Today, I have an 8 month old

Height: 28.5in.

Weight: 22lbs

My Dearest Liam,

You are officially 8 months old, and I am not sure how I feel about that. I can hardly believe that your first birthday is right around the corner. I am watching your days of being a tiny infant slip through my fingers, and it makes my heart ache. I know this is just me being a Mom, because your Dad is ecstatic for you to get older so you two can wrestle, play baseball and so he can show you how to use a hammer. I however, could hold you wrapped up in a blanket while you lay in my arms forever. I do have to admit, the little personality you are developing is so much fun. I have a blast playing on the floor with you for hours each day. I guess this whole growing up thing won't be so bad after all. :) You are developing physically and mentally so quickly!

You are officially a crawler, and you are into EVERYTHING! There have been several occasions where I will put you down in the living room to run into the kitchen for a second, and by the time I come out, you are gone! I have had to search around the house for you several times. For some reason, you always beeline for the laundry room. You are very persistent as well. No matter how many times Daddy and I remove you from something you shouldn't play with, you just continue to try to get past us.

Your very first tooth popped through yesterday, and you are miserable. Each day it sneaks its way out a little more, and man is it sharp! I cannot wait for the day all your teeth are in, I hate seeing you so grumpy and in pain.

You are blabbin' up a storm. No real words yet, but you make a noise that sounds like, " hotttt" and you say, " Na na na na na" when you are hungry. Mostly, you crawl around saying, " Dadadada" and "Mamama" all day long. I am excited for the day when you realize what those words mean!

You are still breastfed, and we're going strong! You still hate purees, but you loooovvee solid finger foods. You hate pureed bananas, but you love chunks of banana. I am guessing it's just the texture. Tonight for dinner you ate a ton of broccoli and peas. I've decided I am going to just stop buying pureed baby foods.

Your personality is coming out and it's so much fun. You have suddenly become a little shy. When I am holding you and a stranger talks to you, you burrow your face into my shoulder. Also, when you get frustrated or mad at us, you growl. It is hilarious! Your favorite game is mimicking. If I pat on something, you will pat on something. Any face Daddy or I will make, you try to do it back. You find yourself quite hilarious. :)

You are soooo lovey lately. We taught you to give kisses, and you are always kissing on Daddy and I; slobbery, open-mouthed and all. You love giving hugs. It melts my heart! You are quite the flirt. Something about the locals here off base get you all giddy. Anytime they look or talk to you, you smile and laugh. You love them! The locals love you, and you love flirting back. Because you are light haired, and light eyed, you catch all kinds of attention.

You have been pulling yourself up on the couches for awhile now, and just recently you started walking along the couches. When we hold your hands, you walk perfectly. You are so strong and determined, I think you are going to be an early walker. ::sigh::

You are huge. You are still in size 4 diapers, and you are wearing size 12-18mo clothes! Nobody believes you are only 8 months old. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror when you are asleep in my arms and it catches me off guard. Where did my tiny 8 pound infant go?!

With your little personality coming out, I am anxious to see how this next month is going to be. I love you with everything that I am, and I can't imagine life without you. But please, slow down little boy, you are growing way too fast! :)

Snapshot Saturday

My poor teething and sleep deprived baby boy fell asleep sitting up in his crib.

Melts my heart.

Okinawa Fun Facts

Here are some random tid bits about the island:

Okinawa is 67 miles long. It is 17 miles wide at the widest point and 2 miles wide at the narrowest.

Naha (the capital) is the largest city. Urasoe is second. Ginowan City is third. Then, I believe it's Okinawa City and then Nago.

There are 1.3 million people living on Okinawa. There are 100,000 people that live on the other inhabited islands of the Ryukyu Island chain.

1% of the population of Japan lives on Okinawa.

There is one vending machine for every 7 people. They are everywhere!!

It is next to impossible to find a trash can out in town. Somehow the cities remain super clean.

Speaking of vending machines, you will never find this in the states. A BEER vending machine!

Chocolate and Pumpkin Shortbread Bars

These things are dangerously good!! I had one, and I feel like I can hear myself gain 5 pounds. I think I will be giving these to the neighbors as a small Christmas gift or something. There is no stopping me from eating them all if they are in the house. Out of sigh, out of mind!

Here is the recipe courtesy of my new favorite blog in case you are interested.

SHORTBREAD:

2 sticks softened butter

1 Cup granulated sugar

1/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1 3/4 Cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

FILLING:

2 Cups canned pumpkin

1/2 Cup granulated sugar

1/2 Cup heavy whipping cream

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

CHOCOLATE TOPPING:

1 Cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

Sprinkles of choice if desired

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream the butter and sugars until well combined. Slowly add in flour and salt until dough forms. Press into the bottom of an 8×8 inch baking dish that’s been lined with foil and sprayed with cooking spray.

2. To prepare pumpkin layer, mix pumpkin sugar, cream, eggs, cinnamon and nutmeg into a mixing bowl until well combined. Pour over shortbread layer. Bake for 45 minutes or until pumpkin layer is golden brown.

3. Let cool for 30 minutes then cut into bars. Melt chocolate over a double broiler or in microwave until smooth then spread over bars. Sprinkle with white sprinkles if desired and serve room temperature or chill until ready to serve.

12 bars

ENJOY!!!

Today, I have a 7 month old.

My dear little bug,

I can hardly believe you are only 5 months away from being a year old. Where oh where is the time going? It seems like just yesterday, I was holding you in the hospital in shock that I was now a Mommy to this delicate, precious gift from God.

You are growing and developing so fast. I wish I could pause time forever in this moment. The moment where you allow me to snuggle you, or blow raspberries on your belly. The moment when you use your entire hand to hold onto my thumb to pull yourself up from sitting. The moment when I walk in your room to get you up from your nap, and the smile you give me just lights up the world, like nothing better could have walked through that door. And the moment you use your tiny fingers to feed me your baby snacks while you laugh and laugh at the sight of the food going in my mouth.

You are not quite crawling yet, but you sure are close. You army crawl around the living room. You are into EVERYTHING! You are so curious about the world, and I love watching you grow. It does make things like feeding and diaper changes a challenge, however. We can't get you to sit still for anything!

There are a few things you are obsessed with, and you will go after them no matter what is in your way. These include: Mommy and Daddy's toes, the remotes, cords/plugs( especially the Christmas lights, phone cord and the cable cord) Daddy's shiny watter bottle and the telephone. We can hardly talk on the phone when you are awake because you are always trying to whack it out of our hands.

2 days ago, you learned to pull yourself up on the furniture, and it scares the crud out of me! The first time you did it, you smacked your cheekbone on the crib railing and it freaked me out. I know I have an entire lifetime of worrying about you hurting yourself. I have a loooong road ahead of me. You now can pull yourself up on the couch, and boxes. You get better at it every day.

You still are not a fan of solids, and that's ok. You will eat them when you are ready. You still love some breast milk, and that's totally ok by me. We have tried just about every fruit and vegetable and every one makes you gag. You do enjoy self feeding, but you don't really swallow the foods you chomp on. Your favorite snack is baby rice crackers and sweet potato puffs.

Christmas is in 10 days and Mommy and Daddy couldn't be more excited. We can't keep you out from under the tree! You are ripping open all your presents. Just yesterday you learned how to crawl on top of the presents to reach the ornaments on the tree (that I purposely hung higher so you couldn't reach them.)

As of tonight, you have decided it is much more fun to stand in your crib, than it is to sleep in it. You aren't wanting to sleep, because everything is so new to you. You just watch to touch and look at everything now that you can stand up and see the great big world outside of your crib railings.

You are in size 4 diapers. We got rid of the pacifier when you were just shy of 6.5 months and you are doing great without it. It was only a struggle for the first couple days. We are working on getting you to drink out of sippy cups, and you hate it.

You are sleeping through the night for the most part, unless your teeth are bothering you. They haven't broke through your gums yet, but I have a feeling they are close. Your bedtime is 7 on the dot, sometimes 6:30 if you had a rough day with less than 4 naps. You are a great napper. You tend to take a nap every 2 hours, and you will sleep on average for about an hour. Now when you're teething, it's a whole other story.

You love watching videos of yourself on my iPhone. You laugh so hard at your videos, or your reflection in the mirror.

You make a "pop" noise with your mouth when you are hungry. And you say, " Mamama" when you want to be picked up. I am not going to be one of those annoying Moms and say that you know that's my name. To you it's just a noise. Daddy likes to pretend you know that's my name so I have to change your diaper. He always says, " Oh, Liam wants you..." ;)

You are so incredible and you are the best thing that has ever happened to Daddy and I. I try to think back on my life before you and it just doesn't make sense. I don't know what I did to occupy my time!

You are growing up much too quickly, please slow down. :)

You are our everything and we love you so much!

Love, Mommy

Not happenin' dude...

So, Liam still hates pureed food. Surprised? I'm not.

I officially have the world's most stubborn baby. I have tried every pureed food in the commissary I think. I only buy organic food, so the selection isn't very large, but he has tried: green beans, sweet peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas and prunes and hates every single one of them.

So, I decided to try giving him table food to see what he does. Low and behold, he loves it!

He absolutely LOVES feeding himself. He hates the spoon, and anything that has to do with it. He wants to hold it, but the second he sees me come at him with it covered in slop, his lips seal shut and there is no way I am getting anything in that mouth of his.

Another one of his favorites are these rice rusk stick things called Baby Mum-Mums. Basically, it is dehydrated rice in a cracker form. It basically dissolves when they put it in their mouth so he has fun slobbering it and making a mess out of it. I just let him go to town.

I started by putting some peas on his highchair table. He sat there for a good 20 minutes picking up the peas and trying to get them in his mouth. The next night, I chopped up some whole wheat spaghetti noodles to let him try out. He still makes a disgusted face when he actually gets the food in there, but it seems to be going over better than purees.

I still try nightly to get him to eat purees, and he does, but he puts up a fight.

I am praying one day it will just click, and all will be good.

Any tips from you ladies, send them my way!

Goodbye Fatty McFatPants

Well, I have hit the point of frustration when it comes to my weight. I am back to my weight when I was 10 weeks pregnant. Not exactly sure if that was my pre-pregnancy weight or not since I didn't get weighed until my 10wk doctor's appointment.

Anyway, I have plateaued at this weight at it is annoying me. I have lost 7 lbs so far with just attending my Zumba class, but there needs to be more. I want to lose these last 10 lbs. For my height ( I am 5'11") I should be around 165ish. I am in the

"normal" weight range for my height, but I feel disgusting.

So, back into dieting and exercising...well as much as I can while I am breastfeeding.

I attend Zumba Monday and Wednesdays, but there needs to be more. I drink a ton of water. I have the occasional sip of soda every once in awhile, along with fast food but I am going to go back to my old ways and cut out soda, juice, fast food and candy all together. I am going to feed my body with nutrients, and will cut out all the crap. No more coffee, only hot teas. I will cut waaayy back on dairy intake. I will work out 5 days a week and start doing my push-ups and sit-ups nightly again. I will increase my raw fruits and vegetable consumption.

I am tired of feeling like a pudgy slob. If a simple diet and exercise routine is the only thing stopping me from gaining my self confidence back, then by golly, I am going to win it back! If I am feeling ballsy, I will post before and after pics so I can track my progress.

Here we go!

Weight:179lbs