North Market

It was almost 6 years ago exactly that Drew Jones and I had one of our first dates. We went to the North Market for a wine festival they have every year. It was a beautiful warm Sunday in June and I was excited to just brush arms with him. We walked around stopping at different vendors commenting on things we liked. Turns out neither of us are huge wine fans so we didn't even drink a drop.

There is a new pretzel place that just opened there and we had been wanting to try so we decided to go on Tuesday afternoon. A family trip out on the town!

We packed up the diaper bag, fed the baby, changed his dipe, burped him, let Scout out, let Scout in, got Scout's bed ready and blocked her the kitchen, put the baby in the car seat, set the alarm and closed the door behind us.

This is when I saw a look in Drew's eye that only happens when he forgets something really important.

"Don't even tell me you forgot your keys."

He did. Our side door locks behind you when you pull it closed and it was secured with the his keys just on the other side. As I contemplated kicking the door in Drew called our friend Laura. We had given her and her husband Josh keys to our place before Westley was born so that they could let Scout out when I went into labor.

She was there, keys in hand quicker than you can say Laura Scheutzow. We were saved.

So we finally clicked our little dude into his place in the backseat, hopped in the car and were on our way.

 

Westley fell asleep in his car seat on the way there. Good thing the Bugaboo Stroller has adapters so we just clicked him right onto it and glided along.

 

We decided to do a three course meal. BBQ, Pretzel & 

Jeni's Ice Cream for dessert.

 

Daddy ordering us this yumyum pretzel with garlic chive butter on the side.

 Showing Westley what he is going to eat later. I love the look on his face.

 Jeni's was the only thing we didn't split. I got Salty Caramel, The Milkiest Chocolate in the World & Apricot. It was the sort of divine only Jeni's Ice Cream can accomplish.

It was a nice little family outing. 

I have a family to go on "outings" with!

Life is good.

Baby Celeb

Guess who's cute naked self is featured on Spearmint Baby today?

Go take a looksie!

Coo love

Last night our friends brought us dinner from North Star, my favorite place to eat in Columbus. (we are still receiving meals 8 weeks in! God bless our awesome friends.)

So we took turns eating our chicken avocado sandwiches and holding Westley. While it was Drew's turn, Westley became fascinated by the black and white magnets on our fridge. When he really likes something he concentrates and coos over and over again. I think it may be the most beautiful noise I've heard in my entire life.  Before last night the most I've ever heard him coo in a row is 4 times. He cups his little lips and "eeooh eeeoh eeooh..." But he was LOVING these magnets. He bobbled his teeny head and cooed 11 times in a row. Drew and I looked at each other and our hearts were puddles on the floor.

Westley's Birth Announcement

 

 I created the original design in illustrator and so I had to save it as a jpeg to post them here. I'm not sure why, but it ended up making the files look a bit blurry so I apologize for that. 

You get the idea though.

Also, I've been working on Westley's birth story.

I'll be posting it next week and am excited to share.

:)

All wrapped up

I found this adorable little guy on etsy:

He sold already, but that's okay because I've got the real thing:

We Celebrated the Dadios

For Father's Day we spent the weekend visiting with family and celebrating the Dads. On Saturday my Sister, Dad and Papa came to Columbus for a cookout at my Uncle Brent and his girlfriend Rebecca's house. It was the first time my Papa had met Westley and it was the most precious this to hear him baby talk to Westley saying things like, "Hi! Hi! Well aren't you just such a sweeeeet boy!"

It was so good to share him again with my family.

 

On Sunday we spent the afternoon at Little Red with Drew's side of the family. We ate, laughed, tested out the new tree swing and Westley got lots of cuddles and love from everyone.

It is good to have family to share these days with. So so good.

Lady Lee & Lad Westley

Westley and I had our first day alone together since school was out for Drew the end of May.

We had a good day. I sang him songs and sometimes he would start to cup his lips into a oval and coo along with me. This of course would make me laugh, my laugh would surprise Westley and he would furrow his little brow and look at me confused like, "What, I thought we were singing?"

He went down for his naps easily and ate well. He pooped three big poops.

I told him his Daddy was helping Pops paint a house and that he would be home soon and he clutched my fingers with his little hands and bobbed his head around. I gave him lots of kisses all over his face and in the crease of his neck and told him it was from Grammy. I told him tomorrow he would meet Uncle Brent and Rebecca and that Pappy and Aunt Stacia would be there too. He listened intently kicking his legs around.

It was a good day.

Daddy

Dear Westley,

Maybe someday when you are older and can read, you will read this post. Father's Day is on Sunday and it will be your Daddy's first one. He is very excited and so am I. When you were born Daddy and I cried and laughed and Daddy kept saying, "Oh my! Oh my!". You could see that he was living the very best moment of his life. Since then he has taken such good care of you. I've never seen him love a person so much (and he loves me A LOT). The other day you were in your swing and he was doing the most funny dancing I'd ever seen just to make you grin. Today he told me that he was missing on you because he had to go to the store and missed your awake time after your nap. He gets up in the middle of the night to change your diapers and kisses your cheekies and sings you songs he makes up while rocking you to sleep. He gets teary now when he sees sad stories about kids because he thinks of you and the love overwhelms him and makes him feel for them and makes him thankful that you are so healthy and safe here with us.

Daddy would do anything for you Westley. He is the best Daddy I've ever known and he is not only your hero but mine as well. When he comes into the room you hear his voice and turn to find him. And when he talks to you your face lights up with a smile. He will always be yours and you will be always be his and I am so glad that God gave us Daddy because he loves us well.

Happy Father's Day to your Daddy!

We love you so much.

Smiles

He smiled at me for the first time on May 30th. Since then he has been giving us these shiny little gifts everyday. Especially after he gets done eating and is a happy full tummy baby.

Yesterday I was singing Tootsie Roll to him and squishing his chubby thighs while Drew was getting his dance on and Westley was smiling up a storm...."Cotton candy, sweet and low, let me see that tootsie roll! To the left, to the left, to the right, to the right..."

Dude loved it.

Westley was 7 weeks old yesterday. Every week Drew and I reflect on how "6 weeks and 6 days ago he was still in my belly, and we had just gotten home from the midwife and knew we would be going to the hospital in a few hours to have a baby."

Speaking of that here is a very honest photo Drew took of me at exactly 6:08 p.m. when Westley was exactly one week old. I am posting it so you can see a portrait of what a woman looks like one week after giving birth. I will admit my inclination is to have Drew take a photo of me, photoshop the hell out of it, post it and be all like, "Hey everyone look how awesome I am, looking so put together and pretty post pregnancy." And you know, I'll probably put out a nicely polished photo of me and Westley sometime soon...but today I'm delivering the ugly truth:

There you have it, post pregnancy reality. At least for me (some people really are put together and pretty a week after giving birth...dang them). And you can't see them, but my hormones were gyrating around my heart and mind like a 3 year old in a bounce house at this point too. So if you are pregnant, going to become pregnant or just had a baby I hope this photo helps you feel good about yourself, or at least that you are not alone.


And here is the photo we took of West at exactly 6:08 p.m. when he was exactly 1 week old:

Nom nom nom, I just want to eat him. Especially those little ear lobies.

Summer Essentials from Shannon at the Scribble Pad!

In the world of blogging you end up becoming actual real friends with people that you've never met in real life and only correspond with over email, comments and the like. 

I like to think of it as internet pen pals. 

Shannon is one of those friends and she has graciously written a guest blog so that I can have yet another day off from posting. Not that I have been diligent about posting everyday anyway (eek, sorry about that!) So thank you Shannon for helping my little blog not get dusty!  I love this post and am going to have go shopping now!

...............................................................................................................................................

Summer Live-ins

I would call these items essential, but somehow they manage to be more than that.  With a new babe around, you find a few items that work for you and live in them.  You hardly have time for anything else.  Speaking of time, I decided to help Lady Lee by hand picking a few summer essentials just for her.

Bonus, these items are super fab on the cheap so we can save our pennies for college.  Double Bonus, they are fool proof and work for everyone, not just the new mammas of blogging world like Lady Lee, E (http://e-tells-tales.blogspot.com), soon to be Bridget (http://itsahuntlife.blogspot.com), and me (http://www.schreiber6.blogspot.com).

Tanks with Flair make it look like you put effort into your outfit.   Green tank with pleated trim, or yellow polka dot with ruffles  to brighten up your day.

Great Accessories – a catchall bag that goes from the market to the beach and carries all your baby needs and comfortable flats that you can stand in all day.

A go-to dress for every occasion all summer long.

The perfect skirt to wear with anything.  No one needs to know that your husband’s undershirt was the only semi-clean thing left in the house when you tuck it into a cute skirt!

A drapey cardigan for cool summer nights and doubles as a nursing cover/baby blanket on the go! 

And top it all off with a hat to hide you from the sun.

New Additions to the Nursery

So we've added a few things to the nursery  (one of them being a baby) and I thought I would share...

I saw these neat little origami cranes on E's blog post about her little babe's nursery and thought they would make a sweet mobile. I finally had the time to make it and Drew Jones helped me hang it up! I just used the cranes (which you can get here on etsy), some fishing wire, a hot glue gun and some wooden dowels. Today I put Westley in his crib for the first time since hanging it and he literally looked up at the birds AND SMILED then looked at me, then back at the birds AND SMILED AGAIN. I told him that was the very best thank you I could have ever received.

We also put up these little bookshelves (that are actually ikea spice racks). I got the genius idea from ohdeeoh. We put them underneath the painting at kid level so that when he is big enough Westley can toddle on over, pick out a book to read and bring it over to Mama or Daddy in our chair.

Here is a view of the whole room so you can see the position of the book shelves and another view of the mobile.

I also changed up the shelf wall above the changing table. I would sit in the chair nursing Westley and look up and see that wall and it never looked quite right. So I dug up some picture frames we weren't using and put our beautiful Keels Photography photos in them. One of our Maternity Shoot and one from Westley's Newborn shoot. Much better I think.

Aaaaand lets have one more photo of sleeping Westley for good measure...

I think the mobile works.

Westley's Newborn photos with Keels Photography

Chris Keels from Keels Photography came out to our house to take some photos of Westley. We played his favorite tunes, wrapped him up like a burrito and these are the sweet little pics that happened. :)

 

He is 7 weeks old now and already so much bigger! 

Love the photos as always and already have our favorites hanging in our home.

Thanks Chris!! :)