Our precious niece is here!!

Mena Louise Hutin Zavala is here! born 04.27.11 at 12:52 a.m., 7lbs 14oz.



I'm so happy for them!!! I know they're going to be amazing parents :) I cannot wait to meet that beautiful little girl. Santos has a new cousin!

Our plants

Look! A tomato!! :-)

Let's hope I can keep these alive. These are test plants. If I do well, I'll get more. I'd like to save money on produce too. My goal is to spend less than $200 a month on groceries. We're getting there :)

after ireland, I won't be purchasing any more jar food for the monkey. I'll be making it all from scratch. I've made a few things already and it's really not hard and costs so much less! I have enough jars saved that I can store them fine. Plus, I used my left over milk storage bags to freeze some for traveling.

Easter

We had such a great weekend. For the first time in a long, long time, we spent Saturday and Sunday without real plans and didn't leave the house once we were back from picking our car up from the shop. We haven't had real quality alone time in a while. I really enjoyed being with just Gabe and Santos :)

We spent the rest of saturday playing on the patio.


We bought new flowers and plants and we spent the afternoon planting them.


These are obviously before shots. I haven't gotten my lazy behind up to take photos of the after yet but I will when the sun is out and shining tomorrow.


Baby boy helped by cheering us on.

Today was Easter but we didn't dye eggs, or look for the bunny. We simply enjoyed each others company and it was awesome :)

Happy Easter!

Pull ups!

On Monday (April 11th) my baby boy pulled himself up in the crib. All by himself.

He doesn't like green beans.

Likes to hear his voice echo in bathrooms.

Consignment expo

Over the weekend we hit a kids consignment expo. It was awesome. We're going to try and sell some things in the one up here at the end of the month.


Before we left, I changed stinky pants and before I knew it, he peed all over his outfit. I didn't have a back up.


We had to do the walk of shame out to the car in just a diaper. The other mommies though I was awful I'm sure. Lol!!! I would have put what we just bought on him but it wasn't washed and I was afraid of another rash. Oh well. Could have been worse. :-)

7 months!!!!

Ok now the weeks are flying by like days.

At 7 months, Santos:








-is shy. I have been noticing that when people come over, even people he knows and sees pretty regularly like grandparents, it takes him a little while to warm up and get going. Not that he's upset or anything. Just quiet and observing. Then he gets over it and becomes his smiley self.

-has 2 teeth and likes to bite. His toes, my knuckles, when he eats (ouch), carrots, anything he can. He. Will. bite.

-on a typical day, will eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Fruit with cereal in the mornings, fruit or veg for lunch, and veg for dinner. Nursing before, after, and regularly still. He loves his food. He eats anything you give him.

-subsequently, he has been suffering from some constipation. He'll go a little while and it'll be hard, then he passes (with great effort) some pebbles and then it's all systems go and he poops all day long. I just feel bad for him when he's uncomfortable.

-drinks from sippy cups.

-he has started to do the arm reachy thing when he wants you to pick him up. I find it adorable. For now. Lol :)

-he is going through separation anxiety. Big time. Big, big time. I only noticed it the past few days. I can't even go to the bathroom sometimes without him getting upset.

-has started using the pack n' play to actually play in.








We lowered it so that he can sit up and play with his toys in there. He loves to run his fingers over the mesh sides to make noises. :)

-is starting to skooch. Not crawl really. Just... Well skooch.

-tries to sit up from laying down completely flat. He's almost there. Once that happens I'm in big trouble. Lol

-does. Not. Sleep. In. Crib. (sigh) he still starts there, but barely makes it 2 hours and he wakes up looking for me. Not that I mind snuggling with him. It's just sometimes I do like to snuggle with daddy. :)

-loves the cats. A little too hard sometimes. Lol

-is ready for size 5 diapers. As soon as the 4's run out we'll be purchasing 5's.

-wears size 12-18 month clothing.








-will watch anything on tv. I mean anything. He pays closest attention to yo gabba gabba. It's the music I think. Plus, mommy likes it too and sings along to him. He thinks she's just silly.

-is on the verge of saying something else. Don't know what it is yet. He's definitely trying to say something. I hear "I love you" sometimes. It could be just wishful thinking though. Haha

-still following the "your baby can read" system and reading lots of books together.

Things we can't live without:
-a baby carrier. I have 3 kinds. I like my moby wrap the best. I also have a sash that we use quite frequently because it fits in his diaper bag and I pull it out for the unexpected times. We also have 2 baby bjornes. Gabe uses those the most. (more manly I assume. Lol) I use the wrap when he's fussy and wants to be close. Tonight he was grumpy so I strapped him to me and went grocery shopping and he was in heaven. Snuggled close to mommy and tons of people and things to look at. :)

-Boppy pillow. I used it a bunch in the beginning to help with breastfeeding but not so much for that now. He's a pro and we can probably nurse hanging upside-down and blindfolded now. ;) naw, but we definitely have a great little groove going with it. I don't see him weaning for a while. Well after his first birthday I think. We'll see. Anyway! I digress. The reason the boppy is so great now, is because Santos is a great little sitter. It helped him get steady while he was still learning. Now...









He lounges in it and watches yo gabba gabba while we wait for daddy to get home :)

-wipes. All kinds of wipes. Pacifier wipes for when we're out and about and he throws all his toys and soother on the floor. Antibacterial ones for tables and high chairs when we go out to eat. I started using hand and face wipes but he broke out in a rash from the fragrance in them so I'm trying to find something less harsh to bring on our ireland trip. His regular booty wipes may be the best. They're for sensitive skin and fragrance free. I'll keep looking though.

-Sophie the giraffe. Very expensive teether, but he loves her. Oh so much. Teethers in general are a necessity. He's constantly chewing.

-his walker. He runs in that thing. Sideways is the funniest. He does a little crab walk. I put him in it to be next to me when I make lunch or do dishes. He looks out the glass door at the birds and trees and is so content. Really cute :)


Things we're looking into purchasing (recommendations, reviews, comments welcome!):

-Baby gates for the stairs and in front of bird cage. Nuff said.

-Walker (hand hold one)

The Juppy Baby Walker (Blue-Full lining) Juppy LLC $33.33

Sent using Amazon Mobile for iPhone

Smart Mom Teething Bling Donut Shaped Necklace - Jade Smart Mom Jewelry

Sent using Amazon Mobile for iPhone

-a membership to gymboree. I'm thinking the music classes.

Mommy:
-doing ok. Monthly visitor is back with a vengeance. :-/ still feeling crafty as ever though. Last week I felt like making bread from scratch so I strapped the baby on and got to kneading. Lol








I'm enjoying every minute of my baby who is rapidly becoming a toddler. I soak him up. :) he keeps me extremely busy though. Lol not much of a long napper, my munchkin.

Other than that not much to report. We can't complain. We're really glad everything turned out ok with the government shut down threat and glad daddy's job wasn't affected.

So looking forward to Ireland. Next month!!!!!

Big boy

So after the first "dada" he was saying it all over the place. Lol

You can kinda hear it in the video. (somewhere in the middle between his raspberry noises :)

Then at bed time... We tried something new.




We put the bumpers back on, flipped the mattress to the softer side, it wasn't soft enough so I added a cushy blanket under him, laid him on his side with a rolled up blanket behind him so he wouldn't tip back over, and stuck his feet against the side bumper in the hopes to recreate our bed and me. (he sleeps with his feet up against me or over my legs.)

He went to bed at 9:10. I'll let you know how long it lasts. Let's hope all night. Yeah right! But here's to hoping. Lol

If this works (god willing) next phase is to get him to fall asleep in there on his own. Without me rocking him or laying down with him.

I really hope to avoid crying it out. But we'll go there if necessary. But as Tia becky says, "we'll blow up that bridge when we get to it."

He said it.

He said dada. My heart melted and sank at the same time.

Excited he said something. Anything! My boy is growing so fast!!!

But it wasn't mama.

I cried from happiness and just a twinge of sadness/jealousy.

Hey, I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

My squishy is starting to talk. I'm so proud!

Feet are yummy!

Happy Birthday Granny!!

We are going out tonight for Granny's thirty-something-th ;-) birthday. Photos and another post to follow but we just wanted to wish her a very happy birthday and hope work goes by extra quick so that she can come play with Santos!! :-)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We were going to go to our neighborhood pub that we always walk to with the baby, but when we got there, we decided against it. There was a cover charge at the door and a line to get in and it was PACKED. It just didn't feel like we should bring the baby in, so we went up to Jupiter to another pub we know of... similar. Pretty packed. So we nixed Irish food and went out for Thai instead. It was delicious, stress-free, and we enjoyed our spicy St. Patty's dinner. haha!


Munchkin's passport came in the mail too!! How cute!??!?!
All set to go to IRELAND!!!!!! Cannot wait! :-)

Over the weekend....

Over the weekend we did a lot. (I'm way late posting this but we were house-sitting for Gabe's parents and I forgot my laptop with the photos on it... oh well)

Friday Night:

we discovered that we DO NOT like pears.

Saturday:

We went swimming for the first time!!

just the toesies to get used to the temperature
(which was a little cold at first, but ok once we were in)

mommy was terrified I'd get a burn so she made me wear a swim shirt.

at first, he wasn't so sure about this floaty, but once he got used to it,
he was trying to eat it of course.

That was fun!

Thanks Nichole and Bobby for having us over!

Sunday:

We started the day TRYING to get this photo that I had been planning... since he was born really....

Santos has a pair of shoes that matches daddy's...

He refuses to keep shoes and socks on.
Literally, as soon as you let his foot go, he kicks them off...

This is what we ended up with. LOL!

A dog came out of nowhere and scared the cuss out of me. Seriously. And his owner didn't even bother coming across the park to make sure we were ok and that the dumb dog didn't bite our baby!! (Look, I love dogs. But there's a leash law for a reason.)

We decided to call it a day and we'll try for a better photo at a later date.

Then we went down to my mom's for her traditional corned beef and cabbage St. Patty's dinner.

Great Grandma Dotty got to hang out with munchkin

and he was pretty tuckered out at the end.

Monday:

I don't have a photo for this but I will soon... we went for his 6-month old photo shoot!
I'm super excited to get these back on Friday, they came out SO good.

He fights it sooooooo hard

This video makes me laugh because he falls asleep mid sentence.

Oh my boy... Loves to sleep but fights it so much.







Cutie pie

I'm nuts

Lately I've become obsessed with coupons, freebies, and sales. Since becoming a one-income household, we've had to cut corners and save where we can. This whole new coupon world has opened up to me. I actually get excited about how much I saved. Lol it's pretty sad that this is a source of excitement in my life now but hey, ......whatever. :-)




I saved $30 at cvs last night and got $7 credit for next time. Woo!

Lol I know... I'm insane.