Making a Ribbon Toy

My activity with Miller this week was making him a sensory toy- a ribbon turkey, as I like to think of it. I saw an activity on-line that mentioned letting your kid play with different ribbons. Honestly, I did not want to deal with keeping track of them so I decided to glue them together in what turned out looking like a turkey.

I had this whole drawer of ribbon anyways so it was easy enough.

I started with the thickest ribbon to be my base. 

I glued all on one side and then did the other. 

See all those fun textures for little fingers to explore. 

I add a little piece of felt on the bottom to keep it all together. 

Miller has grabbed it a few times but is not overly excited by it.

Miller Week 46 and 47

My mom was here a few weeks ago to visit and babysit while we went to a wedding. During the day on Saturday we all got decked out in our UT orange and went downtown for our friends art show and then to Ikea.

"Go Vols!!"

The following Monday, we watched Heather's little girl Ruby so her momma could rest a bit. Miller did not know what to think. He kept wanting to touch her but as gentle as he can for being almost one year old.  (He has got some crazy boy band hair here).

Reading books before bed.

We had playgroup on Thursday morning and it was a little chilly. You know, the chilly where it starts out cold but then gets warm and you are sweating. That is why we layered. It was the first time he wore a hoodie and I loved it. Such a big boy!

This is a signature Miller face. 

Miller naps with two blankets. A small muslin one that he also has a nights, and a large, guazy one from Ikea. He starts out the naps with the blankets up to under his arms but after a few minutes, he has fallen asleep on top of them. Last week, I heard him crying on the monitor (normal) so I went to check out the camera and this is what I saw. He was covered in the blanket and walking around. I ran upstairs, all while laughing, to rescue him. He was standing as still as can be in the middle of the crib like this. I seriously was hurting from crying so hard and that made him stop crying and laugh. I guess he was practicing for Halloween.

Here is my handsome guy helping his daddy on the computer. Notice the crab on the shirt because he was a crab that day.

 

Colored Ice Cubes and Bath time

I am going to try something new. I am making no promises but we will see how this goes. For a while now, I have been meaning to do more activities with Miller. I believe that it is important for Miller to do a good bit of independent play and just explore but I want to do some structured activities with him to expose him to new things. I am going to try to do at least one activity a week with Miller and blog about it on here. I love when things are themed so I am so excited to plan things around holidays or the seasons. Yes, I already have Halloween and Fall activities planned and I am working on Winter, Christmas, heck, even Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day. 

There are not a ton of things that you can do with a little one his age when everything goes in his mouth still (geez, I am so ready for this phase to be over with). We have done baby safe  finger paints already so what was next? I came across some other blogs having kids play with ice cubes on a hot day so I figured it would be just as fun in the bath tub. My only mistake is that I poured the water in the cubes, then dyed them with food coloring. Next time I will color and then pour, because the colors were way too saturated and heavy. 

I wanted to start slowly and only give him one at a time so he could concentrate on them. I only used half of them because 16 would have taken forever.

Getting excited!

"What is going on mommy?"

I handed him the green one and the first thing he did was eat it. 

I got it out of his mouth threw it in the water. He chased it around for a while until it melted and then I threw in another one.

I did empty the tub halfway through so we could have clear water again but next time we do this with less saturated ice cubes, I hopefully will not have to do that. 

He is always so happy when we wrap him in a towel. Since I had my camera sitting there, I had to snap a picture of it.

Oh my goodness I just love him!

Hopefully, no definitely, I will have a new activity next week. (Okay, I am cheating and already have it done).

Miller: Month Eleven

Weight: 21 lbs 14oz (+13 lbs 12oz)

Height: 29" (+ 7.5")

Head: 19.5" (+ 4.5")

Sleep: This has been pretty consistent and that makes me so happy! We had one night two weekends ago in Knoxville where he cried for 2 hours but we thinking that was teething related. The past week, he had an early wakeup time (like hour and a half earlier than normal), which this mommy does not like but I am sure it was just a phase. There was a period where we wondered if he was trying to go down to one nap but that was not the case. He is just capable of being okay if he skips his later nap but it is not good if we do that everyday.

Eating: I feel like his eating has been weird lately. I have always nursed on demand with him but tried to establish a routine. He was slowly cutting back on nursing which made me sad but then I started to pick up on cues that he wanted to nurse more often. Now he is nursing a bit more. Each time is not very long but as long as he is getting what he needs, that is fine. As for solids, he has always been a good eater here but by the time we get to dinner, it is like he has gotten picky. He does not eat as much as other meals and is done sooner. We think the teething thing is affecting this as well.

Best Moment: We have left him a couple of times in the past month and as soon as we get home, he has woken up to nurse and it makes me feel as if he missed me as much as I missed him.

Milestones: There really has not been anything new this month. He is getting better and better at walking. He is now waving by opening and closing his hand, which we never taught him but it is super cute.

Monthly Wisdom: I get so hung up about the future and our plans for the future, that it paralyzes me. Since having Miller I knew I had to learn to live in the present or I would miss so much. I finally feel like I am in a place where I can still plan about the future but really enjoy our day to day lives. Also, I get so upset over the fact that we are not where we want to be or thought  that we would be at this point in our lives (houses, cars, etc) but you know, at the end of our lives, those are not the things that matter. We can still work towards those goals, but focus on our family and friends right now.

Goals for the Upcoming Month:
- Still working on Miller's birthday party. I am actually almost done. My next major task is to plan and take his one year pictures.
- Ummmmm, I think that is actually it. 

Things Miller is doing:
- (as mentioned above) Waving by opening and closing his hands.
- Says fish, kiss, dada, mama, Isla (he loves her!), Ally and we swear he said Love You a few times.
- Loves to read, whether we read to him or he flips through the book on his own.

Here are some pictures of Miller reading. It is the cutest thing to watch him just flip through his books.

Catching Up and Labor Day

I feel like I keep having to apologize on here but once again, sorry for being gone. Honestly, nothing too exciting has been happening around here. Combine that with me trying to work efficiently on some projects.

Miller's birthday is in less than a month (I know I owe you all an 11th month update which I have almost ready to go), so I have been trying to set goals each week to get it all done. I have almost everything done but now it comes down to planning out and taking Miller's one year pictures. I will probably be doing it in two weeks so I have enough time to get some printed before his birthday but they will be close to when he is actually one year.

I also have a huge long list of house projects that I am trying to tackle. I was getting pretty overwhelmed with everything so I am "assigning" myself one a week. I have posted about a few of them on Wives Unscripted. At this point, I am trying to get some things done, so our house is presentable for Miller's party here, which involves unpacking finally. After living here for 5 months, I finally finished Miller's nursery (which I have to post about too).

I am also working on converting all of Miller's diapers from Velcro to snaps. It does not sound like much work but it takes a ton of time. Remove velcro with a seam ripper, mark new holes, punch new holes with an awl, then finally use snap pliers to apply the snaps (and there are 24 on each diaper). And let me tell you, those darn snap pliers only do half the work. I have worked my arms into exhaustion so bad I can not brush my teeth a few times. I had 25 of our diapers to do when I started and offered  to do Heather's 20. I now have 2 of ours left and 15 of Heathers. I just want them done and out of the way.

My next project to start on is Miller's Halloween costume but now that I finally sat down and planned it out, I am not as overwhelmed. I would love to find a not too hard autumn home decoration craft to do too.

For now, here are a few Miller pics to tide you over.

Miller has been teething and the first night we were in TN for Labor Day, he was up multiple times and once he would not stop crying for an hour and a half. He ended up sleeping most of the night in bed with me and this is the little face I woke up to. The funny thing is that they were replacing my moms roof and the banging was ridiculous. He was the only one who could sleep through it.

He went to the park with mom and Ally. He was already sufficiently worn out by the time Ben and I meet up with them there but still had the energy to run over to us.

Playing in his pool at my parents house. 

He loves swinging. 

We finally upgraded him to a convertible carseat so we took out his old one. I wanted to take a picture in his carrier so we could have a comparison to his going home picture from the hospital. This is what he used it for- an apparatus to climb. 

I will be posting his 11th month update in a day or so. I promise!