11 Months!

My sweet Roman. You are 11 whole months old today! I cant believe we only have 4 short weeks before you turn ONE! You are incredibly fun! We had a big month last month! You hit a lot of milestones, and we are so proud of you! Here's what your up to:

• Still not sleeping through the night
• You LOVE your bottle! (see photo below...we're going to have to break you of this...)
• You learned to crawl! army style... it's too cute!
• You also learned to sit up from a laying down position! woot woot!
• You have 4 teeth, and working on some more
• We see Dr. Michael Jorgenson on a bi-weekly basis for good chiropractic care!
• Learned new, super funny ways to use your mouth
• Babbles a TON! Pronounces the 'p' in his "phrases"
• You say: 'apple' (everything is apple), 'up', 'out', 'mama', and "uh-oh"
• You weigh around 27 pounds!
• Still have severe food allergies, but mom and dad are praying everyday that they go away!
• Mom can tell you fake cry. It sounds VERY forced! ha!
• You have a beautiful smile, but have a cheesey smile too...quite funny!

I love you with all my heart, baby man! You are indeed the most amazing blessing from God!! Love you!

cheese smile

aww...snuggled up with, wait, your bottle?

Apple

Yep, you heard it right. My baby is talking now. He also says "uh-oh". He's growing up too fast!

The Next Baby Gap Model???

I just entered Roman into Gap's 'Casting Call'. They are looking for kids and babies to be the next face of baby and kids Gap. Here's a link to vote for Roman as the Fan Favorite! If we win this one, we'll win a trip to some exotic place for 6 nights!!! A panel of judges ultimately chooses the next model, but if we win that here is what we get:

~$1000 gap gift card

~Roman's face across baby gaps, nationwide starting in February, 2010

~VIP experience for 4 at The Lion King in either NYC or Vegas

~Professional Gap photoshoot (obviously)

Please vote for us!! :) (oh yeah...the website requires you to register with them, which is, I think, dumb, and you can vote only once per day. We have a lot of catching up to do!!!) :) Thank You!!

http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/mamabarton/832343466/

Latest Favorite Thing

I love how he holds his legs out cause he know's otherwise it would cause drag! ha!

Pumpkin Painting!

It hasn't been too exciting with the Barton's lately. Roman and I have been sick for probably the last 3 1/2 weeks. boo! He started off with a dry cough, which led to a runny nose, which led to congestion, which let to a deep, horrible chest cough (so much so that he would gag sometimes he'd cough so hard), which led to mommy getting a head cold that turned sinus infection in the last week, which has been AWESOME. So we've been laying low. Really, really low. And since we haven't really left the house but a handful of times, I've had some, okay, a ton of extra time on my hands. And just what did I do with that time? Painted our pumpkins!

So, obviously I didn't paint the orange pumpkins. And there is another white pumpkin painted, but I haven't figured out what to design to put on it yet. I got the idea from a girl I used to work with at my old salon down in Urbandale. Love it! I'm quite the amateur, and am pretty sure these look way better in my head, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

What a Thoughful Daddy!

Roman's head has been feeling about this large lately due to a really nasty head cold and really awful cough. So what does his daddy do?

Came home from working out and brought a balloon to make him feel better! Awww!!! Roman loves it! :)

What Works for Us

I am the type of person who can be sucked into certain ways of thinking...not that I'm proud of it. In fact, it's overwhelmingly mentally exhausting. I'm speaking in regards to parenting, of course. I read books (not necessarily on how to parent, but say, what to expect...) and there are these underlying pressures from them that say what you should be feeding them, what milestones they probably have made, etc etc. And that's all good and dandy if you have an 'average' baby. Where are the books about kids who have food allergies and what and how to feed them!? Or the books about soothing the uncomfortable-ness of eczema?! Or where to buy jeans that will fit a 27 pound 10 month old around the belly when he SITS! Cause that is what mine does 3/4 of the time! Seriously, world.... you need to market those better! ;)

I've decided (a while ago, but just now getting around to stating it), that the Barton's are not 'average' folk. We do not follow the 'rules' or 'guidelines'...whichever you want to call them. We just like to wing it. So here is what works for us:

~Having a really loose, flexible schedule (this is more about me, than Roman. I really don't mind doing my things during the day around Roman's naps, or letting him watch a movie, ie. finding nemo, or learn sign language, if he's being a stinker and I need to get some things done.)

~Making sure, at some point, Roman gets 2 naps during the day. Now, he could decide to go down a couple hours after he gets up for the day (which also varies day to day), and go to bed earlier, or, maybe, like today, he'll want to stay up a little longer in the morning and take a late morning nap and a late afternoon nap, and go to bed a little later...all of which are fine by me! Just as long as he is getting ample sleep, I don't care when it is.

~My quiet time (reading my Bible) is during Roman's first nap.

~Shower time varies each day. It could be when Ro is napping after my quiet time, or it could be first thing after breakfast before Jeff goes to work, or before bed...as long as it gets done :)

~Eating mostly formula, and occasionally throwing in some baby food...if I feel like it. His formula is nutritionally complete, soooo technically he doesn't need baby food. It's just practice anyway!

~Not getting out of our p.j.'s unless we're going somewhere, and even then, if I'm feeling lazy, I'll make us look classy in our p.j.'s if we do decide to venture out in them. ;)

~Making sure we see the Dewhurst's as often as possible!

What we're working on:

~ Getting Roman to sleep through the night- the past 2 nights he has slept MORE than 3-4 hours straight.... huuuuge improvement! Hope that keeps up!

~Since Roman is nearing the 1 year mark, and wont be on formula soon, we need to figure out what what to feed him to make sure he will be getting all of his nutritional requirements...since he'll be so limited.

~Making date night a priority!

I'm sure there is more, but my brain is currently unable to think of them because I'm also thinking about how I need to grind up oatmeal for Roman's oatmeal baths...for his skin... and apparently I cannot think 2 things at once!

We Got Our Pumpkins....

Tuesday night we had dinner with our awesome friends, the Dewhursts. We love those people! We had planned a night of dinner and pumpkin pickin'. Dinner was great (thanks Laura!) and when we reached our pumpkin picking farm (just off of hwy 30 before Boone) there were some amazing finds! The photo above is pre-picking. Roman was rocking the sweater vest. Totally could be a Baby Gap ad baby....

Roman LOVED being in and amongst some lovely,large pumpkins!

He also loved the stems of the pumpkins. Couldn't keep his hands off of them! :)

Then, yesterday I thought it would be cute to get a photo of 2 of him outside with the pumpkins we bought...but Roman was waaaaaay more interested in the grass. And who wouldn't be?!

Here, Roman is showing me his finds, "look mom! what IS this stuff?"