a year and a half!

Palmer is now 1 1/2!  Since July 26th. . . but I'm a little behind :)  We found out at his well visit that he is now between the 90th & 95th percentile in height- very tall!  Only the 50th percentile in weight though, which isn't surprising since it seems like I've been fastening his snap diapers on the same snaps for months and months now.  He did great with the move and didn't take hardly any time to adjust!  He is doing great sleeping 12 hours a night and taking one nap in the middle of the day.  Palmer is full of energy and busy busy busy getting into everything he can reach.  This pregnant mommy is getting tired at 34 weeks and counting!  I'm always relieved to have help wrangling the little booger.

It has been far too long since I've posted about our little guy, so here's an update with some random pictures!





Palmer loves his raccoon who he sleeps with and drags out of his crib a few times a day.  I usually bargain to trade him a sippy of milk or a snack for the raccoon (which I then hide) so he doesn't have it with him ALL day long.  He has the run of the house, constantly venturing between his bedroom, the front "study" (playroom) with tons of toys, and the living room to watch a cartoon. . . or two. . . I'm getting more lazy the more pregnant I get.  He can often be found sitting with a puzzle at his toddler table in his playroom, climbing in and out of his new "cozy truck", playing on the piano, or digging in his shoe drawer.





I think there are probably a hundred other things that he loves to do too!  Hmm. . . what does he not like?  Diaper changes!  Teeth brushing (although daddy has been working on this with him and progress has been made).  Vegetables.  The absence of daddy.  Coming inside the house after playing outdoors or going to get the mail.  Otherwise, most of his meltdowns are from the normal toddler angst that comes from not getting what he wants, or having to give up something you don't want him to have.



I love all the sweet moments that come with his new "mature" age!  He will give kisses on request (of a variety of styles), snuggle next to his big bellied mama to read a book, and pretend to count objects (all his numbers sound like two, or doo).  He likes to fix things with daddy, help put clothes in the dryer, and play with dollhouse people and all their paraphernalia like cars, furniture, and slides.  Vrrooom (or an approximation of that) is his best noise imitation that he performs while playing with anything with wheels!  It is so cute to watch him put a Little People person to sleep under a blanket in their tiny plastic bed.





I guess it's time to wrap this up!  Hope he sleeps through the night tonight.  Last night he was up three times crying- I think the poor baby is getting his 2 yr molars early.  It was kind of nice to go snuggle with him for a while at 2 am though, especially when he sweetly offered me his paci :)

wild child

Here are some recent pics of Palmer!  Tyler did this to him. . . and it was pretty funny :)

I wish this was video instead of still photos!  He was so goofy.

Time to attack Daddy!  He's asking for it laying down like that.

even better than they sound

I think I've found the best 100% whole grain cookie out there!  I wanted to make a healthy-ish dessert type snack for the babies to eat the other day at my house while the adults had fudge and other goodies.  Oatmeal cookies came to mind, but the recipe I had called for all purpose flour.  I've had some wheat flour in the pantry for a while now and decided to go to the Gold Medal website to find something to make with it.  Lucky me- they had an oatmeal cookie recipe!  (With raisins, actually, but I ignored that.)  Usually when I bake things with wheat flour they taste, well, too wheaty.  These were AWESOME!  You get the whole grains from the oatmeal and the wheat- a double whammy!  Please make these- you won't have to feel so guilty for having cookies with your coffee for breakfast :)

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 C butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3 C oatmeal
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Stir together sugars, butter, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, vanilla, and eggs one at a time, mixing well.  Stir in oats and flour.


Bake on ungreased cookie sheets 9-11 minutes (tablespoonful size cookies) or until light brown around lower edges.  Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

almost 30 weeks

This pregnancy has gone by so quickly!  Through doing work on the house Jan- Mar, being on the market April-June, and dealing with all the real estate negotiations over the past few weeks, I haven't even had time to get impatient about it!  This time around I'm relishing the sleep while it lasts too :)  

Great news, I don't have gestational diabetes- I passed the torture test from Wednesday, thank goodness.  Here is evidence that our baby boy is still growing like a champ!  He isn't quite up in my ribs yet, which is nice.  I can still sit pretty comfortably and I'm sleeping OK besides the potty breaks, but carrying a wriggly, heavy toddler is getting tough.  

Up until lately, I have never been much of a sno-cone fan, but I've never been this pregnant in the summer before either!  They always sound so refreshing, and there is a stand right down the street.  Double sour, light on the syrup, strawberry or watermelon.  I also bought a box of Sour Patch Kids Popsicles for emergencies.  Oooo that sounds so good right now :)

should be sleepin'

I should be in bed right now, but I've got so much on my mind!  First off, selling a house, buying a house, packing and moving keep my to-do list infinite.  Second, I have to go to the doctor tomorrow for a highly unpleasant reason.  I failed my 1 hour glucose tolerance test at my last prenatal appointment, so now they want me to do the 3 hour test.  Unlike the first test, (where you drink the stuff at home and go to have your blood drawn an hour later), for the 3 hour test you get your blood drawn FOUR times over the span of a three hour appointment.

I don't have a needle phobia or anything, but c'mon, four times?  That's a little much.  Oh, and this is after you chug a syrupy (twice-concentrated compared with the first test) drink.  On an empty stomach. In the midst of a 12 hour fast.  I know there's a reason for the test, that gestational diabetes can be bad for the baby, and I want to be healthy as can be, but it just makes for a pretty crummy half day away from this little man.  Can't I just stay home and watch Sesame Street with my sweet boy?

Here we are out on the porch a couple days ago, enjoying watching the rain come in.  We'll definitely miss this house!  As you may also have noticed, Palmer rarely wears pants at home in the summer.

fun on the fourth

Palmer insisted on being patriotic all the way to his underpants on the 4th of July this year.  I love this diaper!  It's an itti bitti d'lish all-in-one and so fuzzy soft.  I like the fit a lot better than the itti bitti tuttos we have, but it doesn't fit as wide of a weight range since it's a sized diaper.  (No, I didn't buy this diaper especially for the holiday, but it turned out to be perfect!)

We had a very busy day, starting with the McKinney hometown parade that went through downtown.  Tyler pulled Palmer down to the square in the wagon he got for his first birthday while I waddled behind.  KayKay came too.  Palmer enjoyed watching all the people, bikes, and horses in the parade- plus the firetruck at the beginning!  

After a big bbq lunch, we napped 'til it was time to go swimming at the Graf house in Plano.  Shame on me, I didn't get any pictures while we were there!  I felt so bad for my sweet baby who rubbed sunscreen into his eyes right after I put it on him, and then could hardly open his eyes to play in the pool.  He felt much better AFTER an eye rinse in the kitchen sink and enjoyed playing with the pool bball hoop with his daddy.

Off to Lewisville we went to have dinner with Grammy & Grandpa.  Palmer spent a fun night there with them while Tyler and I saw fireworks in Flower Mound with friends.  It was a great day to be together as a family and a bummer that daddy had to go to work the next morning!  

utensils

For a few weeks now, Palmer has been using a fork and spoon.  He loves to stab at any food with a fork and scoop as much yogurt or applesauce as possible onto a spoon at once.  This, of course, is always executed using his left hand.  We're working on him getting the spoon all the way to his mouth without turning it upside down since only so much can stick to the spoon in that position.  I usually try and shovel a few bites of spoonable food into his mouth before he insists on taking over.

So great is his love for the fork, that when he finished his scrambled eggs Sunday morning he briefly considered the whole triangle of toast, then methodically tore it into small enough pieces that they could also be effectively impaled before being eaten.  If you want to have him use his hands in order to speed up a meal, there had better not be a fork in sight!  That includes your own adult fork.  I guess we should all just learn to not be in such a rush. . . even if each. . . individual. . . pea. . . must be forked :)



P.S. They sell NUK forks in multipacks at Target!