Karolkiewicz Daily: Week 2

This week's been a good one! So far I'm proud of how I've remembered to take daily photos and Instagram them. I used to be picture crazy, but as we got busier and more hectic around our house, I started posting less and less. Which is not something that I want to do, because as exhausting as some of these days and nights are, I'd like to remember every minute with my sweets this age.

Day 8: Keegan has just rediscovered this Melissa and Doug train that his Nana and Grandpa gave his after he got his tonsils out last summer. He LOVES it. Here he is "helping" Daddy do some work at the end of the day... 

Day 9: after being couped up for 5 days or so, Keegan asked me to take him to Target. He loves to walk around Target and look at toys. After work we went on a date, just the two of us to Target to walk around and sip some Starbucks. He saw a pair of Lightning McQueen slippers, grabbed them off the shelf and said "Oh my, wat dis Mom?!" I told him what they are and he very matter of factly stated "Oh, O-tay," as he threw them in the cart. Ha! Good thing they were on clearance. He ended up with them and a stick of watermelon Lipsmackers for his chapped lips. So much fun.

Day 10: sported this leopard print scarf from Heart and Home Collection and red lips for the first time... It was Friday, what can I say?! :)

Day 11: look at how big this muffin has gotten! He's even more delish in person. His feet don't touch the ground but he loves to play in that walker! 

Day 12: Keegan was in desperate need of a haircut. Daddy did the sides, and I cut most of the top. I may or may not have said "Ooops," and handed the scissors make over to Kris. All in all it turned out well and he looks so grown up. 

Day 13: this guy needed fresh air. Shoveling the deck is fun when you're two. I literally had to drag him in kicking and screaming for dinner... I mean, wouldn't you be sad if your mom made you stop eating dirty snow off the shovel and come eat dinner?!

Day 14: first day leaving for work while he slept in... Yes it's a pro of having a nanny, but talk about missing that boy throughout the day! So good to see him after work!!! 

Day 14- part two: another pro of having a nanny: she brings fun goodies to play with... Like these Pom-Poms that Keegan quickly decided were meatballs... This is his "Meatball Train." Haha I feel like maybe that's a business idea?! Maybe a food truck called Meatball Train?! My little entrepreneur.... :)

Karolkiewicz Daily: Week 1

This has been a pretty great week. I've had so much quality time with ALL of my boys, and my heart is SO FULL now. What a great way to re-charge! :)

Here's my first re-cap of Karolkiewicz Daily 2014- Week one:

Day 1: New Years Day- Rose Bowl Day. Victory of M-S-U!!!

Day 2: One of my college roommates, Jacque, is a world traveler. After college she joined the Peace Corps and lived in Ukraine for a couple years, then moved to Oman to teach English, and has now settled with her love in Norway. Who lives like that?! My dear, adventurous friend. And she came home for a few (surprise) weeks over the holidays. So nice to grab drinks and dinner with her and another old friend from college!

Day 3: The boy's last day of school at Happy Elephant! We loved them. They were wonderful. However, it's so hard getting them out and about in the snowy mornings, and Bennett is so much more of a homebody than Keegan was. Praying he does much better at home with the nanny than he did at "school"... and praying Keegy adjusts to not having a crowd of people around to entertain him all the time :)

Day 4: Our friends, Alex, Hannah and Carly came over on Saturday night for drinks and a good time. Keegan loved Hannah's boots and enjoyed himself once he got them on... After he finally got over having to share his toys/booster seat with Carly.. Two is FUN sometimes!!! Ha!

Day 5: Snowed in on Sunday. It continued to snow all day long. Here is Keegan playing "cars" with his brother. Love seeing them start to interact and play together.

Day 6: First Snow day of the week! Our babysitter/nanny couldn't get here because of the weather. Keegan loves Despicable Me 2- and Bennett LOVES himself some baby food. Such a sweet, sweet day.

 

Day 7: We got another snow day today! SO MUCH FUN. Keegan and Bennett "pretended to sleep" in Keegan's bed. And Keegan even said, "Okay, Mom. I want to read him a story. Once upon a time..." So precious.

 

Seriously, these few days have been so wonderful for me. I just love my boys with all my heart. Maternity leave was so hard for me- having a newborn and a toddler is HARD. Now that Bennett is getting older, it's getting more and more fun. Can't believe we get to raise them.

 

One week down, 51 more to go. So far, so good :)

Baby-fooding 2.0

I started Keegan on Gerber baby foods when he was four months. I was excited for the "first" so I pushed it a little early. His digestive system wasn't ready, and the poor boy was uncomfortable for weeks. Oops. I always vowed with my next baby that I would wait until 6 months to start it. Then when Bennett was born, I thought we may even wait til 7 months since he was so early.

However, he has proven to be a totally different baby than his big brother was. Keegan was little, never ate a ton, but was growing consistently. He had sinus and digestive issues since he was born.

Bennett on the other hand hasn't had one ear infection (KNOCKING ON WOOD SO HARD RIGHT NOW), and his acid reflux has seemed to improve. He was sleeping through the night by 8 weeks, and was consistently drinking his entire bottle every two hours.

A week and a half ago he suddenly started waking twice a night again, downing two bottles a night. Seriously?! He was drinking so much during the day, but would always top off around 5 oz. The boy was growing, and was just HUNGRY seeming despite all the bottles he was drinking. I had a gut feeling that he was ready.

And boy, was he...

This muffin could eat baby food all day long. In fact, he has. He has three "meals" a day in addition to the same amount of bottles. And guess who slept through the night again?!?!?

And guess who's on his second nap of this (marvelous) snow day?!?!? Growth spurt, anyone?!

I have a theory. I don't know how accurate it is, but I've got to wonder... I used store bought Gerber baby food with Keegan. Once his little body got used to it he adjusted pretty well, however, it took a while and put his little intestines through all sorts of chaos. Now I've been using a Baby Bullet and have made home made sweet potatoes, peas and bananas and the boy does great.

It's a little messy since I have the food so liquidy so it's not hard for him to eat, but what a different experience this time around with the transition to baby food. I so wish that I would have made Keegan's baby food from scratch the last time. I feel like such a hippie! Loves it. Or what is that new word all those hipster mom's are using?! "Crunchy"?! Ha!

And if I don't seem 'crunchy' enough with my homemade baby food, guess who's transitioned back over to cloth diapers?!?!?!? I AM SO HIPPIE... BUT I AM NOT!

If you know me in real life you know I'm the least hippie/crunchy momma around. I just do what works for us... and in our family, BUDGET works for us (cough*cough* DAVE RAMSEY*cough*cough)... so cloth diapers and homemade baby food is how we went... and they have so many other benefits that I only realized after the fact.

Okay, back to snow-day goodness. :) Stay warm and stay safe, friends!!!

Karolkiewicz Daily 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR, friends!!!

2013 was an incredible year. So many awesome changes, and I even finished the year strong. That is a good feeling. I have been working really hard at losing the baby weight, and I even LOST five pounds in the month of December (I normally GAIN that weight during that month)! Before the year finished I went through my closet and our toy boxes and de-cluttered, and was able to give lots of stuff to Goodwill. Such a freeing feeling!

That being said, I haven't been one to really do "resolutions" normally, but since I seem to be really good at meeting the goals that I set lately (which honestly, I normally drop them really quick), I figured I would go ahead and make some resolutions for 2014!

1) I have already lost the "baby weight" but I want to lose a little bit more. I had never felt strong before, but I LOVE that I feel strong. I want to continue to build muscle and lose weight.

2) I want to continue to de-clutter our home. I do a pretty good job at it, since I tend to be the one who is less sentimental with stuff (compared to my husband! What?!), so I tend to pitch a lot. I want to weed through our basement and get it organized this year.

3) Lastly, one of the sweet bloggers that I follow on Blogger and Instagram, Shay Shull, did something that she called ShayEveryday2013. She made sure to post a picture on Instagram of their happenings EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Then each week she did a recap on her blog (for those that don't follow her on Instagram). Follow me on Instagram (id: mandy_k1179) for my version... karolkiewiczdaily2014, or check in weekly for our happenings that week!

Have you set any goals for the New Year? If so, do you normally keep your resolutions and finish strong or do you lose focus soon after January?

4 months old and feelin' good!

How is this boy 4 months old today?!?! 

Time for a Benny Boy check-in:

How cute is he?!?!

Weight: Still waiting on an official weight, but I'm pretty sure he's about 12 lbs or so. So much bigger than Keegan was at this age!

Clothes: 6 months clothes and going! He went from premie to 6 months in 3.5 months. What a little muffin.

Diaper: size one- close to moving up to twos already!

Sleeping: Bennett Chase has been sleeping through the night since eight weeks. He'll occasionally wake up for a bottle at night when he's going through a growth spurt, but more nights than not he's sleeping a good 11 to 13 hours a night. He LOVES to be swaddled, too. He is a cat-napper, though. However, he is a Momma's boy all the way and will fall asleep for nice long naps when I put him down at home. I credit Baby Wise all the way for my kids sleeping habits. In no way have I ever let my baby cry it out. I just follow the routine of "eat, wake, sleep" and the night time sleeping soon follows... It's almost like a miracle pill for baby sleeping habits :)

Eating: still a formula fed boy. He has gotten much better at latching onto the bottle over the past month (that was where we saw the most developmental delay initially when he was born late-preterm). However, I think we're working toward baby food/purées soon. I just got a Baby Bullet as a Christmas present, so I'm working on filling the freezer. I never made homemade with Keegan, but we're eating so much healthier now, that I can use all the fruits and veggies lying around. We'll see how this goes!

***side note: I would never buy a Baby Bullet on my own, since I knows it's just a food processor, so it's not necessary for making purées. I'm grateful to of received it as a gift, as it kind if makes baby food making a little more fun with the smiley face baby food jars and the instructions in comes with.

Milestones: for us, it is a big milestone that he's stopped struggling to latch into the bottle. He's smiling a lot more lately, and laughing out loud. It's precious. We're still working on rolling over but that will come in time. I'm not pushing the whole mobility thing, and am enjoying this milestones as they come. 

Bennett-Chase- you are a joy. You are calm and kind and sweet spirited. You are teaching us how to love even deeper, and are teaching your big brother how to be gentle and attentive. We love you so much, Benny Boy, and pray God's grace on every aspect of your life. 

Keegan the Snowman is a Jolly Happy Soul

Keegan has discovered Frosty the Snowman this year. His "Hammy" (aka Grammy) brought some Christmas classics over a few weeks ago when she babysat and Keegan fell in LOVE with Frosty...

He now asks to see it at least once a day. He only GETS to watch it once or twice a week though. He sings the song throughout the day too, and it's the sweetest voice you've ever heard.

He has Christmas spirit like no one I've ever met. He always wants Christmas music playing, and will constantly ask me to "Turn dat up, Mom!" 

Today while pulling into our neighborhood I heard him sweetly say from the backseat "Merry Christmas, Mom. Happy Birt-day, Baby Jesus." Talk about warming your heart! He looks and Christmas lights and says "That's just so pretty!"

I'm so proud of my sweet big-boys' Christmas spirit and that his little brother gets to see his example of joy.

Here's us enjoying Frosty tonight after baby brother went to bed:

The Best Saturday

Kris has been traveling quite a bit this month for work, so the time we have together has become even more special. Keegan was missing his dad BIG-TIME on Friday, so we were definitely all ready for today to come so we could spend some good quality time with Daddy.

Today was so wonderful.

Bennett slept twelve hours through the night last night, and so did I. Kris let me sleep in, and got up with the boys this morning. I don't remember the last time I felt so refreshed! I even got my workout in today (that's another blog post for another time. I'm currently participating in a Beach Body Challenge group for the month), which has been something I've been striving to do, but with Kris gone it seems about 10x harder to actually do it. Being a "single" parent is hard. I have such admiration for people that do it on their own- because I have realized how much we work as a team just in the little day to day stuff in our home.

This morning Bennett was ALL smiles:

He even took a two hour nap in his crib mid-morning... which if you know Bennett, you know this is incredible. He is a cat-napper all the way. But he's also a definite homebody who does much better in his normal atmosphere with his mom so today resulted in some good sleep :) I'm kind of popular around these parts!




Even Keegan took an AWESOME nap this afternoon. And by awesome, I mean UN-heard-of and insane. He slept for FOUR HOURS. I kept not wanting to wake him because he obviously needed it. It was glorious.

I spent the afternoon (finally) addressing Christmas cards... took me long enough! This is the latest in the year that I've even sent them out. It has just been a busy season (that's an understatement), and a season of adjustment. Learning how to do things alone during the week with two babies is definitely brain-scattering for me.

But they're done and will be on their way Monday morning... And I got to watch this cute nap taking place while I worked:

 Yes, my husband was sleeping like that. So uncomfortable, but this picture was way too cute not to take a photo of. They are both wonderful. All three of my men were sleeping soundly at the same time. I'll take it :)

After our 4 hour napping adventure, we decided to venture out in the snow. We have been craving some greek salad's from Zeus' Coney Island... which was my FAVORITE when I was pregnant with Bennett, and we haven't had it since. And I will tell you what... it did NOT disappoint.

We started out with a little saganaki, and some lemon rice soup and finished up with the best greek salad with homemade greek dressing you've ever had (and extra beets and chickpeas for me!)...

And check out Benny-boy in his sweet little hat:

Is he delicious or what?!!?!? 

And he ended up being the nicest boy ever the whole evening. He laughed and talked, and even smiled at an older woman sitting behind us. What a muff. It warms my heart to see his personality start developing, and it warms me even more when I see he's becoming friendly.

And is this not another adorable photo of a little boy spending some much needed time with his daddy? I took this photo right when Keegan was instructing daddy to draw him a cheese sandwich... Seriously. HA! This boy is one of the funniest and sweetest kids I've ever met. AND I gave birth to him, which is even cooler! Ha!

 And then we did something that I swore I'd never do...

I have avoided it for two and a half years... but we had to get to the mall tonight to get Kris a sport coat for a big district meeting this week, and while we were walking around, Bennett needed a bottle. THIS is where we ended up:

That is definitely the play area at the mall.  That germ infested trap that I've avoided for so long was actually Keegan's paradise. And it was surprisingly not as dirty (at least in appearance) as I imagined. He was able to run, play and climb for a good 25 minutes. It is always so fun to watch him interact with other children. At one point a little girl was following him around trying to hug him while Keegan side-eyed her and finally crept over to me trying to push her away. SO FUNNY.

We had an awesome day as a family. It's always so pleasant when both boys are nice. We have been praising the Lord all day for the incredible time together, and the sweetness that has been radiating from both of our boys today.

I hope YOU had the best Saturday too!