Master G Funk

As previously mentioned, Garytt LOVES to wear hats!  Sometimes he gets a little crazy with the hats.  One morning just before we moved to the new house, he was wearing his ball cap normally and then decided to put it on sideways.  That in combination with his clothes that day just made me think he should have a a stage name of "Master G Funk"...if he ever becomes a rapper...not that I would encourage that.

 







 

He's quite the silly boy sometimes! 

Garytt's Big Boy Bed

On Wednesday, September 19, we decided to move all the beds over to the new house and start sleeping here. The movers weren't scheduled until the following Saturday, but we were eager to get out of the tight living quarters and hearing the neighbors alarm clock go off well before I had to get up. So, we moved the beds over and converted Garytt's crib into a toddler bed. We had talked to Garytt about the fact that once we moved into the new house he would get to sleep in a "big boy" bed. So, he was super excited! First, he had to test it out.

  Then he hopped out of bed and jumped around the room in excitement!

  After he celebrated having his new big boy bed, we asked him to get back in bed and show us how he was going to sleep. He was so cute, he hopped right in bed and closed his eyes...then started to snore...too funny!

  I have to say, I was a little unsure how smoothly the transition would go considering it was a transition into a new house and a new bed. But he did amazingly well! It took a little bit for the novelty of being able to get up and open the door to wear off but then he slept in his bed all night...well, except for the few times that he fell out of bed!

Even that didn't cause any problems! We would hear a thud and then some noise and by the time we made it upstairs to check on him, he was back in his bed and asleep! I couldn't have asked for a better transition! Garytt is really turning into a big boy!

Home, Sweet, Home

Today we officially became homeowners for the fourth time in our short marriage. This time we hope to be able to stay in one location a little longer than we have in the past!

Now, several weeks ago, when I posted a blog about moving into our townhome, I mentioned that I painted the bedrooms. Yes, had I known that we would decide to buy a house so soon, I would not have put in such effort into painting in the townhome. In fact, shortly after that blog post, we started looking at the housing market, found a house, and I pretty much stopped unpacking and decorating in our temporary location.

We closed today in what felt like record time...Garytt snacked on whale crackers, while I held Westyn and we signed a stack of papers one after the other. I think we were done in about 20 minutes...I mentioned this is our fourth house, right?

After closing, we had a "celebration" dinner at a super fancy restaurant...McDonald's! (Honestly, I wasn't sure if Garytt would be able to handle sitting quietly waiting for a table on Friday evening...not just any Friday evening...the Friday of Parents' Weekend at MU!)

Then, we headed over to the big empty house...armed with painter's tape! Yes, the first order of business is to paint the bedrooms...again! The previous owners clearly had girls...the pink and purple must go!

Anyhow, I will be sure to share our changes along the way, but I thought I start by sharing the photos from the real estate listing.





This is the entryway.



This is the formal dining room but we will be using this as our formal sitting room...we can't eat on carpet with a baby and a toddler!



Here's the kitchen.



This is the breakfast nook, but it will be our dining room.



There is a small deck just off the breakfast nook. It doesn't have stairs down to the backyard, which I was kind of unsure about but Garytt can totally unlock and open the door all by himself, so maybe that will prove to be a blessing.



This is the main level living room but we will be using it primarily as my office since I work from home.





These are the stairs to the basement and you can see the half bath on the main level.



The basement is finished with a rec room, full bath, and a small play room/bonus room. The play room is super small and I think the previous owners just used it as a walk-in closet for the toys.











The best way to get to the backyard is through the basement. The previous owners left a swing set out in the wooded area of the yard. Today Garytt pointed out there and said "Garytt's house." I guess he's claimed it!



All the bedrooms are up on the second story. Here's the master bed and bath.







This bedroom is the biggest of the secondary bedrooms. However, the other two bedrooms are connected with a Jack and Jill bath. So, I debated about what to do with this room. In the end, we decided that this would be Garytt's room and if we need to have the boys share a room in the future, it would be big enough to do so. (Don't get any ideas...there is no Baby Brown #3 on the way.)





This is the room that will be Westyn's room.



The other bedroom will end up being my craft room...yes, I'm so excited to have space that I can work on projects without being in the way! Also, since the Jack and Jill bath is the only bathroom on this level besides the master bath, Garytt can access the bathroom through the craft room even if Westyn is napping.



Here's the Jack and Jill bathroom.



There probably won't be as many dramatic changes in this house as compared to our Wisconsin house. I even like a lot of the paint color choices on the main level, which is nice!

I can't tell you how excited I am to actually move into the house! I forgot what it was like to share a wall with neighbors...just last night, I heard the neighbors alarm go off at 3:30 am and the shower start! Seriously?! Of course, they may be just as happy to have our sleepless baby move out...ha!

Family Portraits

While we had the boys together at the portrait studio, we had a few pictures taken of the two boys together. This was a little tricky because Garytt really wasn't that interested in holding Westyn. In fact, he was pretty much done with pictures all together...our photographer had to resort to bribery with suckers to get a few quick pictures.





I love those two photos together...it's like Westyn is totally looking up to his big brother!

And although we couldn't get Garytt to smile in this next photo, I love it too!



All things considered, I really didn't have high hopes after the photo session that we would have any usable pictures of the boys together since they were getting tired by then, so I was thrilled to see that there were some good ones in there!

Then, we pushed our luck just a bit more...we sat down to get a family photo since we haven't had a professional family portrait since Garytt was 6 months old.



I want to say thanks to our photographer, Robbie Schraeder, for doing such a great job working with us and being so great with the kids! And I want to thank Grandma and Grandpa for being there as assistants and trying to get the boys to look the right way! As, always, it's an adventure!

Garytt at 2 Years

I have to admit that we didn't get Garytt into a professional for two year portraits on time with everything that has been going on. So, we took the opportunity to get a few portraits of Garytt at the same time we were getting Westyn's portraits. He is almost two and a half though.



It was quite an interesting process to get Garytt to stand still long enough to get a decent portrait though. He is totally two and 110% boy! So, we ended up with a few fun shots but not exactly what we expected.





Some of Garytt's favorites at 2:

Snack- whale crackers (you know, the generic for Gold Fish Crackers...yes I'm all about generics when possible)

Book- tie between The Cat in the Hat and Go, Dog, Go (aka "go go book")

TV Show - "Elmo" (aka Sesame Street) was his favorite show several months ago but now Little Einsteins seems to be his favorite because he likes to "blast off" with Rocket.

Color - He usually responds with either purple (makes his Grandma happy) or orange (yeah, not sure how Aggie parents end up with a child that loves orange...we have to work on that one!)

Toy - Stuffed Cat in the Hat (which we received for free at Oshkosh Public Library on Dr. Suess' birthday). He loves anything with Cat in the Hat!

Activity - gymnastics at The Little Gym

Song - The Ants Go Marching, which he refers to as "Hoorah" because that's the part the he sings.

Drink - Apple juice! (He only gets it at special occasions and at Grandma and Grandpa's house though.)

Garytt also LOVES to wear hats...any kind of hat! In fact, he often wears his Dr. Seuss hat from his 1st birthday around the house to play!

His "favorites" list changes all the time but these have been the most consistent on the list.

Westyn at 6 Months

We took Westyn for his 6 month well baby check on July 27, just days before we left Oshkosh. I have delayed this blog post because I wanted to include some of the professional portraits we had taken a couple weeks later.

Six Month Stats:

Weight: 17lb 1oz (42 percentile)
Height: 26 inches (24 percentile)











And of course, we had to have an Aggie shot!



By six months, Westyn was able to sit for short periods of time unassisted and was pushing up into a crawling position, as you can see in the pictures. He also is either very happy or very upset, fortunately, that day we captured mostly happy.