We're all still here!

You might not think so based on total absence of blog posts for the first quarter of the year (I think in quarters now at my new job...and I didn't work last weekend for quite possibly the first time EVER, save for my "break" in DC, whaaaat?), but we're all still here kicking it! Here, watch Holden grow up kinda fast...

And I just saw that the poor kid had on long-sleeve stripes for pictures three months in a row...sorry, baby, those Carter's onesies are a wardrobe staple for you. I'll try to mix it up a little bit.

Already ten months old!! He's allllll over the place right now and is SO much fun. Less fun? Constant ear infections that refuse to be solved by every antibiotic known to man, so on Thursday my poor baby has to have a teeny bit of surgery and get ear tubes. As an excessive worrier, I plan on being a little bit of a hot mess come surgery time, but hopefully this will get us on the road to a healthier little guy who doesn't have fluidy goop clogging up his ears.

Lack of blog posts due to general life craziness, but we also added streaming to our Netflix subscription, which caused me to lose hours of my life to things like House of Cards and An Idiot Abroad over the last couple months. Oops. Resolve to not binge-watch everything just because I can.

Happy spring!

Hi kitty cat!

Holden has a minor obsession with Harrison. Shockingly, this relationship works for both of them. And really, that's all.

Love you, kitty.

Face-off! No one was harmed. Harrison really just wanted his catnip mouse that Craig is dangling.

Excuse me, baby, but this is really my ottoman. I guess I'll let you borrow it for just a little while.

I still can't believe this is ok with Harrision.

Hello, cat. Hello, baby.

Harrison is...protecting?...Holden while he sleeps.

Harrison used to be much more suspicious of the baby...and the feeling was a little mutual.

Oh, the early days - comparing the size of the baby to the size of the cat

Go away, germs...and bobcat

Poor baby Holden has a double ear infection (both ears!!) AND the flu. So basically that's where the last few days have gone. And having a sick baby is just one of the worst things ever. The end.

In completely unrelated news, there's apparently a tiny little bobcat who thinks our patio furniture is basically where it's at. Whaaaat?!?

So I called animal control, who promptly came (arrived 15 minutes later, so impressed!) and scared him away...and HE. CAME. BACK. And snuggled up in the cushions again. After Bob* dashed off again, Craig rearranged the cushions to make it a little less inviting. And hopefully that's all it takes?? Because I don't really want to have to figure out how to keep a little bobcat away - we have enough going on INSIDE the house.

* obviously the bobcat's name is Bob. duh.

Stranger danger has not yet set in

At least not when Holden has a full tummy and is kinda sleepy. Or possibly as long as he has some hair to tug on. Because our first meeting with Santa went extremely well!

We went to the Santa at Shops of Legacy out of pure convenience since we had a birthday brunch for Craig at Jasper's on Sunday morning with his mom, and this particular Santa was about a three minute walk away. And yes, we're those people who shelled out $50 for a sheet of photos and a digital copy of the image, but it was SO EASY. Minimal wait, happy helpers, and a generally pleasant experience. Yay!!

Holden was just so cute with him - he sat there and gazed at his face, then nuzzled in like he wanted to take a nap in all that fluff. You'll notice Santa kinda has Holden's right arm tucked down - yup, there was some serious thumb sucking going on (sleepy baby!), and we needed to try and get a smile. So out of frame is mom playing peekaboo (currently the hottest game in town) to encourage grins, and it actually worked.

Oh, and rest assured that beard is legit - Holden gave it a mighty tug for us.

Happy holidays, little bug - can wait to create all of these memories and start new traditions with you. This whole holiday season business has me feeling pretty mushy this year.

Auditioning for his nativity role

I give you...the next great shepherd in a local production of the nativity. Also, that lasted WAY longer on his head than I thought it would.

Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??

So Craig isn't traveling for work nearly the way he used to (thank goodness!!), but he's spent two of the last four weeks in Florida - which means single parenting on this end, yeeps! Fortunately Holden's a pretty cool kid and tries to keep things pretty easy breeze for his mom...except for this congestion/crud that I think is basically going to take over our lives FOREVER and keeps him (and in turn me) from having a good night's sleep...but we survive. We're both glad when Dad gets home, but I think he may have set a new precedent on this last trip that Holden will come to expect..."Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??"

Holden + new Mickey Mouse doll (thanks, Dad!) = grins and giggles

Do you know how excited I am about this?!?

Baby's first Christmas!! It's going to be the utmost of adorableness, even though Holden will probably just be really confused. And while I'm late to the game on getting personalized Etsy awesomeness I was planning on for Christmas gifts ("no longer accepting holiday orders"...oops, I should have started these projects before Thanksgiving), I was totally on the ball with ordering Holden a really cute first Christmas ornament. Now it just needs the perfect spot on the tree.

My little helper

It can be a bit of a juggling act to get everything in the door each night...diaper bag from daycare, pump bag, purse, mail, phone, random assorted crap that often includes a travel mug (source of that much needed morning coffee boost)...oh yeah, and the baby! Don't forget the baby! So tonight Holden was my little helper and held onto the travel mug for me as I hauled us all inside. According to the grin below, it was a really awesome and exciting adventure.

Thank you, my little helper. No, you don't yet get an allowance for helping out. I fully expect you to carry the travel mug in every day now.

Also, my baby is currently rocking some highwater pants because he has crazy long legs (that I swear grow another inch overnight) and is also kinda skinny, which makes it a little tricky to find pants that are long enough but don't slide off. Baby leggings for the win! Obviously those are all dirty, which is why his baby sweatpants have inched up to his knees. At least his socks are still on - minor victory.

Real food? What is this?

We started cereal with Holden a few weeks ago, and while he was a little hesitant at first ("ummm, excuse me, but WHAT is this stuff??")...we now have quite the cereal expert on our hands. Definitely a learning curve for both of us in the best methods for successfully navigating food to his mouth and actually into his tummy, and sometimes I really think his favorite part of "mealtime" is banging on the highchair tray with his extra "play" spoon (strategically used for distraction and the "oh look, here's your spoon...fake out, here's Mommy's spoon with cereal, yum yum yum!").

Time to move on to fruits and veggies! We'll see if I'm motivated to whip up homemade batches of baby deliciousness on the weekends...hmmm...

Thankful

Come Thanksgiving you used to find me taking pictures of pies. Now I pretty much just take pictures of my baby (it can't be helped, his adorableness attracts the camera!), so I really don't have any Thanksgiving shots to share with you that don't feature Holden in some form or fashion. Oh, but rest assured there were pies. This time only three for the six (and a half) of us, an extremely reasonable ratio.

As we scarfed down turkey and cornbread dressing and allll the other good stuff last Thursday, I paused for a moment and felt especially thankful for my amazing parents this year. I'm also really thankful for pie, but having a baby is kinda a big deal...and while coconut cream pie would have helped, I don't really know if I would have survived those first couple of weeks without my mom and dad by my side. Maybe more details on the survival of the early days will be provided a little later, and maybe not - I got a little teary just thinking about it now, so apparently six months later the waves of exhaustion and newborn terror are still palpable. So for now I'll continue to pause briefly and say thank to my parents. For everything. Absolutely everything.

Holden enjoying some naptime with Grandpa over Thanksgiving weekend...

...and doing the same thing six months ago when he was almost a week old.

Can you believe how much he's grown and changed?!? Me either.

So, I disappeared...

...into a world of busy season and baby and LIFE and heeeere I am, alive and well!! And in the spirit of playing catch up, I'm going to try to blog every day in December. Just putting that out there while I'm feeling a small burst of optimism and motivation. So it may not actually happen, but I'm going to try. Some days it may just be a picture of Holden, which is probably all you really want anyway.

And in the interest of not trying too hard right off the bat and hurting myself, we're going to start on a light note with some silly faces. I like to call this Holden's "little old man lips" look; he's been sporting it quite a bit these days, probably as a side effect of figuring out these two teeth he has. He's entirely too much fun and giggly and happy, so I try to soak up as much of it as I possibly can. Rock on, little old man lips - I love you.

Holden adorableness, July 2nd edition

I find myself taking a ridiculous number of pictures with my phone every day to capture these little moments with my kiddo...and as much as I love the "real" camera, it's WAY less convenient when I have a child in my arms.  So...here's a day in the life, filled with unedited phone pictures.  How very un-Erin-like of me, but I think this might be our new normal.  I love this little guy so much.

Ok, so this one is a phone pic from Craig - while I took Harrison to the vet, he played "tough guy" dress-up with our child, even slicked back his hair with baby oil and everything.  Oh dear.  ADORABLE.

Trying to get this guy in as many of his teeny clothes as possible before he outgrows them - today's adorable striped airplane onesie brought to you by Carter's, dangerous land of sales for tiny adorable things.

Did you know being a baby is really tough work?  Really, really tough.

Head kisses from Mommy!  Oh, Mom, you're so embarrassing.

Again, being a baby is REALLY tough work...so sometimes it's best to just take a break and nap on Mommy.  Ahhh, that's better.

Tell me a story, Mom, I'm wide awake!

The kid is wearing a onesie AND pants AND socks - this basically never happens because we're changing diapers far too frequently to bother with complete outfits.  Seriously.

Chillin' on the playmat for a change of pace - ooohhhh, lights and sounds and different things to attempt to hit with flailing arms!

I give you...dramatic baby.

I also give you...suuuuper baby!  He tends to get fussy at night before bedtime, but we've discovered that he really likes flying through the air as super baby during this time.  Craig has obviously been tasked with the super baby flying since it's just not in my nature to hold him like this.

Welcome to our world.  It's kinda awesome.

Hey baby!

One month ago, this tiny little person came into our lives and changed things forever.  Infinitely for the better.  Those first few weeks were anything but easy, but worth every minute when I remind myself what an important job this is - raising, caring, loving this little man.  Welcome to the world, Holden Michael Pendarvis.  Born May 29, 2014 - 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and 21 inches of perfect.

And I'm really not sure how we went from that little guy up there to this one down here who is already ONE MONTH OLD!  It's a bit of a blurry haze, really.

I'll try to capture some parenthood adventures here on the blog...but my boss is a little demanding these days and I tend to run a little short on time.  Priorities!