Has it really been 5 Months?

Our baby is 5 months old.  This is going by so fast.  

Miles has done a lot the past month and we've seen such a big change in him. 

Miles is a very content baby and extremely easy going.

He started sleeping unswaddled about two weeks ago. It only took him about 2 days/nights to adjust and quit waking up constantly. 

He is working on rolling over from his back to his tummy, but he's pretty lazy about it!  Ha- he's not that interested in it.  He prefers to just lay all the way on his side and hang out there.

He loves bath time, mainly because he and Gavin bathed together and Gavin is pure entertainment for him.

He can hold his bottle, which is surprising this early, but sometimes he gets lazy about that too, or he can't seem to squeeze his hands around the bottle the right way, and he sends his bottle flying in the air.

He smiles all the time... at anyone. at any time.  

He's also laughing at things.  We've found a few of his ticklish spots and he goes nuts when you tickle him.  His laugh reminds us of Gavin's when he was a baby.

He needs a hair cut.  His hair is getting out of control and just keeps getting longer on the top.  It's perfect for a mohawk. 

He loves the water.  He's been "swimming" a few times and is very relaxed and calm.  We have started putting him under water, which he does pretty good with his reaction, which is really nice.  

He has found his feet and holds onto them as if they were going to leave him.

I pulled out the exer saucer, jumper, and high chair the past few days to help change up things a little bit for him and Miles loves them!  His head doesn't bobble around so much in the exer saucer and he's learning to press the buttons around him to hear the sounds and music.  The jumper is more of a way for him to just be standing instead of laying on his back, but when big brother is around, Miles gets the opportunity to jump!  Miles sat in his high chair last night for the first time and really enjoyed it.  I think he just liked being on our level around the table.  We did give him his first taste of rice cereal, but I'll make that a separate post.  

Our little boy is growing up so fast.  We're really enjoying getting to watch his personality come out and it's been a blast playing with him.  

  

He's too cute for words!

Check out this video of him babbling.  This is more for the Grandma's but some of you may like seeing it!  *Don't forget to scroll down and pause my music.

The Four Loves of my Life

1. Brooks

2. Gavin

3. Miles

4. Sit-N-Stand LX Stroller

I'm in LOVE with my hubby, my kids, and my double stroller. I brought it back with me from the states and have been using it ever since.  It has been a HUGE help around the compound, walking everywhere, and the few times I've gone out with both the boys.  I'm so thankful that we decided to get this!  I'm in LOVE and it's perfect for both Miles and Gavin.  Gavin has the option to either sit or stand in his spot and this stroller has an adapter that holds Miles car seat, but we just started putting him in face forward.  He likes it like that!  Every time I get out with the stroller I'm always thinking to myself how grateful I am to have it!  

Everything needs its place... or I'm gonna go crazy

I've been mentioning in previous posts about how I really needed for things in our house to have a place and started reorganizing closets, storage spaces, cabinets, etc.  I think when we got back from the states, nothing in my life seemed normal.  The kids sleeping patterns were off.  Brooks had to start working 6 days a week.  There wasn't that much going on.  I went back to not having things to do 

outside the house.  So, I just tackled what was in front of me.  

For starters, we got this toy organizer for Gavin's toys a few years ago after he received a lot of Christmas presents and we had no where to put them.  This piece has been GREAT for Gavin and he's really learned how to keep things put away for the most part.  Although, I found myself getting frustrated often when we were cleaning up and telling him what basket to put certain toys in.  Each basket has organized toys such as- trains, kitchen utensils, tools, balls, books, anything with wheels, figurines of any kind, etc.  We did that since he's only allowed to use two baskets/bins at a time.  Anyways, I had reached my limit on having to reorganize inside the bins and was wasting a lot of time having to explain to Gavin where to put his toys, without having to go put them away myself.  So, I chose 9 pictures of objects that I knew he would recognize, I printed them off of a coloring sheet website, colored the pictures, put them on cardstock, laminated them, then used velcro strips to attach them to the baskets.  It took 3 minutes for me to explain the new system to Gavin and now when he cleans up and asks me where to put something I can just say it goes in your baseball basket.  I've already memorized what toys are in what baskets, so that when I find some of his toys around the house, I don't have to go look and figure out where it goes, I can just tell him and he does it.  He loves the pictures and actually has gotten excited about having to clean up his toys.  This was a life saver!  I also figured since we have 2 boys, that the pictures I chose would work for Miles too someday.  

One of the other areas I tackled was in my kitchen.  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and the kitchen was the one area of the house that I brought EVERYTHING in it from our old house.  Everything except serving pieces.. which I'm kicking myself for.  Anyways, there was a TON of wasted space in the kitchen, but not a lot I could have done about it,
until I found the right storage/organizing pieces that would fit or work in cabinets.  I wanted to fix our pantry since we had four deep, tall shelves,  but didn't use but half the area because there's only so much you can stack on top of one another before it either falls down, or you can't see half of what you have and it expires before you ever use it.

At Ikea, I found these foldable, stand up shelves and they fit perfectly.  Now, my entire pantry is organized by items, and I can actually see what we already have and don't feel the need to buy 3 or 4 of something when I see it at the stores.  I also move items forward so that I use stuff based on when I purchased it.  I also found a few baskets to hold big stuff like chips & crackers.  There are also containers with snacks, granola bars, popcorn bags, etc.  This all makes me happy!

Just to give you an idea of how deep the shelves really are.  

  

I also started finding out that I was getting extremely overwhelmed with all the stuff that was going on around here and never seemed to be able to get it under control.  I found this dry erase calendar in the states and brought it over with me and I'm so glad that I did.  As you can see.... there is always something going on around here.  If you look closely, in the 2nd to top square... the day after I put this calendar up, Brooks wrote on it "I LOVE this Calendar".  It really helps him get an idea of what we will be doing and I think he understands my feelings of being overwhelmed sometimes.

Last but not least, in the kitchen.  We have two large, no HUGE, corner cabinets that are angled that had so much more space and room for us to use, but only the bottoms of the cabinet were being utilized.  So, I found some shoe racks that fit each corner cabinet and one has our pots and pans, which I use to have to take everything out just to get to a pot, since they were all too heavy to lift at once.  This has pretty much made my life so much easier.

And my favorite part of the reorganizing was what I like to call my cake closet.  I have so much cake supplies for decorating and baking cakes that not all of it fits under this cabinet, but a majority of what I need and use fits perfectly.  I've had 9 months to figure out exactly how I wanted this storage area to function and what I needed to have immediate access to and what could be pushed to the back, etc.  The best part about it is, none of our pantry spaced is used to store powdered sugar, fondant, or cake mixes!  Woo hoo!  And, I can keep a lot of my supplies under the cabinet when I am decorating and just take out what I need, when I need it.  This clears up my counter space, which is even better!

It's simply amazing to me how easier your life can seem just by making a few small changes here and there.  I've also reorganized our bathroom cabinets and other storage areas by adding the foldout stackable shelves.  Now, everything really does have its place!

Celebrate Good TImes, Come On!

Imagine the perfect anniversary.

On a beach.

In a foreign country.

With warm weather, not a cloud in the sky. 

Just you and your man.  

Wouldn't that be just perfect?

That's what we had for our 5 year anniversary.  Well, almost.  The part about just me and my man actually included our two kids and about 30 other friends (who were also on the beach), but it was still great.

It's neat to think that Brooks and I will always get to say that we were in Saudi Arabia for our 5th anniversary.

We celebrated earlier in the week with a fantastic dinner, just the two of us, while some friends kept the boys for us.  We got to enjoy a 2 hour meal and talk just the two of us.  It was WONDERFUl!  A new restaurant opened, called Red Dragon at The Yacht, in our town and it's really nice.  The food is "expensive" but it's GOOD food so you don't care the price.  The place is incredibly clean.  I even use the bathroom facilities in it.  That's saying something!  Haha.  The food is so good we got appetizers and dessert.  We even ordered special teas.  Guys, really, this place is a BIG deal to us who are use to eating at hole in the wall joints.  They even use cloth napkins!  Woo hoo!  We made it to the big leagues with this place.  Ok, anyways.  

When we got home from dinner, I found this bag sitting on my pillow.  Yes, it had the cute, blue box with the pretty, satin white ribbon.  Inside was a beautiful, silver heart shaped necklace that I love.  It was a complete surprise. Brooks did GREAT!  I got him a massage for our anniversary.  He loves getting massages and actually asked for that. 

On the actual day of our anniversary, we went out to the beach for a neighbors birthday party, who I made the cake for and just hung out.  It was a blast.  We got to spend the day with our boys, ate at the restaurant on our compound, and relaxed.  It was a fun and memorable day and an anniversary that we're sure to not forget.

Happy 5 years babe!  

Vinyl is CHEAP here!

I've gone to IKEA many times in the past few weeks during my quest to reorganize this house. Along with storage furniture pieces, I've purchased many storage containers to help alleviate the mess and clutter that 50 different boxes or containers can cause.  I've also been racking up on rolls and rolls and rolls of colored vinyl when I see them in specialty stores.  That stuff is so cheap here.  The funny thing is, I think it's sold to be used as back splashes in kitchens or something like that.  

I've been busy doing house stuff and making cakes that I wanted to do something just for me where I didn't feel any pressure or have to think and plan on anything.  So, I pulled my Cricut out and went to town.  

I made tea pitchers... sweet and unsweet.

I didn't bring any of my serving dishes from home and have really been lacking in that area.  So when I found this small platter, I picked it up, thinking it would be great to use for appetizers or small dishes. 

Gavin has a bunch of toys and some have been in all types of different style containers, but none of the containers would fit in one cabinet. So, I took the containers I found at IKEA, separated all the toys, throughout the packages they came in, and sorted everything out.  Then, I cut out the words to match each toy.

I had also been looking for some kind of bucket that would sit at our front door that wouldn't be too long, too tall, too small, etc to put shoes inside of.  We don't normally keep our shoes downstairs, but we're constantly having to go upstairs every time we want to run outside just to put shoes on.  In just a few days, this little bucket has already brought some order and helped Gavin with keeping things picked up or at least knowing where stuff is!

Pedal. Pedal. Pedal.

When my parents were here back in December, we went to Toys R Us and picked up Gavin a bike with training wheels to learn to start riding so he could be like all the big kids.  We've been working with him off and on the past few months and he finally got the idea down.  He first pedaled with me during the day then when Brooks got home, they went outside for another test run and Gavin did GREAT!  We are so proud of our little man and he was pretty proud of himself, too.  Don't let the paranoid looks on Gavin's face fool you... he was totally concentrating on what he was doing and wasn't scared at all!    

Here's  a video of him riding too.  You may have to scroll down and pause the music to hear.  Or better yet, keep the music on so you don't have to hear my voice in the video.  I was just really excited for him!

Check it out.

5 years

Five years ago today, Brooks and I said I do to one another and became husband and wife.

We got to celebrate Wednesday night with a pre Anniversary dinner just the two of us.  During our meal, we started reminiscing past memories and thinking about all the places we've been and things we've done together.  We quickly realized a lot has happened in the past 5 years.

We've lived in an apartment, a subdivision, and now a compound.  We rented our apartment, purchased a home, and now we live via Brooks company.

We made our first car purchase- Brooks' car (I already forgot what he drove... isn't that horrible!)

We've visited people or took vacations in the following states: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee, Missouri, Nevada, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma.

We've been to the following countries: Jamaica, Belize, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, & Qatar.

We've had 2 kids.

And a dog.  (Maggie's still in the family though)

We found a church that we called "home" and loved spending almost 2 years with an amazing church family.

There are many, many more things that we've done, seen, experienced, gained, etc but of course I can't pinpoint all or even choose ones to highlight (it's late at night over here and I'm tired).  All I know is that the last 5 years have been an adventure and I'm excited for the journey that we've been on.  

I love you Brooks Lee Perry.  Thank you for being my best friend and for loving me unconditionally.  I love you more then words can say!!  You're my favorite!!

I've been a little busy

I found myself sitting around the house doing NOTHING at all the first week we got back from the states.  I quickly realized I was going to get myself into trouble if I didn't start acting like I had a purpose.  So, I baked some cakes and worked on a few projects.  I've even been reorganizing the house too.. pics on that later.  

Here's a cake for a Luau Birthday Party that my neighbors threw for their daughters.  My friend Rhonda, who also bakes cakes helped out with this one.  She baked the cakes and made some of the decorations and I made the icing, stacked the cakes, and decorated it all.  It really turned out to be a cute, fun cake.

Some people here, who lived in Bahrain, had their sons birthday party all planned out and then were told they had to leave Bahrain and wouldn't be returning.  They were pretty bummed that they had to cancel the venue where the party was going to be and had to have something real small here on our compound. She found out I did cakes and asked if I could whip one up for her.  His party was dinosaur themed.

One of our really good friends here, Laura, is having a baby girl in July.  We can't wait for Savannah to get here and Miles will have a new friend.  A few of us girls threw Laura a baby shower at my house.  It was a lot of fun.  Savannah's bedding is a pink Damask pattern.  All I can say about this cake is I LOVE the CRICUT cake!!

I also worked on a door sign for Savannah's room as well as a bow holder.  This was my first bow holder to make.  My friend Susie made a few for her friends and her daughter Addi and I loved them so I decided to try it out.  Over here, you can't find many cute, girly room decor so I wanted Laura to have something for Savannah's room.

Here's Laura opening it at the shower.

I was also asked to make a tennis cake for a couple here who's husband plays tennis everyday.  The lady found the camel tennis player and wanted it on the cake.  That thing was huge and not food friendly so he went on the side.  The cake is suppose to be a tennis court with a tennis ball on top.  It was a huge surprise for the husband!

I bought a piece of furniture (again, going back to the reorganizing my house project) to go in our bathroom to put our towels, medicine baskets, and my jewelry on.  I wanted to move my jewelry from my closet to our bathroom but needed some cute decorative storage containers, instead of clear, plastic, acrylic ones.  I found some wooden boxes at a local book store, bought some paint and crackle paint and went at it.  As you can see, 2 out of 3 of the boxes had a crackle finish, not sure what happened to the top one, but they work out great.  One holds all my watches, another holds all my big necklaces, and the other has my bracelets.  They fit on the piece perfectly and add some color to our bathroom.  

Needless to say I'm busier then ever now and find myself not having much leisure time.  But it gives me stuff to do while it's BLAZING HOT outside!

Miles is (still) 4 Months

I better hurry up and post about Miles turning 4 months because in a week and a half, he'll be 5 months.  This month, we are really starting to see Miles personality come out.  He is a HAM!!  He smiles all the times, has started giggling a little, and makes more noises then ever before.  He loves playing with his safari jungle gym (the thing that has arches over him with animals that hang down.  He only prefers the bouncer right after he eats, it's like he knows his food needs to digest a little before he starts playing.  He enjoys rocking in the swing we borrowed from some friends of ours and use to fall asleep in it a lot.  Now that we're back in Saudi, and there aren't Grandmas to hold him every second of every day, we are back onto our Baby Wise routine.  Miles has made his own routine off of what we've helped create for him.  Generally, he wakes up, eats, stays awake for an hour and a half or so, then takes a nap.  Depending on which nap it is, he'll either sleep until it's time for his next bottle (anywhere from 3-4 hours after his last one) OR he wakes up 45 minutes before the 3 hour mark we try sticking to and he plays until he's hungry.  We don't mind that at all, as long as he's happy, which hasn't always been the case.  

Miles just now started REALLY sleeping through the night about a week and a half ago.  He kept waking up 3 or 4 times a night and nothing was helping him.  Re-swaddling wasn't working.  Feeding him wasn't calming him down.  Holding him wasn't helping.  Nothing seemed to work.  Brooks and I were really at a loss because with Gavin, he slept through the night at 6 weeks and never woke up until early morning.  

Miles had also been fighting a cold since we were in the states.  He got his first ear infection, double ear infection for that matter, was put on antibiotics and cold medicine.  Then, within days of arriving in Saudi, his cold turned into bronchitis.  He was put on breathing treatments for 5 days to help break up what was in his chest and to prevent other sicknesses from coming on.  Then, once his bronchitis healed, he was still left with a running nose.  He also started spitting up more and more, and just didn't ever seem content.  I decided to try soy formula (something we did with Gavin for his reflux and constant congestion).  After 1 day of soy formula, Miles nose quit running, completely.  He never fussed between feedings, except for when he got tired.  He started taking longer naps without waking up 2 or 3 times, he woke up happy from naps and he even slept through the night!!  Coincidence... maybe.  Either way, soy formula has changed our lives in the last week and we're sticking with it for now.  Miles has slept through the night from 9:00pm to 6:00/7:00am and is just overall an even happier baby.    

We've been to the doctor so much this month that I was able to see how much Miles weighed every few days.  He is at 6.6 kg, which is 14 lbs, 5 oz.  He was 25 inches long, too.  This month, Miles got to ride in his stroller without his car seat... it's already really hot over here so having him laying in his car seat, just makes him hotter.  He loved it and stayed a wake the whole time riding in his stroller looking around at everything.  He is semi working on not being swaddled, but he still wants/needs it.  We're not forcing things one way or the other.  He won't fall asleep without being swaddled, but if he comes undone during the night, sometimes, he'll stay asleep.  We did find him a few times with his arms out, but generally those naps only last a short time then he's awake again.  When Gavin's around and I'm helping him with something, sadly, I prop Miles bottle up for him to eat.  He doesn't seem to mind, but I feel guilty about it.  Miles' favorite thing is holding onto things.  We always give him either a small blankie or Sophie the giraffe (which he LOVES- and yes, I did pay a ridiculous amount for the chewing toy) to hold onto while he's hanging out.  He prefers chewing on his hands or fingers, not even sucking them, but chewing on them.  Just the past 2 days he's started favoring having his thumb in his mouth.  So I'm now constantly watching to take that finger out of his mouth.  

So, there you have it.  Miles has definitely grown up this month. 

 

 

Meanwhile Easter happened...

We celebrated Easter here in the Kingdom a few days after we returned from the states.  Our compound had a huge Easter Egg Hunt and "Spring" Celebration for everyone here.  The kids got to hunt for Easter Eggs.  They even split the hunt into groups so the kids 4 and under searched for eggs within a yard and they all were able to find plenty.  Thankfully, I thought to pick up a small Easter Basket for Gavin that I was able to fold in my suitcase so he had something to use for all the festivities.  Miles was the hit of the evening.  No one had seen us since before we left for the USA, when Miles was less then 2 months, so with him being almost 4 months... there was a huge difference with him.  He was precious and smiled at everyone.  Everyone brought food and we grilled burgers outside and enjoyed the evening with our compound friends.  Living here and experiencing holidays without your "real family" you really see how much all these people mean to you and how much they've become like family.  

The Easter Bunny came to Saudi on a Friday, since that is technically our Sunday.  It was funny all the mom's had to plan together that the Easter Bunny came on Friday so that some kids wouldn't hear other kids talking and think well the Eater Bunny didn't come to our house.  Our "Easter morning" was special.  Gavin and Brooks were upstairs while the "Easter Bunny" set up (all his stuff was still in our suitcases I had yet to unpack at that point).  I found them waiting like this.
*Funny story-- I took Gavin to get his picture taken with the EB while we were home and he did NOT like it.  So that morning, when we told him the EB came to visit... half way down the stairs, he didn't want to go.  He kept asking where the EB was and had a really scared look on his face.  It only took a few minutes for us to convince him the EB wasn't in the house anymore for him to run into the living room.  There he found his Easter Basket filled with Thomas the Train DVD's, a Thomas the Train driving book (there's literally a wheel on it that turns), and of course Woody.  He loved all his gifts and was very appreciative.  He'd grab each one and hug it to his chest while saying, " I love this!" So cute!

This picture represents Daddy telling Gavin to go give Mommy a big hug and kiss and thank her for your presents.  I just stared at Brooks... like, um, hello?!?!  I then told Gavin mommy told the EB that he was in Saudi not Captain and Kimmie's house so he knew to come visit you here.  Hmmm--- wasn't quite sure what to do in that situation.  Not to mention, it kinda made me want to evaluate if we are even going to go down that road with the whole Easter Bunny.  But, no big deal.  Gavin loved his gifts regardless who gave them to him.  

After gifts and breakfast, we got together with the rest of our "Friday morning group" and enjoyed the morning with friends.  We ate lunch then took a family picture to represent Easter 2011.  This year, Easter's meaning had a whole new feeling for us this year.  We praised God that Jesus is RISEN!