Brittany's Baby Shower!

My friend Brittany is having a baby girl! So it was time to throw her a shower to celebrate. Luckily I have some really great friends that helped me out, (I think they actually ended up doing most of the work). It turned out great and we had a lot of fun!

We were having it in my friend Erica's and we were inspired by her really cute backyard with the lemon tree and rosemary bush. So we decided to have a summer garden party!

I made these invitations. It took me forever to find a lemon stamp, but I really wanted to use my embosser so it was worth it.
Continuing with the lemon theme, Natalie made these cute center pieces with the lemons from Erica's tree. The tables looked great with the lemons in the middle and then a single lemon slice in each glass.
We used a single sprig of rosemary tied with a ribbon to accent each place setting.
The backyard looked amazing! I loved how it was so green with little pops of yellow from the lemons and the crisp white linens and the white lanterns hanging from the tree. (If you click on the collage then you can zoom in on the pictures.)
Definitely one of the best parts of the night was the food! It was delicious!! We had these amazing little panini sandwiches that Mary Ann made. Brandy made the beautiful and yummy fruit skewers. Erica made a delicious lemon pasta salad and the most fabulous carrot cupcakes. We also had lemon shortbread cookies with lemon icing (that Andrew actually helped me make!). We then had a few different drink options.
It had been really hot that week and we were lucky to have a little bit cooler weather that night. It even rained a little bit, which was kind of fun. It got dark but we still stayed outside while Brittany opened her gifts. She got a lot of great gifts for her little girl.
And to finish off the lemon theme, a party favor for everyone to take home: lemon antibacterial gel and lemonheads!

It was a fun celebration! Thank you to everyone who helped make it a huge success!! I can't wait to meet Brittany's little girl!

First Haircut

It was time for this little guy to get a haircut. It was getting a little shaggy, hanging over his ears and he was growing a little mullet in the back. So I took him in to my friend Erika so she could clean him up!

Here are the before pics:



He was a little nervous and confused about what was going on. But he held still and was pretty good most of the time.

But he did have his moments ...

And here are the after pics:

Looking good little man!

I don't like the Ocean!

10 months!

10 months is happy!!

It's amazing to me how quickly this little guy changes from month to month and I feel like this last month he has changed so much! He is so happy (most of the time) and is a lot of fun to be with.

10 month highlights:

-Crawling!! Yep, that's right, he can crawl. It's only about 4 or 5 "steps" before he flattens out like a pancake, but he is definitely getting there. But besides the crawling he is very mobile. He will roll, crawl, shimmy and do whatever else he has to in order to get what/where he wants. Nothing is safe any more.

-Standing. He can stand on his own while he is leaning against something.

-Sleeping is still a struggle right now. Remember the whole crawling and standing thing? He definitely thinks the best time to practice these moves is in his crib ... when he should be sleeping. It will sometimes take us over an hour to get him to finally fall asleep. He is still taking 2 pretty solid naps though.

-Eating. This kid loves to eat. It is so much fun to give him more and more foods to try. He still likes the basic fruit and veggie puree and he still LOVES cheerios. He also really likes cheese, black beans, watermelon, scrambled egg yolks, and noodles. We are trying to teach him to drink from a sippy cup. But he would much prefer that we just drop water in to his mouth from a straw.

-Playing. He loves anything that he can bang together that will make a noise. He also loves balls. He loves books and will cuddle up with you when you read to him. He loves to play with other babies and kids. He mostly just sits and watches them but he is always completely fascinated with them.

He's healthy and strong and we just absolutely love him!

(I know this picture is almost the same as the one above, but he was just so happy and cute!)

Pump up the Iron!

At Gavin's 9 month check-up his pediatrician did a quick blood test and said that his iron level was low. She said that she wanted to get a full blood workup and we needed to go to a lab to do that. They had one in the same building so we just went straight there to get it done.

Worst mistake ever.

The 2 ladies in that lab were completely incompetent. They tried multiple times to get a line in to test his blood. They just kept poking him and tying the band around his arm tighter and nothing worked. Poor little guy was just screaming the entire time. After sufficiently poking him in both arms they finally gave up. They told us that it is too difficult to take blood from babies and that they just couldn't get through his layers of baby fat. They suggested that we wait 3 months until he is older and just try again.

Here he is at the lab waiting to get his blood drawn. He looked a little concerned.

They came in and tried on his first arm. He seemed interested in what they were doing. Until they wrapped the band around his arm. And then he was not happy.
"Please get me out of here!!!"
Poor little guy! It just absolutely broke my heart! I'm not sure who cried more, me or him.
I tried to get a picture of his little arms with the bandages wrapped around them. This was the best I could do. He was such a tough little guy and bounced back pretty quickly!

After that traumatic experience we went down to the pediatrician's office and the nurse told us to wait a week and to go to another place and try again. Later his pediatrician called us and asked us what the situation was. After explaining what happened she said that we could not wait 3 months. She said that was horrible advice because if he is anemic then it can affect his brain development. She suggested a few different labs to go to that would do a better job with babies.

Andrew took him to another lab. I stayed home this time because I just couldn't handle seeing it again. Luckily these people knew what they were doing and they got a line in on the 2nd try!!

The next day his pediatrician called us back and his iron levels are low. So she told us to give him 45 mg. of iron supplements a day. After 1 month we will retest and go from there. I heard horrible things about the iron supplements so I was really worried. But it hasn't been that bad. I mix them with his food in the morning and he eats it all up.

I really hope that his levels go up and we can take him off the supplements though. I would rather just focus on feeding him foods that are high in iron. But I guess we will do whatever we need to in order to make sure this little guy is big and strong!
Check out those muscles!