Wow, how time flies

So it's been over a month since I have posted anything. Wow, time does fly! Since I have started my new job, I barely have time for anything extra these days. I really need to get better about updating this so we will always have it as a memory. Let's see what's going on. I'll start with Dylan. OH man, I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I have with him these days. He is exactly 6 months today!! wow, 6 months already. He is sitting up great! He is sortof crawling. He scoots forward on his feet and hands more than crawl. hehe. But he gets to where he wants to be, so that counts! :) His eyes are still blue and his hair is getting blonder. We figured he would have blonde hair just because Mike and I both had blonde hair when we were younger. He says dada more than anything. But I hear it's easier to say than mama! :) I really did hear that. hehe. I don't think he knows that Mike is dada or what it means, he just says 'dadadadadadada'. He says mamamamama too but not as often. Umm he is SO active right now. You can't keep him still if he is sitting on your lap. He is always wanting to be moving around or playing or grabbing something. he sits up in the cart now at Target or wherever. We still put a blanket around him incase he falls, but he loves it. he is going to be walking in no time. He is still at Angela's during the day. It's going ok. We had a few instances that were a bit awkward, but everything is fine now. It's still a sortof trial thing. I mean she does a great job, but we just sortof wish we knew a bit more that was going on during the day. I'm sure he's fine though, but she knows that we will take him out if anything else happens to him. (he had a bruise on his leg from something). He has his 6 month check up on Monday. I am working from home that day just to spend the day with him since I didn't get any time off during the holidays. We might go do some shopping or something. We are still spacing out his shots, I'm happy that we decided to do that. It hasn't been much of an inconvienience at all either. D raked in the presents at Christmas. We are going to take my sisters advice and put the presents in the closet and take out 1 like every few weeks or month or something so he will have a new toy for awhile. That's about it on D. He's just the funnest baby ever. I have so much fun with him. I love being a mom. It's a blast. I just hope the next baby is as good as him.

I'm doing great. I really do like my new job. I am learning a lot and really like my team. I'm hoping to get a lot of experience out of this job. So far so good. Ummm I have officially stopped breast feeding and pumping and all of that. I did it exclusively until he was 3 months and then he got it a majority of the time until 4 months. I think I did like one bottle of formula at night and that was it on that last month. The 5th month, he had majority formula becuase I was back at work but he still did get about 10 oz a day of breast milk. Then about 2 or 3 weeks ago, we decided to stop it all together. We started him on solids. We have been making our own baby food lately. It's a lot healthier and it's a lot cheaper as well. he has liked everything so far that we have made. We have done sweet potatoes, green beans (which we don't do anymore because they make him so constipated!), apples and zucchini. He gets apples with some cereal in the mornings, then maybe some zucchini or sweet potatoes at lunch and then maybe some zucchini with some more ceral at dinner. He is doing great with it so far. We have also started him on a sippy cup with a tiny bit of water jsut to get him used to it. OK, I guess there is more to talk about with D. hehe. I guess I should have put all this up there. Oh well. umm not much else going on with me. Mike is doing great. He had been traveling a lot before the holidays but he's off now until Jan 4th. Lucky!! School is going great for him. He got a B and a C in his classes, which he was very happy about. He had some problems with one of the prof's. So he was just happy to be done. Him and I got to go out and have some fun while we were in Austin. We went dancing. We had a great time. Erica and my sister came and a few other people. We had a good time. I stayed up until 3am 2 different nights while we were there. man, I was worn out! I just can't do that anymore one night, much less 2!! I slept great the last night we were there though. I went to bed abuot 9 and slept in. It was nice. Mike, dad and Trey all went to the aTm game. Well, Mike just went on the roadtrip with them, but dad and trey went to the game. What a sucky game, but they had a good time atleast I think. Dylan slept in this morning. He started waking up about 5:15 which is about when he always wakes up, so i went and made his bottle and then got back in bed to wait for him to really wake up. I guess we both fell back asleep and I woke up at 6;15 and he was still sleeping! I have to throw the bottle out after an hour, so I had to wake him up to come eat so I didn't have to throw it out! hehe. sorry D. But since daddy was gone, he laid in bed on his side, ate and then we both slept for about another 45 mins. I just love the cuddle time with him. I am so content and just sooo happy.

Oh Christmas, we had a great Christmas with everyone. Our families always get us so much stuff. We are just so spoiled. We are so lucky to have such loving and wonderful families. It took us 2 cars to get home. I'm so glad we decided to do that, it would not have been pretty with one car. We took the dogs this time. We will probably try and board atleast 2 of them the next time or have someone come feed them for us. We just can't keep taking them all, it's just too much! Plus noone ever wants to watch Sam, so we have that issue too. We will figure it out though.

Well, I guess I have written enough. It's cold here and supposed to sleet and snow. We misssed all the snow on Christmas, so I hope we get to see more today or tomorrow morning. :)

Oh and we are taking one big vacation in June to Key west. Mike's family will be going at the same time. It's going to be lots of fun, I can't wait to get Dylan on the sand!! yeah!

Take care everyone. I promise i will be better about keeping this updated. I'll add some pics to it tonight if I can.

Love,
Jill

What's goin on with the Harper's?

Well, not a whole lot going on I guess. I am on week 2 of my new job and I do like it but I just am missing Dylan so much. I only see him for about 30 mins in the morning and an hour and a half at night. it is just killing me to miss him sooo much. It will be nice to finally have money again, but is it worth it? I guess we will find out. I am learning a lot and gaining great experience though, so that's definitely nice. We have been able to pick up D at a decent time. We try and pick him up as early as we can, but usually it's not until about 6:15 when I get there.

Dylan is doing great though. The daycare person is great about letting us know his schedule for the day, etc. It sortof helps us stay in the loop with him and stuff. She says he does great all day. he has always been good for me, she is just getting him at a great age and after we did all the hard work. hehe. I had to teach him how to soothe himself back to sleep and how to take naps, etc. He was always great with me, but didn't have all of this stuff down yet. I'm glad he is good for her though. She may not be watching the other 2 girls she used to watch anymore. That makes me SOOo happy. I'm sure it's hard for her family financially, but that means she can focus more on D and make sure he's happy and safe. She is working out great though so far.

We had my parents and sister April come up to visit last weekend. It was a lot of fun. Dylan had a great time except we miss him so much now during the week that we want to see him as much as possibly on the weekends. So it was hard not to hog him. hehe. We are still adjusting to that.
Nana got him some new books and he has loved them so far. We have read a different one each night. He likes the colors. Thanks nana and pawpaw. Then we have my other sister and husband and nephew coming up this weekend. I'm excited to see them. I feel like we haven't seen everyone in FOREVER. Then we have one weekend off and then Mike's parents are coming for Thanksgiving. We are going to be worn out after that!! Or I will be atleast! hehe. Should be fun though. Dylan will get lots of hugs and kisses.

well that's all to report about now. Not much going on. :)

Halloween

Mike's scary pumpkin. The right side is his first attempt, but we were thinking people wouldn't know what it is, so then he did the front. :) What a great artist!!

hehe, this is us being silly watching Friday the 13th after Dylan was in bed. It was a scary movie. :)

Dylan and I handing out candy. I told Mike he can't get any other kids in the pic so this is as good as it got! haha

No Dylan, it's not a real banana!!! hehe

Sitting in the garage waiting for trick or treaters since the house was soo hot for this costume. (we only sat out there for about 5 mins then figured we were ruining the whole thing of ringing the door bell and saying Trick or treat. So we went inside. :)

Mike's pumpkin.

The back of my new car. It actually has quite a bit of room!!

My new car!

Dylan was not happy by the time we got here after 4 hours of buying a car. Poor thing. :(

still not happy

Happy with daddy though.

Dylan, mommy and our new car.

Our little thug. hehe

Kisses from mommy

before bed.

Well, we had a great weekend. It was Halloween. We bought Dylan a monkey costume to wear. It is soo cute!! I will post pics of it. Well lets start off by saying the weekend was great. Friday night I had dinner with a girlfriend of mine. It was a great time and I had a blast. It's nice to get out every now and then with a friend. I miss Dylan, but I know it's good for me. I was trying to spend as much time as I could with D, just knowing I start work next week. Well after I got home, Mike went and had a few drinks with one of his friends. Kindof a bummer that we don't ever get to go together, but oh well, atleast we get to go at all. :) Saturday we woke up and had breakfast and then I was on a mission to find a car! Regardless of if I got a job or not, I knew I had to find a 4 door something or other! It was KILING me getting Dylan in and out of my 2 door car. Well, I wanted my payments around the same and knew that I would be driving to addison every day plus I wanted it to be safe. I was really looking at the Chevy Equinox but I came across a Toyota Rav 4. I have seen them before but never thought I would be in one, but I'm excited about it now. It is a smart choice for our family right now and I'm glad I got it. Anyways, so after about 4 hours at the dealership, we were so ready to go! especially Dylan. After that, we went and took some pics at the pumpkin place and Dylan was not having it. He was so tired of everything! So the pics aren't that great. After that, we got home and started carving the pumpkin and handing out candy, etc. We forgot to open more windows in the morning when we left so when we got home, it was hot in the house. Dylan's costume was pretty warm, so we could only keep him in it for about 5 mins at a time. I answered the door with him in it a few times. It was so cute. Then he was so cranky so we put him to bed and watched some scary movies and started a fire. It was a great weekend all around.

I am getting nervous, excited, happy, panicked about my new job on Tuesday. I have so much I have to get ready for and plan for Dylan and myself and everything else. I'm just nervous all around. I hope this job isn't a job where the expect you to stay until like 6pm everynight. I know advertising is that way, I'm hoping Marketing is alittle more lax on that. hehe. Kinda like, you get your job done, you can leave whenever (close to 5) sortof thing. But I will probably have to prove myself in the beginning. I just hope they will understand what it's like with a baby. I don't know if any of the girls i'm working with are moms or not. I am just so sad to leave Dylan. I have been hugging and kissing him all weekend long!! :)

4 month dr. visit

Well, Dylan had his 4 month dr. visit today. He did GREAT! I woke up alittle late so we had to hurry out the door. She said he's doing great, he's in the 75th percentile with his weight, height and head size. He is 15lbs, 15 oz. So he's right on track. She said that he didn't need to be waking up as much as he is in the middle of the night, so I'm supposed to let him cry and not pick him up to feed him everytime. I did read that in my book also, but when I tried it one night, I felt so bad. But she said i have got to break that habit now, or it's only going to get harder. So I guess it's going to be a long night for us. I have noticed that he has very dry patches of skin and so we have been putting lotion on him every night after his bath. She said that he has exima though. But she also said it's very common in babies. So, we have to start putting a cream on him instead of lotion since it works better like 3 times a day. so I'll start that today. Ummm he got 3 of his vaccinations (one by mouth). We have decided to spread them out so he got 3 today and he will get 2 next month. Normally he would have gotten all 5 today. I just feel like that's too much. He's doing good so far today. He has already napped and smiling as big as ever. He was really fussy last time, hopefully he won't be like that again. Everything else went great. He's 25" long. What a big boy! She said I can start introducing cereal if I want (which I already have last week). I think that's about it. She had him on tummy time on the table and he was looking up at her smiling. I took a pic with my phone but not so smart me didn't save it!! grrrr.

well that's all that's going on with little man. He's doing great!!
Jill

Update on the D man

Pimpin his new outfit.

His new shirt.

His Halloween onesie that paw paw and nana got him. (and the jeans too)

Smiling so big. What a cutie.

Don't mind my white trash look, just look at Dylan! hehe.

awwwwww

Well things are great in the Harper household. I GOT A JOB!! whoo hoo. It's with a pretty good company in Addison, right where I used to work (which is also right down the street from Mike, so that's cool). It's for a Marketing Coordinator. I have been wanting to enter the Marketing industry some how but I couldn't find anyone to get me any experience. Finally, I will be able to get some at this company. I am excited to finally get started and have a real job instead of being an admin or something. So this is kinda my first job after my degree, so I'm excited. The pay is great and so we are excited to have money again!

We have decided to try my friend Angela out for watching Dylan. She has answered a lot of my questions and concerns this week. Mike and I each had a list of things we were worried about, so I discussed them with her. She is catering to us pretty well and has assured us of our worries. Of course, we are still sooo scared to leave him anywhere that's not with either one of us, but we have to do this. She is a great mother to her 3 boys and I think she will do good with Dylan too. Plus, Dylan loves to watch her boys play and I think when he gets alittle older, he will have fun with them. Plus, he won't be getting sick as often since he won't be in daycare, she is right down the street and she is a lot cheaper. So this is working out for all of us. She isn't watching any of the kids she was and said she will not accept another newborn if she has Dylan. That was one of our main concerns. We budgeted enough for a full daycare just so we didn't get our hopes up about saving money since that was the least of our concerns. But, we told her we were going to try it out and see how it goes. I'm so nervous. I will also miss him like CRAZY!!! I got what i wanted though, a good job, now I'm like, ugh, why couldn't I have just enjoyed being home with him instead of worrying about it so much! hehe. I guess we just want to be able to buy him lots of things and go on trips and stuff. With me home with him, we were on such a budget that we couldn't do anything!! We just plan on moving his bed time back an hour and then that will give us about 3 hours a night with him or something like that. We will just do family time, bath, book and stuff. that's still not enough, but it will have to be I guess. Then I'll just smother him on the weekends with lots of kisses. hehe. I just dont' want him to forget who his mommy is. :(

Well, I went and bought some new clothes for him today. He needed some long sleeve stuff.

He has his next dr visit on Thursday, I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes and what he weighs etc.

Jill

My little man

The pics are alittle backward, sorry.

He liked eating it off the tray better.

This is where he was SOO DONE WITH IT!! hehe.

It's more fun to play in it!

he likes to eat it off the tray.

ready to eat..all clean and everything!! Didn't last long though.

Well, things are going good lately. Dylan is getting SO big. He is so tall when he stands on us now. He loves to stand up also. We will try and sit him down and he gets upset and wants to stand. He also loves sitting in his little boncer because he can stand up and bounce and things. He loves it. We think he's about 16.5 lbs now or something. He has his next Dr visit sometime in the next few weeks. I think it's next week because he will officially be 4 months. He gets his next round of shots but I think I'm goign to space these out. I'm just so torn about it all but I just think it's too much for babies to take at once, so I'm going to space them out I think. I just have to ask her what will happen now, and how often we will come in and which ones he will get if I do it that way. We didn't do that with the first round because we couldn't decide, but I think we will with these. Too much pressure to decide this though!!

He is doing SO much better with going to sleep. Used to, when we would put him down, he would not want to fall asleep and would be up until midnight or something. Now, we read about getting him on a schedule and we have started that, so now he falls alseep at the same time every night!! It was at 8:30, but lately it's been 8:00. And, he used to wake up atleast one more time after we put him down, that was guaranteed, but now for the most part, he will fall asleep and stay asleep. The only thing we haven't conquered yet is getting him to sleep through the night, or atleast past 1:30am. He wakes up at 1:30am, then 3:30 then 5:30. I think it's because I don't have enough milk for him and so he wakes up every 2 hours to eat. But, I was reading and it could also be because everytime he wakes up, I feed him. So when he wakes up, he thinks ok, time to eat everytime!! So they said to try and soothe him back to sleep without feeding him. I treid that last night and he was like "umm lady that pacifier has nothing coming out of it , feed me or I'm going to go crazy!!" hehe. But, I tried that with the first feeding at 1:30, he hasn't eaten since 8:00 at that point, so I think tonight I'm going to try the soothing thing at the 3:30am feeding.

He has also started getting great about his naps. He now is getting on a pretty good schedule with them. He still isn't a long napper, but atleast he's getting some in. He naps for 30 mins at 10:00am and 1:00pm. Then he takes a long nap from 4-5 or even until 6 sometimes. (it depends on if I'm laying with him or not). I'm trying to not nap with him anymore or feed him laying down so he isn't so dependent on that to nap. So now he doens't take as long of one at 4.

I am still having a rough time breast feeding. I'm just not producing enough. Mike is like PUMP, PUMP, PUMP. I'm trying but it's hard to pump when Dylan wants to be entertained or held a lot during the day. I try and pump atleast 3 times a day but I still am not producing enough for him. So he gets about 2 bottles of formula a day. I'm just glad he's still getting breast milk. He is still getting the nutrients and stuff, he just has to be supplemented with formula once during the day and once before bed. I guess I'm just not the best at this pumping thing. I don't mind breastfeeding him, that's not it at all. It's just the pumping. It's time consuming and I guess I just am not a big fan of it. That has been my downfall with breast feeding I guess. Maybe I'll be better with our next one. Yes Grandparents i said our next one! hehe. :) (not for awhile though!!). So, I am trying to breast feed as long as I can. it gets pretty frustrating during the day though not having enough for him and he gets pissed when I'm trying to pump and he won't nurse from me, it doesn't come out fast enough. it has to be from the bottle, so that makes it even more difficult. He will nurse from me at night but not during the day, so weird. So anyways, i'm trying as long as I can. He will be 4 months next week (he's already 16 weeks, but won't be officially 4 months until next week). My short goal was to do it for 3 months, so atleast I have passed that. :) It's easy for Mike to say you have to do it this long, he has no idea what it entails, but all I can say is I'm trying to do it as long as I can.

I gave him his first taste of cereal today. Actually we put some in his milk this past weekend but the nipples aren't big enough so it barely came out, even though it was barely much thicker than the milk. They say to put it in the bottle the first time, so that's what i did. He didnt mind it but he just couldn't get it out. So today I made it pretty runny but tried it with a bowl and spoon. WOW, it was pretty amusing. So funny!! He made the biggest mess ever, but I think he enjoyed it. He woudl have rather just ate it off of the tray but he liked it I think. It was not fun to clean, but it was pretty funny to watch. I added the pics on top.

So anyways, things are going great with him. We are just having a blast together. I'm loving every minute (for the most part, haha) with him. I complain non stop about not having a job, but I do enjoy being home with him and not someone else raising him. I had another interview last Friday. It was a great job and I think It would be a great fit for me. They called me and I had 2 phone interviews and they called me back to come in. I did and now they haven't called. I get so nervous in interviews, I probably said something stupid! It just gets so frustrating that I have applied for SOOOO many jobs and still haven't found one. I guess it did make me feel alittle better that they (this most recent job that called) called me out of 250 resumes to come in!! But the problem I'm coming across right now is that there are SO many people applying that there is always that one person that is more qualified or more likeable than you! it's hard to not start questioning myself and getting down on myself too. I think "what did i do wrong". It's kindof like a relationship (not that I know what that's like anymore, hehe). You sit there and wait for the guy to call you by the phone and if he doesn't you start to question yourself and wonder what you did to make him not call. So that's where I'm at right now with the job situation. I have such mixed emotions. I'm so frustrated with it but also so thankful that I get to be home with Dylan. I really do need to count my blessings each day instead of dwelling on the one bad one.

Everyone is coming up in the next few months and we are SO excited. My sister and her fam are coming up, then my parents, then Mike's family for Thanksgiving. I'm SO nervous about that, but so excited that they are coming here to spend it with us. I love it when people come to see us eventhough I stress myself out on how clean the house is and food and stuff. But it's just so much fun to see all the family. Dylan is lucky that Mike and I have such great families.

Ok, Dylan is waking up!!

Jill