iPhone randoms

I have soooooo many pictures on my phone...793 to be exact. I had 831 earlier today so I went through and deleted a few :) I found some pictures that I wanted to share. None of them go together hence the "random" part of the post title. They are all however cute cute cute!

Love his little baby feet

Taking a rest during tummy time

He's even precious while he sleeps!

Rowen loves this toy. It has a suction cup on the bottom so he can't knock it over. It spins and little beads make noise as it goes around.

He also loves these blocks! They are squishy and make a crunchy noise. 

Working on those upper 2 teeth that are about to come in.

LOVE his big beautiful blue eyes!

           

6 month check up

Today was Rowen's 6 month check up. Brent was unable to come to this one because today was the last day of session @ the Capitol and there was no way he could miss it. He is always the one to stand by Rowen when he gets his shots b/c I just can't stand to see his sad face...well, I had to tough it out today! He had to get 4 vaccinations today. One was oral and the other 3 were shots. He of course screamed while getting them but once I picked him up, he was okay. 

Poor baby

Before leaving the doctors office...he was sad :(

After coming home and taking a nap, he was fine!

( yes he is chewing on socks...haha! )

He sure is growing and his stats sure do prove that. At 6 months he weighs 17lbs 6 oz. That's up 3 pounds from his 4 month visit. He is 28 inches long. He grew 3 inches in the past 2 months! And his head circumference is 18.3. Now for the funny story about the head circumference. Once Dr. Brady came in she remeasured his head...the nurse measured it twice beforehand. She said that he head a lot of knowledge in his noggin! AKA a big head!! She asked if either side of our family had big heads and as I laughed, I said as a matter of fact my husband has a pretty large head and some of his family members do too. She said "ah ha I was thinking that was the case". He is in the 95th percentile for head circumference :) He is in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for length. He is long and lean! 

He is beginning to laugh more and more and it's the cutest sound I have ever heard. When Brent got home tonight, Rowen looked at him and squealed. It was sooooo cute! He is quite the babbler too. We talk and talk all day long. As I mentioned in a previous post, he is beginning to sit by himself but it's only when he feels like it or is leaning forward towards something. He is sleeping 11-12 hours each night and wakes up at around 7-7:30 every morning. Row's 2 bottom teeth are almost fully in and Dr. Brady said she could feel where his top 2 teeth are about to poke through. He is enjoying his pureed foods and we are going to start carrots tomorrow. 

Eating cereal the other day

Rowen, we love you so so much and can't imagine life without you. You are a bright burst of sunshine in our lives and your smile is the most precious thing. You are a handsome little man and we love watching you grow and learn. Sniff sniff :)

         

Peas Please

Rowen ate his first vegetable on Monday. He has been eating cereal since he turned 5 months but we introduced him to peas on Monday. One of the reasons that I was so excited for him to turn 6 months were the yummy fruits and vegetables that he was going to be trying. My mom gave us the Baby Bullet at one of our baby showers and I love using it. It purees really quickly! We have a homemade baby food book that I read through a couple weeks ago and I will be using it for all his baby food recipes. It's a great book.

The book encourages buying fresh or frozen fruits and veggies never canned and also encourages to buy organic. We already do those things so I think it will be easy to follow along with the delicious sounding recipes that are in the book. I made a large batch of green peas Monday morning that will last through Sunday. I dumped the peas into boling water and let them boil for about 5 minutes. Before pureeing them, I gave them an ice bath so that they would keep their bright green color( I would have never thought of doing that but it was in the book ). I then pureed the peas with about 8 ounces of water and voila...I had 7 days worth of veggies for Row!

They taste good...I tried them!

He loves loves loves cereal now so I was really anxious to see how he would react to the peas. When he took the first bite, he was a little unsure. It was a cute face. But after a few bites of getting use to the new flavor, he was definitely a fan. He loves the peas! 

During his pea and cereal lunch today :)

So serious!

I just love that I want to make his food. It's fun and so good for him. I was just curious as to what was in a jar of baby food so when I was in Publix the other day I grabbed a jar and there are several added preservatives and tuna oil. Rowen gets peas and JUST peas! I love that we are starting him with good nutritious foods from the very beginning. Now making baby food is not for everyone and that's okay but it is definitely something that we knew we wanted to do. 

                

Rowen is 6 Months old!!!

It's just absolutely crazy to think that our little sweet Rowen is already 6 months. I just can't believe it. These 6 months have truly flown by as everyone had warned us it would! 

The sticker looks super worn b/c someones little hands kept crunching it up :)

We go for his 6 month check up on Friday and I just can't wait to see how much he weighs and how long he is. I know he just has to have sprouted up at least 2 inches from our last appointment. He is super long. We have never had many questions to ask the doctor but Brent and I have a list for Friday's appointment. We have quite a few questions for her about all the pureed foods he is about to start eating and also what a days feeding should be like etc...he started eating pureed peas yesterday and loves them but I will get to that at a later post. 

He is so full of life these days! It's so much fun! He still studies toys before playing with them. I love to watch his eyes and imagine what he might be thinking. His grip has gotten a lot stronger and I didn't even think that it could. He pinches and it hurts...of course he doesn't do it on purpose but if he gets a hold of a little bit of skin and clamps down...oooo weee it doesn't feel good. He love his books. We probably read 10-12 different books a day. I love that we signed his up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. One free book in the mail each month...yes please! He loves the books that he has gotten so far. He has started trying to knaw on the books as I try to read them to him...maybe b/c of the 2 teeth coming in? 

We have never seen a baby smile as much as Rowen! He constantly is grinning from one ear to the other. I love his smiles so much. They brighten my day! Every morning when I go and get him out of his crib, he looks at me with a gigantic smile. It just makes my heart soar. We have been very blessed with a happy baby. He still rarely ever cries and is just the most content little baby ever. I pray that he continues to be this happy as he grows. 

6 months means...We can take him to his own class at church. I think it will be bittersweet when we drop him off for the first ohhh few times but I just can't wait for him to get in there and start learning all about the Bible! I can't believe he is old enough to go to class. I will have to brush up on all the baby Bible songs so we can sing them together :)

Rowen can sit up all by himself even if it is only for a few seconds at a time. And he will only do it when HE wants to! It does help if I put something on the floor in front of him. We practice sitting up everyday and he is definitely getting better and better with each passing day. He is also trying to scoot when he is on his tummy. He pulls his legs up towards his chest but can't quite figure out how to push forward. He'll get there soon though. I'll post his stats on Friday after going to the doctor. Here are a few more pics from his "I'm 6 months old today" day :)

so silly :)

Love this face and I kiss it 100 times a day!

So tired from all the picture taking

            

Video Post

I have a few videos that were on my phone that I uploaded to YouTube and thought I would share them! They are precious videos of Rowen. Enjoy!
Ok well for some reason I could only pull this one out of the three off of YouTube so here is Rowen being the smiley boy that he ALWAYS is :)

Happy Boy

              

A perfect way to start the morning

This post is a little overdue! Last Saturday morning Brent and I had such a delicious breakfast. My mom gave me the new Pioneer Woman cookbook for Easter and I didn't wait around to find a recipe to try. Brent was flipping through it and mentioned he loved quiche when he saw there were 2 recipes in the book for quiche. I had a moment of "that sounds like fun to make and I'm sure even more fun to eat" so I told him I would make one for us to have Saturday morning. 

I chose to make the cowgirl quiche... Ree, the author, lives on a ranch so a lot of her recipes have titles that are ranch themed. It was sooooo delicious and oh so filling! Brent had 2 pieces and said he was stuffed afterwards. It was surprisingly really easy to make. I put it all together on Friday night so that when we got up Saturday morning, we could just pop it in the oven. It took about an hour to bake but it was totally worth the wait. 

And here it is! Eggs, swiss cheese, mushrooms, leeks, and country ham was what the quiche consisted of. She actually put pancetta in hers but we decided to have country ham in ours!


She has a large family and is always feeding guests as well so the recipe actually made 2 quiche. We froze the other one and will probably have it this Saturday morning!! To go with our quiche, we made her iced coffee. Once again, it made a ton! We even halved the recipe. I have been drinking on it all week long. 

 I was pretty skeptical about how it would taste but it actually turned out just like I was imagining. 

          

Hair Hair EVERYWHERE!!

It's just me today. Brent isn't reaping the lovely benefit of postpartum hair loss...there is a bit of sarcasm in that sentence :) Luckily I had a ton of hair so the excessive shedding is not noticeable. And by excessive shedding I mean my brush is full after I brush my hair out, the floor in the bathroom is covered with my blonde strands, well let's be honest...our whole place is covered with my blonde strands of hair! I wasn't aware that this was common at around 3 months after giving birth so I was a bit freaked out before I did a little research. My doctor assured me that I wouldn't go bald so that was nice to hear! She said it was very common but could last up until a year postpartum....a year?! Hopefully it won't take that long for my hair to all catch back up to its normal grow/shed state. 

This is after 2 brushings! It's like a big hunk of cotton candy.

No worries though...it's looking just the same as before little Row came into the world. 

Our vacuum has definitely been getting a good workout. I also pick hair up off the floors in every room everyday...yes every room of our place including Rowen's room! It's quite gross and I'm already tired of it! I would like for it to stop ASAP!! This is just one of the many little things that happen to your body after birth but I will take every bit of whatever my body wants to do for that little angel baby we have :)

-Rachel-

Easter 2012

What a beautiful day Sunday was. It was Rowen's first Easter and he was all smiles :) Church service was wonderful and the building was full of brightly colored, fresh flowers! There were 2 crosses in the lobby covered in flowers. Each year the members bring flowers to place on the crosses and at the end of the service they are really quite beautiful. After church we went out to eat and then headed over to my parents house to take some pictures. We waited and did Easter baskets with my parents that evening.

Family picture 

Sweet baby in his Easter outfit

When we got home from lunch, Row had an Easter basket waiting from us. We got him just a couple things this year...being 5 months and all, he doesn't know what's going on at this point! But nonetheless he really enjoyed his toys! 

An elephant teether- he is chewing on quite a bit of things these days. His bottom 2 teeth in the middle are coming in! 

He loves this toy. It spins and has little beads that make noise as they go around. We also got him a busy tumble top that I'm sure he will like when he gets a little older. After watching him play with his new toys for a few minutes, Brent headed off to play 9 holes of golf at a golf course right down the street. While he was gone, Rowen and I played and watched the Masters. That is one of the few golf tournaments that I actually enjoy watching. Around 6:30pm we headed over to my parents house for dinner and Easter baskets. 

He got quite a few goodies including this book about bunnies.

He loves books just as much as toys!

Brent and I still get Easter baskets as well!! They were filled with lots of great things :) Giftcards to Home Depot, Starbucks, the movies, and other places too. I also got a cookbook that both of us are excited about.

I really want to try her iced coffee and quiche pronto! Maybe I will fix those this weekend. The day was just perfect! I see an Easter egg hunt in our future for next year :0