6 months

i continue to be amazed at how the time flies. i feel like some months he grows at twice the speed of normal and this was one of those months. his current stats......
18lbs 14oz. (75%) 281/2 in. (96%)

• he ate carrots, green beans, sweet potato, apples, zucchini, pears, banana and pumpkin.
  
• he started eating more solid foods instead of only tastes.
  
• he eats 6-8 oz. bottle 2oz vegetable, 2 oz. fruit and 4 T rice cereal a day
• he is working hard on sitting on his own.
• he is noticing who has him and where his parents are
• he had his sitter, mrs. paula keep him for the first time.
• he wears 6-9 month clothes and size 2-3 diapers
• his parents had their first over night stay without him
• we moved him to a rear facing convertible car seat.
  

4 years of wedded bliss

dan and i celebrated our 4th anniversary. since donovan was born i told dan that i wanted to go away one night for our anniversary. i figured he would be 6 months and the timing would be right with leaving him with my parents.

on a side note...as a mother i question if i should not feel comfortable leaving him at this point...i know so many other moms who say they did not leave for the first year or more...and so i question myself about this. i guess there is no right or wrong on this subject, and now that it is over i do not regret it.....

back to our anniversary........my parents came into town friday evening to gear up for babysitting duty on saturday. saturday morning dan and i kissed the boy and set off to asheville for the night. we took a leisurely drive on the parkway leaf looking at the spot we got engaged. it has been right around 6 months since we have been in the car fully relaxed not waiting on when little man may have had enough of his car seat. it was a crystal clear 70 degree day that allowed us to park our car at our downtown hotel and walk the rest of the weekend.

dan and i still know lots of people in asheville, and although excruciating to not call them, i wanted dan and i to have a selfish weekend to ourselves with no place to be and nothing to do. and so the weekend continued with amazing asheville food, i had a massage while dan watched some baseball (pretty good planning on dan's part :)), watching the sunset at grove park, and a nice long dinner and talk about how lucky we are and have been. dan and i met in asheville and being able to reminisce about life then and now was so awesome. we love our life now more than we can explain, and being able to have an evening to focus on that without a worry about our little boy was just perfect. so thank you mama and daddy for allowing that to happen.

sunday morning we were able to open our eyes without hitting the floor trying to catch up on the day. we continued our leisurely weekend with a long breakfast reading the paper and another walk around town. dan and i always drive by his old house in asheville when we are in town. the house has been up for sale a couple of times since dan sold it and we have always wondered what is going on with the house and our old neighbors. to finish up a perfect weekend we spotted our old neighbor in the driveway and were able to get the low down on the old home place and see all our old neighbors. they shared pictures of their grand kids and we showed off donovan.

on our way out of town we grabbed a pumpkin spice latte (seriously i am not joking this weekend was perfect) and headed down the mountain. i think it may be the first time i have not been teary eyed leaving the mountains since i knew donovan was at the other side.

we got home to a giggling baby, grabbed a pizza with mama and daddy and then thanked them and sent them on our way. we feel so lucky to be able to have such fabulous parents that allow dan and i to have time together while they love up on the little guy. we spent the rest of the evening playing pee-pie and reading donovan's new book with him (we did the whole the parents leave town and bring back a surprise thing :)) what a fabulous weekend....and life.

***by the way the picture of the duck was just a perfect "asheville" experience of walking by a duck in a car.....that is soooo asheville

precious game of pee-pie

donovan's new thing is playing pee-pie. he covers his face with a burpcloth and then gets so excited it sounds like he is having a tough time breathing. when you grab the cloth off to make sure he is ok he laughs and smiles. precious.

by the way i do not know i this is how to spell "pee-pie" or not

***this just in i was clued in by my aunt judy that instead of the funny name of "pee-pie"...which sounds pretty gross......pee-pie does sound awful close to "Peep-Eye"...thank you judy!

and the yankees decendeth

we have had a jam packed week of fun! sunday after our pumpkin extravaganza pops and bammie (dan's mom and stepdad) came into town for the week. this was perfect timing because dan was leaving monday morning for a meeting in florida and they saved me from having to experience single-parenting....wheeeoooo. i was a bit nervous, as i always am, leaving donovan with people he has not seen in a while. when will i learn not worry before i have to....of course donovan fell in love all over again with pops and bammie. it took no get use to you time. i guess that after 6 kids, 2 step-daughters, 14 grandchildren, and running a daycare bammie is a baby magnet. i was able to run errands, make phone calls, get a few more hours in at work without a worry in my head about the little guy. the days went smooth as did the nights, seeing how i came home to dinner being made for me :) we have to spread pops and bammie out over such a large family, and since they summer in ny and winter in florida we do not usually get long visits. dan and i are glad that donovan got extended one-on-one time with pops and bammie, and i of course was glad to pick pops and bammie's brains about family life with their kids.

dan came home thursday night to donovan looking at him like he was a stranger. i missed the shenanigans because i was at work...but after the LUNGING incident it made me laugh a bit. friday dan's brother don his wife nicole and their three kids, leigha(10), owen(7) and nolan(15mo) came into town on their first road trip down south. i put a little pressure on don this past summer after our trip up north and so i think he took it as a dare ;) dan's family is so close...... which is amazing when you think of the size and all the blending of members. dan is the only sibling that lives down south and so our visits with his family are often busy with traveling to get everyone in. we often talk about wishing we got more visits from siblings to have more quality hang out time with everyone (hint, hint) . so this visit with don's family was much anticipated. we started the weekend with a cookout friday night and went to carowinds (an amusement park) saturday while donovan spent the day watching football with pops and bammie. quote from my nephew owen, "the adults got to ride more rides than the kids did".....i am wondering if we abused our power as adults? sunday morning pops, bammie, dan and don went to the panthers game....and monday dan and don played golf before heading back to ny.

we got word from don tuesday evening saying they made it back to new york after driving all night......and i got a cll from bammie wednesday morning letting us know it was 37 degrees in pennsylvania that morning. so until next time we can just hope that the winters get colder and colder for the yankees and the memories of shorts in october will lure them back soon!

pumpkin patch

dan and i took donovan to pick out a pumpkin this past weekend. this is something that i have looked forward to. i see all of these lovely pictures of new families doing all american things. you know when you see a heartwarming picture and then create a story of how perfect that day might have been. from our pictures you probably imagine a hayride through a pumpkin patch, maybe an afternoon of apple cider? well folks although it was a lovely day of quality family time the pictures at the patch took about 10 minutes...and that was with me stretching out our stay. then we went to target.