Thrifty Thoughts

I've been racking my brain to think of something thrifty that I could share! I do consider myself a fairly thrifty person, however either it is so normal to me I don't think of it as thrifty or I feel like everyone does it so it isn't unique.

This week Ashley shared a thrifty way to save on curtains. Curtains are a thorn in my side. In our guest room I spent like $80 on simple white panels. No pizzaz or anything! I have always wanted curtains in my living room and needed them for our bedroom, but wanted something fun and didn't want to break the bank.

Enter the fabric store.

We have a fun place here in Springfield called the FM Store that is filled to the brim with fabrics at a very reasonable price. My mother sews (she says she no longer will for me and I need to learn, ha), so I enlisted her services for some curtains. For both rooms I spent a total of $45 I believe and I think they look smashing. For the living room there was no cutting involved, just sewing up the edges. In the bedroom my mom cut he fabric in half in order to have two for each window and not have an overwhelming amount of fabric.

Presto chango, cheap curtains that didn't break the bank and my husband actually likes.

As a bonus, the lamps were both garage sale finds that were spray painted and a new shade was added. I resold the previous shades in my moms booth which paid for the new shades. The living room lamp is some fancy brand, retail value was $250, I got it for $10. Winning!!!

Yes, I should have gotten out the fancy camera and picked up a little, but I like to keep things real folks.

Don't mind the dog and the game control thingy.

Perhaps I need to invest in a new dog bed :)

Five Months

Little late to post this, but what else is new? My friend Wirth taught me about the blogger app so I am all about blogging on my iPad now. She keeps me informed on technology, thanks friend.

This past month has been so fun! Henry's little personality is shining through. He loves to "nuzzle" and will lean in and give hugs. He also loves Eskimo kisses and will occasionally sneak a slobbery kiss. Chris thinks it is gross, I love me some lippers though. He squeals with delight when you start to take his clothes off and will lift his legs so politely to help with a diaper change.

He has started to roll again, but does so periodically. He prefers to be standing on your legs or sitting in his bumbo. I have a feeling everything will click at once and I will miss the days of being able to lay him in one spot and play. Books are still a wonderful source of entertainment and he will talk through them while you read. We have a routine of reading from our children's Bible every day and I love watching his expressions during these times.

Everyone comments on his rolls and how fun he is to hug. He loves touching faces and pinching... sometimes too hard. Everything goes into his mouth, he has a strong bite and those two teeth are sharp!

He still sleeps from 8-8 with three naps during the day. His 3-6 month clothes will retire soon. We are in size three diapers now and hope to be for a while. I'm not positive on his weight, but I'm thinking he is over the 17 pound mark now and pushing 18.  Chunky!

He is delightful! I tell Chris that I miss him so much every night and just want to crawl into his crib. I mean come on now, look at this face?! Can you blame me?!

This is one of his favorite faces to make.

First Food!

Lately Henry has been very interested in our food. He will reach for your drink, follow your fork with his eyes and grab at your plate when given the opportunity. I love watching him take everything in and learn all of these new things!

Our original intent was to wait until 6 months to start on food. Allergies, a growing digestive system, and just one more thing to add to the plate were reasons to wait. Our pediatrician said we were ok to start after our 4 month appointment, but I wasn't quite ready. However, with the recent interest, we thought he might be ready.

So, I picked up a box of oatmeal at the grocery store and last night we tried it out. He gave the funniest faces and spit a majority of it out. It was pretty comical and didn't last long :) I'm sure we will try again over the next few days, but we are in no rush. My hope is that by six months he is ready to actually start on a food. I'm thinking avocado. Until then, I think he is surviving on his milk diet (he has rolls on rolls).

Sorry for the poor pictures. Chris had the big camera and I had a spoon and a wiggly baby.

Christmas Time

Henry's first Christmas was BUSY!  But, we are blessed to have both Chris and my parents live just 15 minutes away and we didn't have to travel all that much.

Since we knew the week would be a little chaotic, we decided on a whim to open our gifts on the 23rd.  We went kind of light this year due to the fact we don't have a whole lot of room to store bigger items and we are saving up for a down payment on a house.  But, Chris surprised me with some great items I have mentioned here and there that I have wanted and Henry got some new clothes.  It was a fun little evening.  We don't have a lot of traditions yet as a family, those will develop with time I am sure.  

My sister and her family arrived early in the morning on Christmas Eve.  They haven't been with us on Christmas morning for two or three years, so I was pretty excited (my mom and dad were overly excited).  So, Christmas Eve day we hung out with them and left in the evening to head to our church's Christmas Eve service.  Henry did great during the service.  He did decide to relieve himself during the sermon however and I had to leave to change a dirty diaper.  He laughed and thought it was hilarious.  After the services were over, we headed to the Boschen's for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of cinnamon rolls, fruit, and breakfast casserole.  We had some dear friends join us this year, so it was fun to celebrate a little with the Warners as well.

Christmas morning we woke up and headed down to my parents so we could watch my niece and nephew enjoy opening gifts.  They are silly kiddos.  Kharis was expressive with each gift and quickly wanted to move on to the next while Benny opened one and just wanted to play.  I got a Christmas afternoon nap (I know, I'm so boring) which was probably one of the most amazing things ever.  I do not nap well, so I felt awesome.  We headed to Chris' parents in the late afternoon for more gifts and an appetizer dinner (my favorite!).  We were home by 8 and exhausted. 

The rest of the week was full of family coming in to celebrate more.  Jack was in on the 26th, my grandparents on both sides, aunt, uncle, and cousin were in on the 27th and the 28th was spent with my sister getting our hair done and then a dinner date for sushi with the husbands.  We headed to Centralia on the 29th to celebrate with the Henry side of the family and got home on the 30th.  Chris had to work on New Years Eve so Henry and I took it easy and then we headed to Zanna and Matt's house that evening with the Francos for dinner and games.  Henry was a party pooper though and didn't go down to bed easily, so we had to head home at 10:30.  Stinker!  If only it was acceptable to let a baby monitor reach two blocks (totally kidding people). 

Busy, busy, busy.  But, full of so many blessings!!!  I will admit, I have difficulties being flexible at time, but I am learning :)  It was a great first Christmas with a baby.  A reminder of the amazing family we have, a reminder of how fortunate we are, and above all a time to reflect on why we celebrate Christmas. 

Little guy looks a little overwhelmed!

Kharis is a ham.  Can't get a normal smile out of that kid.

Four generations of Boschens.

Four Months

I am terrible at this blogging stuff.  Nap times are filled with catching up on work or cleaning the house (or sitting, something I still feel guilty about, but I'm working on that).
Again, I have had this post written, but haven't gotten pictures loaded to the computer until today.  I'm telling you, this computer is for work only.  So, this was written on December 16.  I will do my best to get his 5 month post up next week when he is actually 5 months old, ha.

Henry turned the big four months this past Sunday.  What in the world!?  I was texting a friend yesterday and realized it was last Christmas Eve when I told her I was pregnant.  Seems like forever ago and just yesterday all at the same time.

I am loving this stage right now.  Loving.  It!  I feel like we have things down, Henry is so interactive, and he is picking up on things every day it seems.  Here are some highlights from the past month:

• Laughing!  Like really laughing.  It is wonderful.
• Refusal to roll over.  He had it down and now will not do it.  Oh well.
• Talking in all tones.  He will squeal and then get this really serious look and have a low voice.  
• Grabbing things.  Everything goes straight into his mouth.  
• Finding his feet and hands.  I love when he spots them and just looks at them for a while like, "Hey guys!  Nice to see you again!"
• Being a little love ball.  He is a great cuddle bug.  Hard to put the kid down!

His four month appointment went really well.  He is a growing little man!

25.38 inches
16.19 pounds
16.38 inches around his head

The doctor said he is starting to teeth and has a couple of swollen spots on his bottom gum line.  That should be fun!  He slobbers a lot and is snotty lately, so all signs point to teething.  He hasn't been fussy about it though, hopefully it will be easy.  I got a little sad at picturing his little smile with teeth.  He is growing up so fast.

We got the green light to start foods, but are going to hold off until as close to six months as possible.  He isn't overly interested when we eat, so I don't think he is quite ready yet.  I am pretty excited for this stage though.  I hope to make all of his baby food.  I have been looking up recipes and convincing myself it wouldn't be that bad (and hopefully save a little money).  I've had some great tips from a few friends, but am open to any other go to sites or tips you might have!

We dropped the dream feed finally.  So, I feed Henry at 8:00 now and he is down for the count until 8:00 the next morning.  Some nights he fights to go down, but overall he does great.  Sometimes I think 8 is way too early of a bed time seeing as how in most situations that forces us to be home by 8 to put him down.  But, I've done enough reading to see how important sleep is and enjoy the time with Chris once Henry is in bed.  So, the pay off for us is worth it.  It will be nice when he is a little older and we can maybe hold off his bed time while we are out at a friend's, but for the first year, this is how it is going to be and I am a-ok with that.

He is a great baby!  Love him more and more each day and love seeing others love on him!  He is not hurting in the attention department.  We are blessed to have family close, an amazing baby sitter, and wonderful friends who shower him with love whenever they can get their hands on him.  So excited to celebrate our first Christmas together.  Last Christmas I had a ball of nerves in my stomach, praying everything would go well.  Now we have a four month old with us who is absolutely perfect.  God is good.

Three Months

I wrote this post on time, however am just getting around to posting it.  Oh the laziness of not putting pictures on the computer.  So, apologies for the outdated post, but that's how things go around here.  Back track with me to November 16 for this post.

Between being on the floor entertaining a babe, work, keeping a house clean, and good old Instagram I am having a difficult time keeping up with blog land.  I feel a New Year's Resolution coming on (then again, it was a resolution last year and look where it got us...).

Henry turned three months old this past Friday.  Can hardly believe it.  The days roll by and turn into weeks and now we are looking back thinking where have the months gone!?  I am enjoying this journey of motherhood moreso these days.  Not gonna lie, the first few weeks were pretty rough.  Exhaustion and the internet can make a woman go mad!!!  Every little thing I would google and be convinced Henry had something wrong with him.  The nightly iPad time is used for much more fun things now, like pinning things on Pinterest and dreaming of the day I might be able to accomplish a crafty project again (ha).

I stopped the weekly pictures.  I'm sad about this, but it was one more thing that I would forget and so now we are back to just the monthly picture.  That's alright though.  I am keeping up with a daily calender on my phone of pictures.  Hopefully I can figure out what to do with it once the year is completed.

Back to Henry...

This month has been HUGE!!!  When I wrote his two month post we were blessed with our first full night's rest.  Since then, Henry has been amazing.  I feed him at 8, put him down to bed at about 8:30ish, do a dream feed at 10:30, and then we go into wake him up at 8 the next morning.  Bless that child!!  He is down to three naps a day and we will probably stick with this schedule until he starts stretching to a four hour schedule.  We have learned this month that he is much more flexible than we give him credit for, so we have been much more active and get out more.  Which is a good thing, because the holidays are upon us which mean lots of gatherings (aka babysitting time for the grandparents).

Other milestones for this month, rolling over.  He still hasn't mastered the concept, but when he does it once, he will do it all day.  Just some days he has a brain lapse and refuses.  He smiles a lot, too.  Blesses my little heart when we walk in the room and he just brightens up.  The stinker is camera shy though.  You pull out a camera and he gets all serious.  If you've been around him long enough though, you know he is a ham.  He chuckles here and there as well.  I can't wait until that belly laugh comes.  He still enjoys to sing and Christmas music is a hit (when dad is at work, he is a stickler for the no Christmas until after Thanksgiving policy). 

Each day is more fun than the day before.  We love watching his little personality come out.  It is amazing to sit back and think of how he is learning EVERYTHING.  I get a good laugh when he finds his hand and looks at it like it is an alien.  Love this little kiddo.