A Slice of Bryce (#13): Six Months!!!

I guess it's time that I stop dwelling on the fact that Bryce's first year is flying by. Today, he is halfway there, which, to me, is unfathomable.

Here's what has happened in the past month:

1) Bryce is still not sitting up entirely unassisted, though he can make it for several seconds without toppling over. We gave it a shot with the photo session today, and you'll see the end result in one of the pictures...

2) He HAS, however, started working on moving from one place to another with a mixture of rolls and scoots. No more laying him in a spot and expecting him to stay there, as evidenced by the fact that, twice yesterday, I left the living room for a couple of minutes and heard a THUD!, which ended up being his head hitting the hardwood floors as he rolled his way off of his mat. It took me two such incidences to learn my lesson (much to B's chagrin), and have now begun putting soft pillow barriers at the edge of his mat.

3) His scooting motion is pretty amusing. I've only seen him do it a couple of times, but the ladies at school say he does it all the time. While lying on his belly, he buries his face in the mat, which helps him to arch his back and propel forward with his legs, all with his belly still lying on the ground. Hard to describe. Impossible not to giggle when you see it. This movement has me thinking ahead to what I envision his first crawl will look like. If it's anything like his scoot, it'll be cute.

4) I'm amazed at how B loves to spend time on his belly. Neither of the girls were EVER like that. If they rolled onto their bellies, they would soon be whooping and hollering for help to get back over to their backs. Not B. He'll lay there and play with his toys forever.

5) Bryce's occasional sleeping woes continued this month. It didn't help that he suffered an ear/eye infection that required a 10-day cycle of Augmentin, which quickly became my least favorite of the antibiotic options for kids. It's got a bitter taste, and apparently doesn't do well on an empty belly, which I learned with B the hard way. (Note: If the bottle says "take with food", that apparently means that the kid should eat FIRST, not immediately AFTER the medicine. They really should be more clear in the instructions.) Anyway, as a result of the infection that brought with it a fever and nasty diapers, B and I got to spend a couple of quality days home alone together, and I think feeling below-par caused him to wake up once per night (for a week or so) and need to be soothed by a feeding session with Mommy. Thankfully, he went back to sleep each time, so I can't complain much. But I think he's fully recovered now, and his sleeping pattern is slowly getting back to normal.

6) Bryce has pretty much perfected his rice cereal and Level 1 baby food eating. It's probably time for me to make the jump to Level 2, which will bring some additional textures and tastes. Currently, he's eating rice cereal for a "snack" when he gets to school in the morning, and then he gets a jar of fruit at lunchtime and a jar of veggies at dinner. Still no sign of him cutting back on the amount of breastmilk he drinks. The boy can put down some milk, now.

7) The biggest annoyance at this age is that B has outgrown his infant carrier, but still can't sit up in a high chair or shopping cart when we're out and about. That will change this coming month, I'm sure.

8) As you'll see in the pictures below, Bryce's mouth is seemingly always open these days. And the drool never ends. Which is disappointing, since it means he is always wearing a bib, and I don't get to see much of the cute outfits he's wearing! I remember with the girls thinking that they were NEVER going to stop the slobbering and spitting up. But they did, and I know B will, too, so I'm trying to just live in the moment and be thankful that the bibs keep me from spending all day changing his clothes.

9) The biggest change in the past month that I've seen is that Bryce is really grabbing for his toys now. And I can tell that he's so close to holding his arms up to me when I reach to pick him up. That's one of my favorite milestones - it's nice to feel wanted!

I think that's it for this month. Happy half-birthday, Bugaboo!

Hill Ridge Farms (2011)

After we "rested up" last Saturday (not really, since Dale and I took Nina and Papa to the UNC Football game), we headed on Sunday morning to Hill Ridge Farms, another annual tradition with the Dever clan. (If it's not yet obvious to those of you outside of North Carolina, the Devers might as well be part of our family.)

Upon entry into this wonderful fall playland, Ivie headed straight for the maze (which you can see she took very seriously)...



... and Macie made a beeline for the swings (which were just as difficult to get her away from this year as it was last year). Nina and Papa were happy to assist in her efforts to "go really high".


After conquering the maze, Ivie and Emerson wanted to check out the new "jumping pillow". Watching them made me want to jump, too. Sadly, no parents were allowed.





Macie finally got off the swing and joined in.




I think this was the highlight of the day, at least for Mommy watching from a distance. Not a single picture Dale took didn't catch a smile.


The girls spent quite a bit of time on the jumping pillow, allowing our camera (wielded by Dale) to do a little wandering. To me and Bryce, and Brooke and Danny!



But, in an appropriate act of tit for tat, Brooke didn't let Dale off the hook.


After the jumping pillow, we made a quick stop at the Hill Ridge Farms "Cool Bus". I tried to get Bryce to look out the window, but didn't have much success. Maybe it was because I'm apparently too old to bend down far enough to get his face at window level.


Then it was off to the big slide! If you remember, Macie opted out last year, as it was a bit intimidating for her. Not so much this year, though she did ride down with Nina!


While we waited for the big kids, daddies, and grandparents to come down the slide, Bryce hung out with me (and decided it was time for a little snooze).


The line was L-O-N-G, so the girl only got to go down the slide once. Then we distracted them with talk of a ride on the train, with a quick stop first to measure their height.



The painted hay bales were back for another run this year, with fresh new pictures.


After the train came the duck races. And I'm not just talking about the girls. As you can see, Dale and Danny are a bit competitive, even when it comes to racing plastic ducks.


From the duck races, it was off to the hay jump. I must say that Emerson Dever sure knows how to "strike a pose"!


Before we could blink, it was almost lunch time. Which meant we had to jump aboard the hayride for the trip to the pumpkin patch. Or should I say the place where the Hill Ridge Farms gets pumpkins trucked in and dumped so that it appears to be a pumpkin patch? Oh, well. It didn't matter. The girls didn't know the difference, and this was going to make pumpkins #6-11 at our house, anyway.



After the hayride brought us back, we headed for the cars and made our lunch stop at Sonic (also becoming tradition!). Another GREAT fall outing, officially in the books!

The State Fair (2011)

Last Friday afternoon, as part of our whirlwind weekend with Nina and Papa in town, we ventured to the State Fair. Standing true to tradition, the Devers went with us, too.

It's really fun to look back at pictures of our fun at the fair; it's a good way to see how much the girls have changed. In case you're interested, here's 2010, 2009, and 2008.

Since we went on an afternoon, we were able to leave Bryce at daycare. At almost 6 months, I don't think he would have been tall enough to go on the rides. I'm sure he had more fun chillin' at school with Miss Marie and Miss Joy. Wait 'til next year, buddy. I'm sure you'll be ALL OVER the Merry-Go-Round...

The stories of our State Fair adventures over the years, as I go back and read them, pretty much sound like a broken record. Dale eats his annual turkey leg and candy apple, I struggle with the food dilemma and end up with something boring (this year it was a hot dog) and finish up the night with a Fried Snickers, and the girls start with something decent (can you call a corn dog "decent"?!?) and wind up with straight sugar (cotton candy and ice cream).

The rides are pretty much the same, too. The Dragon Wagon, the Merry-Go-Round, the Fire Chief, the swings, the slide, the boat, and the hot air balloon. At least for Ivie this year we mixed it up and added in the Hamster Dance and the Bungee Bounce (which will likely become a new favorite - next year I'm going to try to convince her to do a flip!).

So there's the story, and here are the pictures. Another successful fair outing. We're so glad we got to show Nina and Papa how much fun it is!

Chomper #1

Bryce has been drooling since birth, so I didn't really have a basis for my gut feeling over the past couple of weeks that he was about to cut a tooth. On second thought, though, maybe it's just because he turns 6 months old this weekend, and both of the girls got their first teeth between 4 and 5 months, so I assumed B wouldn't be too far behind.

Backtracking a little bit to discuss this past week (because, let's be honest, it's hard to write a whole blog post just about a tooth)... Let's start with the positives:

1) We wrapped up a wonderful visit from Nina and Papa on Monday evening, and they made it home that night in time to watch Scott break ground on their new house on Tuesday morning;

2) It wasn't a fun work week, but I survived (and I continue to tell myself that I am thankful to be gainfully employed, when so many who want to be, are not);

3) I remembered that Wednesday was Macie's "Bring-in-a-Book Day" at school, and she chose "Pirates Don't Change Diapers", which I love;

4) Dale got home Wednesday night and does not have another work trip planned for nearly two straight weeks; and

5) On Thursday morning, Dale and I successfully prepared for Macie's Show-and-Tell Day, School Picture Day for Mac and B, Uniform Day for Iv, and "really-important-and-stressful-work-day" for me. And we still made it out the door relatively on-time.

So let me attempt to bring this story back around to why in the world it's relevant to Bryce's first tooth. I hope none of you are as disappointed as I am that I have no idea where I was when I first felt said chomper on Wednesday. It's a fact that you would think would be a fairly obvious one to include in a post that is attempting to make an interesting story out of one tooth. But, sadly, it's escaped me.

So we will just move on and I'll try to get over it.

Now comes the part that Stacy Warner just loves (wink, wink). THE TOOTH CHART. I had hoped to find a cuter version to use for Bryce, but Google (to the extent I had the patience to sift through sites) let me down this time. So I'm resorting to using the same one I have for Mac. Oh well, at least the lead-up work is already done.

I should clarify that it's not really the tooth chart itself that Stacy "loves". It's the fact that I have the nerve to put a tooth chart in a post without an actual picture of the tooth. Or at least a shot of the child who has the tooth, given that it's pretty hard to get a picture of a tooth that has just cut through the gums. Sorry, Stac. I'm behind on my photo editing, so you're just going to have to wait. (Not that you're actually still reading this, anyway - it's way too long and hasn't had a picture yet.)

Alright. I can't drag this painful first tooth post on any longer. Here's the chart, showing that B officially got his first tooth on Wednesday, October 19th, at 5 months and 26 days old.

Good night.

Wordless Wednesday (#74): Favorite Color Day

Wordless Wednesday (#73): Hangin' with Grandma

Children of the Corn: Ganyard Hill Farm, 2011

Before I go any further, I must give Dale credit for the title of this post. Though I will say that "Children of the Corn" was the first (and maybe actually the last) "horror film" I ever watched. Romantic comedies are much more my style...

But moving on.

This morning, we took the girls to Ganyard Hill Farm. We traded kids with Brooke, and she kept Bryce at home with her and let us take Emerson with us for Year 4 of the Hermans at Ganyard.

The place hasn't really changed that much (except I think the price has gone up each year. $12.50 per person-over-the-age-of-2? Really?!?). So these pictures will be staged much the same as they have in years past. Thank goodness the girls have grown each year, or this would be a really boring post, wouldn't it?

We started by posing for a few pictures outside while we waited in line. Then, once we were inside the shed where you pay, the girls had to pet the bunny, Cotton. Our friend, Stacy, who was visiting for the weekend and came along with us, had a great line, saying that Cotton likely had the worst job at the farm, having to sit there and let kids pet him all day long.


Once we paid our $75 entry fee (WOW. Still can't get over that.), the girls were off to the Corn Crib (which was where Dale came up to me and whispered "Children of the Corn" in my ear as the proposed blog post title). Ivie was all about laying out in the corn. Macie, though, did NOT like the feel of the kernels stuck between her toes.



Then, it was off to the Hay Maze and the pipe slide down Hay Mountain...


Before wrapping up our visit in the pumpkin patch, we went on the annual Hay Ride, during which Dale reminded the girls how to appropriately chew on pieces of hay. The parents of the probably-18-month-old little girl sitting next to us likely did not appreciate that she paid close attention and wanted to try it out, herself. Oh well. Live a little, right?!?

Thanks to Stacy possessing the camera for much of the day, there are actually pictures of me in this post! Too bad I didn't decide to do my hair for the event...



Twas another fun year at Ganyard! Next weekend, barring any unforeseen complications, we'll be taking my parents to Hill Ridge Farms. Looking SO forward to sharing that with them! We LOVE October!