Daddy & Bubbaloo in almost-matching jackets yesterday at church.

We have nowhere to sit now, but who has time to sit with an 8 month old anyway? :-D

Until then…!  Here’s his precious first Santa photo, complete with hiked up sweater and jeans.  It was a candid, shot as soon as he was plopped on Santa’s lap, and even though I straightened up his clothing right after, this was still our very favorite shot, it was so cute and perfect for his first time seeing the big dude.

Although by simply stating that, I have already related this post to da bubby.  Right?

:-)  Darn it all, I don’t really care that my blog has turned all-baby, all the time.  It’s my life, too, and it’s what I’ve wanted for years, so FORGET IT.  :-)  So here’s a cute picture:

He’s turning SO BLONDE!!

Bubbaloo, one day old (8 lbs, 13 oz; 20″):

Bubbaloo, Five months old (16 lbs., 6 oz.; 27″):

What you’ve learned:

• How to get both your head and your rear end off the floor–down dog is your current favorite baby yoga pose. ;-)  Crawling is going to happen any minute now!!!
• How to sit up!  This just happened this past week!  You still prop yourself up with your arms, but I look over now and find you sitting up, checking out the new view.

• How to grab our glasses (and great fistfuls of hair, ouch!)
• How yummy your feet are (we are always on toe jam guard, standing ready with a baby wipe)
• Rolling, rolling, rolling…  Everywhere, now.

• Food, real food!

What we’ve learned:

• How to make baby food.  Okay, not really, we’re on our first round of squash!  You don’t seem to like it much, but it’s straight squash with breast milk for now.  Eventually, I’ll mix it with something to maybe make it a bit more palatable, but it’s only your 2nd solid, we have to take it slow. :-)  It was easy, though, nuke an acorn squash for 5 minutes, let it cool, puree in the food processor with breast milk to thin it out, then pour into ice cube trays.  We’re still figuring out the best way to warm it up for you.  You officially get solids 3 times a day, cereal at breakfast, squash with lunch, cereal AND squash with dinner.  OM NOM NOM.
• How to distract you with electronic toys while we squishy your nose (squishy=using the bulb syringe)
• How to burrito you (sorta like swaddling, but just your arms–you’re too long for us to get your legs wrapped up anymore) and add a paci and rock you to sleep, like they do at daycare.  It’s almost magic.

What we always want to remember:

• How I let you get too close to the bowl the first night you had cereal.

• How much you love the ocean drum.

• You’re noticing everything around you now, including books, and you get so excited!
• You, talking to your best friend, magical-baby-in-the-mirror.  It’s amazing how he’s at daycare, he’s at home, in almost every room, and how Mama and Daddy are there, too!

• You, attacking your wubbie (a blue elephant crinkle toy–the first toy T and I have actually  bought you, that wasn’t a gift or hand-me-down).

• Your first parade!  (Our stroller won 2nd place for our daycare’s decorating contest.  2nd out of 3.  LOL  And 3rd place was an employee, sooooo pretty sure that was somewhat rigged.  Ha!  Oh, well, free candy corn.)
• How you are *finally* learning to relax on us, and lay your head down on our shoulders or chest.  So sweet.

BTW–has anyone received my replies to your comments? It is supposed to email you my replies, and I do try to reply to most of them. I don’t hear back sometimes, though, so want to be sure. I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you!!

Little Man, one day old (8 lbs, 13 oz; 20″):

Little Man, Four months old (15 lbs., 8 oz.; ?”):

What you’ve learned:

• How to squeal with delight (over and over and over again–it seriously is darling).
• How to touch our faces–you seem so fascinated that you can feel what it is you’re looking at.  Aww.
• Click here to watch his “Bulldozing,” my mother’s term for how he’s moving now–like a crawl, but with his head down on the ground.  :-)

• Rolling over, consistently, from front to back and back to front.
• How much fun your bouncy seat is (finally!!!).
• How interesting the TV is (oh no…).

What we’ve learned:

• How to deal with diaper rash, pink eye, and colds.  (Thank you, daycare!)
• How to take a screaming, inconsolable Bubby to Urgent Care in the middle of the night (It involves Daddy driving around the block with you while I wait on the nurse’s line to confirm that’s what we should do, then me jumping into the car as it flies by).
• How to pump at work (Okay, I’m the only one that had to learn that, but T sure gets to hear me talk about it enough.  lol)

What we always want to remember:

• Snuggling on the couch after your morning feeding, before I leave for work.
• How the infant massage class teacher commented on how much you talk.  haha  Yes, you have quite the set of lungs on you!  Got that from mama.

• How happy you are–especially in the morning, but now, usually, throughout the day.  Colic just might be over!!!  Hallelujah!!!

Izzy Dear, one day old (8 lbs, 13 oz; 20″):

Izzy Dear, three months old (15 lbs., 1 oz.; ?”):

What you’ve learned:

• How to blow raspberries & stick out your tongue–soooooo cute
• That there’s interesting stuff around you
• 
• How to roll over (almost)
• How to bat at objects

• Laughing
• How to say “hello” (ha ha, not really, but he can mimic Daddy saying it!)

What we’ve learned:

• Zantac really has been helping your reflux

• How to take you to daycare.  Augh.

What we always want to remember:

• Tour de Bubby
• Crazy night of Raymore fireworks and how it didn’t phase you one bit

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I am NOT a vintage gal.  I usually do clean, bright layouts.  But I love Tim Holtz’s work, and I love vintage items in general, and I keep buying antique-y, distress-y products…  I have also always turned up my nose at beginning a layout with product as inspiration.  It seemed so… materialistic? shallow? superficial?  Not sure.  lol  But I started with a product this time, and picked everything else to match, including the photo.  I have such a stash, it’s time it starts getting used.  And since I never think to look at my grungy embellishments when I scrap picture-first, I figured I should start there every so often so they get used, someway, somehow.  So the photo corners and bookplates were the starting points for this whole layout.

The balloons on the blue bookplate (trimmed down so it looks like a tag) sparked a memory of this party.  T and I were both in grad school.  I was working a few part time gigs, and he was full time, but we were hurting financially.  So we bought Luke a giant mylar balloon.  That’s it, it’s what we could afford at the time.  And may I say?  He loved it.  It was the hit of the party.  :-)

• Beans and rice, rice and beans (Dave Ramsey fans, anyone?)  Love this, while it takes a little forethought to either soak the beans overnight or the 2 hour time frame to do the so-called “quick soak” before dinner, you can’t get much cheaper than dried beans and dried rice.  Brown rice isn’t too much more spendy than white, and the beans are a cheap protein substitute for meat.  We add salsa and cheese, staples in our house that we pretty much have on hand all the time. It’s an easy meal, too–practically cooks itself, especially with our $5 yard sale rice cooker.  ;-) We usually get 2-3 meals out of a bag of rice and a bag of beans.
• Ramen.  Yeah, not healthy.  I know.  We really only do ramen when we absolutely have to, if we’re really trying to squeeze the last red cent out of our grocery budget, because man, you can’t deny it’s CHEAP.  It’s a throwback, too, I loved ramen as a kid and in college, so I enjoy it and like the excuse to indulge.  I do attempt to make it a little healthier by throwing in some veggies–we usually have some broccoli in the freezer or baby carrots in the fridge.  I chuck raw veggies in while the water heats up, and frozen ones go in just before I drain.  Several meals here, just buy a case for under $2.  LOL
• Pasta and sauce.  Again, whole wheat pasta isn’t too much more expensive than regular, so I don’t feel too badly when we whip this together.  One 33 cent can of tomato sauce (or freebie canned tomatoes from Mom and Dad’s garden, or leftover tomatoes in the fridge), dressed up with some minced garlic, chopped onion (two more staples we always have), and dried basil and oregano, and you have a yummy sauce, too.  (We cheap out on garlic bread, too–we just toast regular bread, smear a little butter on it, and sprinkle on some garlic salt.  Although if I’m at Wal-Mart, I always check out their bakery clearance rack, there’s nearly always a loaf of French bread.)  All pasta is pretty much the same price/lb., so I just buy whatever looks interesting that week.  Sometimes I buy a cheapo packet for alfredo, or make a simple white sauce out of butter, flour, and milk, or toss whatever leftover veggies we have in the fridge to make a primavera, and we have a change in taste.
• Baked potatoes.  YUM.  I buy a big bag of Russets (I got a 10 lb. bag for under $4 last week) scrub up a couple/person, and nuke them.  While they’re in the micro, I pull out whatever we have on hand that may work and set up a little potato bar.  We like butter, sour cream, bacon, broccoli, salsa, cheese, chives…  Any other potential toppings I’ve overlooking that you like on yours? We get SEVERAL meals out of that one bag of taters.
• Breakfast for dinner.  This is a favorite, too.  Waffles are easy to whip up from scratch with ingredients we almost always have on hand. Add some omelets and fry up some bacon if we have it, and you have a delicioso meal that usually doesn’t cost us anything additional on our weekly grocery list.

OK, I just realized I could keep going for awhile, so I’m going to cut this short and write up another post with more.  What about you, do you have any go-to cheap eats?