It's time!

It's time to unveil my new blog!

Head on over to my new site: heartyhappyhome.com to see what I've been working on. 

All my Muddy Truth posts will be there when you get there, along with E's 11 month post. So you won't miss a thing.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks and readers once you are there to continue to follow me. 

The Muddy Truth has served me well, but it's time for a change. 

And that's the muddy truth!

Everett is 10 months old!

And we're moving to a different house!

More on the moving part later. 

For now, let's look at this big kid we've got.

I gave him a book this month in an effort to distract him from the usual props.

It worked pretty well!

And then he saw it

And the usual shots ensued

Here are 10 new facts about E:

1. He can pick up food and feed himself. He was a little hesitant at first with squishy things like bananas and avocado, but when I gave him chicken, he was all in! Now he is doing great picking up cooked squash, chicken, broccoli, carrots and, his favorite, cauliflower.

2. He is sleeping with one arm out of his sleep sack, and he rubs his head to go to sleep. It's adorable. He is also putting himself to sleep by himself completely, and when he wakes up, he will often lay in his crib for a long time, just resting. Sometimes he even goes back to sleep for a while. Our doc says it's great he is doing this because he's learning how to sleep unassisted. I say amen! Every once in a while, he will wake at night and need help going back down, but most nights, he's a sleeping champ!

3. His new foods are liver (awesome levels of iron!), beets and cauliflower.

4. He pulls up on things now. I lowered his crib, which actually allows him to pull up on the crib better, but at least he can't fall out. 

5. He has found Grace's water bowl. 

6. He understands things are funny. You can look at him weird or make a face, and he bursts into laughter. It's so much fun to watch him become a little person. 

7. He doesn't have any new teeth this month, but we are still happy with the eight we have. I bought him an introductory toothbrush and he loves it! I'm not putting toothpaste on it, but giving those pearl whites a scrubbing.

8. He officially weighs 21 pounds and is 28 inches long!

9. After his check-up this month, the doc said we could put him on real, whole milk. I was worried he wouldn't like the change, but he downed the bottle full of milk like nothing was different. I'm so happy to have him off formula and so is my pocketbook. 

10. He spends most of his time playing with books and opening cabinets in the kitchen. I love that he plays and explores things!

Everett is nine months old

I love that we have hit the milestone that he has been on this earth longer than he was cooking. There's a really nice feeling to that.

Here are his nine new facts and then some pictures and even a video!

1. Everett crawls. He had been working at it for a while, but just a few days before nine months he really understood it. And this video shows that at 9 months and one day, he is all about it!



2. We've added baked chicken, lentils, blueberries and strawberries to his diet.

3. He has learned to communicate his displeasure. Not a full-on two year old fit, but he is developing opinions about certain things and can throw his head back with the best of them. I know this is just a glimpse of raising of kid, but right now, I enjoy seeing his preferences, and thankfully, he is quickly distracted or soothed.

4. He gives kisses. This is the best thing, and maybe only thing, that I have taught him. If you ask for kisses, and he feels like it, he will open his mouth in a certain shape and lean towards you. Kiss me now! We ask him to give kisses to other people, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. He gave kisses to my board president this past weekend, and it was uber, uber sweet.

5. He is back to sleeping. We went almost two weeks where he was out of his routine and not sleeping through the night. We've experienced this before, where he gets off schedule, but it doesn't make it any easier. He just stops sleeping. But it tells us that something is changing and we need to pay attention. So we tried. And Everett moved his bed time later about an hour. Previously, we had been putting him down around 6 or 6:30pm and he would sleep all night. After this recent upset, we watched him, and we put him down around 7:30 or 7:45 and he is back to sleeping through the night. It's amazing how he is communicating with us by getting off schedule. He mixes it up to tell us something is changing. That's how we've known to move his bedtime later when he was an infant, and now to adjust is a bit later. We always know we've struck gold when he goes back to sleeping through the night!

6. He has 8 teeth. Eight! Four on the top and four on the bottom. The fourth bottom one is the most recent. It's not in fully, but it's in enough that you can see all the top ridges of the tooth, etc. This will finally even out his smile.

7.  He holds his own bottle. This is new because we upgraded to the 8oz bottle, as opposed to the 4oz bottle. He had learned how to hold the 4oz, but the 8 oz was a new struggle. It's great to see him manage it now and move it from hand to hand, lean it back and then re-situated with it. It also frees up a lot of my time, which is nice!

8. He loves his daddy! Chris keeps E every Saturday while I work the market, and they have a big time. When Chris is home, Everett always wants to play with him, and that makes me happy.

9. His favorite games are to dump things out of containers and tear paper. These two activities keep him busy for long periods of time!

Now for some photos!

The End!

E crawls....a bit

{Click here to see full post}
This video is a little long so only super interested family and friends should feel obligated to watch it :)

This video was the first time he finally got both his feet behind him, and you can see he moves each knee several times. 

Sadly, he doesn't understand that this is the key to being mobile yet. He just knows it gets you a phone!

Baby buddies

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I think this wraps up the beach trip, but I just couldn't let it go without posting some photos of the babies being buddies. Watching them interact and try to play together was so much fun. 

Sometimes playing is hard.

The first day, Everett was a little overwhelmed being around his friends. He is a fan of his personal space. But, after the first day, he warmed up to the idea.

Can't wait to watch these kiddos grow up playing together!!

2,8,14

These are the ages that Everett will be at the beach this year. 

We took him to Seaside in December when he was just two months old. 

We recently got back from a beach trip with friends and he was eight months old. 

And, we'll be going back to Seaside this December when he will be 14 months old. 

I thought it would be fun to take some of the same photos on each trip. 

Here E is back in December. These were taken at the end of our photo shoot, and he was DONE. They were also hastily shot because we all knew it would fall out any minutel

Here he is in the same spot just a few weeks ago. 

These next few, I'm going to replicate when we are back in December.

Here's Chris and E in front of the house we are staying in this coming December.

A daddy son moment beachside. 

And me and E!

I can't wait to redo all of these in just a few short months!

Babies on the beach

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I really felt like I took a lot more photos from our beach vacation, but I got home and had fewer than I thought. 

Thankfully, we did get some shots of us on the beach! Plus some of our favorite people. 

We're on the beach!

I like this one a lot.

My boys.

We are missing two from our group in this shot, but these are some awesome people!

Hopefully this trip will become an annual event!

Swangin' by the beach

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Our sweet hosts were so thoughtful to hang two kid swings in the balcony of their beachhouse, just in time for our visit. 

The balcony had a natural breeze most of the day, and we spent a lot of time swinging. I think we're going to have to find a spot for one of these at our house. 

All the kids loved them!

Sometimes you have to stop and contemplate things.

Katie got some swing time in too, but she was a lovely hostess to play some music while the boys enjoyed swinging.

8 months old and awesome!

Everett is 8 months old!
{Remember to click here to see the full post!}

Honestly these photos were taken at 8 months and one week. On his true 8-month birthday, I realized it was his birthday at 7pm when he was already asleep, and the next day we left for the beach. More on that later!

See that mark above his left eye? It's his first true injury from trying to crawl. He took a lunge into the side of a bookcase.

Here's the attempt with the usual props.

At least you can see this is 8 months!

Love that you can see the injury and the sign in this one. The glossy stuff on his face is from the balm I put on his wound.

Love him!

Here's an extra good one of the injury.

Stay tuned for photos from our beach adventure!

And here are 8 new facts about E:

1. He hasn't gained that much weight, but he has lengthened out a lot.
2. He has four teeth on the top that came in at the same time!
3. We've added mangoes, strawberries and green beans to his diet.
4. He babbles all the time and is making lots of letter sounds and combinations.
5. He's developed a sense of humor. If you look at him funny, he will laugh out loud.
6. He is great to play by himself. This is such a wonderful trait for a work-from-home momma. He is happy to sit on the floor and play, while I get some computer work done.
7. He still isn't crawling. He's gotten a lot better at going from sitting to his belly and belly to back.
8. He doesn't like strangers. He likes checking people out for a bit before warming up to them. He likes his personal space, and I can't blame him. 

A new look!

What do you think about the new look of my site? Click any box to read the full posts!

I thought it was time to spice things up a bit, and the blogging world has come a long way in the years since I started this site. 

I may continue to make a few changes, but I like the direction this is going in. I've decided to remove the ads. I was making less and less money since my content has changed to being mostly family-focused updates on E. 

You'll see that each post is shown as a preview, and you'll need to click it to read and see everything. This includes links that are in the post. 

On the right, you'll see pop-out black bar with my archive, poplar posts, followers, etc. You can also continue to scroll down the page with no hassle of clicking from page to page. 

So take a look around, and check back soon as I spruce up a little more!