Baby Update: 10 Months

Our sweet baby turned 10 months old last week. He is learning and growing far too quickly.

Peter has learned to stand up on his own and took his first steps just a couple of days after turning 10 months old. It was so exciting to watch him take those first steps, but also terrifying because I suddenly felt like I was so out of control.  He just seemed so big and independent!

Peter's eat habits have definitely changed this past month too. He favors solid foods much more than bottles and is down to only two bottles per day, so we're saving tons on formula!

We carved our first family pumpkin and Peter definitely seemed to have a blast. He kept trying to each the pumpkin so we let him have a taste, and the face he made was well worth the laugh.

Peter's favorite thing is to scale the fireplace and then burst into tears when I tell him "no" and move him away. We're already learning the consistency is key to parenting this boy. It usually only takes a couple of times and he's content to move on to another toy or activity.

We never made it to our local pumpkin patch because of the ridiculous amount of rain we've had here in north Texas, so our home carving was good enough for us! 

Baby Update: 8 & 9 Months

I put off Peter's 8 month blog post update because we were in the middle of going back to school and figuring out a brand new schedule. Now, we are 5 days away from Peter turning 9 months old, so I thought I would post both updates at once.

Peter is a crawling CHAMP! He's constantly on the move, both at home and at daycare. He's not a huge fan of the baby gates we've put up to block his access to the kitchen and hallway, but he otherwise loves having our big living room to roam. He's most recently began letting go of furniture and hovering for a few seconds before plopping to the ground. Both my husband and I walked at 9 months, so I imagine Peter isn't too far off.

We began baby-led weaning around 7 months and now Peter is eating everything we eat, with the exception of cows milk, honey, and fast food or processed food. Baby-led weaning has seriously made our lives so much easier. No more fighting with the spoon to get Peter to eat, no making separate meals for him. He eats what we eat and feeds himself, which helps to develop fine motor skills! It's seriously the best.

Peter's first tooth finally broke through this month! He had been teething for weeks, and it broke this momma's heart to see him in so much discomfort. I had no idea babies could have so many different symptoms while teething. I'm glad we got through that first tooth, and I'm hopeful the next ones won't be so bad.

We are so looking forward to fall and getting to take Peter to all our favorite local festivals and share our adventures! 

Home Upgrades

Today I wanted to share some of the updates we've done on our home since moving in a year ago!

When we first moved into our home it was way outdated. It had been a rental home for about 30 years, so the owners had really only ever replaced the carpet before each new renter moved in. There were a lot of things that were pretty gross, including the ridiculously old living room carpet.

The first thing we did before moving in was paint the living room. We picked a pretty light blue color from Behr Paints called Rain Dance. Hubs and I both love blue and felt it would add some color to the living room without being overwhelming. We knew we wanted white furniture and to paint the fireplace white, so we opted not to paint the walls any kind of white.

After the walls were finished we ripped up the carpet and three tiled areas in the living room. Carpet is easy to get up, tile is not. We decided we wanted flooring that was easy to lay and would be easy to keep clean over time. So, we went with laminate flooring from Lowes in Woodfin. It was pretty easy to lay and didn't cost an arm and a leg.

We finished the living room floors with new baseboards, which really made the room feel so fresh and new.

Once the floors and walls were finally finished I decided to tackle the fireplace. We jokingly call the bricks on our house "worm bricks" because they literally look like worms were laid in them. They're not at all pretty. The fireplace should be the focal point of the room and should be attractive. Ours was the total opposite. Painting it white greatly improved the look of the worm brick and honestly brightened the whole living room. Hubs sanded and painted the mantle matte black, which just pops against the white.

We ended up turning the corner by the front door into a gated baby play area for Peter. His room is so small and doesn't have any room to store his toys. We also liked having a space that is totally baby proofed that he can be in when I have to run to the bathroom or cook dinner. 

We are so excited to get to some other projects around the house now. I feel like we rushed to get the living room done before baby got here so we could focus on the nursery and preparing to have a baby. Although we have significantly less time than we had before (welcome to parenthood) we aren't overly occupied preparing for a major life changing event, so I feel like I can put more time and money into make our house a home.