Age: 8 Months

Stats: Don’t go back to the doctor until next month

Clothes/Size: Brandon is transitioning out of 6 month clothes and into 6-9 and 9 month. He has been pretty much right on target with his sizing since he was born. He can wear 12 month clothes that have been washed/pre-worn and shrunk.

Favorite Foods: Anything. Absolutely ANYTHING. There is nothing he will not try. Not sure he loves green beans, but he eats them. Everything from spinach, to carrots and eggyolks, chicken and pork. He’s even tried some eggplant. 🙂

Diaper size: Size 3

How much am I eating: He literally has no off switch which is good and bad at the same time! As long as you keep feeding him, he’ll keep eating. He eats 3 meals – breakfast and dinner still consist of pureed food as well as solids he has to chew and lunch is pretty much all chewables.

Words: He does a lot of babbling – bababababa, daddadadadad, mamamamamama…. and some squeaking and squealing. He tries to say “goodbye” when his toy turns off and “meow” when the cat comes on.

Activities: Brandon just wants to be on the move all day long. He does NOT sit still, does not just sit or lay with you…he’s active every waking moment and all over the place. He is learning “no” and really has been a great crawling child.

Sleep: Sleep has been all over the place and it’s getting old now. Every. Single. Night. Is. Different. Sometimes he’ll sleep 8pm-630am and the next night he wants up every 30 minutes between 8-10pm and then another couple times throughout the night. He cries for his pacifier and then it’s back to sleep. Luckily, in the morning he’s content sitting and playing in his crib for about 30 minutes until we’re ready to get him up.

Favorite Things: He would rather bang on the DVD player, eat Zoe’s foil ball and whip her ribbon around the house. If he’s not playing with an old remote control or trying to climb the walls to get to our phones, he has been enjoying his Baby Einstein Music Table and playing with his bath toys outside of the tub.

 Signature Moves: Crawling. Crawling. And more crawling. He has it down to a science now and it’s the absolute cutest thing on the planet. He’s so tiny creeping around the floor. We have now had to get the gates up and block off the stairs – until Zoe jumps over them, knocks it over and it gives Brandon a nice cut on his nose. #parentfail Brandon pulls himself up on whatever he can get a hold on. So independent and we love it.

Mom’s Proudest Moment: We have to talk about how Brandon has a death wish at his old age of 8 months. LONG story short…this weekend while at a Baptism, he decided he wanted to eat a confetti in the shape of a cross. A large cross. We had NO idea it was in his mouth. We were feeding him perfectly fine then all the sudden he was crying and would not stop, could not be consoled. No bottle, no pacifier…Kevin took him outside and shoved his finger down his throat and out came a huge cross. Honestly. I thought that was the scariest day of my life as a Mom until tonight. I put Brandon down to walk into the kitchen…he started a 2 second crying fit and when I came back in he was not crying…or breathing. Child held his breath when he was crying and made himself pass out. I swear….he’s going to make me crazy!! Poor thing was a little lethargic and blue. Luckily, the doctor noticed this months ago and told us how to get him to snap out of it. ARGH! Brandon, you’re killing us!

Dad’s Proudest Moment: Since this is my blog, I can say what I want. Not sure I mentioned this a couple weeks ago but while Kevin was “watching” Brandon, he decided to crawl through the mound of cat puke which Zoe so nicely left in the middle of the carpet. Bath before 8am. Work day win. Aside from that, Daddy loves the open mouth kisses, the dancing to good music and just taking a step back to look at this little man we created.

Everyone has their opinion on what products are good, bad, helpful, space wasting, etc. I wanted to do a little round-up of items we chose to register for and others we grabbed along the way to make life a little easier.

Bath Sponge / High Chair / Mum-Mum / Baby Bullet / Drying Rack / These or These Blankets / Swaddle / Walker or Excersaucer / Spoon / Bathtoys / These or These Pacifiers / Body Wash / Milk Storage Bags /

I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about EVERYTHING…I mean, body wash and pacifiers are self explanatory, but I’ll touch on the items that really saved us.

In no particular order, our must haves! We chose the bath sponge based on the recommendation of my Mom. She used them when my brother and I were babies and for us, it just made sense! We already have a bathtub, who has room to store ANOTHER one? Babies need it for what, maybe 5 months? Then what do you do with it? This sponge was perfect! With a $6.99 price tag – throw it in the sink, ring it out, hang it up until the next day. When Brandon was too long for the sink, in the bathtub it went. He hit 7 months, sits up on his own (without accidental tipping over) and in the garbage that sponge went. I’m SO glad we went with that.

That Ingenuity high chair has been another perfect purchase! I received two of them at my shower and we decided to keep them both, one stays at our house and one at my parents. Its small, it attaches onto any chair and doesn’t take up any additional space. We’ve been using it since Brandon was about 8 weeks old! It reclines, it sits up, the back comes off and becomes a booster….it has been a great find. The BEST part? When we go away for a long weekend, my parents pack theirs and we can use it anywhere we go.

Magic Bullet’s baby, the Baby Bullet. Note, we do not have the actual appliance (I had the Magic Bullet years ago and hated it)….we have a Vitamix so all we needed were the storage containers. They were great when Brandon was 4-5 months and just starting to eat, now that he has a bigger appetite these don’t cut it AS much, but I still use them! Also, the spoons are the only ones I really like and that fit is tiny little mouth.

Swaddle and Swaddle Blankets are self explanatory. The Aden and Anais products are pricey but they are SO soft, well made and their customer service is fabulous. I could do without the gigantic tags, but whatever.

We registered for that exact walker/rocker…I think if we had a baby that more content he would have liked it a LITTLE more but it still gets the job done. Our daycare has the Excersaucer and he REALLY loves that one. He has more mobility so he can stand, spin around and play with toys in the 360. If I had to go back, that is what I would have registered for – except it does NOT fold up and is much larger than the basic walker.

Mum mums. Yes. Just, yes. I didn’t know about these until it was almost too late. Talk about keeping your little one busy for a few minutes so you can catch your breath – plus they love to feed themselves. They make a disgusting, soggy, sticky mess…but I think we can all get past that.

I think I’ve hit the BIG items that have saved us…we do have a pack-n-play and yea it’s nice to travel but that’s really it. Brandon is FAR too active for us to really use this. He sleeps in it on vacation but it really just takes up space in our house any other time. He hates (HATES) to be confined. Other babies are perfectly content in them, not ours. Lastly, the bathtoys we like because they can be used into the bath and out. Brandon loves to chew on them when he’s teething and they are durable!

The last item, which is not baby related, is this bad boy! If you have kids and enjoy cooking you need a grill pan. We have made everything from scrambled eggs and egg sandwiches to burgers, meatballs and everything in between. You can cook an entire meal in one pan. This pan was given to us over 5 years ago when we got married and we never touched it. Have a baby, have family over and this has become out go-to favorite item in the kitchen. I don’t think it’s been in the cabinet once since Brandon was born. I absolutely love it and love how I can literally cook anything in it, it wipes clean and is ready for the next disaster meal.

Hope this helps! What are everyone else’s baby favs??

I sucked it up and enjoyed festivities on October 31st for Brandon’s first Halloween! We started the celebration on Friday when I brought him to work for our annual Halloween Party. Little man didn’t win any contests but he sure did look adorbs. He sat so proper in his little chair and ate lunch with everyone. Huge thanks to one of my coworkers for “babysitting” while I played in some games. We kicked off Halloween morning with a trip to the grocery store where Brandon was given a baby pumpkin from an employee.

He took a nice long afternoon nap, I rearranged his room and make it more “on the move” appropriate – you know, so his basket of books doesn’t fall on him when he uses it to stand) and then we got ready to go Trick-or-Treating with friends. Our nephew was the same age as Brandon (3 years ago) and we get to enjoy all of this hand-me-downs, such as this super cute costume.

No night would be complete without a meltdown photo and then our little man sleeping away on Daddy’s shoulder.

To be fair, he missed his afternoon nap, is getting over a cold AND he’s teething. But he was a real trooper. Side note: mama didn’t realize those “booties” were supposed to go on his hands! #halloweenmomfail

Little man SURE knows how to pick out the good stuff. Find the bucket here.

We were lucky enough to be invited back to our friends parent’s house for dinner and relaxation. We had a delicious, culinary, meal and were able to enjoy family even though we don’t have any close by.

Sunday we kicked back, did cleaning and organizing, meal prepping and allowed this little one to eat some leaves. Happy November y’all! Christmas is only two short months away and I haven’t even BEGUN shopping. AHHH!