About The Boys

Hello all!  First things first… I’ve got a guest post happening over at Neathering our Fest.  It’s a delicious cookie recipe.  Go forth and explore Neathering our Fest and Skey’s rockin’ awesome Etsy store, Thumbprint Designs.  Skye just made me a little (well actually it’s kind of big) lovely for my kitchen that I will show off in it’s very own post very soon.

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We have had some FANTASTIC weather the last few days, so we have been trying to get outside as much as possible and enjoy it.  Since it gets darker later now, we can get outside after dinner and spend some quality time playing with Henry after Gus has gone to bed.  Henry has always loved him some bubbles, so we do a lot of bubble blowing outside in the backyard.

Henry loves to try to blow his own bubbles… So far he just ends up with a lot of bubble juice all over his face, but hey… He’s trying!  It’s hilarious to watch someone try to explain how to blow bubbles.  I need to get pictures of THAT. LOL!

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Now that the photo bomb is over, here’s my Meal Plan for this week!

Sunday: grilled chicken, grilled squash and zucchini, roasted red potatoes, strawberry shortcake (yummmm)

Monday: turkey burgers & oven fries… and probably more strawberry shortcake!

Tuesday: crunchy tacos

Wednesday: panko breaded chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, broccoli

Thursday: spaghetti, spinach salad, garlic bread

What’s on your meal plan for this week?

P.S. I have a giveaway going on right now!  Go there and leave a comment to be entered in a chance to win my favorite lip gloss.  You can comment on this post as well to get extra entries!

We had big plans today.  Our plans fell through though… it happens.  So I packed some lunches and we set off for some fun at the park and a picnic.  And I actually remembered to take my camera.  My actual camera – not just my phone.  Double Woot!

Turns out it was a little chilly outside.  The temp was in the 60′s but it was windy and the wind was cold.  So we stayed at the park as long as Gus’s ears would stay warm… which was good enough.

…well don’t ask Gus.  He might have a different opinion on the whole park trip today.

…we’re doin’ whaaa????

Next time we hit the park, we’ll have to 1) go when it’s a bit warmer outside. (In my defense it was 85 freakin’ degrees yesterday. Go Texas! 2) Go to the park with the swings. I see some swinging in Gus’s future.

….she says we’ll go swinging soon, but now all I’ve got is this stupid stroller and my chewy. And a blanket. Pfft. Sometimes it’s tough being the little brother, huh?

Check this out… When I was uploading these pictures, I remembered that in the early days of this blog I wrote a similar post with pictures of Henry’s first trip to the park. That post was on March 29, 2010… Almost 2 years ago!

My how my boy has grown! March 29th, 2010:

March 2, 2012:

Aaaahhhhh!!! Stop! I can’t take it!

Moving on… Henry’s a big fan of the slide. He’s got his own slide-on-the-belly-technique perfected. Here… I’ll let him demonstrate. Enjoy!

And he sticks the landing!

Don’t worry Gus… We’re leaving now.

It was too chilly to sit outside and have a picnic, but since I’d packed everything up already, Henry and I decided we’d picnic anyway. Thank goodness for our minivan, or the Sarahvan as we like to call it. I laid the back seats down, spread out our blanket and we had a nice climate controlled picnic in the back of the van. Gus was warm, and Henry said we had a “fun picnic.” I’ll take it!

It’s 10:26pm, and I’m just now getting to sit down and put something up on the blog today.  I need a post so you’ll have somewhere to comment again to enter The Giveaway!  You can also enter here, here, here, and on this post.  Do it!  The winner will be announced tomorrow evening, and I’ll take entries up until 7pm CST tomorrow.  Go forth and comment!

Today we met up with Henry’s playgroup… We normally meet on Friday’s but we got together today to go to this cool indoor playground at a local church that’s not open on Fridays.  Henry had a blast, and Gus was a champ just hanging out and along for the ride.  After we played we all went to McDonald’s for lunch and more playing.  Gus was still a trooper, but I pretty much knew I had totally screwed up his sleep schedule being out and about for so long.  It happens.  He fell asleep in the car on the way home, and then he couldn’t get back to sleep, so we hung out for a bit while Henry The Wonderful Sleeper had himself a nice nap.  I gave him a bottle and we played for a bit before attempting nap again, and he was so giggly!  I took this video, and it’s precious; however, Gus was sitting on my lap and I had to hold the camera in a weird place to get him in the shot (which I didn’t successfully do as you can see).  And I totally didn’t think about it at the time, but I had the camera way up by my face and I was chewing gum so that’s why you hear gross mouth noises.  Posting a video with gross mouth noises totally makes my butt twitch, but Gus is just SO cute that I’m going to ignore the twitching and post it anyway.

I’ve been trying to get Gus to to the Ma ma ma ma or Da da da noises and he thinks it’s hilarious.  So hilarious he won’t do it. LOL! Oh, and watch your volume… there are a few good high pitched squeals that are sure to wake a baby should you be near a sleeping one. Enjoy!

Henry woke up a wee bit grumpy after a too short and too late nap today.  The too short and too late nap is a regular visitor on Henry’s school days, so I’ve been trying various things to help him shake off the short nap blues.  A juice box used to do the trick (SUGAR!!!), but that wasn’t working for us today.  Gus needed to eat his dinner and Henry was needing some entertainment, so I busted out the new finger paints we bought yesterday and an old cookie sheet.  I saw this idea on a YouTube video Henry randomly found.  Thanks random YouTube video!

♦Before we get to the picture montage, make sure you go comment on the GIveaway post for a chance to win some super duper cute nail polish from Yours Truly.  You can get extra entries by commenting on all posts after the Giveaway post too… so here, here, and down there at the bottom of this post.  Hurry!  Tomorrow will be the last chance to enter!♦

Now that’s done, how about some pictures?  Henry had a great time smearing colors all over the cookie sheet.  I got smart after cleaning up the table once and put a dish towel under the cookie sheet.

I was pretty impressed with Henry jumping right in and smearing paint all over his hands. He’s usually pretty persnickety about getting his hands dirty, but not today. He also didn’t have a problem getting paint up his arms, all over his face, or in his hair. Good times!

I just kept adding a little more paint in different colors… It was all fun and games until we got to the red paint.

This is the standard 2 year old “Say Cheese” face that I see in so many of my friend’s pictures. I’m looking forward to the day when my child will learn to actually smile again and not actually say Cheese with this weird look on his face.

Show me your hands!

I almost got him to look at me and smile. Almost.

And then there was the red paint. Which mixed with the other colors to make this rather disturbing color. I expected it all to turn brown, but instead we get a lovely morbid shade of blood maroon.

Aaaaaggghhhhh! Taken out of context this is pretty disturbing, yes?

Moving on…

He had fun and believe it or not, clean up was a breeze. I just wiped his head and face down with a wet washcloth and took him to the bathroom sink and rinsed off his hands and arms. It was bath night, so we didn’t have to scrub too much. The cookie sheet washed right off with some dish soap, and the kitchen towel went into the laundry pile with the washcloth. Easy peasy.

Gus was a trooper and hung out and watched his big brother make a mess paint glorious masterpieces.

He was content to hang out and munch on a Mum Mum.

Looking fetching in the pink bib yet again.

He reluctantly traded in the Mum Mum for his chewey. He loves this teething ring.

Awwwww! Now THAT’S a smile!

This one just makes me giggle. Mid-raspberry.

Catch ya later, dude!

Weeeee milestones!

Gus is now an official sitter upper!

Hey baby!

He looks kind of shocked… How’d I get up here?

Ok… he still needs a little safety net. Thank you Mr. Boppy Pillow. Gus says, “How you doin’?”

Oh muh goodness. Look at those eyes. Look at those poofy cheeks! Look at those arm rolls! I’m going to be out of town this weekend visiting my BFF, Marni, all the way in Georgia! I’m so excited to see her and snuggle her sweet boy, but dangit I’m going to miss this face! Gus has been sick weekend before last, and today he finally started feeling better. RSV is a bitch, yo! I’m so glad that he seems to be feeling better just in time to spend a fun-filled weekend with Daddy and Brother! A boys weekend! They’re going to have fun, and I’m going to miss them like crazy!

Oh! He also got his first Mum Mum this week… He chowed down!

I always seem to get post-worthy pictures of my boys wearing this pink bib. It’s the only pink bib we have, yet it’s in so many pictures. Oh well! Both of my boys look good in pink!

Don’t forget to comment here and over here for a chance to win my nail polish give away!

Hello, my name is Sarah, and my child is a Picky Eater.  He is.  It drives me to drink some days.  Well, not really… but I’ve thought about it.

He’s not the pickiest kid on the planet or anything, but we do struggle with mealtimes. Here’s the good parts: He likes to eat for the most part. He eats a lot of what he likes. He doesn’t have a crazy sweet tooth. He gets all of his food groups covered one way or another. So I’m not worried about his nutrition or his calorie intake. He’s growing and healthy and smart and that’s the most important thing all around.

But the frustration still creeps in because we’re constantly feeding him the same meals over and over again, and he almost always absolutely refuses to try new stuff. On Valentine’s Day Aaron brought home an ice cream cake. Henry had a full on fit complete with tears and snot and full on hysterics because I tried to get him to eat a bite of ice cream cake. ICE CREAM CAKE, PEOPLE! It’s not like I was trying to trick him into eating collard greens over here. It was ice cream and cake. Aren’t kids supposed to love these things? Mine doesn’t.

He does love the Almighty Chicken Nugget, spaghetti in various forms (lasagna, manicotti, etc), yogurt, a specific packet of Sprout Mac & Cheese that has white beans and butternut squash in it, yogurt, applesauce, graham crackers, a few varieties of crackers, and he’ll eat anything out of those pouches that you see popping up everywhere now, thank goodness. He’s recently started eating PB&J sandwiches and grilled cheese sandwiches after much coaxing on my part. And pizza. He now eats pizza.

Henry’s food pickiness is visual. He looks at what he’s offered to eat and if it doesn’t look like what he knows or if he doesn’t like the way it looks it is not going to go into his mouth. Short of force feeding him, which I’ll admit I’ve done on a few occasions with limited success, there’s nothing that is going to get him to try something if he gets it in his head that he doesn’t want it.

The kicker is that he didn’t start out picky.

He used to eat pretty much everything I’d offer him except peas. Can’t blame him there. He’s eating (and wearing) fresh blueberries mixed with plain greek yogurt in that pic.  He’ll still eat the yogurt, just not plain. Not so much on the blueberries. I posted a recipe for some Chicken Noodle Soup that was one of his staples. He’d also eat these little broccoli and cheddar cheese “nuggets” that I used to make like they were going out of style.  Now he won’t eat any fresh fruit or vegetable.  His fruit all comes in the form of various applesauces and pouches that are fruit and veggie puree’s.  The veggies he doesn’t get out of a pouch are hidden in various forms of spaghetti.  Same with non-chicken nugget meat.  It’s hiding in his bowl of whole wheat pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce.  So it’s not the end of the world, but frustrating nonetheless.

I can’t help but wonder if he’ll grow out of this “phase” or wonder if it even is a “phase”.  I’ve known adults who are crazy picky.  I was really picky myself up until probably high school/college.  And I’m still pretty picky.  I like a variety of things now, way more than I did as a kid, but I’m rather particular about how I like my food prepared. And I’m also a bit of a control freak about food in general, so I know he comes by that trait honestly.  Not one I’m proud to have passed down to him, however.

I really do feel like I tried to do everything in my power to make sure he didn’t become a picky eater.  I fed him things I don’t like. I gave him a big variety of foods and never forced him to eat things he clearly didn’t like.  I don’t know.  Perhaps there’s nothing I could have done.  I have high hopes for Gus though.  I figure I’ve got a 50/50 chance of him not being a picky eater.  And until then I’ll just continue to hide stuff in Henry’s spaghetti and hope it gets better from here.  He is just 2.5 after all.  Surely some of this is just him being two.

Do you have a picky eater?  Or even better, do you have a previously picky eater?  Is there hope that he’s going to grow out of this?  And if so, when?

Instead of a Wordless Wednesday this week, I’m going to post a very Wordy Wednesday.  This month Henry turned 2.5 and Gus hit the 6 month mark.  I can’t believe my baby is already 6 months old already!  Time does fly when you’re having fun!

I wanted to a much overdue update on my boys and brag on them.

Henry.  Oh, Henry!

Henry is quite the ham (when he wants to be of course). At 2.5 years old he’s quite a little brainiac. He’s (still) obsessed with letters and numbers. He can recite the alphabet, identify all of the letters (upper and lower case), he can write all of the letters (although some of them come out backwards), and he can identify a handful of words. He can count past 30 and identify a lot more numbers past that. He knows his shapes and colors and pretty much blows us away on a daily basis. He is a little sponge and has a big vocabulary. He will definitely repeat the things you say, so you do have to watch out and make sure not to laugh if he repeats something inappropriate because that will make it stick and get repeated more. He cracks us up constantly (well when he’s not throwing a fit… he is 2 after all), and Aaron and I are always trading stories of “Henry said…”

He’s a handsome little devil, that’s for sure! He’s right at 3 feet tall and weighs about 28-30 lb. depending on the day. He’s going to Preschool two times a week, and he really seems to enjoy it now. It was a rough start, and he still has a little anxiety around the drop off, but he always has good days and is happy when I get there to pick him up. He’s starting to get into the artsy and crafty stuff, and really likes his teacher.

Henry is an iPad junkie. He loves the iPad, our iPhones, the computers… all of it! And he’s figured them all out and knows how to play all of his games and watch his videos and find the things he likes to do. He has recently discovered Pocoyo and loves to watch recorded episodes from the DVR. He also really enjoys watching Word World, Mickey Mouse, and Team Umizoomi.

We’re starting to work on potty training now that he seems to be used to Gus being around. We’ll probably pick a weekend here pretty soon and really go for it on the potty training and see how he reacts to underwear.

He is a crazy picky eater. We’re just taking that one day at a time and trying to encourage him to try new things, but I won’t lie… Aaron and I are both pretty frustrated with the picky eating. But I suppose if picky eating is our biggest concern right now, we’re doing OK!

And now… Gustastic! The Gusmeister! GusGus! Sir Gustardson!
…so he’s got a nickname or two… What of it?

This is my precious FatBaby (another nickname) at his 6 month well visit. He weighed in at 19 lb 12 oz and 28.5 inches long. He’s in the 75th percentile for both height and weight and is right on track with everything. He’s rolling and babbling and is *this close* to sitting up on his own. He’s a big eater and loves everything we’ve offered him so far except peas. So that’s a unanimous decision against peas in the Carlock household.

Gus also keeps us laughing with his funny noises and silly faces. He’s a super smily little guy and is always good for a laugh.

He’s sleeping through the night and takes 2 or 3 naps per day. His nap schedule is rather wonky, but I’m comparing him to Captain Schedule (aka Henry), so perhaps Gus is just more of a go with the flow kind of baby.

Of course after we were at the doc for his well visit, we made our first appearance on the sick side for Gus’s first cold. He’s been sick for the past 2 days, and he’s kind of miserable. His little cough and sneezes are so sad, but he’s still in pretty good spirits all things considered. Hopefully he’s feeling better tomorrow.

He’s also teething pretty hard core. I’ve been able to see where his two bottom teeth are about to come through for a few weeks now, and it seems like sometimes I can feel a ridge break through, but no “official” teeth yet.

Gus loves his big brother, no doubt about that. He watches everything he does and smiles and laughs at him. Henry is coming around on the Gus front. He’s usually fairly ambivalent about Gus. He doesn’t dislike him, but he’s not showering him with affection either. He will pat him on the head or help hold his bottle when we ask him to, but he doesn’t initiate much. He has been telling me that Gus has a little cough since Gus has been sick, and they had a nice little raspberry blowing contest the other day while they were home with Daddy. Henry does tell Gus goodnight and says “I love you Gus,” which is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

Gus hasn’t been sleeping very well the last few days – teething, I think.  And we were out and about during his afternoon nap time, so he just snoozed on me for awhile while Henry got some much needed playtime in with his friend, Mason.  When we got home, I tried to put him down for a nap, but he had other plans, so I got him up and we hung out for a bit and then I gave him a bottle and he was asleep in minutes.  I laid him down for what I thought would be a 30-45 minute early evening catnap (as they usually are when he has them).  When Aaron got home at 6:20 the Gusman was still asleep.  So I went in to wake him up and he popped his little head up and was just cooing and smiling away at me.  I called Aaron in to his room so we could stand and admire our baby’s cuteness for a bit.  Henry decided to join us, and was feeling a little left out and decided Gus’s crib looked like a perfectly acceptable place to go hang out for a bit.  So in he went.   It’s these little moments that we spend as a family of 4 that make me feel complete.

Gus getting a little help with the bink from his very binkie experienced big brother.

A little brotherly moment.

Henry needed his own binkie and his lovie from his crib to really feel at home in little brother’s crib.

Ahhh my precious precious babies!

This past weekend Henry got to meet his Uncle Tom and Aunt Joan for the first time!

They checked each other out for a minute or two and decided they were cool…

Tom and Joan outfitted Henry with some marvelous Hawkeye gear for his birthday, so we had to dress him up in his jersey while they were in town.

He’s all boy here, right? Football jersey, camo shorts, and muddy knees.

Apparently I’ve totally missed out on one of Henry’s favorite past times… It seems all I needed to do to keep him entertained for hours was stick him outside with a bowl of water. The kid was seriously stoked about splashing in the dog’s water!

Instead of giving him a bath, we just opted for the kiddie pool. The kid sure is cute in his little swim diaper splashing around with his Pops!

He likes to use the side of the plastic pool to stand up…

Until he slips… Then he totally blames me.

What a look! But of course he’s probably giving me the WTF look since I just sat there and kept snapping pictures while Pops and Aunt Joan had to get him squared away back in the pool. But it was like the 8th time he did that. Kid’s gotta learn sometime, right?
He really really likes to splash!

He’s just too cute to handle sometimes, I tell ya! Too much!

Don’t believe me? Check out his moves…