Hot Summer Days!

I try hard not to complain about summer heat, because I ALWAYS complain about the winter cold so for the most part, I welcome any hot weather.  This summer is a hot one and luckily there are lots of activities to do that are either in the AC or that involve water.
 
This weekend, we were invited to Hyco Lake with some friends and had a great time.  It was Trevor's first experience at the lake since he was about 2 months old.  He was a little unsure about the water, mostly unsure about the life jacket, but he was a little exploring trooper.  Actually I'd say that our friends were troopers for putting up with a early rising toddler and a lame pregnant friend.  I just took a few pictures...

Swimming with Dad

Boat Fun (Note Lindy -Janet's sweet dog who was an excellent babysitter)

Alex, Lane, Janet, and Jenny!  The only semi group shot I took-

What a nice view to wake up to! Thanks Janet and Alex for hosting us and it was so nice to catch up with Jenny and Lane!

First Hair Cut....

"We definitely don't need to pay someone to cut Trevor's Hair, it just needs 3 snips, one on each side and one for the bangs so he can SEE again."  That was the gist of the conversation between Alec and I.  So we sat him down in his high chair and daddy took aim while I distracted Trevor.  And about 3 seconds later... Trevor could see and hear again free of hair obstacles.  But, he couldn't see that my cute little precious boy had turned into Floyd from Dumb and Dumber's double.  As we inspected it, we could not contain our emotions and were laughing hysterically.  Poor sweet Trevor joined in the laughter.  Well, two things are for sure.... I've learned my lesson that hair cuts are to be left to professionals no matter what AND I prefer both of my boys with their shaggy hair so the hair cuts will be few and far between:)  Luckily as one of my hair dressers once told me, the difference between a good and bad hair cut is about 2 weeks. 

 

Dot Dot and Papa

Lots of people ask me what I do all day staying at home.  There are plenty of days when I'm searching for something to excite Trevor and allow him to exert a lot of energy.  We typically have a few activities we rotate between and one of them is going to visit my grandparents, his great grandparents who live out in NE Greensboro on a farm.  Luckily for Trevor and ME, they are almost always wiling to have guests and besides just showing us attention, will usually fix us a pretty good meal:) 

Trevor loves to go and taunt their two puppies and Dot Dot loves to walk him there

 

 Up and down, up and down... I'm convinced Trevor could climb all over this golf cart for hours if I didn't distract him.  And if he's extra lucky, Papa will take him on a ride in it down the driveway

 Where did that cat go, I know I saw her run under the car...

New obsession, Collecting sticks.  He's very particular about which kind he picks up too...

 So many plants and trees to inspect...

 He even has his own set of golf clubs to play with out there so we don't have to pack his for the visit

 

And sometimes after all that exploring, It's just time for a group nap in Dot Dot's lap:)

 

I wish our other great grandparents could live so closely, but we are very grateful and lucky to have one set nearby!  

July 4th at Hilton Head

Well, this is a little delayed, but wanted to share some pictures (all from my phone) from our trip with Alec's family to Hilton Head.  Luckily Alec's mom (Trevor's Dona) LOVES the beach so we have the opportunity to join her and Uncle Beau on some of their summer beach trips.  Although we missed Uncle Patrick, we were lucky enough to have Aunt Dixie join us from Washington State for the week!  

Trevor loved his beach chair (a gift from Uncle Beau)  And check out his killer swimsuit ( a gift from Aunt Dixie and Uncle Patrick brought all the way back from France)

Here he is just sitting by the water with the girls completely content:)

 

And with Granny

Here I am with Dad taking a snack break and checking out beach babes....

 Here is my 4th of July swimsuit....

And we played some Bocci Ball....

And Trevor decided to try out soccer for the first time..

 Walking around Harbor Town 

 

A last brunch at the Salty Dog Cafe

 Hanging out with Aunt Dixie and Granny

 

 And, finally we had an exciting adventure at a rest stop about 45 minutes away from Greensboro:)

Pool Rats!

One of the best decisions we've made this year was deciding to join the neighborhood swim and tennis club.  It wasn't necessarily a hard decision to make, but we had gone back and forth a couple of times on which club to join and I'm thrilled that the one we chose has such a wonderful baby pool.  Taking a one year old and a 3 month old to the pool has been challenging at times, but for the most part has gone pretty well!  I will happily admit, that it is made MUCH easier when we plan to meet friends there who can add a helping hand or watchful eye out!

Trevor LOVES the pool and lately I'm starting to feel more comfortable with him walking around the entire perimeter of the pool.  After all, It is a whopping 1.5ft at it's deepest.  And with the zero grade entry, I don't have to hold Trevor's hand as he enters and exits the pool.  There are times of course, where my heart stops as I see Trevor take a stumble and plunge underwater.  However, with some help, he is brought back up to the air in seconds and seems to forget the incident altogether.  I can't wait for him to take swim lessons!

Besides for our weekday pool trips, there are several nights where we get to meet daddy at the pool after work and have dinner.  Such a nice way to end the day with the hassle of making dinner alleviated, and some quality family time.  Finally, a swimming baby makes for a worn out baby that night= good night of sleep for all of us!

I'll leaves you with some pics so far of us at the pool this summer...

Fun with Noodles, Trevor apparently didn't get the memo that pool noodles are not edible and he Loves to take big bites out of the foam... yucky!

This pic is from earlier at BHI, but wanted to include one of Daddy with Trevor

I LOVE playing with the truck at the pool, in fact I usually try to steal it from other kids or cry when other kids have it and won't let me play with it.  I need to work on my ability to share...

 I hate how it is so hard to get pictures of all the babies looking up or happy, but I promise you, they all smile a lot!:)  Here Trevor is with his good friends, Max and Claire. 

We love snack/lunch time at the pool.  When it doesn't matter what our mom's packed for us, our goal is to take whatever food was packed by the other mom's.

Finally, we have to include Colin, our now 4 month old trooper who so patiently goes along with all of our outings!  Colin has been hanging out with us for the last 6 weeks and will be with us for about 6 more.  Trevor and I are both getting some practice- him sharing mom and me- handling two dependent babies! 

Cloth Diapers?

As mentioned in an earlier post, diaper rash continues to haunt us since week two of Trevor's life.  When we first took him to the doctor for it, we were given an anti fungal prescription and told to use Triple Paste after every change.  The rash quickly cleared up, but has continued to return in the same fashion way too often!  Tired of trying out new creams, powders, regiments, and mostly tired of seeing our little boy in pain, I decided to try a new approach and give cloth diapers a try. 

I have always heard that cloth diapers are more expensive up front, but cost effective in the long run.  The up front costs discouraged me as well as the thought of cleaning up poop diapers and the thought that we would still need to buy a good amount of disposable diapers for nighttime and outings/travels.  However, I met a family at the pool who had 8mo old twins that were wearing cloth diapers.  They highly recommended the brand, Kawaii because of the lower costs and cuteness.  After researching them (by mostly reading other blogs), I also tried to make a wipe solution.  A lot of the time we aren't able to use the regular commercial wipes, because they irritate the rash further so I felt this would be a better solution than the water and soap from the sink.  So, I took a trip to EarthFare and bought the ingredients for a "Simple" anti-fungal wipe solution.  While the ingredients were more expensive than what I typically like to spend, I am treating it as buying medicine for my little man and the oils should last forever, I hardly used any for the first batch.  Hope it works!  And if the cloth diapers and/or wipe solution help, we might be able to cut off some of the costs for all the butt creams!  And of course, the savings in not buying as many disposable diapers for Trevor or our little girl could be a huge savings!

If interested, here is the recipe-

Simple Anti-Fungal Solution
2 Cups of Water
2-5 drops of Lavender Oil
2-5 drops of Tea Tree Oil
1 Tsp of favorite Bath Wash ( Since we had been using the cheap brands, I bought a new organic bottle at Earth Fare)

Cloth Diaper link- http://www.theluvyourbaby.com/

I've also read in some forums that Diaper rash can be caused by the diet.  In Trevor's case, I know he has a high acidic one because fruits are by far his favorite food group and go-to snack.  Although he had diaper rash before he was eating fruits on his own, perhaps they were passed through to him through my diet?  I just don't know.  But to experiment, we are trying to cut out the high acidic fruits from his diet this week.  (Grapes, raisins, apples, oranges, blueberries, pineapples)  I have been putting off that diet change because fruits are one of the foods that he will ALWAYS eat and becomes really excited about.   I'll keep you updated and If you have any ideas, feel free to let me know! 

Aren't they kind of cute? 

RIP Bunny By the Bay

Originally, a gift from the Moody's, It's been with Trevor since he was 5 weeks old.  In his pack and play and crib every night since it's arrival.  It has become a family friend, the blue bunny pacifier clip.  Even when it's velcro enclosure was worn away, Mimi was there to the rescue to sew it shut.  After traveling outside of the country, through several states, being retrieved from countless places after we realized it had been left, it seems to have finally met it's end yesterday during one of our long walks.  Trevor has a habit of throwing out items when he is "tired" of them and typically I see them.  However, it was not until we came to a stopping point that I realized we were missing something important.  We retraced our steps on foot and then in the car over 6 times.  (sentimental daddy made us do it the 5 extra times).  Unfortunately, it must have been either run over or a dog's new bf, because we were left empty handed.  To find a quick replacement in the hopes of having a successful night of sleep, we came up with the perfect solution..... tied another pacifier to one of Alec's bow ties:)   We felt the pacifier needed something so it could easily be found during the night.  Well, it worked great!  He slept 12 consecutive hours and seems to like his new, more mature look.  He's grown up from a dangling stuffed rabbit from his mouth to now- a KA tie:). 

Below is the last known picture with blue bunny, as you can see, it looks like it may be on it's way out...  (I took this pic during our walk to send to Colin's mom)  Trevor enjoys keeping track of Colin's feet on our walks. 

And here is a quick pic I grabbed with the new home made pacifier clip:)

Please excuse the no pants, I was just waking up from a nap:)- Trevor

Trevor's First (s)

(This was a post that I never finished from a year ago!) Although Trevor is 7 weeks old, I wanted to put up some pictures of his first month of life and some of his first experiences.  And that was as far as the post went:)  So to quickly recap the year, Trevor's biggest accomplishment was standing on his own at 7.5 months and walking at 8.5 months.  He has 8 teeth.  Trevor is still only babbling, no words besides "dada, bah bah, etc." for this little busy man!  After sleeping through the night on a fairly consistent basis around 9 months, our biggest challenge has been his diaper rash.  

 First Bath At Home!

 

I love my learning development Mat

Yummy!  Something better than Milk!   

First Trip to Bald Head- 8 Months

Wow, it's been awhile!

In the past, I found that I always put off posts so long that I dreaded writing them because I was worried about trying to capture all that I had missed since the last post, which is impossible.  Now, I'm going to try to make an effort to just add a simple post fairly often that shows some highlight of our day or life to serve as a reminder in the future for me!  We'll see how long it lasts:)  So here is my first attempt-

Our biggest news of the Spring

And after we had so much fun finding out the sex of Trevor with our families and the help of a bakery, we decided we should show baby #2 the same attention and try to incorporate Trevor as well.  So we had his smash cake made with the color of our baby's sex....

 This picture doesnt show the inside clearly, but much to our surprise and happiness, the inside was a BRIGHT PINK! I'm still not 100% convinced because the pregnancies have been so similar, but for now that's what we know:).  

 

Trevor Loves the pool and with our cozy little house, we decided that was the perfect place to have his first birthday party.  It was hot, in fact, the fondant shark fins starting melting almost immediately on his cupcakes, but he had a great time like usual. And because of schedles, we had his birthday party a week late which fell on my birthday.  Finding out that I was having a sweet little girl and watching my little boy splash around was the perfect way to celebrate!

Honestly, I still cant imagine a better baby than Trevor, but I am quite excited about buying clothes and accessories for a little girl!  This has been an amazing year!