Ian 5yrs

My sweet Ian boy I can't help but feel both sad and excited as you turn 5yrs old. **edited to add in 5yr stats 40.5lbs and 43in tall.  Sad because my first baby is growing up and excited because my first baby is growing up. Excited as to what new experiences and challenges this next year brings.

This past year you have excelled at being a big brother so I only except that to continue 😉. You started pre-school where our suspicions were confirmed that you excel and feel most comfortable in small group settings and prefer to observe larger groups and proceed with caution when deciding if you want join in. You are still my sweet loving shy boy with a sweet voice and smile. Things that you love: watching movies in the big bed and also on the big screen, swimming, swinging, hot wheels, batman, wearing "fast" shoes, pizza, the color blue, animals, that your daddy works at both the fire station and the bank, Laners, and getting him to jump in his bed. I could go on but the bottom line is you love life!  May this next year being a 5yr old be fun and healthy!!

Love you Ian Boy

Your momma 

12mos

Lane Michael,
You baby boy are 12 months old/1yr old!! Nov. 29th 6:49pm you took your first breath. From that moment on a lot more firsts happened with a lot more to come.  You are longer and heavier and even more awesome now!!!  I m still in awe of the amazing amount of learning that goes on in a matter of 12 months, the number of milestones that are met, and the ability for me to function on 2.5hrs of sleep a couple days.  I'm beyond grateful to have a happy and healthy little boy.  Your laughter is the best noise ever, your smile is one of my favorite things to see, watching you try and master skills has me exploding with excitement and joy when I see your facial expression of "I just did that, I'm awesome".  You sleep like a champ, eat like a champ, demand for things like a champ, can sign "all done", find your brother to be hilarious.

You are happy:

My wish for you is continued happiness and health. That you learn that things are just things, toys are just toys but love, respect, hard work, education, imagination, determination, goals, experiences, good manners and family are by far the best things in life and will take you far so far in life.  Know that you will stumble and fall and make mistakes and that's ok because you aren't alone. You are loved, you are awesome, you are smart, you are important, you're a keeper, and you are mine!

And here is a fantastic side by side of you and your Great Grandpa (aka Poppy) Lane in the same high chair both at 1yrs old 

I Love Your Laners!!!

11 months

Oh Laners where to begin? For starters we will pretend that this was written before 10/29 and posted on 10/29 instead on 11/5, love you. 

I feel like we have spent a lot of time at the Drs office and I have spent even more time on the phone with insurance (I pray that when your older the whole process improves)You've had an ear infection and then we had a weekend in which you spiked a fever you had something that the Z house had never experienced. For the longest time we didn't even have a working thermometer, then I decided this summer to get one like the use at the Dr. office. Anyways, I had to use that sucker and then I sent my alarm for every hr to check on you. After 3 days of on and off fevers you broke out in a rash 2 days later.  Dr. is 95% you had roseola and there is a 5% chance for an allergic reaction to amoxicillin (I have to schedule an apt for an allergy test). You still had your ear infection so got you a different RX and I believe you are healthy again as your eating and attitude have improved! You are furniture cruising and upgraded to a crawl over a army crawl at times, army crawl is still you're go to mode of transportation.

We went trunk or treating at a local church, a firefighter saved a baby giraffe!

You wanted to try the stairs at Grammie and Papa Jim's, what you didn't know was that trying meant going up all of them. Sis makes you work!

Went pumpkin picking with Pumpkin Poppy as your brother now refers to him as. You got to ride on the tractor and loved it!

Ian helping you brush your 6 teeth

CAUTION: you bite!

Went on your first trip to the beach

One of my favorite doggie's

the struggle

I love being able to stay home with the boys it has its struggles and rewards (nap time and bed time). It is without a doubt exhausting both mentally and physically. For me more mentally than physically. I often get asked how I do it and honestly I do it with chocolate and cookies. I don't drink wine, beer, alcohol I eat chocolate and cookies!!! And early bedtimes!!! The struggle is finding balance in it all.  Playing with the boys but also having them play on their own and learn how to entertain themselves. Also as SAHM I often (more times than not) will turn the TV on so I can shower without getting out of the shower to a house covered in randomness that Ian calls toys. It's ensuring the boys and I are social but not overloaded with something happening everyday (that then becomes expected). Making sure our home is clean (I will often do early bedtime and then stay up and clean till 11:30p and then go to bed bonus I wake to a still clean house and I didn't take any time away from the boys, downside I stay up till 11:30 cleaning) and laundry is done not only washed and dried but folded and put away (Thursday it took from 9a-6p to accomplish this, laundry is something that the process only requires max 15min of my time every 45min so doable).  One of these days I will figure out the balance till then I manage and attempt to have balance to the best of my ability. Along with the above we also have the daily have to's: errands, grocery shopping, making meals, etc. lunch monitoring as Ian has pre-school in the afternoon so his lunchtime has to start by 11:30 or earlier so he finishes in time before we have to leave. I also watch another family a couple times a month. I'm in MOTS (mother of toddlers), and I resell items on FB resale sites. I have found that I enjoy doing this tremendously it allows me to contribute to our family all while "working" from the comfort of our home. Our basement has turned into an inventory room as I sell for friends. Also back in April I was hired on with CM Spaces as the linen girl that role has increased to now the inventory room organizer and returner girl to whatever else the creative brains need.  I think I have rambled while I attempted to find a flow in this post so I shall head to bed as another day of finding balance awaits.

Lane 10 months

Laners!!! You are now 10m old and super silly!! 

You still army crawl, you have figured out how to pull yourself up and you discovered the toilet paper. You have figured out how to clap.

You are in 18-24m clothes an size 4 diapers. You keep us busy by showing us what all needs to be baby proof. You have 6 teeth, you love food and your fingers (only suck on those right now to fall asleep). Speaking of sleep you sleep through the night and it takes you 4min to fall asleep after you have shown us your cues that you are ready.

We did learn at your 9m check up that you are both lip and tongue tied (so is your brother it turns out). In Oct we will be having both lip and tongue clipped for both you and Ian. 

You are learning so much and your little brain is working on overdrive keeping up and you jut want to practice all your new tricks. I miss my squishy newborn that you were but babies grow up and there is no stopping you so we must embrace each phase. Love you little baby boy!

It was no easy task getting your 10m pic here's the outtakes 

I have videos to add but haven't taken the time to upload to YouTube to post. 

momma in such a "sweet" tone

 

 

Accomplished

I define a good day by how early Ian goes to bed. We've had 2 days this week that he was in bed and asleep by 7:30p. I look back at those and see what I did differently to help that. Didn't get to swim either of those days (our weather has been a crap shoot) but just spent time outside. Whether at the swingset or a park playground or walking around at garage sales. Both days the cue that he was ready for bed was when he had a breakdown about finishing his dinner. My goal is to have more and more days where I have worn him out and he gets a good nights sleep. 

Lane 9mos

Laners!!! You are now 9 months old!!

which means only 3 shy months away from turning 1!! Please let time slow down a little. In the past month mobility is on the rise army crawling everywhere and anywhere. Meaning Ian is keeping his door shut to protect his toys, on the occasion he forgets I can usually catch you being pulled back away from the door by your feet and Ian quickly running ahead of you and shutting his door. 

Lane you eat like a champ you eat whatever we eat which means mealtimes aren't as stressful for me anymore. You sleep like a champ usually from 7p-6:30a 95% of the time the other 5% you go to bed a little later. Nap 2-3x a day. You have ditched the bottle and now drink from a Nuk sippy cup trainer 

You are growing like a champ and wearing 12-18m clothes (we will overlook the fact that you still wear some shorts that are 3-6m. Hey they have elastic waist and they are shorts so length doesn't matter).

You have 4 teeth with 2 more making their appearance. 

This is still happening 

Only at naps and bedtimes and that little blanket is your go to comfort item when it comes to sleep time. 

You make me smile that's for sure 

I'll add your stats after your appt on Sept 10th. 

Until next time update little man keep smiling, keep growing (but not too fast), keep sleeping well, keep eating good, and keep loving life! 

Love you!!

Momma

3yrs in

Hard to believe we've been in our home for 3yrs this month. A lot has happened in those 3yrs not only personal life changes but house changes too. I will get this out of the way now, whenever you read the word "we" please please keep in mind Marcus is 95% of that we and I'm 5%.  So, 3yrs ago I welcomed you into our home and now I will re-welcome you into our home.  As we have done a lot with still more to do. We are being very careful with each upgrade that we do, we plan this being our forever house so we need to live in it to see how it best functions for us and make changes from there.
So without further ado I will re-welcome you into our updated space!!
The Front:

 

Walking in from the front door our living room:

                                             another view from coming down the hallway:

 

And speaking of hallway let's head down there now:

Ian's room (excuse the mess):

 

                                                                     bathroom #1:

 

Lane's room:

 

master bedroom:

1/2 bath:

Dining/Kitchen:

 

outback:

 

Then there is the basement, not much has changed there we've added more stuff to the storage side

all the bags hanging are the kids resale coming up!

 

 

man cave:

 

 

                                                                         play room:

 

 

So, there you have it. In the past 3yrs we have changed a lot (still more to go) and accumulated more stuff!!!

 

Stay tuned for a comparison post too with a what changes were made so you don't have to play "i spy"