Oh Boy! Sweet Potatoes!

Lochlan's Super Baby Food #3 was sweet potatoes! I had to get it at Whole Foods, as our local health food store didn't have any organic, only conventional. I cooked it up this morning, then pureed it with some breast milk. Once again, Lochlan was in heaven!

He is loving all of these tasty new things and I'm glad he's liking them early, as hopefully that is a sign of good eating habits to come! Maybe someday he'll be the cool kid at school that's never had fast food! haha! :)
We'll wait four days and then I think he'll be trying pureed pears next!

Avocado Update

Lochlan had avocado for the first time this morning and thought it was delish! :) He was really curious what this new thing going into his mouth was, and kept grabbing for the spoon. I did the airplane noises as the spoon landed in his mouth and he thought it was hilarious! He was giggling the whole time and we were making Gavin laugh. I gave Gavin a bunch of avocado as well (not pureed), and he liked it since he knew that Lochlan was eating it, too. It was a fun breakfast here this morning!

Lovin' the new whip

We went on another hike with the Mountain Mama's group yesterday and Lochlan absolutely loved the pack. It's such a change from the front baby carrier that he's always in. He fell asleep about halfway up and slept for most of the time that we all hung out at the top.


Afterwards, we went grocery shopping, and I wore him on the front carrier and he fell asleep there, too!
Gavin is at his mom's house until tomorrow, so Lochlan & I slept in until after 9am this morning! Matt is leaving today for a few days to go to Vail to see his best friend, Dan, and go snowboarding. I'll be by myself with the kids, so no more sleeping in. :(

Lochlan's New Whip

I've been wearing Lochlan on the front of me on all of our hikes and decided it's time he "graduated" to the big pack. My dad & stepmother got us this awesome Kelty pack that my sister had recommended for hiking. Lochlan & I "test drove" it this morning, as we are supposed to go on another mountain mama's hike this afternoon. He seems to approve and couldn't stop smiling and giggling the whole time he was in it!

First Foods

Lochlan turned six months of age on Sunday, so we celebrated today (Tuesday) by feeding him his first foods! I've read a few baby books about introducing first foods and the best one I've found so far is Super Baby Foods. Since he's getting enough iron from a combo of breast milk and milk-based organic formula, we didn't bother with rice cereal. Instead he got a super mashed up banana, mixed with breast milk. I really wanted to give him avocado as his first food, but I forgot to pick one up at the health food store yesterday. Instead, he was stuck with an organic banana straight out of Mexico! :)
In honor of his eating his first solids, he got to wear his "All you need is love" bib, which was given to him by our favorite tree-house dwellers, Kimberly and David. I felt this bib was fitting as Lochlan already seems to have a love relationship with food. He had his six month well-baby checkup today, and he weighs almost 19 lbs, and is almost 29 inches long. He's in the 75th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for length/height. What a beast!


We have to wait four days before he can eat something else, to make sure he doesn't have any allergic reaction to banana. Up next (Saturday): sweet potato or avocado.

Fun with Photos

I played around with the camera some more yesterday and today. Yesterday, Lochlan & I went to a Natural Parenting MeetUp playgroup and today we went on a three-mile hike in Williams Canyon/Cave of the Winds.
Here are some photos from the playgroup yesterday:





Here are some photos from the Mountain Mama's hike today:

Testing, testing...1...2...3...

I took Lochlan & Gavin to the Monument Valley Park downtown this morning, as I had been told by a friend that there is a walking bridge there that crosses over active railroad tracks and the highway. The weather here has been really warm lately, so we've been getting outside a lot! We have a park right behind our house that we're at all of the time, but I wanted to try somewhere new. Since Gavin is so into trains right now, I thought it'd be fun to take to take him to see the real trains. Also, I wanted to start messing around with Matt's Canon Rebel camera, because I want to get into taking nice photos some more.
As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, there happened to be a train going by about 20 feet away! Gavin kept saying, "choo-choo train" over and over, so I took him out of the car as fast as possible. He stood there in the parking lot watching the train until it was gone. I snapped a few good shots of him, but I liked this one the most:

Here's another one of him saying "choo-choo train" over and over:

There were squirrels everywhere and they kept coming up really close to us! Gavin decided he'd try and chase them all! The staredown of Gavin versus squirrel:

These mountains are practically in our backyard. The snow covered one is Pike's Peak:

The boys checking out the view:

Gavin checking out the train tracks:

Some cute shots of Gavin:


A cute one of my most favorite little man in the world:

Gavin cruising over the bridge:

I knew this was coming (and we left VERY soon after this):

So those are my shots for the first time playing around with this camera. I brought Gavin to his mom's today for a few days, so I'll have a bunch of Lochlan only the next few days. Looking forward to sleeping in!!!
Matt thinks I should check out some basic photography classes if I really want to get into it. I would love to, as I really enjoy taking photos, I just stink at it!

Inspired

A new year, a new hobby! Matt's older sister, Meaghan, takes the most beautiful photos as a hobby and I've been inspired to take up photography again thanks to her. I've been commenting on her amazing pictures since this past summer, and I started thinking that I should get back into it myself. I used to have my camera on me at all times when I was in high school and I'm glad I did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have all of the awesome old photos of Matt & I together!
Some friends came over today and we walked to the park behind our house with their kids and Gavin. I was just messing around with our digital camera and took some great photos, which started me thinking. Matt has an older Canon Rebel digital camera and tonight he showed me the basics of how to use it.
I am going to take Lochlan & Gavin to a park in the morning that my friend Shannon told me about today. It is called Monument Valley Park and they have a bridge that goes over active railroad tracks, which is going to make Gavin ecstatic! I am going to test out the camera tomorrow and will post any good photos if I am able to get any. It might take me awhile to get used to the camera, and I'm sure I'll be picking Meaghan's brain non-stop for awhile!
Below are some of the photos that I took today and that sealed the deal for me to start messing around taking photos again.
Shannon and Jon's sweet daughter, Stori:

Shannon and Jon's super stellar boy, Zane:

I took this photo of Gavin through a tiny little hole in part of the playground equipment:

Thought I'd post this to make Shannon smile:

My new photography subject:

Almost got a smile out of him:

The Root Family (Jon, Shannon, Zane & Stori):

Still trying to get some smiles out of him, but he hates the camera! I will succeed in changing this, though, as I need a good photography subject and he's too cute not to use! :)

Thought I'd make a note that my mom also takes amazing photos for a hobby. She likes taking black and white portraits of people (especially children), so I might have to get some tips from her and try doing this in the future.

PlayTime & GymboTime

Besides the Mountain Mama's Hiking Group, I've joined three other MeetUp groups in town: Natural Parenting, Friendly Families and Bouncing Babies. I've been to a few meetups in the past few weeks, including playgroups and a breakfast burrito get together.
Some of the folks and kiddos eating yummy burritos:

At the breakfast burrito meetup, Lochlan was wicked interested in all of the kids and people. He finally started falling asleep on my lap after we were there for a couple of hours:

I took both Lochlan and Gavin to a playgroup on Thursday and then another one on Friday. Getting ready to go to one of the playgroups:

Gavin playing at the train table:

Lochlan chillin' on the couch with some of the mama's:

On Saturday, I signed Gavin up for a free class at Gymboree and he had a blast. It was a music & play class, and the leader had them pretending they were bears, complete with climbing a bouncy tree and all. He definitely did not want to leave and had a complete meltdown, which was a bad ending to the fun time!


I don't think we're going to go there regularly, as the classes are fairly expensive and it's not really my scene. I'd rather take him to play outside at the park or at friend's houses. I was talking to my sister about it today and I told her I felt like it was a "Perfect Mommies" sort of place, and I definitely DO NOT fit into that group. HAHA!


One last photo of Gavin that I couldn't resist showing. He is so in love with this moose that he received from Grandma Ann (Matt's mom) for Christmas. He is dead asleep, yet still has his arm wrapped around the moose: