Leeland's 1st Halloween!

Below are some pictures of Leeland on his very 1st Halloween.  Daniel and I aren't big halloween people so it was enough that I dressed him up.  In fact, last year at this time when I was pregnant I was ranting all about how it was pointless to dress a baby up, they can't eat candy, they can't even walk.... blah, blah, blah.  As you can see, I gave in to peer pressure and put the kid in a costume!  We didn't do much-- he wore his "baby's 1st halloween" onesie to church this morning, we went out to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa and then came home.  Leeland didn't go trick or treating, he really only wore his costume long enough to take pictures.  Feel free to call me lame, but I just wasn't in to it this year and Leeland doesn't know the difference.

And here's the cutest lion I ever did see!!

Take That Apple!

So our old computer crashed... an HP laptop that  I purchased my sophomore year in college.  I have always wanted a MacBook but never had the money to fork out for one.  It's so sad how consumed in technology that I have become that I felt like life was sooo horrible without a computer.  I have become so attached to all of my gadgets that it's kind of ridiculous.  There are countries where people have to walk for miles to access a computer, and I'm sure that are countries out there where people have never actually seen a computer.  Anyways, we finally broke down and got a MacBook--after killing 2 PC's, it was time to try something new.  However when we got it, I immediately went to sync my iphone to the itunes on the Mac and I guess I just assumed that all of my music was going to be saved.... And it was not! I have about 1000 songs on my iphone and none of them would transfer into itunes!! And of course I don't have all the CD's that I have ever uploaded, that would be insane! I was devastated thinking that all of my music could be LOST FOREVER!  So they make music so that it can go from itunes to your ipod/iphone or other gadget but not the other way around.  I understand the reasoning to prohibit copying music, blah blah blah... but it still sucks for people like me who aren't doing anything wrong.

Well, it turns out that there is a solution! It is possible to go from iphone/ipod or other gadget to itunes.  You just have to use 3rd party software!  A friend of mine suggested a program called "Senuti" which is itunes spelled backwards.  You can download it for free and it transferred 1000 songs from my iphone into itunes in just a few minutes! Amazing!!

Leeland is 6 months!

Leeland is officially 1/2 a year now! Not too much longer and it will be time to plan a 1st birthday party!! Can you believe it?
At 6 months old, Leeland can....

-Sit up without support
-Eats solids 3 times a day now.

-Has been introduced to rice crackers and LOVES them! We call them his cookies.  They are banana flavored "Baby Mum-Mum"

-Has been introduced to the sippy cup, we put water in it and gave it to him a few times.  The baby books say to introduce it this early-- he didn't quite get it, and since he's teething, he really just wanted to chew on the handles :0/ We'll try again!

-He hasn't started crawling yet, but it's definitely going to happen soon! He can do baby push ups, and he gets on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth.  Currently he seems content barrel rolling everywhere. And it's cute, so I'm not complaining!
-He is doing some serious teething right now! His gums seem to be a little swollen so we're expecting his first teeth to come through any day now.
-He weighs 16 pounds and is 27 inches long.
-He is extremely ticklish and loves to laugh.
-He is a social butterfly and will smile, babble and laugh at anybody.  He likes to "talk" to strangers while we are out and about at the grocery store or where ever.

Excessive drool from teething

-He loves singing and music, and dancing and jumping
-In fact, he is all around an extremely active little boy! He doesn't stop moving, even in his sleep!
-He's still sleeping about 10 hours a night
-He had his first cold a couple weeks ago :0( It was very hard to watch him be uncomfortable.  He was quite fussy and rightfully so considering he was so congested and had trouble with his bottles and his binky (who he loves)
-His binky's (pacifiers) are his best friend! And I am already dreading the day that we have to wean him off of them.

-We have been putting all of our change in his piggy bank for the past 5 months and took it in to the bank and opened his very own savings account!

That's about it for now! I say this every time, but time is truly flying by! Life has been SO exciting the past 6 months and every minute with our son has been incredible! He is learning so much, growing quickly and becoming more and more active as the days pass!

The switch to cloth!

GMD pre-fold secured with a Snappi (1st time, much better folding now)

3 weeks ago we made the big switch to cloth diapers! There are many assumptions that people make about people who use cloth diapers. Honestly, just then what did you think of when I said that?! That we're extreme tree huggers, some think that it's something only poor people do, some think it's something that only rich people do, and some would assume that I love to do dirty laundry. However, none of those are true and none of those are the reasons that we made the switch. We chose to switch to cloth diapers after Leeland got a severe diaper rash that wouldn't go away. I tried every cream I could think of and my poor baby was in a lot of pain. At one point the rash was so bad that his poor bum looked blistered. I couldn't take it anymore. After talking with a friend who already does cloth and doing some research online I was enlightened about the facts of disposables. They contain a lot of chemicals that just aren't good for your baby! And there's the added fact that they take at least 500 years in a landfill to decompose.... meaning that Leeland's diapers would still be in the landfill when he has great great great great grandchildren and is long gone from this Earth.

My 1st assumption about making the switch was that it was going to be a ton of extra work, but it's really not an inconvenience AT ALL! My diaper stash includes 24 pre-fold diapers, 5 all-in-one diapers and 5 diaper covers. I really like the pre-folds but they aren't as convenient as the all-in-ones. I purchased only a few of the all-in-ones for when Leeland is in the nursery at church, with Grandparents, or with Daniel. They are the simplest of the cloth--they look exactly like disposables but they are cotton and have velcro closings. I have to do diaper laundry about twice a week and its the easiest laundry that I do-- there isn't much folding and they don't have to be hung up, just put into the bins on the changing table. We also switched to cloth wipes just for the convenience of not having to separate out trash from laundry, they're eco-friendly and mine were completely free! There are websites that you can buy cloth wipes from, but I just made mine out of receiving blankets (cut 2 squares and sew together). I received probably about 50 receiving blankets at my baby shower and have never been able to use them all, so I cut up about 10 of them to make the wipes.

On top of all that I just said, no diaper rash, no diapers chillin in a landfill, and a happy baby, we are also saving a ton of money which is an awesome perk. Supposedly the average person is going to spend about $5,000 on diapers for their baby from newborn to potty trained. The cloth diapered family only spends about $800. My diaper stash was $200 and what I have will get him to 30 pounds before we have to buy alternate sizes. Another bonus is that if we have children later on, we can keep what we already have and for the next child we will just have to buy the newborn and small sizes.

Thirsties Duo diaper cover.  Cute stripes!

He loves them! And way better designs then disposables! :D

Women's Only!

If you don't know this about me, I consider myself a runner. I started running races in 2008 and am always working to run further and to run faster. I ran my first half marathon in October of 2008. 2009 I kind of slacked off a little.... I was really busy, January-May, I was working, had an internship and trying to get to graduation, from August-October I was working 2 jobs. And technically at the beginning of August is when I found out I was pregnant with Leeland and wanted to take things easy anyways. With all that said, I was determined to get back to running after Leeland was born and it was TOUGH! People say that your muscles remember which could be true, but your lungs sure don't! I felt like I was starting all over again. My goal was originally to get back into shape and start training for my second half-marathon. But with the demands of having a baby, and starting all over again, I didn't get that far. I settled for a 5k, which is still an accomplishment. An added bonus is that it was for a GREAT cause. I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was 7 years old and the Women's Only raises money for a mammography scholarship fund for women who don't have health insurance-- making sure that another little girl out there doesn't lose her mommmy.

I decided the day before the race that instead of having someone baby-sit Leeland, I would run the race with him. That is why my husband and I invested so much money in our BOB (fancy jogger stroller). And I am SO GLAD that I made that decision! We had to be there an hour and a half before the race started because they block off the roads. We walked around, watched the little girls run, and picked up lots of SWAG (stuff we all get). Leeland had a bottle and ended up falling asleep just as we were lining up. He slept from the start until right after we got to the finish! I'm so proud of him! He's such a great running buddy! :0)

The fastest 5k I have ever run is 32 minutes. And that was way back in 2008 when I was racing consistently. Prior to this race the furthest I got in training was a little over 2 miles so I was SUPER nervous. I ended up running the whole thing in 40 minutes and 9 seconds, not bad for starting back out and pushing a stroller.