July photo challenge: Week three - four (or as much as I got complete)

Portrait


Sunglasses


Close-up/Macro


Blue


Action


Flowers


Going Places


Sunset


Shapes


Eyes


Cooking


Green

6 months, oh my!

It was a struggle to take a photo of Milo without him attempting to eat the paper.





I didn't think we'd have to worry about babyproofing at this point but he's pretty much a full fledged crawler. Sometimes he looks like he's trying to take off into flight while he flaps his arms and kicks his legs 

and then he's off. 

I was in denial at first. No way my 5 month old baby was crawling. But sure enough he could get around the room fast and has perfected his skills. His favorite thing to go after is Hurley the cat, shoes, or anything dangerous/chokable (e.g. small toys or cords).



Collin does a pretty good job of picking up the tiny toys but today I pulled out nearly disintegrated paper out of Milo's cheek from a paper sword. He loves watching his big brother and squeals in delight when Collin plays peek-a-boo by running out of the room and back again or when Collin plays with his toys. Now that Milo is not just a blob that lays there and sleeps, Collin's annoyance level with his brother has increased. There are times Collin is really sweet (e.g peek-a-boo and kisses) and other times he has no use for a baby and demands attention if the spotlight is off of him.

Milo loves eating solids and so far has tried bananas, avocados, apple sauce and sweet potatoes. He makes lots of sounds and his newest favorite is blowing rasberries. Although he's quite the mover he has no use for sitting apparently and has not yet mastered doing that by himself without falling over.

I have a feeling I'll have two very busy boys.

It's hard to believe my little baby will be celebrating his first birthday in another six months. We'll soon be in a new house with carpets for him to explore and gates blocking the stairs.

First (real) food

For nearly six months, Milo has been one happy booby baby. Since he's a couple days shy of the six month mark, we decided to introduce him to his first solid food.

With Collin I was a little more gung ho and introduced solids a month or so earlier. This time,  I wasn't in a rush and the fact that we're cloth diapering also doesn't lend me to be anxious about dealing with the whole poop issue (breast food poop is no big deal, into the washer it can go).

But Milo seemed ready to go beyond his liquid diet. I was also informed that there was no reason to start with cereal so I went straight for bananas this time. Mashed and mixed with a little milk and presented it to Milo via spoon.

Oh yeah, this was one excited baby. He opened his mouth like a pro and again and then decided there was no need for us to hold the spoon, he could do it himself. He ate it all up and once more again for "dinner." I'll do bananas for a few more days and then introduce sweet potato and avocado. Just like with Collin, I'm looking forward to making my own baby food and watching Milo learn about different foods and textures and maybe, hopefully, not being a super picky kid!

July photo challenge: Week two

Something beautiful


Fun


Something I can't live without


Work


Texture


Starting the day


A Treasure

5 Months

Where has my little baby gone? Newborn Milo has been replaced with delicious chunks of baby fat, roly poly thighs and huge smiles.

Milo's favorite thing to do is hang out on the floor and grab things. The kid can get all over the room. It seems like he might be an early crawler with the way he rocks back and forth prepared to propel. He makes lots of squeals and babbles and it's pretty easy to get him to giggle. Collin loves to lay next to him (sometimes with a little too vigor for Milo) and usually gets lots of smiles in response.

Milo is in the first stage of learning by mouth. He gets very excited and reaches for anything he can and immediately tries to eat it. One more month and we'll get to try solid food. By the way he reaches for food while we eat, I imagine he's going to like it.

July photo challenge: Week one

I'm doing a photo-a-day challenge (different theme every day) with a Facebook group of "momtographer" friends. It's inspiring and fun to see what others come up with and to think of different ways to meet the challenges. Here's the first week:

Self Portrait


Heat/hot/fire


A work in progress


Independence


Colors


Vintage


Water

Happy Birthday America

Summer finally decided to show up and luckily the 4th of July was clear and sunny. We had delicious food and celebrated with family on our deck. We're trying to take advantage of eating outside before we move. Chances are whatever house we find will not have a deck as awesome as what Mike built.





At dusk we started our fireworks display courtesy of Mary Ann and Jon. Collin's favorite are the sparklers. 



Then the real show began at nightfall. Our neighborhood suddenly turned into Afghanistan with professional looking illegal fireworks lighting up the sky. We watched our drunken neighbors across the street relive the show, "Jackass" while they shot Roman Candles at each other. Hmm some stuff I won't miss about this neighborhood.

It was a pretty awesome free fireworks show. We also watched from the "Pirate Deck" that Mike built adjoined to Collin's room, for the best view.

Finally, we ended the night with the grand finale firework that Papa brought. For a legal firework, it was pretty awesome. It lasted more than a minute with an impressive fountain of colors and sparks that blasted up into the sky. It was pretty surprising that it was actually legal. After that we resumed with watching some more of the neighborhood fireworks show. By 1030, Collin proclaimed he was tired and crawled into bed and fell right to sleep.