envelope to the car and who got to hand said envelop to Aunt Bridget... the card got left at home... by Nathan.)  (Picture hopefully/maybe to be added later... sorry Bridget its on my phone!)

And two days later another birthday, this time the big 60!!  Happy birthday Pawpaw!

And the peaches that Grandmother brought us from Georgia?  Well lets just say Andrew has found (another) new favorite food!

In Which Andrew Eats and Tries to Crawl

He was more then ready for it, so we finally started solids with Andrew!  I realized that we were not going to make it into the new house before the situation became critical, so I bought oatmeal baby cereal, a butternut squash, sweet potatoes and applesauce earlier in the week in preparation of starting solids yesterday.  Because I figure that starting solids is a fairly noteworthy milestone (even for a third child) I decided to wait until Friday when Brian was post-call so he could be part of the experience (and also help with the documentation).  So even when we decided to go out to eat Friday night I was undeterred and packed a cooler with butternut squash plus accessories for Andrew to have his first real food at Puelo's Grill!

Boy was he eager to chow down!

Unfortunately I don't think I pureed the squash quite smoothly enough... sorry buddy!

Yeah, this.  Andrew was pretty underwhelmed by the experience.  

So round two started this morning.  This time we went with baby oatmeal thinned way out with breastmilk.  Initially Andrew was skeptical about the new flavor...

... but my trusty assistant kept the food coming and Andrew kept opening his mouth.  

Oh look!  A video too!



But Andrew kept eating even after Sarah lost interest, even after he finished the somewhat generous amount I had prepared, and all the way thorough a second serving.  The verdict this morning?  He loves it!

And tonight we gave him some applesauce (totally not following the "rules" on introducing food slowly to this third child) and that went pretty well too.

The other thing that happened this morning (other then TOTALLY resisting taking a morning nap until 11am) was that Andrew was pushing up on all fours and ROCKING! 

Brian commented the other day that he didn't remember the other kids being so active on their tummies like Andrew is.  I figure it was because they spent WAY more time in the jumper then Andrew does (for a multiplicity of reasons: 1. Andrew has much more entertainment in his life so lasts longer during tummy time 2. he's more chill and go-with-the-flow then the other two which also means he lasts longer during tummy time and 3. the jumper has been living at the new house for a few weeks as I was trying to preserve the novelty so we could get more done when there).  And while Andrew already moves around quite a bit just on his belly (especially going backwards), we may have a crawler sooner rather then later!  And that deserves another video!



For fun I decided to look back at the big kids' first meal blog posts.  Nathan's is here and Sarah's is here... and apparently Sarah also started crawling at 6 1/2 months, so Andrew may not be as far ahead of her as we thought we remembered!