Halfin' it...

So the other day, I was in the car with my Mom and saw one of these fancy little stickers on the car in front of us.

Then, I might have said something like this, "I really want one of those! But I think there's a rule that you have to actually do 13.1."

The next thing I know, my mom is telling me about a half marathon on September 29th. Pretty soon, we had hot new workout clothes, pedometers, fancy socks and a training schedule.

We're doing this people!!

I'm pretty pumped. I'm having fun training with my Mama; I feel like my old fit self again; G and M are getting quality time in the evenings while I'm out pounding the pavement; I will lose these last few pounds, and I'm gonna get me one of those stickers!

Little Man

George has so much fun choosing outfits for Makafui, he has some pretty strong opinions too. Makafui has been re-dressed for church more than once because what I chose wasn't "churchy" enough. :) This is a current favorite....

This Sweater Vest is Made for Walking

The other night, we decided to go on a walk after M had been stripped down to his diaper. Even though his bright diapers are oh-so-cute, I simply cannot bring myself to allow him to be in public wearing only diaper (except at the pool), so I asked G to put a shirt on him so we could go walking.

This is what he came out in.

Newborn size jorts and his Easter sweater vest with nothing on under it.

I pretty much died laughing. G has decided that the sweater vest is his new "walking shirt" and has put it on for our evening walks several times now. I just keep laughing about it- it doesn't get old. It makes me think of Oslo from Keeping Up Appearances, only WAY cuter of course. :)

Cousin Time

Aunt Sara and Cousin Sophia were out of town for several weeks, so Makafui was all by his lonesome on GiGi's lap. I don't think he minded tooo much! :) Now they are back and we got a chance to catch up with them this week. So much happens in the life of a baby in 3 weeks!

Makafui's face cracks me up here, he's a little unsure of this sharing thing.

 They took turns holding hands, poking, touching hair and the like, it was pretty cute.

Do you see a resemblance? Is it the cheeks? Are those a Brown family thing, or just baby? I haven't decided. Either way, they are two cute kiddos!

Speaking of cousins, Makafui and Sophia will be getting another cousin not long after M's Birthday in February. Yay cousins!!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

We've had some BIG changes around here lately! The biggest one being that Makafui eats solid food now! Whoah!! The poor little guy was totally ready and the result has been longer stretches at night! Woohoo! It made me sad to figure out that he was waking so often (again) because he really was hungry, I'm glad I followed my gut though and kept getting up (every hour) to feed him. I wanted to start slowly, but he has had other plans. We went from rice cereal just in the evening to solid feedings 3x a day verrry quickly! He still nurses plenty often so I'm thinking he's got to chunk up pretty soon!

I'm making his food (organic) and having so much fun! Since I'm a stickler for trying one food at a time and waiting 4 days before the next new food, he's only had apples and peas. He super loves apples, we're still working on the peas.

I got a blender at a bridal shower 3 years ago and opened it this week to make his food. It was like Christmas all over again. I'm having a blast!

Makafui has also started wearing some big boy jammies and he isn't swaddled for bed anymore. :( My baby is growing up!!!

We had a picnic

Today was George's company picnic out at Reunion Ranch. It was pretty hot, but we managed to have a lot of fun! I loved watching G interact with his coworkers (which included water balloon toss, sack races and a canoe race which left his boss soaking wet!) and I really enjoyed putting faces with names I hear so often.

Makafui was such a trooper!! The heat didn't seem to bother him and he was just happy and chatty the whole time. I LOVED showing him off!!

The quilt Nonnie made him was a wonderful place for us to play.

There may or may not have been a party slightly more raucous than ours before we came...found this on the ground next to our little spot.

The BBQ was yummy!

He did start out with clothes on, but diaper only hanging out in front of the mist-fan was definitely the way to go!

Of course there was some of this going on. GiGi was great company too-thanks for putting up with the heat!

My two sweet guys!!

Cute

After all that yesterday was, and knowing I only have a few more days of freedom a car, I was determined to get out today no matter what! Thankfully, M was alright with that plan too. :)

While browsing Gymboree, I found this awesome shirt! In case you didn't know, Rhinos are my favorite animal. And also in case you didn't know, Makafui runs things around here (for now). I thought this shirt was so super cute, but I didn't buy it because M doesn't need anymore clothes encouragement! So I'm gonna get mileage out of the cuteness by posting it on the blog, even though my child is not in it.

Happy Hump Day!

Oy

So much for avoiding whiney blogs about sleep...this is my life right now.

My sweet, sweet wonderful baby, what on earth is going on with you? Last week we had some good nights, some really good nights by our standards.

The last several nights (and days) however, have had very little sleep so we're getting a lot more of this:

Poor baby. Believe it or not, the hardest part for me is not the sleep deprivation. What's killing me is feeling like I don't know what to do (control freak much?). I'm stumped and tend to beat myself up over this.

So I'm trying to focus on truths that I do know, rather than JUST circumstances or feelings.

...He gently leads those who are with young.

For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

I'm also taking pictures of cute little feet!

Some iPhone Pics

We went swimming this week, but all the rain made the pool soooo full that the bug catcher thingies were blocked, so there were too many bugs for me!

We've been going on walk when the evenings are nice and M is so silly! He just giggles and giggles!

We had dinner with some new friends and had to do the awkward kids on the couch picture. :) Hopefully we'll have many more with these guys!

M had to test out GiGi's new chair. He likes it!

I love the look on Makafui's face in this. We had JUST gotten to church and he already needed changed! I think he's a wee bit proud of that!

Good times at Chick-Fil-A, our favorite family date place.

Catching up

I've been a lame-o blogger lately. Two weeks ago Makafui was having a rough time with life, so any time I had "free" I tried to use it to sleep! I was also afraid of writing some really whiney posts about exhaustion or something like that.

This past week has been the opposite, and there has been very little free time because we're just having too much fun! I haven't been awesome at taking pics, but G has some on his phone that I'll try to upload later.

One night this week Makafui slept for 2 4 hour stretches! It was heaven.

My brother is on vacation for two weeks and oh so sweetly let me borrow his car. We're enjoying getting out and about.

We had 2 playdates this past week and I think M really enjoyed it. One was at our house and the other was at Wesley's house. Unfortunately, Makafui woke Wesley up when he went down for a nap, so I'm not sure if we'll be invited again. :)

Friday was Cow Appreciation Day. We celebrated by donning cow spots and 'Eat Mor Chikin' signs and got free Chick-Fil-A!

During that tough week, there was a lot of cuddling, extra nursing and M just needing to be held. I decided to multi-task and check out the much hyped Downton Abbey. I was not disappointed!

G is working a lot. We miss him, but I'm proud and understand. Having a car has made the long days easier.

The storm last night was insanely loud and did some serious sleep disturbance. On the upside, this rain has made the weather a lot more mild for a Texas summer!

Makafui's personality is really coming out lately. Not only is he happy, he's silly! He makes funny noises and laughs at them and tries to get people's attention and make them laugh. It is so adorable and fun! There is a lot of squealing and laughing going on around here!!

Today is the 6 year anniversary of meeting G. I'm so so glad I found him!

5 Months!

How can it be that our sweet boy is 5 months old already??

He is getting so big and learning and changing so much!!

He is getting more and more social! Last week, when we walked into church it was like Makafui was holding court. He straightened up big and tall in George's arms and flashed purposeful smiles at anyone who would look at him. :)

He is mastering the exercauser at GiGi's house and can turn in it and grab different toys. I'm very impressed.

While he can roll over, he rarely does. He much prefers to sit up and is able to go longer and longer without being held up or falling over.

He is chewing on things like crazy. The two teeth next to the two he has on the bottom look like they'll come through anytime and maybe even the two on the top. Some days, he seems quite ok with all the changes in his mouth-others, not so much.


I think he must work on his comedic timing and new facial expressions while he is supposed to be sleeping, he's getting pretty good at both. :)

He is making new noises all the time and really getting LOUD. It cracks me up.

He sleeps (if you can call it that) in his crib now! Apparently he just wasn't ready. When he was, the transition was no big deal at all.

The boy loves to laugh and giggle.

As busy as he is, he still loves to just be held. I'm enjoying that.

He likes to stand up on the couch...pretty cool trick, huh?

While he seems pretty massive to me, some of his 0-3 month clothes still fit!

We're having such a blast being his Mommy and Daddy. Life with Makafui is wonderful!