It's that time of the week again...

Time for my Wednesday loves.

I'M LOVING...

my little pool buddy :) He's the cutest water baby I know! 

Today was Rowen's first time at the pool. Brent and I have been wanting to take him for the past two weekends but it has been so hot. Today was actually not so bad so I took him around 3:30pm. I lathered him up really well with his sunscreen and put his swim shirt, trunks, and sun hat on him. He looked so cute! The float that we have for him has a sunshade that comes up over him so he was shaded the whole time. I sat on the second step of the pool with him on my knees while he was in his float pretty much the whole time we were there. I brought a squirt toy for him to play with and he occupied himself with that thing for 20 minutes! We only styed out there for about 30 minutes. It was fun and I can't wait to take him back.

I'M LOVING...

these jon jons. I would love to have these for Rowen this summer. I would probably get them all monogrammed. I think they are just perfect for summer! I might ask my grandma if she wouldn't mind making them for me...she is great with a sewing machine. I am not! 

White seersucker

Navy gingham

Turquoise gingham

I'M LOVING...

these 2!! The best husband and the sweetest baby in the world. Can't imagine life without them. 

           

Rowen and his flag

Rowen absolutely loves this little American flag that we have. It's been in the strawberry plant outside on our balcony and every time I take Rowen out there he stares and stares at that flag. I don't know what it is about it but he loves the way it looks I guess. Well being Memorial Day today I thought that I would let him hold it so I could get a few pics of him with it. I cleaned it off and was handing it to him and his eyes got so big and this huge grin appeared on his face. It was like I was handing him a new toy. He studied that flag up and down before waving( actually shaking! )it all around. It was pretty cute!

Studying the flag

He never tried to chew on it which really surprised me. I wouldn't have let him do that anyways because it has been outside for a year or so now! I'm sure it's super dirty. I did clean off the little pole though :)

Loves it!

I put it above his head to see what he would do...just stared at it for a few seconds. 

Side note: Rowen has 2 more teeth coming in! That will make 6 teeth!! I read that babies usually don't get the 2 teeth beside the top 2 in until around 9 months. His are definitely breaking through the skin. As he was wiggling in the chair, I caught him with his mouth open and got a picture of those top 2 teeth.

Baby teeth :)

We hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. I'll post about our weekend next. 

           

Rowen is 7 months old!!

Rowen is 7 months old today! 6 months went by too quickly! Time really is flying by. Rowen is getting to be such a big boy...discovering new things everyday. 

Motor Skills: at 7 months Rowen is rolling over onto his tummy in both directions. He rolls all over the place while he sleeps at night which leads to Brent or myself getting up some nights to scooch him back towards the middle of the crib. He has a tendency to get himself right up against the video monitor and that just doesn't look comfy. He can sit by himself for minutes at a time. He is getting a lot better about balancing himself and not falling over as often. He can rock back and forth while on his tummy and can scoot himself...backwards! haha. He hasn't mastered the crawl yet but can wiggle his way around the room. 

Hand-eye coordination: Rowen can transfer his toys from one hand to the other. Most of the time they still go straight to his mouth when he first grabs a toy. If he sees a tag on something( he loves tags! ), he can grab the tag with just his thumb and forefinger. This is called the pincer grasp. He only does this with tags. All other toys/objects he grabs with his whole hand. When he is on him tummy he can sort of rake toys towards him with one hand. When a toy is just outside of his reach it's so fun to watch him reach as far as his arm can go and grunt to try and grab it. He eventually will scoot towards it!

Evolving communication: at this age he is communicating a lot more with facial expressions. He has this one look that seems like he would be saying( if he could talk ) "what are you doing?". He kind of furrows his brows and has an inquisitive look on his face. This is the best thing that he has started doing...he responds to his name!! If he isn't looking at you and you call his name, he will turn and look at you with a huge smile on his face. We LOVE It! He can definitely string together "mama" and "baba" and "nanana". I can't wait for his first word. I know that's a little ways away but I just can't wait to hear it. I am not however wishing time to go by fast!! He also laughs once in a while. 

Stranger anxiety: We haven't noticed this yet. He is still very friendly to strangers/unfamiliar faces. He smiles and babbles at anyone that talks to him and doesn't seem to squeal or start crying when passed off to someone besides me and Brent. We are putting him in class at church next Sunday and I'm very interested to see how he does. I think he will do just fine! 

Teething: Rowen has his bottom 2 teeth and top 2 teeth. None of them are in completely yet but those bottom 2 are pretty close. His top 2 teeth make him look so big. He never had a drooling problem when he was working any of those teeth in but sure did chew on everything. Really knawed on corners of books a lot with those bottom 2 teeth. He also never got fussy when they were coming in. They definitely didn't bother him. One more reason to add to the list of Rowen being a perfect little baby!! I think the next teeth to appear will be on either side of the top 2 teeth but that won't be for a while :) 

Foods he has tried so far: prunes( we started him on those for just a bit to get his system working! ), peas, pears, green beans( hated them...didn't even get through 2 oz! ), avocado( didn't care for those either ), sweet potatoes, and squash. He is currently eating butternut squash and pears. 

Brent and I are so blessed to truly have the best baby in the world! He is a true joy and we love him so very much! Rowen, you make the brightest days even brighter! Your smile is the most precious thing in the world. And we are so glad that you love life and love us :) 

           

I.Am.Loving

I'm LOVING...

the makeover I gave my closet today. I want to gut the whole thing and rebuild it but for now, I took down the shoe rack and replaced it with a bookshelf :) or a "shoe shelf" I guess you can call it. I got the idea off of Pinterest. I also made an earring holder to go above the shoes. 

This is where I kept my shoes before...

And this is how I have them now! It's much more tidy and gave that part of my closet a whole new look. I love it!

I'm LOVING...

how Rowen wakes up from his naps with a huge smile on his face. It really melts my heart. He even smiles at me when he is still trying to wake up.

I'm LOVING...

all the new little things that Rowen gets to do as he gets bigger and bigger. Like starting cereal at 5 months and starting solids at 6 months. Today I introduced him to....the sippy cup! He can drink 3-4oz of water per day at this age. I didn't know how it would go but he started drinking it like it was no big deal! It totally surprised me. ha! I still don't know how he knew to suck the water through the spout. Maybe he has seen me or Brent drinking from a glass and just did like we do!

I like the handles and the spout on the one that we got.

First time drinking from a sippy cup

I'm LOVING...

these 2 ideas from Pinterest that I am going to re-create hopefully this weekend.

The wood plaques are from Hobby Lobby. Paint the plaques and then mod podge photos on them! Love these and it seems super easy. 

Decoupage light switch plates. This looks like fun and a cute way to spruce up plain white light switch plates. I'll let you know how it goes :)

            

Tuesday Tackle

I love a super clean house...who doesn't?! Yesterday I started cleaning and today I finished. The whole house is spotless. It never takes long especially since I don't dilly dally around. I could have gotten the whole place clean yesterday but when Rowen is awake I like to play with him. So I tackled the rest of our place today and it smells so good in here. I really like the smell of cleaning products :) My most favorite cleaning product...Clorox wipes! I cleaned everything from the doorknobs to the bathroom sinks to Rowen's bookshelves with those things. Love them! I of course straighten and put things away as I'm cleaning each room. 

Part of our room. If you don't have time to clean, I think you can make a bedroom look clean just by making the bed! I even wiped down our headboard. I pretty much touched every part of every piece of furniture with a Clorox wipe. 

Our hall bathroom.I even got on my hands and knees and cleaned the tiles on the floor. I'm not lying when I say it smells like cleaning products throughout our entire place!! 

The kitchen

We moved our living room area around not too long ago and we absolutely love how much more room it gave us. 

Old layout. When you walked through the front door, you were looking at the couch and the tv was in the corner to the right of this picture.

New layout. It opened up a lot more of the floor space.

The tv is in the middle of the wall where the couch use to be. The larger area gives Rowen more room to roll around and play. 

After I finished cleaning, I lit our oil fragrance that we have from Bath and Body Works. If you don't have one of their oil burners, you should definitely get one. They work so much better than a candle. Our favorite scent right now is Coconut Leaves. It smells like a tropical place!

On a totally different note, Rowen turns 7 months on Thursday! It seems so much older than 6 months for some reason. He is getting so so big. I can't stand it! 

           

Computer free

This weekend was so nice...the weather, family time, and no computer! I didn't get on the computer once and I loved it. Now my phone has internet so I did check email and get on facebook a few times but no blogging, no Pinterest, and no surfing around! Electronics sure do rule our lives now a days and it's not always good. Here was our weekend:
 On Saturday morning Brent made pancakes and we ate those while having coffee. I love waking up on Saturday mornings and laying around with Brent and Rowen while we still try to wake up! I laughed while telling Brent that I don't remember what "sleeping in" means anymore. I have slowly adjusted to waking up early even on the weekends. I wouldn't say I am a morning person just yet but I am getting there. After breakfast I headed to the pool( around 10:45 )and stayed out there till 12. Rowen and Brent ran an errand while I was soaking up the rays. I have to get some color on my skin before we head to Florida. No one likes a pasty body at the beach! I came in @ 12 to feed Rowen and then back out I went to the pool. My friend Shannon came over and laid out for about an hour and a half with me the second time around. It was so great to catch up while getting quite a bit of sun. I got a little burnt but it's not too bad.

It was such a perfect day at the pool!


Saturday night we headed to Olive Garden in Mt Juliet( we had a gift card )and had dinner with Ross and Anna. Once again, it was nice to catch up with friends. If I want good Italian food I would much rather have Amerigos but what I got was pretty good...shrimp alfredo. Rowen went with us to dinner and he, as always, was such a good little baby :) Anna hadn't seen him yet and he loved sitting with her! Brent and I just starting noticing this and need to get a picture b/c it's quite funny. If we put Rowen in the car to go somewhere and he falls asleep, when he wakes up and he's not in the car he gets this worried/confused look on his face that says "wait! where am I ??". But once one of us starts talking to him, he is back to being smiley and calm. 

Playing at Nana and Pops' house last night


Yesterday was a very relaxing Sunday. We went to church and then had a meeting right after service. I am going to be helping with the 1 & 2 year old class for the summer. They like to get volunteers for the summer months so the "school year" teachers and helpers can have a break. i think it will be a lot of fun. When we got home, Rowen took a nap and Brent and I laid on the couch and watched tv :) That evening we went over to my parents house and had dinner and just hung out for a bit. The weekend always goes by way too fast! I so enjoy the time that I get to spend with Brent and baby Row and always look forward to the weekends! 


Here is a random video I took earlier today...my granny and papa gave Rowen this toy when they were here a few weekends ago and he LOVES it! The tune it is playing in the video gets stuck in our heads and Brent and I end up singing it at random times of the day and just start laughing. I love what Brent said about it. "I could hear that a million times and still love it because he does". So true!! 

           

Tummy Love

I started looking back through pictures of tiny little Rowen earlier today and started noticing how his sleep positions have gradually changed as the months have gone by. He has always been such a cute little sleeper! Sometimes when he is taking his naps, I will go in and just take a quick peek at his sweet little face and always find it funny to see how he is sleeping. Ever since he started rolling over, you never know what you are going to see when you look in the monitor. Right now he is on his tummy with his head to the side and his arms out to the side. Speaking of being on his tummy...he sleeps on his tummy every single night now. We still put him to bed on his back but within minutes he will flip onto his tummy and stay like that pretty much the whole night. At first Brent and I were worried that he was sleeping like that since all we had heard for months was "back to sleep, tummy to play". But at Rowen's 6 month checkup Dr. Brady said it was fine for him to sleep like that especially since he knows how to roll over. Back to the tiny pictures...

Of course when he was teeny tiny he would only sleep on his back and would really only move when he was waking up. I can't believe he was small enough to fit in that Boppy!

He use to sleep with his hands above his head all of the time. All the time!!

Brent and I love this picture :)

And of course during his naps in his crib he enjoyed being swaddled.

I guess it was around 5 months that he really started rolling over to his side in the middle of the night and he would usually spend the night rolling from his side to his back and then back to his side. We never knew how he would be sleeping when he woke up.

Love how his hands are together.

Well now a days he usually starts out on his side and then ends up for the rest of the night/nap on his tummy. He loves sleeping on his tummy :)

He even tucks his legs up under him. It does not look comfortable!

This was today during one of his naps. I just wanted to crawl in there with him and snuggle.

I can only imagine how cute he will be when he gets to sleep with stuffed animals!