Crawl baby crawl!

Rudy is moving right along through all the Stage 1 foods.  So far he eats oatmeal cereal, green beans, peas (with some objection), carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, prunes, and apples.  He's been doing really great with everything!  We are going to be sampling some more fruits before moving to Stage 2 foods, which I think he is more than ready for.  He also loves drinking ice water from a cup.  It makes a wet mess, but when his arms extend, legs start kicking, and mouth and eyes open wide...its hard to not give him a sip :)

What he isn't figuring out is how to hold his own bottle or use his sippey cup.  He is having a hard time accepting the logistics of getting liquid out of a bottle or cup.  He doesn't want to lay back or put his head back because that is what he does when he has to go to sleep and when he doesn't want to sleep, he doesn't want to have any part of it.  Sometimes he's hungry for his bottle, grabs for it and all, but wants to be sitting up and whines when he can't keep sitting there facing straight forward.  He's something else.  

We are anxiously waiting for him to start crawling (and not just scoot backwards and turn in circles).  It seems like he's been so close forever now.  Every day he gets stronger and more coordinated.  He wants to be on the move awfully bad!  He works very hard -- always huffing and puffing, grunting, drooling...any day now...

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  Rudy and I were up and ready to go to 6:30 am mass to get our ashes.  Of course I get to the church and there was no 6:30 am mass.  I tried!...But Gran succeeded! 

The priest was a little more generous with Gran's ashes...

LeeAnn is in Iowa babysitting for the Keough's this week so my mom was nice enough to take a vacation day to come watch Rudy for us.  She took Rudy to mass at 8:30 am.  She said he did great, was so interested in the people there and everything going on.  They even ran into Grandpa Cicci!  Rudy is so loved :)

More "sneaks"

This one may be my favorite so far.  Look at those blue eyes!  The photographer captioned this one with, "Uh, excuse me lady...quit taking pictures of me...I have to go work on these biceps."

Since I started this, she added the session to her website!  Follow this link to see the gallery...Rudy 6 Months.  I will be getting a CD with the rights to all the photos so if you have a favorite or two or few, let me know and I'll be happy to print you a copy!  Or if you want the higher quality, you can order directly from her website. 

Holy Toledo

Kurt asked me recently, "What's next?"  Wellllllll... we bought another house!

our next humble abode

Crazy, right?!  I know.  It has absolutely no curb appeal and even this picture makes it look better than it looks in person.  But it has soooooo much potential.  And what better people to see that potential through than us??  John found this gem back in November.  We took a walk-through before Thanksgiving and left thinking, "Wow -- that's a lot of work."  We decided to put it on hold until after the holidays and come spring, if it was still on the market, we would take another look.  Then we went back and forth on what our "plans" are -- what our next direction should be.  After much deliberation and weighing several options, we decided what was best for our family was to purchase another house that we would move in to after renovating it and sell our current house (tear...and more tears...).  And big picture, this was the best time to do it.  John kept coming back to this house.  We walked back through again and ran a bunch of numbers and decided to go for it!  It is going to be a busy (and that's an understatement) next 6 months.  We have a few more projects to finish on our Greenbriar house before it is ready to be on the market and we close on the Outer Park house on March 30 (approximately).  John thinks he can do it in 2 months, but his goal is 4 months.  My expectations are for 6 months.  John has so much passion and enthusiasm for this upcoming project.  He has been doing all kinds of research on different flooring, cabinets, etc and his excitement and attitude about it is infectious.  I love seeing him so enthralled and invested in it.  Passionate is really the best word to describe it.  He really loves this kind of work and it shows through everything he does.  He is such a go-getter, has so many great ideas, sees so much potential, and I'm so happy we are able to do this together.  I have nothing but faith in him, and us, to make it great.

I say "him" because things are going to be a little different this time around.  I won't be able to be as much help, for obvious reasons.  And he plans on doing a lot of the work during his days off.  This is going to be very much like John getting a second job.  I asked that he still be home on the evenings that he isn't gone all night at work and to spend at least one day a week at home or hanging with me and Rudy.  He was more that willing to agree to that!  Which is great because I'm not willing to give up my husband completely!  LeeAnn is going to watch Rudy an extra day or two so John can work on the house on the days I'm at work (which is so amazing and selfless of her!!!  Can't thank her enough for that!!).  And Gran and Grandpa Ballweg will help out more on the weekends so I can do some work on the house, too (more thanks!!...although Dad may be busy at the house, too -- we have a good amount of tree work for him :)  I'm sure he's thrilled about that).  I am too controlling to have no presence in the new house!  Someone needs to crack the whip and keep things progressing! :)  I am going to be just as involved in all the decision-making, just not able to put in as much work.  It is going to be a challenging time, but I am so thrilled about it and excited for the end product!  

I'm trying not to think about the fact that we could be moving out of Greenbriar in 6 months (assuming we can sell it!).  I am very excited for this new challenge, risk, move, etc but leaving Greenbriar is going to be really hard for me.  I have so much pride in this house and I am emotionally attached to it.  John said, "Home is where our hearts are" ...but I put a lot of my heart AND soul into this house.  I didn't think we would be here forever, but I didn't think we wouldn't be either...I honestly didn't really think about it.  As we have been going through the negotiations and thought process of this house, I was also feeling really guilty.  We had so much help with this house from our families and friends and now we are going to just up and sell it???  I didn't want to upset anyone with our decision.  But our parents were nothing but comforting and understand that this is a great opportunity for our family and they are more than willing to help again -- we are so blessed.  The ultimate goal, after all, is to make extra money to allow for me to stay at part-time and be at home with our children and also be able to provide for our family...and of course our families are happy to help us achieve that goal.   

So why this house?  Well it's about 3,600 square feet, has a huge back yard (lucky Rufus), 5 bedrooms and 3 full-baths.  The floor plan is very unique.  Lots of floor to ceiling windows, a brick "court yard," what will be a master suite, 2 fireplaces, and one of the coolest parts in my opinion, a library/dining room.  It has floor to ceiling book shelves with one of those ladders on wheels that rolls around the entire room to access all the books, which for whatever reason I am very impressed by!  And its in a great area.  Downsides -- it needs a new roof (and its a verrrrry large roof, considering all 3,600 square feet are on one level), no basement, and no garage (although our plans include adding one), not to mention it needs a ton of cosmetic work inside and out -- pretty much new everything again, just like at Greenbriar. 

We haven't talked about this with hardley anyone, mostly because we didn't know at first what we wanted to do and then we weren't sure if everything would work out.  Part of me still thinks something is going to fall through and we won't end up with it.  I guess I just can't believe this is really happening...it hasn't hit yet! 

Let the fun begin!!!... 

     

6 Month Check-up

Rudy aced his 6 month check-up!  He weighed in at 20 lbs, 6 oz (89 percentile) and 28 1/4 inches long (95 percentile).  The doc said he looked great and was developmentally right on track.  Woo-hoo!  He did get 4 shots...they were brutal.  Rudy screamed so hard that he stopped breathing for a few seconds.  Poor baby. He didn't sleep well that evening and was running a fever the next day, too.  We felt so awful for him.  But he has bounced back and it doing great!  Surprisingly, I don't have any new pictures to share...I'll work on that for next time!

Picture Perfect

We had Rudy's 6-month pictures this past weekend.  We planned the morning perfectly so that he was well fed and napped before getting to the photographer's house.  Rudy was such a charmer.  You would have thought he was paid to be a baby model!  He was soooo smiley and having such a great time.  He played with the props, laughed, did everything right.  We got through 3 prop and outfit changes when the photographer said, "Oh shoot, you guys, I didn't have the memory card in the camera."  She looked like she might get sick.  Yes, it was very upsetting, but not the end of the world.  Since Rudy was still doing fine we thought we would try them over and finish up with the last outfit and family shots.  Of course it was like pulling teeth to get him to smile.  By the time we got to the family ones, he had had it.  I talked to the photographer later that night and she said she liked a lot of the ones she got, but its really hard to know all the great ones we lost.  She was going to edit what she had, and then maybe have us back to redo some...all of this at no charge to us.  So if we have to go back, no big deal.  But here are a few of the "sneak peaks" she gave us...

What a cutie! :)  I really liked her and her whole style/props/etc.  I'm sure we will be using her again in the future, even with the mix-up...mistakes happen! 

I'm anxious to see what else she got and the family ones.  By the time we got to those, both John and I were exhausted from trying every trick to get him to smile, that I didn't think about how I would look in the pictures...I don't know if I thought to even look at the camera!  Should be interesting...

Valentine's Day was yesterday -- John came home from work with a dozen white and red roses for me!  I'm one lucky lady!  And a beautiful card from himself and one from Rudy...I had the two best Valentine's I could ever ask for.

Rudy took a trip with me to my office to drop off some Valentine's Day cupcakes we made.  He had a great time -- smiled, squealed, squeaked, banged on my desk -- wish he was at work with me every day!!

Gran came over in the evening and John and I cashed in one of our "Gran's Babysitting Services" coupons and we went out to dinner.  When we got home, Gran was quietly rocking Rudy to sleep.  But as soon as he saw us, he was wide-awake, smiling, squealing and flapping his arms.  So we got him up, let him say goodbye to Gran and then he snuggled in bed with us for a few minutes before he went back to his room.  It was a GREAT day! 

The day before Rudy had Nolan and Levi over to play.  Levi was too sleepy to get down and hang...he'll be sitting with them in no time, though! 

I had such a great 5-day weekend with Rudy.  We were getting along so great and he's been so much fun to be around.  It was even harder than normal to come back to work today :(

Happy Valentine's Day!...

from the man who wears his heart on his sleeve...and his best friend, too 

A big thanks to Gran who helped me get these great shots of my Ru's!  I absolutely LOVE Valentine's Day -- probably my next favorite after Christmas and Derby.  

Rudy may hate me one day for these pictures and John rolls his eyes at me constantly when it comes to my photo shoots with Rudy.  But how cute is he?!  And it's all out of love...

6-Month Birthday

Our little Rudy reached his 6-month birthday!  So hard to believe.  The months are just flying by.  Here are some pictures from the 7th night...

Such a big boy sitting up by himself!  His personality and overall demeanor have been so great lately.  He really is a happy, charming baby.  If he fusses or cries, it is definitely for a reason and can usually be fixed pretty quickly.  He has been smiling, laughing, and just being as cute as can be!  He started making this "monster" face that is so funny, I literally can't help but laugh whenever he does it.  He opens his mouth wide, scrunches up his nose and eyes and almost snorts.  Not only is he sitting up on his own, he also has started scooting...but only backwards!  The poor guy wants to be on the move so bad!! 

We are continuing to work our way through foods.  He did great with the prunes for about a week so we started cereal next.  He wanted nothing to do with it, wouldn't even get them in his mouth.  So we tried green beans.  He made such a disgusted face when he got them in and then decided, no thanks.  So we mixed the green beans with prunes and he took that.  Now we are feeding him carrots and he likes those. 

Eating "solids" has really thrown off his schedule (maybe routine would be a better word?).  It will all work itself out, it always does, but its hard getting there.  He doesn't take his bottles as well during the day and we are going backwards on the "sleeping through the night" thing.  He was consistently getting up about 5-5:30 am.  Now he will get up around 3:00 am to eat.  But not always... we did have such a delightful morning the other day when he woke up at 6:15 am.  A new record for us!  Buuuut followed by a 3:00 am rise the next day and only a 30 minute nap until 8:00 am.  Hard to say for sure why or what we should be doing differently because nothing is consistent from day to day, as hard as we try to make it.  From my reading and talking to other moms, it seems like this is completely normal and it's just going to take him some time to adjust to this new "milestone" of eating and getting himself worked out...which is completely understandable.  We are just going to keep doing what we are doing and take it one day at a time. 

We have his 6 month pictures this weekend and his 6 month check up with the doctor in about a week.  I'll keep you all posted on how those go!

On another note...the Patriots played in the Super Bowl this past weekend.  I won't dwell too long, but let's just say it would have been really great if they could have won.  But we had a great time preparing for the big game!...Rudy was in great spirits :) 

 Tom wears it well, but Rudy sure gives him a run for his money...

 Hanging out with Dad

We also recently set up a college savings account for Rudy.  The amount we would have to put away each month (starting at month 0 -- already 6 months behind!), using projected amounts for what tuition will be when Rudy gets to college...wowza!  Let's just say we will be saving a dent for now...but at least it is started and accumulating monthly!  And I'm sure he will get scholarships -- "he's so advanced" as we all know :)  The great thing about it too is that we can contribute lump sums whenever we want.  So for birthdays, etc we (or anyone) can add extra.  We will be adding a lump sum for Rudy's winnings on the Super Bowl.  Rudy won 4 squares...I don't think I've ever won one!

I hope every mom thinks their babies are as awesome as I think Rudy is.