Shut the Front Door; This Babe's Six Months

Hard.  To.  Believe.

Feels like Noley Pie has been cruising with us Mots for approximately five weeks. 

 

He knows how to rock a milestone though, and cut his first tooth on the morning of his half birthday.

 

He had his dreaded six month shots this morning and did not like that one bit.  He is currently 15.5 pounds, which happens to be the on the light weight side of life in the 22nd percentile.  He's a longy, though, in the 75th percentile. 

 

His current loves include mashing the heck out of a banana in one of those mesh baby feeder things.  He has kinda given up on pursuing crawling and rolls constantly.  He squirms and squirms in your arms until you put him down on the carpet and then he's everywhere.  Stuck under the bed, foot stuck in the laundry basket, stuck anywhere really.  When I go to save him and pick him back up, he is sweaty from all his exercise.  I didn't even know a baby could work so hard that they would be sweaty.  I think this also probably explains the mere 15.5 pounds. 

 

He is a good sleeper but doesn't really think much of snuggling before bed.  Last night however, he was up four times I think.  I blame the shots.  (It took me two days to write this.)

 

He can blow a fierce raspberry and doesn't like to be left out.  'Hey!  You are going to another room/cooking/getting the mail/changing the laundry??? Bring me too!!!!'    

 

 

 

Red waffle jammies, Santa's helper or a lumberjack?

Just a forester and his lumberjack baby. 

 

Remember those baby hats with beards that were all the rage?  Hold on... let me find one...

Ah, yes.  Noley the Lumberjack could rock one of these.

 

 

SIX!

Warning:  This blog post may have an inordinate amount of pictures of our birthday boy. 

 

Ollie's had the month of August wrapped around his finger.  The last few years it seemed like birthday and back to school in the same week was too much excitement for Seth and Ollie, so this year we spread the love.

 

We had a birthday party for Ollie at Safety City, which is a little, bike-sized town in one of our parks.  To put it mildly, it did not have an auspicious beginning.  I got there around 8:45 to set up and get a few things ready for the birthday boy and party goers, only to find that a huge padlock was baring access to my plans.

 

Long story short, Jon saved the day with his city of Lubbock contacts and got someone out there to unlock it.  We had settled on having the party at nine, they had it written down as ten.  The kids squeezed through the fence upon arrival and ran around like, well, kids at a birthday party, so I don't think they even noticed the bungle.  In the end, they gave us our 100 bucks back and Motsingers are nothing if not cheap, so maybe it was all a win. 

 

Anywho, back to the birthday festivities...

 

 

 

 

Somehow the notion of having a parade during the birthday party came up and Ollie really latched on to this idea.  The boys wanted to throw out candy and goodies, so I had them clean out their closets to find loot we could throw.  This, dear reader, was parenting gold.  We got rid of junk, cleaned, and I didn't have to buy party favors. 

 

Our plunder plus a bag of tootsie rolls.

 

The parade participants lining up.

 

Eryn and Ollie discussing the parade route.

 

Guess what?  A birthday party parade is actually a hair brained idea.  First of all, what kid doesn't want to be in the parade?  There was virtually no one to throw candy and spoils at.  And those few kids that did want to catch parade candy were taking their very lives in their hands.  It may come as no surprise, but kids ages 4 to 8 cannot in fact look down to their goodie stash (cups that I had tied to the parade bikes), grab said goodies, and then throw goodies all while keeping their eyes on the road. But fun was had!  No one died!  A few close calls just got more adrenaline flowing to add to the party vibe! 

 

Then it was time for cake!  Seriously, if you heart chocolate, or cookie dough, or yummy desserts in general, try these recipes.  They will not disappoint, take my word for it.   

 

 

And that was the end of early august festivities. 

 

About a week later, these gems arrived in the mail from the M&M's.

That's right, roller skates!  Good thing he got that new spiderman helmet! 

 

A few days later we got another birthday package, this one most perplexing, filled with bandaids, athletic tape, and gauze.  My first thought was that Mimi regretted sending Ollie roller skates and decided to send along a second box to help with any mishaps.  Nope!  We found a note in the bottom and realized it was supplies to play athletic trainer from our good buds Juke and Lubal.  (Ha, always.)  We changed it up to suite our interests and have played doctor, ninja, and ninjas at the doctor over the past few days.  

 

Ollie:  I think you are going to need to use a wheel chair after this.  But don't worry!  People will teach you how to use it and be able to do things.  Like dance!  People will teach you how to dance in the wheelchair!

 

Then on to his actual birthday, Krispie Kremes in Kindergarten! 

 

There's Ollie, and Alba LaRue and Bruce!  These names! 

Not sure about boy in green shirt, I'll have to ask Ollie.  Its probably something far out there too, to fit into this picture.  Perhaps Enoch?

(edited:  it's Cody, Ollie just told me.  Bummer.)

 

(Side note on names:)

Ollie:  Mom, what should we name Noey when we adopt him? 

Me: I think we are going to stick with Nolan.

O: Well, that sounds like a baby name.  What are people going to call him when he's a grown up or like a teenager?  They can't call him Nolan!

Me: (silently) uhhhhh...... you realize your name is Ollie, right?

 

Finally, birthday at home with family and Jennifer.  Here's the dessert choices when your love language is sugar.  Left over doughnuts from school, friendship bread cupcakes, and Klondike bars.  

 

A last package from grandma and grandpa!  Thanks for all the bday love everyone! 

 

Ollie, we LOVE you! 

Summer Wrap Up

Everyone just left for day three of school.  The number one thing that makes this morning a success:  No one was up at 5 am dressed, ready to cross the street.  Hallelujah. 

 

It really does feel like summer is over.  We had a terribly hot June, but August has been unusual too, in that it has been so cool.  In fact, as we speak my windows are all open and it's raining.  Plus Jon is walking around with a dreamy look in his eye talking about the start of the football season.  Fall is here! One of my favorite times of the year!

 

Here's a quick run down on the last of our summer activities. 

 

Snuggles with Noley Poley.

Ollie: I'm just so sorry, Noey!  You are gonna have to stay home with mom!  You are just going to miss me so much!

 

I went all out and did a day of cooking so there would be 30 meals in my freezer.  The idea had been percolating about in my brain for a while, but we recently bought a chest deep freeze for pecan purposes, so the time seemed right.  Ollie was a help for all of 7 minutes.

 

This did end up being the best marinara sauce I have ever made. 

No recipe, just winging it with tons of fresh basil.

 

There was an insane amount of dishes to wash at the day's end.  We've only pulled a few things out of the freezer so far, so the jury is still out on whether this was all worth it.

 

Jon playing Stork.

 

A cutie pie.

 

Some summer lunch dates with my favorite 7 and under crew courtesy of Mimi and Momo's gift card magic.

 

A Rockin with Rhett concert with Buckner friends.

 

Future drummers?

 

Only if we always live in a house with a basement. 

Otherwise my ears and brain say nope.

 

Bounce houses water park style.

 

Altitude Jump Park. 

If you ever visit us in Lubbock, request to come here.  This was insanely fun.

 

One last bday for Sam and Seth Christenson.

 

Seth telling Nolan about all his ideas.  Sometimes Seth can really go on and on about a topic so lately he has taken to sitting in front of Noey to talk freely. 

 

Our first visit to Chuck E. Cheese.  The boys participated in a Bible memory challenge at church this summer and were entered into a drawing for a gift card.  What do you know, Seth won!! It was crazy over stimulating when we first walked in; Noey burst into tears immediately.  Once you got used to the overall in your face with lights, sounds, and games aspect, we actually did have quite a bit of fun.  It helped that we met some friends there and my buddy Logan and I got to chat while S, O, and E made their way through tokens, games, tickets, and pizza.   

 

Some yummy grill pizza.  This makes my mouth water just looking at it.  Much, much better than Chuck E.'s

 

Noey has graduated from having his bathtub in the kitchen sink to having his bathtub in the normal bathtub to try and contain the water splashage.  That baby loves him a good splashy bath.

 

Here is the other thing you must request to do if you visit us.  Trapped!  We tried out an escape room with some friends and it was such a blast!  We got out of our room with 19 minutes to spare and got second on the wall of fame.  We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves as it only had like a 31% success rate. 

 

And finally we attended open house.  Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Seth and his teacher.

 

Kinder Ollie and Mrs. C!