Cowboy Birthday Party

It's been three wonderful years with our little man and every day continues to filled with at least one joy.  His birthday fell on Easter this year, which led to much confusion and basically a three day celebration.  His official party was all about horses.  With the help of my sister, mom and cousin we made these stick horses.  BIG hit, atm Peter is removing a "cactus needle" from Little Thunder's hoof. :) 

The kiddos all had a blast during our horse race.  No prizes needed apparently competition is enough incentive for these kids!

Our favorite story has been Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett  and I couldn't resist making his cake complete with Beau the armadillo (out of fondant), the "pointy toed, high heeled, hand tooled, chili pepper red boots with fancy cutwork, tall tops and a curly H brand" (also out of fondant) and Spotlight the ranch pony (curtesy of Tractor Supply's schleich horses).  I basically ran out of time and couldn't do any scenery or anything else I wanted to do for his cake.  That's what happens when you are involved in too many projects I guess.

 

The wind gave Peter a lot of trouble and the pressure from his family and friends to blow out his candles made him a little grumpy.  Poor guy!  

This is basically Adam's face whenever he sees me and I'm not holding or playing with him.  This boy NEEDS his momma's undivided attention. What a cutie. 

 

He was so happy to have his own Armadillo Rodeo to keep! 

6 months, 2 kiddos

It's been a roller coaster these past six months, with Adam being my easiest and most difficult child.  :)  Colic, moving, holidays, hateful car rides and illness.  I had no clue colic could wreck so much havoc on  your relationship with your little one but sheesh it sure can.  Thankfuly, I discovered the cure for us and it only lasted three weeks but I shudder to think about my feelings towards the little man then and what they would be now if I had to endure that type of torture nightly for months.  I continue to believe that colic is a symptom of a problem unknown that can indeed be satiated.  That you can fix it, if you keep trying. It is not your fault that your baby has colic but if other people in other countries don't have it then why do we say there is no cure?  Also, I don't believe it has anything to do with gas, but I think that can be an additional symptom.  I think too often people tell us it will just go away on it's own and we are too worn out to keep trying.  

Adam is one happy baby, where Peter was content overall and actively pushing himself to do new things, Adam is overall happy and happy to doing nothing.  

My boys give me pure happiness in their everyday actions.  I re-live the innocence of my childhood everyday and while it is a struggle against my own selfish human nature to conform them to my ideology of how they should be, I try to see the innocence of their intent.  I also realize that almost every struggle I face in some way or another is the product of one of my own shortcomings.  However as time goes by I am continually pushed to my limit to address the needs of Peter in a loving way.  I hope that in ten years time I won't have to whip out the videos and pictures of the mushy love between the two of them to remind them why you can't beat each other up but I'm sure I'll have to. 

 Adam is the latest joy to my life and is a constant source of laughter for me.  He is joyful and funny.  He is easy going and quick to forget.  Not 2 seconds after bumping his head he was all smiles.  I just LOVE this picture.  :)

We just recently got over a round of illness.  First Peter had croup, which was no problem, he went through it like a champ, in fact I didn't even really know he had it til afterwords.  Adam's was much much worse, we were up for about six nights, helping him to breathe better and it was pure torture all around.  I was seriously concerned we were heading for the ER if he hadn't improved.  Fortunately with constant love, steam rooms, chest rubs, and nebulizer saline treatments we made it through.  Just in time for Peter to get an ear infection.  With the help of warmed garlic, breastmilk and quaifenesan we made it through that.  Adam's turn for the ear infection and while he had that Peter developed a cold.  Then Adam's turn with the cold.  Long story short, there was a total of 3 weeks where I slept 8 hours in a row, every single other night was between 1 to 2 hours stretches and usually totaling 5 hours of sleep.  Finally everyone is healthy and I'm hoping we reached our quota of illness for the year.  

Peter is a growing weed. He's funny and cute, loud and obnoxious, silly and adorable. Such a little turkey. Like all mothers, I am sure that he is the sweetest, cutest baby ever. So lately I have been crazy busy. Back and forth from my mom's house to my house. Traveling is oooh my favorite. Still it's pretty fun getting to see all my siblings and having them interact with Peter. It sure helps when I'm just having a day where I feel like I just cannot hold him any longer. Don't get me wrong, he's perfect and everything I just don't want to hold him all the time.

At the moment he is sliding around on the floor whining. I'm not kidding. it's not really a cry and it's not really a fuss it's like a cough then a short wail then a cough cough. Throw in some grunts and gurgling choking on your slobber and that would be the noise I'm going for. :-) We've had our moments this week. I wish I'd gotten some pictures or videos, sadly I haven't. I don't know where my camera is and I haven't looked thoroughly for it. I bring it with me generally back and forth so it gets moved a lot and I haven't really looked everywhere for it. Now it's starting to drive me nuts. As Nathaniel, my cousin put it, "Don't ask me where I last had it! If I knew, I would have found it wouldn't I?". Thank you!

Peter is changing so much. He's grumpier then before and learning how to do all kinds of things. He can scooch around on the floor. He's able to get from point A to point B. He may not be that quick but he's effective. We can be outside gardening and I'll put him on the blanket and he can make it off the blanket to the grass very quickly! Sometimes I have to just let him keep eating grass because I have mud on my hands and can't fish it out of his mouth. He can sit up and stay sitting for a while until he finally just leans right over and flops on his belly. He likes to play the airplane game. He prefers to be standing at all times and he asks to be put down. Kind of. He thinks he can get around when you let him down which is really funny because you wonder if you put him down, what difference will it actually make when he can't move? :-) Well, I guess he can scooch places.

I have some pictures from my camera phone that show the growth in our garden. Pretty neat.

Car rides

how I hate them. It seems that we are beginning to like the car less and less. Joy. You would think since we have been traveling close to every day since ummmm he was born he would be used to the car. Not a chance. Some days we have beautiful peace. That translates to Peter sleeping peacefully in the back and me listening to the radio. More often then not lately I have a fussing crying baby in the back. I'm driving down the road with one arm stretched behind me, caressing Peter's face and offering him my finger to chew on. Some times it works and the payoff is a calm, nearly content baby and one arm nearly popped out of it's socket. What fun! Another option is having someone else drive and me leaning over the car seat to nurse him. Peter thinks this is the best way to drive EVER! I on the other hand have sustained countless bruises from the carseat and the jolting.  In otherwords. I despise the car. On that happy note, we'll probably be running errands today. :-)