Merry Christmas!

5 Month post to come, but for now... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

4 Months

This week has gotten away from me a bit, so I'm a few days off on posting G's 4 month update.
He went in for his check-up and immunization shots on Monday. He weighs in at 14.8 lb, and he's growing fast at 24". He's working on his balance while sitting up on his own, and he's SO CLOSE to being able to put his Nuk in his mouth correctly. Overall, he's still a very happy mellow baby, but he's started fighting naptime more and more. To make up for it, though, he laughs easily and can be quite the giggler once he gets started.

I Heart Faces || ORANGE!

Ok, so I haven't done one of these in a LONG time, but this month's I Heart Faces challenge is orange. I knew immediately which photo I wanted to submit:

This may not be the most technically perfect by any means, but it's an absolute favorite of mine. I took this the day G and I came home from the hospital. 

If you want to join in the photo fun, hop on over to I Heart Faces. There's still time on this challenge :)

Quilt Time

Well, it took me a little while (read: about 8 months) to finally finish G's "baby" quilt, but I took care of all the final details a month or so ago. Though I'm *sure* nothing would ever happen to it being loved by a baby boy, I thought I'd go ahead an document the final project here.

It all started when I found the perfect striped minky for the back. From there, I pulled together some various fabrics used for other projects throughout his nursery. Once I had all my fabric pieces, I played around a bit before finally deciding on the final monster-themed design.

I sketched the monsters out then took them apart (in my head) to figure out what pieces I would need. After sewing together the fat stripes for the top, I appliqued the monsters on (the blue one is my favorite). Once it was quilted, I assumed the hard part was done. Unfortunately, I botched the binding (twice) before deciding to just go with it and add little monster buttons and tabs to each corner (good thing I happened to find the cutest monster buttons ever while I was in Virginia!).

I'm so very pleased with how it turned out. Since it's large(ish) at about 5' by 5', I'm hoping that G can love it and use it for quite a while :)

Obligatory Halloween Post

I've been requested to post a snipit about Halloween. So here it is:

Seeing as how Halloween landed on a Wednesday this year, it was the perfect opportunity for me to make G a little costume since that's my day to go into the office for some on-site work time. It was a bit down to the wire, but I managed to finish in time to take him in. Now, without further adieu, his costume...

I did make him a little mask, but he disagreed with me about how cute it was ;)

3 Month Update

This is the first in what will (hopefully) become a series of update posts on the life and times of the Griff Monster. Thus begins my stint as a "mom blogger"...

Griffin turned 3 months old last Wednesday. Overall, he's been one of the sweetest, happiest, easiest babies I've encountered. Everybody loves him, and I'm pretty sure he knows it. He doesn't get upset easily, and he (usually) calms down quickly once his problem is solved. It would appear that he inherited his dad's temperament :)

He's been hitting some pretty obvious milestones recently, including:

• reaching for and grabbing various objects and toys
• mimicking voices and mouth movements
• laughing and interacting more
• getting stronger and working on sitting up
• (very occasionally) sleeping through the night

Magic

So it's a new year, the time when all delinquent bloggers write a post vowing to blog more in the coming year.

This is not that post.

I simply want to log a moment of magic from last night, and I figure this is as good a place as any to do so.

My New Year's Eve plans consisted of a sweet party involving Netflix and Sloppy Joes followed by a bedtime of 10:00.

While snug in my bed, I was awoken at about 20 till midnight by a crazy raucous happening outside. I lay there for a while, listening to the noise, thinking it would soon die down again. The last thing I wanted to do was get out of my warm nest. At midnight, I decided to check out what was happening outside, so I put my slippers on, opened our rouladens, and stepped out onto our balcony where I was greeted with a sky full of fireworks and the sound of church bells being rung quite intensely.

Here I need to add a couple notes. (1) We do not live in a large city. In fact, what we live in is much more village-like than anything else. (2) We do not live in the center of town. We are definitely on the outskirts.

That being said, I was extremely amused by the exuberance with which my neighbors were celebrating. I counted at least four houses in our little neighborhood shooting off all kinds of fireworks. Added to that were some campers in the mountains with their own pyrotechnic display as well as (what I imagine) was our village's own sparkling celebration.

I stood out on the cold balcony in the misting drizzle for a solid 20 minutes, soaking in the celebration, and sending out my own New Year's happy thoughts. When I did crawl back into bed, it was with a smile. Those moments out on my balcony were magic, and I want to hold on to that feeling of complete, loud, uncontrollable excitement that I was a part of last night.

Here's to 2012 and many new delightful adventures.