Turkey and snow and sledding... Oh MY!

So, We traveled North to where both are families are from for Thanksgiving. I left early Tuesday morning to spend some time with my mom, brother and nieces and Michael came up Wednesday after work. When we go away, Crankbutt doesn't adjust too well to sleeping in a different place. Places he likes to sleep are 1.) on mommy 2.) in his crib 3.) on mommy in her bed between her and daddy and 4.) in his car seat. Note: Pack-n-Play is not on this list. We did discover that if we put the padded changing table pad down in the Pack-n-Play he will sleep a little better in it.

Tuesday night we stayed at my mom's house and she had a fellow scrapbooker there to scrapbook. Needless to say there wasn't a whole lot of scrapbooking accomplished because everyone was loving Crankbutt and Poopbreath.

This is a doll mom had as a child and all of her kids and grandkids have played with it. She is now know as Shapie doll because my niece Madison wrote on her with a sharpie.

Wednesday when I got to my In-laws house, Grandpa Mike had an activity he wanted to do with Crankbutt. He got him markers and assured me they were non-toxic and washable. I'm sure they were non-toxic... I wasn't too worried. The washable idea is great in theory, but didn't turn out so well. I was fine with it, but he'd just had a bath at Grandma Mary's.
Drawing session with Grandma Marsha and Grandpa Mike.

He did try to eat the markers... he had a red ink stain on his lip the rest of the night.

Thanksgiving day the men started work on the Franken-Turken. (Which, by the way, turned out pretty well). But I had made a point to tell Michael that I wanted to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade with Crankbutt, you know... start a tradition. This is what Crankbutt thought of that idea...

He was passed out before the parade even started.

After his nap, Daddy and Grandpa Mike were out doing some snow removal and Grandpa wanted to take Crankbutt for a sled ride.
Resulting sled ride ...

Crankbutt wasn't diggin' it. After riding with Daddy, I got in with him and he was only a little happier with that.

We went and did some shopping on Friday with Grandma Mary before we went to pick up my nieces. And no, we didn't do the crazy Black Friday shopping. The only store we went to that had a line was JoAnn Fabrics... go figure. 

Saturday, Daddy and I took Crankbutt to see Santa..... this is what happened....

Crankbutt had a good holiday, but was happy to get home last night and get back into his "schedule" today. 

I leave you with this video from last night.... he got stuck and was tired to boot....

We look forward to spending the Christmas holiday with our friends and family.

'Tis the Season

So, Thanksgiving is rapidly creeping up on us, which means that before you know it Christmas will be upon us and then my little baby boy will be a year old. 6 weeks.... 6 WEEKS! What happened to my little Crankbutt? He's turning into a bigger Crankbutt.

Wednesday we all got dressed up and Michael and I took Crankbutt to get a family picture taken for the holidays. While were were there they offered us this membership package that is good for two years where they will not charge you any sitting fees and I believe there will be a discount too. They said to sell us on it "Oh, you'll be getting his one year pictures done soon..." I about cried... he's going to be a year old.

That all being said, the pictures turned out pretty nice and we'll have them after Thanksgiving. Crankbutt, Poopbreath, Toulie and I will be heading to see family on Tuesday and Michael will be joining us when he is done with work on Wednesday.

I think we finally figured out how to get Crankbutt to sleep better at night.... a bedtime snack, other than nursing, seems to be helping. He still gets up once or twice, but he lets me put him back into the crib once he's asleep. Go figure....

There isn't much else new or exciting here... my baby boy is getting bigger and bigger and learning new and exciting things every day. He has learned that he can now take ALL the pots and pans out of the cabinets and play in the cabinet itself.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family and friends.

I leave you with how Crankbutt entertains himself some days.

Sleep.... who needs sleep?

Crankbutt has been keeping mommy up at night. He will go to sleep around 8:00 or 8:30 then wake up crying a little while later. I'll get him back to sleep and go to put him down and poof... up again. He also has been fighting naps during the day. There is always just so much going on (and by that I mean that he thinks there is so much going on) and he doesn't want to miss a second of it. So yesterday we tried the "cry it out" method for his morning nap. After thirty minutes... this was how he fell alseep......

Needless to say... I felt like a horrible mother. I went in to lay him down and he fussed a little. He nursed and then went back to sleep in a more horizontal position.

Well last night... after he had eaten for twenty minutes and fallen asleep I laid him down in his crib. No more than twenty minutes later he work up crying. I was going to go up to him, but daddy said let him cry. He needs to learn to put himself back to sleep. Well, after forty minutes of crying, I gave in. He ate and went back to sleep and slept until 3:30am. At that point I got up and fed him he went back to sleep and I tried to put him down.... poof awake! I put him on my shoulder, he's alseep, I lay him down... poof! he's awake. At this point, my vision is blurry and I say the heck with it and take him to our room where he can lay down on me and we can both get some sleep.

Needless to say, he's napped better today. But yesterday he also got his second dose of the flu shot, so that could have had something to do with it.

On another note, Crankbutt won a free portrait sitting with a local photographer here in Harrisburg. This was the picture I submitted.

Darn cute, he is!

So I think I will use that session to have his 1 year pictures taken. AHHH!!! He's almost a year old already. HOLY COW! Where did the last year go?

So, it had been a little bit of time since we'd done a full house cleaning... we did it Sunday. Crankbutt was put into "solitary" and by that I mean he was put into the Pack-n-Play so that he wasn't getting into everything. Toulie just wondered around the house avoiding the vacuum cleaner, but Poopbreath was afraid of it. It was funny... after we vacuumed in the living room this is where Poopbreath decided it was safe to be...

And Toulie took a page out of Poopbreath's book and decided the bouncy seat looked like a comfy/safe place to sleep.

Sunday was an exciting day for Crankbutt. He go to go to his first Hershey Bears hockey. We were lucky enough to have gotten free tickets and were in a box suite thanks to Todd Hoffman from Hoffman Ford who offered active Firefighters and Social members this opportunity. Unfortunately, the Bears lost 3 - 2. If there had been two more seconds on the clock they would have tied because they scored right after the buzzer blew!

So, we had a good time there. Crankbutt had more fun running, and I do mean running, up and down the walk way outside of the suite.

It's been a busy couple of days and hopefully things will slow down a bit and Crankbutt can get some sleep. And by that, I mean mommy can get some sleep.

Our first adventure... into blogging... as told by mommy

Hello All,

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging about the lives of my husband, our son, our two dogs, six (sometimes more sometimes less) outside cats and myself.

Michael and I have been married for five and a half years. We've been together for 13 years. We have a son, "Stinky" or "Crankbutt,"  who will be 10 months old on November 4th. Our dogs are a 15 year old Jack Russell Terrier named Jackie a.k.a. Toulie and a 3 month old Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix named Pooka a.k.a. Poopbreath (because she eats cat poop and Toulie's poop). There are, at any given time, between four to six cats that live outside our house. I keep getting them fixed, but somehow, they keep reproducing and showing up under our shed.

I am a 31 year old stay at home mom. I was a substitute teacher for five years, but stopped that last Christmas when schools went on break and Stinky was supposed to be born. He decided to come late and I just never went back to subbing. I do coach middle school girls soccer in the spring and watch a friend's little boy during the week.

So... Michael and I decided I should start this blog last night as we were sitting in our basement drinking a few legal beverages (Stinky was sleeping) and narrating the conversation that we believed our dogs were having with each other and also after Stinky's endeavors last night.

Poopbreath, the chihuahua/pom mutt likes to play with old Toulie. Toulie, doesn't like to play, which only reinforces our statement of long ago that "Our dog does not want to be friends with you dog. Our dog wants to bite your dog's face." Toulie tolerates Poopbreath pretty well. Poopbreath harasses Toulie to no end by nibbling on her ears, biting her tail and hind legs, chewing on Toulie's beard and so on. Toulie only occasionally retaliates and makes Poopbreath yip. That all being said, Poopbreath was trying to get on the one chair in the basement that Toulie was sitting on last night. Toulie was all snuggled into the blankets that were on the chair (because she assumes all blankets are hers) and Poopbreath wanted to be up there with her. Well, after tugging and jumping and nipping and all the things that little puppies do to try and achieve their goals, she made it up in the chair and instantly started bothering Toulie. Knowing that Toulie would eventually retaliate, Poopbreath started sticking her butt in Toulie's face and twisting around to nip Toulie's face at the same time (she's an incredibly flexible dog). We started the narration... Poopbreath: "Please just smell my butt. You've never smelled my butt.... I just want you to want to smell my butt." Toulie; "Would you please just get your butt out of my face... I've smelled a lot of butts... once you smell one, you've smelled them all."

And so it went on.

Toulie eventually got off the chair and went upstairs. I, however, had closed the dutch door into the kitchen from the basement so that neither dog could be running around (or peeing/pooping) up there on their own. So, Poopbreath went up after her, forgetting that she doesn't know how to come down steps yet. Toulie came back down, got up on the chair and relaxed while Poopbreath sat at the top of the steps and fussed.

Stinky's endeavors last evening were only mildly interesting. When daddy gets home he usually takes Stinky upstairs with him while he changes. He brought him down and was playing with him (or attempting to), but Stinky was all over the place (he's almost 10 months old and has been walking for about a month). We let him roam pretty freely around the first floor. There are only two or three things we don't allow him to get into. One is the dog dishes, the other is the half round cabinet we have in the dining room (it's glass and has some smaller items in it). I was doing dishes while daddy played with him. But while I was attempting to do dishes, Stinky was getting into these two things. Daddy was sitting in on the living room floor watching him get into them and telling him no. I had to dry my hands off and go and remove him from these things. So, he was just into everything.

If you made it this far, let me know what you think. I enjoy writing and sharing our stories with family and friends.

 

Stinky dressed as a Skeleton today. 

Stinky and Pooka aka Poopbreath

 This is the reason why he gets nibbled on by Pooka.