"If you build it, they will come"

Today was the wettest day on record since 1955. There were washed out roads, and majorly flooded basements...perfect day to head out for our Easter photo session! Liv in her adorable sundress and sandals, Wes and Luke in their khakis and golf shirts...we were quite a sight! Luckily we made it to the mall without have to be rescued by the coast guard, and the kids did wonderful! Luke and Olivia's best photo shoot yet, and not too bad for Wes's first showing! Luke was a great big cousin and held him up safe and sound... the volcano was pretty active but we managed to keep the burpcloths out of the pictures! Luke was even the honorary burp cloth holder for awhile...some how he actually volunteered for this job! All in all  the day was a success, we topped it off with  ice cream cones and a nice warm bottle of similac!

xoxo
Erin

The Boys of BBQ

Wes and Ryan posing for the camera! Ryan was excited to be wearing his "piggie" shirt!

Clearly Quinn wasted no time digging into Uncle Ryan's ribs! He was born a BBQ fan...keep your fingers crossed for Wes!

When BBQ ruled the world!

I missed a day! I do have a good excuse though, Wes had to attend his first official meeting as a member of the "Show Me your Rack" BBQ team. Ryan is big into BBQ and will pretty much smoke anything he can get his hands on. Get your minds out of the gutter people...smoke as in cook! So of course Wes is an honorary member and god help me if this kid is a vegetarian! Anyway we partied it up with all of our BBQ loving friends to make a decision on this years competition recipe. In total I think we had about 30+ pounds of brisket, 6 racks of ribs, and 8 pounds of pulled pork! Wes had a great time visiting with his new friends and looked very handsome in his team t shirt!

xoxo
Erin
P.S. Check back tomorrow...maybe then I'll get lucky and I will be able to upload some pictures without completely freezing up my computer!

Today was a BIG day!

Today was a big day in so many ways! Most obvious was the monthly weight check at Dr. Ben's! A solid 15 pounds at 8 weeks. Clearly the volcano is keeping enough down to pack on the pounds! When he becomes an NFL linebacker just remember that you knew him way back when he was puking all over himself! Today was also a big day for Mom too...I realized that my baby boy is being released from solitary into the scary germy world of general population. Yes I had my baby in Target a week after birth, and I never stressed about his cousins holding him... snotty noses or not... but to release him into general population at the pediatrician...that is serious! At Dr. Ben's office they have an awesome waiting room for "well" newborns 0-3 months. So every time we've gone Wes has had his own cushy waiting room where the germy hands of unknown kids couldn't touch him. Granted the only thing keeping my precious man from the vortex of swine flu was a half door, but somehow it felt safer and well "newbornish." Next time we visit Dr. Ben we will be 4 months old and that my friends means we are no longer a newborn in the eyes of Milton Pediatrics! Time really is flying by and I'll have to take the old cliche advice from all those veteran mommies..."enjoy every minute because it goes by way too fast!"

xoxo
Erin

Look how I've grown!!!

Back in Action!

Wes is closing in on 2 months and I haven't so much as said the word excercise nevermind engaged in it! But today I dove back in thanks to my cousin's fantastic new gym. I had my first training session and I was drowned in sweat! It felt good to move and work those muscles that haven't seen the light of day in oh about a year! Lets hope I can keep up with this challenge as well as I've kept up with this blog...too bad typing isn't considered excercise...although maybe it will help me get my wedding rings back on! Wish me luck!

xoxo
Erin

Mother of the year!

Well party time continued last night! We celebrated Uncle Brian's birthday withWes's cousins Sadie, Willa, and Quinn. The girls love when baby Wes comes over and we were serenaded with many rounds of "twinkle, twinkle, little star!" Even with the soothing sounds of Miss Sadie Wes was super irritable...no amount of swaddle, swing, shhh, or suck could calm him! After passing him around to see who could quiet him I finally thought well lets try his diaper...oh yeah isn't that like priority number 1 when trying to soothe your fussy child! Well as I was holding the 5 pound diaper I realized I hadn't changed him since 1...unfortunately for Wes is was about 6:30pm! Of course as soon as the diaper was off Wes started to giggle and coo at everyone who came his way. I felt terrible and neglectful, but Wes was no worse for the wear...and I got another helpful reminder that no new mommy is perfect

xoxo
Erin

The Captain

Today the Captain...aka Wes's grandfather (My Dad) threw my sister a surprise birthday party...surprise even for the guests! Nikki got a  phone call from the Trio cafe around noon telling her she'd be having 12 guests for dinner and what would she like to order? The only explanation Nik had for this odd occurence was that she was being punked! She thought for sure it was a prank, but the woman on the phone quickly dropped the captains name and it all became clear...Dad was legitimately planning a party at her house with only a 4 hour notice! However...Wes got to have an impromtu visit with his cousins Luke and Olivia! The kids have gotten used to having another baby around, and even Olivia has begun to take a liking to him! She used to give him air kisses, but she has graduated to peks on the cheek...when she can handle removing that supermodel bink from her mouth! Look below for some of their first encounters with "Baby Wes." Stay tuned for tomorrow when my little party animal makes his way over to Sadie, Willa, and Quinn's for Uncle Brian's birthday!

xoxo
Erin

I had my first official Mommy conflict over the weekend. Wes wasn't feeling well and  I had plans with my friends. Here I was having to decide for the first time...do I leave my sick baby with his completely capable dad, or stay home and snuggle the sickness out of him. A little less than 2 months ago my guilt would have sat in my friends' corner. How dare I bail on them at the last second...I would have obsessed over it and felt horrible the whole time I was supposed to be out. I would have overstretched my schedule and run myself ragged to keep plans. Then on a sunny day in January it all changed. Suddenly not breaking plans made me guilty, the thought of leaving my cozy couch snuggled under a blanket with my little man turned my stomach. I guess in hind sight I was probably overreacting, he only had a low grade fever and a runny nose...but at the time I thought we were one phone call away from an ambulance! And the moral of the story is...the world kept spinning. The party went on without me, my friends understood...and best of all...I got some extra cuddle time with those intoxicating blue eyes!

xoxo
Erin
P.S. Happy Birthday Auntie Nikki

Here are a few more shots of my little cuddlebug...

Ready or not!

Over the last 2 days I've learned what it feels like when your child is sick. Useless, helpless, and completely uneducated are some words that come to mind. When I was pregnant I thought caring for a newborn would be a cinch! I have 5 nieces and nephews and I'm a preschool teacher...seriously I knew it all! Boy was I mistaken. My poor little man has been waking up coughing and snorting every hour on the hour. We won't even mention the amount of green gunk coming from his nose! I call the pediatrician ranting like a lunatic. They tell me to stand in a steamy shower, use that crazy bulb like aspirator thingy...and drumroll please...take his temperature...rectally. Now obviously I was left to do this alone. There are only a few things hubby can't handle...green boogers (yup he dry heaves over the toilet), and rectal temperatures. So, alas I put on my big girl pants and I took his temperature. Thankfully it was over before I knew it and to be honest I don't think Wes even noticed. I guess we can chalk this experience up to fear of the unknown, and maybe next time won't be so bad. I guess there are going to be alot of these "fear of the unknown" moments throughout this journey and each time I will close my eyes and jump in because one thing I do know...there is nothing you won't do for your baby.

XOXO 
Erin

I promised to add a quote tonight...so here it is...and it is completely innapropriate when speaking of my child, but hey sometimes the hubby is a 15 year old in a 32 year old body...
Me (on the phone with a girlfriend):  "The doctor said I had to take a rectal temp"
Ryan: "rectum, damn near killed em!"
...see I told you...totally innapropriate!

It has been a LONG day! The volcano has been extremely active! So as the hubby tries to rock the baby to sleep..without rocking too much because that causes more vomit...I am going to post some pics so I can remember what a cute baby he is when he is not covering me, the rug, or the furniture in spit up. So here are some pictures of our little leprechaun celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Thats it for tonight, I'm going to see how long I can shut my eyes before I need to find yet another clean sleeper!

XOXO
Erin
...BTW I realize I have slacked on my quotes...I'll get on that tomorrow!

Blackberries and Burpcloths

So here I am on day 2...I have already beaten my run on keeping a food diary! Hooray for me! Anyway I wanted to tell you all how I came about naming this little blog "blackberries and burpcloths." I was out shopping with Lori...one of my best friends, you know the kind that your child will refer to as auntie even though she isn't blood...and I was working on getting Wes, the stroller, and all of my purchases into the car. She was pretty amused and said I can't believe this is where we are...you have a blackberry and a binkie! It struck a cord with me and I couldn't believe where my life had taken me. Yes I spent 2 years trying to get pregnant and then lived nine months in a body that was completely foreign to me...but really has it come to the point that I can't leave the house without my blackberry or a binkie!!! So at last the blog was born...with one little tweak. Burpcloths are much more important than the binkie...especially when your little of bundle of joy has a fondness of barfing as mine does. I'm not sure that barfing is the politically correct way to talk about my baby...people like to say spit up, but that does not describe the volume of body fluid that leaves my child's mouth. It could be 10 minutes or 2 hours after he's eaten you just never know when Mt. Saint Wes is gonna blow. So here I am in constant reach of both my blackberry and a burpcloth! I was planning on posting some pictures tonight, but...what a shocker... my little volcano has erupted yet again and he is in dire need of new jammies.

xoxo
Erin

30 blogs in 30 days

Hi Everyone!

Today is my first official post on what will hopefully be a successful attempt to post 30 blogs in 30 days...kind of like the movie Julie and Julia only without the cooking and in a much shorter time frame! Experts say that if you do anything for 30 consecutive days it will become a habit. It hasn't worked for me yet, not when I attempted early morning gym sessions (or any time of day for that matter), or when I tried to keep a food diary, or even when I swore I would immediately put laundry into the appropriate places! However, here I am again attempting that 30 day challenge. Hopefully the gorgeous new addition to my life will help keep me on track. This new addition is an adorable bright eyed baby boy we call Wes...or as the nurses called him "Big Wes!" And big he was...10 pounds 14 ounces...which doesn't sound that bad until I tell you I am only 4 foot 11! I guess I asked for it by marrying a man twice my size, but what can I say I clearly have a size complex. I don't do anything small, my husband is 6 foot 5, I drive a tahoe, and I had an 11 pound baby...oh and don't let me forget my 100 pound bulldog! Anyway enough about me. I am hoping to keep up and post something each day. Wes is changing so fast and I want to be able to look back and remember the little things...we focus so much on "milestones" that sometimes the small moments get overlooked. So here is my attempt to celebrate the small stuff...hopefully I can at least keep my family and friends entertained with updated stories of my stumbles through motherhood, and with any luck I will help you remember that its the little things that mean the most! Tune in tomorrow to see if I continue my challenge...

xoxo
Erin

P.S. My sister thought I should post a quote of the day at the end of every post...so here is the first official quote of the day from my 3 year old Nephew Luke...hope it makes you laugh as loud as I did!
"Hey Mommy, Did you know that N-O spells No!" ...clearly he's heard that before!